Roslindale Op/Ed Http://TownOnLine.com
Hank Brandli grew up in Roslindale, MA and now lives in Melbourne,
Fla. He will be sharing his memories of his hometown with Transcript readers
over the next couple of months. He can be reached at hbrandli@spacey.net
May 02, 2002
By Hank Brandli
Guest Columnist
Any student, while looking for and finding a good summer job,
knows it can be a difficult task. Back in the1950's,
it was no different. Oh, there were the irregular odd part-time jobs,
lawn mowing, caddying, delivering newspapers,
busboy, etc. Some
dreamers would even answer the enticing ads on the back inside covers of comic
books hoping
to achieve financial wealth selling greeting cards, magazine
subscriptions, or other gadgetry
door-to-door.
My first steady full-time summer employment came at Brigham's
Ice Cream Parlor behind Filene’s in-town Boston as a dishwasher for 75 cents
per hour. My second and third summer
jobs were spent in a sweaty, noisy, and dirty machine shop-factory operation on
Tremont Street near Northhampton St. where the MTA overhead train stopped. My
wages were $0.96 and $1.05 an hour
respectfully. But, with my fourth summer
job in the summer of 1956, I struck gold, and it all started with a help wanted
ad in the Parkway Transcript.
Not looking forward to going back to the factory, I scanned the
want ads in all the papers that spring before
the semester ended, but
my mom spotted it. There it was, a small ad in the Transcript for
greenskeeper at the
Dedham Country Club and Polo Club. I called immediately and
found there was still an opening and the club secretary gave me directions and
told me to see Mr. McCormack, the head greenskeeper. My father (who
worked nights) drove me up into the countryside of Dedham. There
were beautiful homes set back in the trees
at the end of some very long driveways. No MTA out there!
After about three miles at a sharp curve on Summer St. off
Route109, a white stable/barn Homestead appeared on
a long dirt driveway that cut across the golf course fairway. We
stopped and took a right onto an unmarked narrow paved road that led through
part of the golf course and around a bend through a marshland area around a
sharp
curve and up a steep hill.
My dad had to shift the car into second gear. Out the open car window, I could see the golf course below. We
then passed the fenced-in clay tennis courts at the crest of the hill. We took a right turn at
the short downhill divided entrance road that ended in a
cul-de-sac in front of the magnificently, freshly painted,
white colonial clubhouse.
It had dark green awnings with the club logo over all the windows and
porches.
The exclusivity and privacy of the "old rich world"
loomed before us. A huge, perfectly
manicured polo field extended to the left of the clubhouse with a skeet field
at the far corner. There were no signs anywhere except for one tactful small
chain-hung metal plate on a pole set back in the grass at the very crest of the
property at the beginning of the grass divided driveway. As I walked around the
side of the clubhouse (never the front door- this
was for members only), I could hear kids splashing in a
pool. Behind a hedge, surrounding part
of the huge swimming pool was the head greenskeeper with a short-sleeved shirt
and a tie, and a Panama hat with a flowered band supervising a worker who was
cutting a hedge. As he walked toward
me, I said: "hello, sir" and introduced myself and we shook hands.
Whether Mr. McCormack was impressed by my enthusiasm or the fact
that I knew about golf courses, I don't
know to this day. I
never even asked what the wage would be.
Perhaps that also impressed him.
I wanted that
job! I got it and was
beside myself with joy. It was an
outside job, in the country, on a private golf course, The Dedham Country and
Polo Club, WOW! The pay it turned out was $1.25 an hour for 6 days a week. If
you were
asked to work early Sunday morning for 4 hrs, you were paid
$1.50 an hour.
Getting to and from the job presented some daily problems, but I
managed ( I thumbed a lot ). For that
summer
and the following two, I had what I will always remember as the
very best of summer jobs.
Every day, our crew of six did our chores. Starting at 7:00
a.m., we first "poled the greens"...that task consisted
of each guy taking a ten-foot tapered bamboo pole out of a large
long canvas bag and going to designated greens " wiping " the morning
dew off the greens by swishing the whip end of the pole back and forth as you
held the thick end of the pole like a floor broom. It was intricate work because we were "massaging” the
expensive green's
grass, according to Mr. McCormack, the Scottish chief
greenskeeper.
He would always say:
"these greens are lush living carpets and need to be stimulated in
the morning."
Each of the regular crew had specific duties to perform, such as
cutting the greens, the nursery area
,the tee areas, the fairways and the rough...raking sand traps, watering the
grass, and then doing it all over again the next day.
Also included was fertilizing, replacing or aerating a green,
spraying, sifting loam and even trimming the trees and hedges.
On rainy days, we would work in an old maintenance shed on
Summer St. off the 16th fairway while we fixed, overhauled, or cleaned
equipment. If the rain persisted, there was no work, and no pay. There was a
disgusting outhouse behind the shed, but most of us used the woods for ”natures
call” and carried a small roll of TP lest we be forced to use large “skunk cabbage”
leaves.
As a new worker, I got the worse jobs, which actually turned out
to be a blessing in disguise. I was like the
optimistic young twin in an old joke who, when found cleaning
and throwing the manure out of the barn remarked: " with all of this horse
s__t, there must be a pony in here somewhere." I was issued a push-type rotary mower with a cast iron frame and
Briggs and Stratton 3hp engine mounted on top with pull-rope starter. I carried
a can of gasoline on the mower frame along with hand clippers and a rake on my
shoulder. My job mainly was to cut all
the rough in and around the course or clubhouse that could not be reached by a
tractor or ride-on mowers. There were
no weed-wackers in those days; only clippers worked by hand in a kneeling position
(very uncomfortable for long jobs).
All the gas for the engines was supplied by an old red
hand-cranked pump next to the barn behind the 16th fairway. It had a lock and only "Mr. Mac" had
the key, (lest someone might fill their own car with the Amoco fuel). Frank
and Mike, two year round ‘old-timers” often caught Mr. Mac’s
1955 Plymouth Fury in a compromising location. In those times, gas price wars
drove the price as low as 12 9/10 cent per gallon.
Of course, old Mr. Mac would have daily special instructions for me, and if I got finished (which seldom happened) I could cut my choice.
"Take the twirler (he always called the rotary mower this),
Henry, and go up to number one and cut the heavy grass in front of the first
tee”, he would say in his Scottish burr.
The other workers would grin to themselves thinking I always had the
worse jobs. Actually, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I knew that on
the first tee, the golfers used brand new golf balls. I found 65 “keepers” in
that heavy one foot high rough the first time I cut it. Titliests, Maxflis, and
Spauldings were stored at home in 4x3 egg cartons to play with or sell at the
George Wright.
Every once in a while, I got to work on the magnificent clay
tennis courts surrounded by a 15 ft high fence on the highest point of the club
just above the clubhouse. After picking up any debris on courts, I pulled a
doublewide push broom back and forth over the clay double courts. Then, I used
a small wisk broom with long handle to sweep off the white court border lines.
The young wealthy member kids left balls and rackets often in bushes outside
the fence. Needles to say, I put them to good use over the years. I still have
an old Wilson ”Jack Kramer” model with wooden support frame circa 1950’s still
in corner of my closet .
Mr. Bill Harding, a member at Dedham C&PC and a golf course
committee chairman, won the Mass. State amateur golf championship that first
year I worked there. He let me and my buddies, Wilk and Chuck play on that
beautiful course with the soft lush fairways and manicured carpeted greens
after 6pm from the 6th to 15th holes,
far away from the clubhouse area. We parked whichever parent’s car we got to
use on the dirt driveway next to maintenance shed and walked over to 6th tee.
This job sure beat the hell out of the hot factory with its
drill presses / turret lathes and even Brigham’s with all the ice cream i could
eat. In this natural environment, I
also got a great tan, which was impressive at the few beaches I got too every
other Sunday. With my shorts and
heavy-duty ankle high brown boots, I looked like "Lil Abner" as I
carried the rake over my shoulders and pushed
"the twirler" with the gas can balancing on the mower frame
over the hills and dales of The Dedham Country and Polo Club.