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Quest For Spending Money Was Diverse

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By GEORGE BAILEY, Special to the Tribune

Published: October 9, 2007

TAMPA - In the late 1940s, my friends and I did all kinds of jobs to earn spending money. We were between 9 and 12 and didn't get allowances. These were still hard times, and many families had to struggle to make ends meet.

My family lived in North Tampa on Yukon Street, first house on the left off Florida Avenue. Pearson's Garage was across the street and sold cypress trees and posts on a lot next to the garage.

Mr. Pearson was kind enough to let me work alongside the men who peeled the poles. The poles had to be free of bark. The biggest were 12 feet long, with diameters of 8 inches.

They were peeled by hand, which was fairly easy when it rained, but a lot of work during the dry season. I was paid a nickel per pole. On Saturdays, I could make nearly a quarter.

The Forest Hills golf course was another place to make money. We pedaled our bicycles over mostly sand roads to get there and retrieved golf balls from the many ponds on the course.

Golfers bought them for 50 cents per dozen.

Another job was selling doughnuts door-to-door for Helen's Donuts, located near Seward and Nebraska. Helen and her husband made the doughnuts in the back of their home. She called us her boys and gave us milk and doughnuts before we hit the road on our bikes.

My 'sales area' was from Busch Boulevard, which was then called Temple Terrace Road, to Waters Avenue and as far east as I wanted to go. I could make a dollar on a good Saturday. The sand roads might make me slip and take a spill. The doughnuts would tumble from my basket. I laugh when remembering how they could just be brushed off before being sold.

Once coins were in our pockets, we rode our bikes to the Sulphur Springs Arcade on the following weekend. Then it was time for the big decision. Would it be the Roxy Theater, which played a lot of Tom Mix, Gene Autry and cost us 14 cents, including candy? Or would we spend 25 cents at the Springs Theater for Abbott and Costello, cartoons and candy? Or go to the Palace Skating Rink and pay about 80 cents for admission, skates and something to eat?

Mostly, we went to the Sulphur Springs Pool. It cost 50 cents, and a lot of wrestlers would go there.

The worst trouble we got into was to ride our bikes too fast past the sheriff's office at the arcade. The deputies would run out and yell, but never caught us, ha ha.

We climbed the Florida Avenue bridge many times. On occasion, we would be spotted by a deputy, who would yell at us to climb down. Geronimo! We would dive into the river and sometimes swim all the way to Lowry Park. It was nothing to walk five miles home, shirtless and barefoot.

Would I trade any of those times? Not a chance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

George Bailey, 68, grew up in Tampa and lives in Town 'N Country. He joined the Air Force after graduating high school and served in Korea. Bailey retired from the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority two years ago. He has two children.

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