On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 19:08:53 -0500, Keyser Soze wrote:
On 2/7/17 7:03 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 17:46:50 -0500, Keyser Soze wrote:
On 2/7/17 4:33 PM, wrote:
I did kind of remember it because when IBM asked me what my salary
expectations were, I gave them my monthly pay as what I wanted a week
($100) and that is what I got. ($430/mo) It turned out they got me
cheap (other guys started at $475) but that was a good thing for me
because I got a lot of early raises. ;-)
My boss would call me in every few months and throw another $20 or $30
at me. I felt like a millionaire.
I made about $110 a week when I started as a "cub reporter" summer
intern for the KC Star. This was in the mid-1960s. In those days, you
could get a decent steak dinner at a "family restaurant" for about
$3.00, and a first-class breakfast for 99 cents. Really. Best of all,
several nights a week the city editor sent me out on assignment to cover
someone making speech at some dinner, and, of course, the reporter from
The Star got to eat there, too. Sometimes I worked at the cop shop,
police headquarters, and got to joke around with Clarence Kelly, the
chief, who later became head of the FBI.
Ate a lot of chicken dinners. 
At the end of that summer, I decided to
finish up my senior year of college (I had already completed almost all
the courses I need for graduation) and keep the night job at The Star.
Got a $25 a week raise. So I'd drive to KC to arrive at the paper at 4
pm and I'd drive back to the campus at 1 am. Did that five days a week.
It really was a terrific job. When I finished my writing assignments for
the night, I'd volunteer to copy read for a couple of hours on the wire
desk or fill in wherever help was needed. The last year I was at the
paper, the world news editor decided to take a year of vacation and I
was "promoted" on temporary basis to fill in for him.
My guilty indulgence was a HoJo short stack with coffee for 99 cents.
There was one right near the beltway at 355 and I would stop there
first thing in the morning, use their phone to call dispatch and if I
didn't have a call I would get cakes and coffee before going somewhere
else.
I had the habit from High School when I would stop at the coffee shop
at 8th and M SE for coffee and 2 doughnuts before I got on the street
car to go up town to school. That was 30 cents or something. (1960-4)
If I didn't do that I would grab a couple of Little Tavern burgers at
17th and Pa NW on the way to school. There used to be a tunnel through
the building right next to Little Tavern that came out on G street.
The 99 cents place was called Nichols. It closed about 10 years ago. For
99 cents you got steak, eggs, potatoes and toast. Coffee was another
buck...that's how they managed to break even. It was open all night.
There was a place in Fairfax Village, right on the DC line where Pa Av
crosses that had a dollar steak dinner in the early 50s but that is
the last one I knew of. It was a real steak tho (rib eye), not just a
slice of mystery beef with 2 vegetables and a drink.
Food always seemed to be expensive in DC. I know the first time I went
to New York City as an adult, I was shocked at how cheaply you could
eat. Of course you could also find places that were ridiculously
expensive less than a block away. A number of the times I was there I
would stay in Elizabeth and take the train in. It was across the
street from the motel I stayed in and it came up in the same building
as IBM (Penn Plaza), No walking in the rain, snow or cold. It was also
very cheap compared to the city so I did great on our per diem.