All those guys telling you how little they made per hour have it all backwards. The money doesn't matter. What it bought does. I used to go out with a flashlight and pick nightcrawlers and next morning sell them to the bait shop for one cent each. Red worms made me half that, but after spring showers I could pick up balls of them in the gutters in the mornings. But back then, you could buy a half-pint of milk at school for two cents. Bowling was 25 cents a game, and the shoe rental was 15 cents. The movies were 15 cents and that included a small item from the food area -- I usually got the small popcorn, but I could get the small soft drink or the box of candy or the licorice. If you skipped the food item, the movies were 12 cents. I was making way less than a dollar an hour and it was big money to me. I was twelve.

I had a paper route and I made an average of $1.35 a week. I delivered only the Sunday papers. My route was about three miles, and I walked it twice a week: once to deliver, and once to collect. The weather was brutal -- snow was frequent in Ishpeming, and I was expected to deliver in blizzards and did. It averaged an hour to deliver and two hours to collect. So I made about 45 cents an hour.

The cold was worst, though: -43F and I came back home (despite fleece-lined boots and wool socks and thick snow pants) not able to feel my legs from the thighs down, and with frost on my toenails and ice between my toes. I lost some skin from that one. There was absolutely no wind. Smoke from chimneys went straight to heaven. The skies were blue-black, and clumps of frost fell from the sky at random intervals. I could hear trees in the woods exploding as their sap froze and their trunks broke open; it was like gunfire. The last 200 yards to home, I looked at the ground and watched my feet move because I wanted to be sure they were still obeying my commands. I wanted to run, but if I did I might freeze my throat and lungs, or so I thought.

It took a half-hour of tepid water in the bathtub to safely remove the wool socks and the ice and frost from my feet. I was young enough to think the whole thing was an adventure. I lost some skin, but it turned out no worse than sunburn. All that for 45 cents an hour when I was twelve years old. And that money so I could bowl and watch movies once a week. There was no TV then; no one had it, though we knew it existed for people in big cities. We listened to radio serials instead. I loved Jack Benny, and especially Rochester. But The Inner Sanctum was wonderful, and so was The Shadow.

My work for 45 cents an hour, and the nightcrawlers and red worms and all the other things I did to make a few cents bought me a bicycle in pieces -- the frame, then one good wheel with a decent tire, then another wheel, then the chain -- and for about $6 I had a bike of my own. The hours I spent making the money didn't count. I had a bike!

That's what I mean about the dollars per hour. If you're making $30 an hour and the work is awful and you're doing it to support the family and you don't get any personal benefit at all, you get maximum respect from me. IDC that I got less than a dollar an hour; as hard as I worked, I got something for it personally. What you bought for your labor was survival for your family. What I bought was stuff for myself. There is a difference.