Aha! You win! +1

a cast iron pan? Didn't you have any bats or bow and arrows at the camp?

For two summers, 1988 and 1990, I was a member of a Renaissance acting troop touring Britain and performing in stately halls and mansions and in castles. I was one of the live steel (rebated) broadsword fighters, one of the dancers, and I did craft demos of armor.

We performed completely 'in period', which means that if someone commented on the machine stitching of a hem, the reply was, "Yes, my lady's tirewoman has marvelous even stitches, does she not?" (Sometimes it became quite a game to try to stay in period when one of the tourists asked questions.) My part was that of "Jennifer Oakes", a young scallywag who had been found aboard a ship (yes, documentable) and who was trying to be reclaimed as a proper servant.

When we were not 'on stage', I was the fight choreographer, driver of one of the vans, and armorer (needed to be repaired occasionally). I was also part of the 'keep her sane' staff of the director, which in one case involved me holding up a shield and having her hit it with a sword until she was exhausted.

FYI. American tourists are every bit as bad as we are writ up to be. We learned to cringe when a bus full of our countrymen pulled up. (We were all speaking with British accents, so the tourists did not realize that we were not American.)

Jan, has a lot of fun stories

How about his discussions with the Chief?

OMG! I have a visual.... Swearingen was as poetic as he was brutal.

Wow! Cool and nasty!

While I was in college, I took a summer job as a camp counselor. Out in the boonies, our accommodations were a bunk house made of nothing but two-by-fours and screen. A week or so into the job, all of the counselors were called in for an unexpected meeting, at which we learned that the family who lived at the start of the only road leading in to camp had been murdered. I considered the safety of the kids (as well as my own safety) to be my responsibility, so I hunted for any weapon, found a cast iron pan in the bathhouse closet, and slept with one eye open, with the pan under my bed, for the rest of the summer. At some point we were told that the family had been killed by someone they knew, and we at the camp weren't considered to be in any unusual danger anymore. But it sure felt like being in a classic horror movie for a while there.

It's 1952. I'm 18 and in Miami Beach eating lunch at a chicken restaurant. A fellow sits down at my table and introduces himself. He looks vaguely familiar but references several people I know from high school. He asks me if I'd like to make $100. Are you kidding? In '52 that was big bucks. Just help him load up a cabin cruiser, accompany him to its destination, unload and come back. Shouldn't take more than six hours. For a hundred zorts, I am your man. The next morning a 8 AM I am at Haulover Beach where there is a pile of wooden crates and a boat. I help him load up. Man those crates were heavy.
All loaded and off we went. We cruise south into the Gulf of Mexico when I hear a gurgling sound. I look into the cabin where the crates are and we're taking on water. I tell the guy to call the Coast Guard because in about 10 minutes we will be under water. He refuses. I push him aside and go to the radio. I don't have a clue as to how to work it. Doesn't matter because by that time the water shorts out the wires. The water is now at deck level and we're barely afloat. Luckily, a Mexican fishing boat comes by and picks us up just as we see the last of the boat go down in a stream of bubbles. The only sailor who could speak English said they were heading for Apalachacola, Fl. and we'd be OK there. I wasn't familiar with that town but later I realized it was as far away from Miami as you could get and still be in Florida. I questioned the guy about what kind of cargo was lost. At first he refused to tell me, but finally, I guess since they were at the bottom of the Gulf it didn't matter, it was rifles. I'm thinking, was he a gun runner and for who, and it is got to be illegal. When we docked, he disappeared. As I tried to figure out what to do, he zoomed by me in what I suppose was a rental car. I had enough money for a Greyhound ticket to Miami. I got to my hotel late that night, hungry, and no $100.

I wasn’t a spy BUT . . . Is that enough of a tease? I worked as a software developer for a company that did work for intelligence agencies. So I wasn’t a spy, but I worked at some interesting places, CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and a DIA installation in Norfolk, Virginia.

I remember signing documents when I got my security clearances saying I wouldn’t reveal any details of my work for 75 years, so I wouldn’t expect to hear any juicy info if a real spy happens along here.

Lol maybe not

Brutal puts it mildly. But it was a good thing for me, the introvert. Learned how to deal with all kinds of people in a year and a half. Also learned what I did not want to do for a living. :)

Are you 2 sure you want to know?

yea, what's a gut snatcher?

that was a really cool job. how fascinating!

I was SO excited there for a moment. Selling door to door is brutal work.

well. You and kerosene had a very intimate relationship for awhile. :)

Okay, I'll bite. What's a gut-snatcher?

I had a great job in college one summer working for a catering company that serviced ~30 stadium type concerts at three venues over a May-August period (mid 70's). We catered the roadies during setup, set up for the bands (I wish I had saved their backstage demand lists..some pretty outlandish requirements: like "M&Ms, but NO yellow ones", and typically a booze list that would more than stock a small package store), then we managed any needs backstage pre and post show. We saw them all that summer: Chicago, Kiss, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, Boston, Kenny Loggins, James Taylor, the Doobies, Foreigner, Jackson Browne, Peter Framptom, Eagles, Dan Fogelberg, etc. etc. We had backstage passes, typically got a tour t-shirt and also got to watch the concerts, and well, as to what happened afterward, I'll I've got to say is what you've heard about drugs, sex an rock n' roll is all true, although we were working our tails off doing clean up, not participating. I did get to briefly meet many of the artists backstage in the 1-2 hours before the show, and that was interesting. I remember thinking "now I know why Kiss band members wear makeup on stage." Handsome is not the term I would use for their natural born mugs, although they did put on a great show. Anyway, we also got paid ~$5/hr. What a deal! Plus I was the instant envy of my friends that fall when they saw my concert T-Shirt collection and found out "what I did last summer".

I was a gut-snatcher at a pork processing plant.

I was a gut-snatcher at a pork processing plant.

The girlfriend of a friend of mine bought him a blowup...sheep. (Designed for similar purposes.) Apparently this...accoutrement...brought them many nights of merriment.

Jan

I was a spy. Well not really but K wanted a few spies to come forward so thought I would give her hope. LOL

I grew up on a farm so I did many jobs but they did not seem weird or crazy to me. They were just part of living. From shoveling chicken coops to calf pens, stacking hay and milking cows there was never a dull moment.
Then I worked for a feed company. The craziest thing I ever did for them was hang on the roof of a grain bin by a rope that was tied around my stomach, while running a hand held power saw cutting holes in the steel roof to install ventilation covers. No it was not really dangerous. [sarcasm] That was in 1980 at minimum wage and I had no complaints. I had a job which were hard to come by at the time.

Also crazy, selling accident insurance door to door. A job I hated but it the taught me the most about life and people.

Oh and starting my own business so I could become one of those people that "did not build that". It was no work at all. I never worked a single 40 hour week...since most were 80. :) But when the government finally help me built it to somewhat of a success, they decided that I was not giving them enough so they took more. That may be the craziest job I ever did. lol Oh... that is not really funny.

When I was in high school (about 1960), I worked one night a week (all night) at a local printing plant that printed Sunday color comics. There was always a fine mist of ink in the air from the running presses. I went around the building with a bucket of kerosene and rags and cleaned all the fluorescent light tubes. I would take them out, wipe off the accumulated ink with a kerosene-soaked rag, dry them, and put them back. It took most of the night to do them all.

They eventually moved to a larger location and the three 4-deck presses had to be dismantled. Before they could be taken apart, years of accumulated ink had to be scraped and kerosened from them. Another kid and I crawled into these things, lay on our backs and scraped and cleaned. At the end of the day, I would take a bucket of kerosene into the shower and use it to first clean the ink out of my hair and off myself before showering with soap and water.

I think my husband would LOVE to be the service rep for that outfit.

wow