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Food for Thought: Remembering summer restaurant jobs

This segment originally aired June 21, 2017.  

"My kid finally got a real, paying job," Nancy Leson announced.  Young Nate's now a B.C. barista.  Which led us to reminisce about our first food service jobs.  Nancy's was at the Chalfonte, a venerable Cape May, N.J. hotel. 

My first food service job nearly earned me a deep-fried head.

I was 15 or 16 working my first "official" job at McDonald's.  I was shaking fries and began to lose consciousness.  Maybe it was the heat, or I was dehydrated, I really don't know.  I was told afterward that if another worker had not grabbed my collar at the last moment I would have pitched face first into the deep fryer.  I still shudder over that one.

In this week's installment I tell of subsequent food service adventures during and after work as an IHOP  busboy in the company of "older" waitresses in their 20s.  I also admit my teenage  cluelessness about what really went on at an address I frequently delivered liquor to.  Nance fondly remembers her days at the Chalfont. 

Naturally, the closing music in this segment about summer jobs comes courtesy of the Silhouettes.

"I have been a waitress and I was a damn fine waitress too, let me tell you.." – Jessica Lange

Dick Stein joined KNKX in January 1992. He retired in 2020 after three decades on air. During his storied radio career, he hosted the morning jazz show, co-hosted and produced "Food for Thought" with Nancy Leson and wrote and directed the Jimmy Jazzoid live radio musical comedies and 100 episodes of Jazz Kitchen.

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