Workingman’s Dead

Helping at times, and watching helpless at others,
as our 20-year-old son searches for his first "real" job, his previous
renumerative resume consisting exclusively of post-snowstorm shoveling
duty and very occasional market research study groups. Our emotions are
a mixture of pride and pain, sympathy and disappointment, frustration
with those who fail to recognize his talent and potential and nagging
guilt that we have left him so unprepared to compete in the dog eat dog
entry-level labor market.

These emotions are overaid with memories of our own
checkered work history. When we were our son’s age (20) we were as far
away from the 9-to-5 workaday world as we would ever be. We were nominally
engaged as a full-time student at the World’s Greatest University, but
in reality weeks would go by without our seeing the inside of a classroom.
There were days in which covering our nakedness long enough to go down
to the store for a quart of Tropicana orange juice and the New York Times
was the extent of the daily workload.

On the other hand, by that age we had been working "real"
jobs for over six years and were thoroughly familiar with the costs and
benefits of the working world.

The Dowbrigade started working at the tender age of
13, at the flagship store of The Toggery Shop, a small local chain of
men’s haberdasheries owned by our maternal grandfather. Eldest brother
of a Russian/Polish family riding the greatest wave of immigration to
hit these shores ever (up until the current tsunami of Latin Americans
coming home to roost,)  over 20 million Eastern European Jews fleeing
pogroms and the earliest intimations of a virulent anti-semetism which
would
crystalkize (mestaphasize) 30 years later in the Holocast, Joseph Feldman
came through Ellis Island, stopped breifly in New Jersey, and finally
settled in Rochester, New York. By 1960 he had founded and built up the
5 store Toggery chain, giving employment to a brother, a sister, a brother-in-law,
a dozen other members of the mishna – and one gangly, goofy grandson.

When we stated at the Toggery Shop our job was mostly stocking and restocking the invnetory, which consisted of everything the well-dressed hoodlum needed, circa 1966. Boot cut chinos, Levis jeans and cords, ruffled shirts and mock turtlenecks, Nehru jackets and Rayban sunglasses. Carnaby street was coming in, and the Mod look was big; splashy, spermy paisley ties and fake silk kercheifs, accessorized with clunky cufflinks and spacey aumlets – pre-hiphop bling-bling.

Before long we were a full-fledged salesman, acting as a seasoned wardrobe advisor to the tragically hip young dudes just starting to flex their cultural muscle, creating a style and attitude which back then was still an affront in the face of straight society. And of course, given our immpeccable sense of style and employee discount, the Dowbrigade was the best-dressed seventh grader at the Harley School.

For the next three or four years we worked a couple of afternoons a week, plus Saturdays. Grandpa Joe treated us just like his other salesmen, and we learned early the

Crewel and Unusual

D & C

Conclusion – don’t work

10 years of catch as catch can
Advice of counsel
He-Man Moving Company

Started teaching week Joey was born

Evers ince

current job

Gabe’s current job