Teachers and their ilk pontificate that kids shouldn't have jobs during the school year, because it hurts grades, they say.

During WW2 there was a terrific labor shortage, with so many men in the Services. So the day we got out of school after 9th grade a friend suggested we should get a job over the summer. "Fine! Where?" "I'm sure one of the hospitals" (this was Rochester, Minnesota, where the May clinic is) "would hire us."

So we talked to the hospital manager. He was interested, but said to me, "What does your mother think about this?" "Huh?" Never occurred to me that she might have an opinion. "Well, don't you think you should call and ask her?" So I called her at work. "If that's what you want to do, David." (I should mention that I had the world's original hands-off mother.)

So that summer I worked a 48 hour week--for 32 cents an hour! I was rich! When school came around, I got a job at another hospital, a shorter work week. I worked all through high school, 36 hours a week during the school year, and 48 hours a week during summers.

During the school year I played in the high school band, participated in several plays, belonged to the rifle and ham radio clubs.   I once calculated that from the time I arose, at 5:30 a.m., until I hit the sack at night, I had a TOTAL of 1/2 hour that was not preprogramed, five minutes here, ten minutes there. My hands-off mother said nothing about this except, now and then, "I think you really should get more sleep, David." End of report.

So what happened to the grades? I was number 21 out of a class of 260, and a member of the National Honor Society.

So much for educators' theories.

Dave Oesterreich