First Job

When I was a kid, the rule in my parents home was “You play a sport, or you have a job”. Well, after I was cut from basketball and softball tryouts, I got a job at Bristol's Farm and Garden Center in Victor NY. I would sweep birdseed, water plants, work the most detailed cash register in the whole wide world, and learn about annuals, perennials and vegetables. To this day I have a love for plants and growing things, thanks to that little farm and garden center. 

Mary always has had a job AND played sports! She worked at The Dari-Ann which was a local diner/ice-cream shop. All through high school and on summer break from college, she worked the diner floor and served ice-cream through a window on hot summer nights. That little diner was owned by a wonderful old lady named Helen, who we gave her first taste of cotton candy, when I visited Mary at work one summer night after a carnival!