I didn’t work while I was in University, at least not during the school year. Well, except for a short stint selling art supplies at the University’s art supplies store. I was lucky enough to go through school on a scholarship. I did, however, work during the summer. The fence-making job followed my freshman year.

Before I had finished my exams in my sophomore year, I had been asked back to the fence-making factory. My mother also had a friend who worked at a donut shop and she thought that she might be able to get me in. I was not terribly enthused about ether. In March of that year, our University ran an ad looking for university students to work at a resort up north. So, two days after my last exam in the middle of April, I drove the eight hours up north for my interview. We had had a phone interview already and it seemed likely that I would get the job. Also, I got to stay for free for the whole weekend, so even if I didn’t get the job, it would be an adventure. The resort was beautiful but it was far away from anywhere which freaked me out a little. I would be stranded in this place for the whole summer.

The lodge had 34 rooms and a series of 16 cabins. The main lodge also had a gym, a sauna, a hot tub, a TV room with a pool table, a restaurant, and a bar. The management was not terribly concerned that I had had no experience. They seemed only to care that, apparently unlike former staff, that I didn’t accept the job and then quit.

So it happened that, after my free weekend, I went home and then packed up everything I would need for a little more than four months, and four days later, my mother drove me to my summer job. She stayed the night and embarrassed me thoroughly. The next day I was shown around and instructed in my duties. That was the extent of my training, really, a day. That night the staff took me to a fire pit where we drank ourselves sick. The management didn’t mind so long as we did our jobs. And the bar was well-stocked.

Because I was new, I had to do nearly everything. In turns that summer, I was a busboy, a bellboy, a switch waiter – I was an alternate –, a dishwasher, and a housekeeper. It was a lucky thing that the lodge didn’t really get busy until June. May was spent learning how to make a bed with hospital corners, how to clean an entire room in less than ten minutes, and how to talk guests into ordering alcohol with their meals – I got better tips. Until that summer, I wasn’t much of a drinker. And I’m not so much of a drinker anymore. But that summer, I learned how to drink like a frat boy and not get alcohol poisoning.

For the summer, I shared a cabin with a guy named Greg. He was impossibly good-looking and all the girls, the staff and the guests, were nuts over him. Occasionally shy pretty girls would come up to me just to ask about him. It was really more than I could stand. And I didn’t want to like him but, as it turns out, he was a really good guy and smart too.

Over the summer, besides working in my capacity as a busboy, bellboy, waiter, dishwasher, and housekeeper, I also conducted orienteering where I took kids on nature walks. And in July and August, I conducted arts and crafts classes that, as far as I could tell, were meant only to keep the kids occupied.

I had intended to go back the next summer but, by then, I had a girlfriend and didn’t go. Of course we had broken up by June. But I still know how to make a bed with hospital corners in under five minutes. I’ve always meant to go back but I never have. I wonder, even, if the lodge is still there.

SS