Summer Job 1969: A Red Cap
My father had to pull a lot of strings to get me a “real” summer job in 1969.
His employer, CN Express, offered very few openings for inexperienced 17-year-old whipper snappers, but Dad managed to call in his chips with a golfing buddy/ stationmaster, a Mr. Don Gutteridge, who agreed to let me audition as a Red Cap, a sort of glorified porter who lugged passengers’ heavy bags onto the trains in exchange for a modest tip.
His sole demand was that we be “clean cut”, i.e. without longish hair, moustaches, or sideburns, a common refrain in that era of cultural wars.
London, Ontario, was a bit of a rail hub in those days with arrivals and departures concentrated in the early mornings and late afternoons.
We beasts of burden worked split shifts.
There were two “regular” Red Caps, guys who made their living plying the trade, and two summer interlopers, namely yours truly and the son of another employee.
The regular guys knew how and who to hustle for work and when and where to do the hustling, so my fellow apprentice and I were left with the dregs, i.e. the heaviest bags and the crankiest customers. (The regular dudes also used their positions to approach and seduce the most attractive and vulnerable female travelers who crossed their paths.)
I needed my meagre salary and modest tips in order to buy clothing from a mod shop boutique called the Talisman, so that I could maintain a sartorial reputation and dress accordingly when I left London for a scholarship year in Switzerland at the end of that summer.
And it took a long while to develop a patter and a set of ruses to rustle up enough bags to make each foray onto the train worthwhile. We had to board the train, find a place to park the bags, and get off again before the chugging locomotive headed for its next destination.
Well, you can be sure that I was unable to de-train on several occasions and found myself having to hitchhike back to London from Ingersoll.
Red Capped, red faced, and without a red cent.
The regular workers, who had volunteered to provide us with sex education that summer, guffawed in delight at my plight.
For me that summer job as a Red Cap was formative in so many ways: instilling a fervent desire for financial autonomy; revealing an untapped capacity for sweet talking potential clients; and providing a form of nitty gritty education never offed in school.
Your friend,
Robert
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/
