I'm pretty sure just about everyone in my generation who lived close enough worked at Six Flags Over Texas at one time or another. Sure, some of my friends decided it would be more fun, or possibly more manly to get a summer job somewhere in the construction industry and to these I say, "Idiot!" It's too hot in Texas to work construction. Only the mentally challenged would choose to make their school money like that. I say all that to see what kind of response I get. My cousin, Mike, worked for my uncle Frog during the summer. He not only built up his muscles and got a tan, he also learned many new words previously never spoken around our mamas. Uncle Frog spent a lot of time in trouble with our mamas.
I went to work at Six Flags in June of 1968, immediately after graduating in the top 90% of my class. I had a nice run at Foodway Grocery and left it with some trepidation. My old friend Rick and I were the stars of the Hurst Foodway. It was a huge loss for the store in June of 1968 because at the same time I left to go out to Six Flags, Rick left to follow his dream of becoming a butcher....never really understood that until years later when I was still struggling along with an entry level job in telecommunications Rick was knocking down some serious money as a journeyman butcher in charge of his own meat store. But, this is very important, in the late 60's and all the way through the 70's a 4 year college degree was what a person had to have to get ahead....any old 4 year degree would work. As it turns out, the degree did open lots of doors for employment but after you got in the door you had to make it on your own.....no magic in that degree. Sadly, anyone opting for an apprenticeship rather than a college education back then was not necessarily looked down on but considered slightly less intelligent than all us college boys. Tongue in cheek, wink wink. I really wanted to become an apprentice electrician but daddy seemed to think I only had one route. He wanted me to graduate from college with a degree in business management and spend my life at Bell Helicopter as a department head. To him that was the pinnacle of success.
I don't know why I always go down the wrong rabbit hole when I start on a story. This story is about my time at Six Flags Over Texas. My sister, Cindy had already worked one season at Six Flags and loved it. She wanted me to come out there too. It was fun she said. I wasn't too interested. I didn't want to wear an orange and yellow outfit sweeping up cigarette butts and candy wrappers. She said she thought she could get me in at the hat shop next door to her candy store. I told her I didn't want to be sellin' no stinkin' hats all summer long. She said I would meet lots of girls. I rode out there with her the next day. Cindy was well liked at the hat shop which was called Pom Pom Hats. I was hired before I even had a chance to wow them with all my charm. I started the next day.
Pom Pom Hats was an independent company paying a lease for space at the park. I didn't actually work for Six Flags so the restrictions were a bit different from the park employees. They started out at minimum wage which I think was about $1.25 an hour. The hat shop started a new employee out at $1.90 an hour. The park strictly adhered to child labor laws so there were limits to the number of hours someone under 18 could work. The hat shop had no such silly rule. I averaged 80 hours a week during the summer and easily saved up enough money that first summer to see me all the way through my freshman year in college. The park employees did indeed wear some awful looking uniforms...well, the guys did. The girls always looked sharp in their pin-striped dresses and straw hats. The hat shop dress rules were nice dress slacks, freshly polished dress shoes, and a dandy looking Pom Pom hat shop shirt courtesy of the owners. I don't want to brag but....hey, what can I say? We were without a doubt the cool guys at the park. The hat shop would only hire college guys to work in their three shops. They gave me a slide on that since I was starting college that fall....and they adored Cindy. I worked with guys who were sage college guys, experienced in all the adult ways of the free and wild college life. I did not fit in but since I was Cindy's little brother, they put up with me and taught me how to be a sage adult college guy too.
The hat shop owners leased three spots in the park. The first, and home of the big guys, was in the modern section of the park. The shop was called "Modern" by us sage college guys. The second shop was in the area where the gunfights took place. It was called "Texas". The third shop was located down in the Boom Town area. Yes, it was called "Boom Town". You don't need to take notes. All new employees started in Modern so we could be trained by a senior UTA business major named Larry. Larry reminded me of a drugstore Indian. He would stand in one spot with his arms crossed, seemingly staring off in space but actually watching every move we made. He would let us mess up for a while and then uncross his arms, walk over to whichever disaster we had created, take over without a word, fix the problem, and return to his self-appointed post. Larry was a very smart guy and you would know it just by looking at him. His problem was when he opened his mouth. He had a high pitched nasal voice that I wish I could mimic with written words. It was hysterical and quite probably the reason he said so little.
One day during the first week I was working in Modern I was told by Larry (by pointing) that all the shelves needed dusting. I began the process of removing one stack of hats, "dusting" under it and setting the stack back down. This process was repeated until all 75 or 80 stacks of hats had had their respective spots dusted. About halfway through this process I picked up a stack of hats and found a ten dollar bill laying there. I picked it up, walked back around and into the shop and asked Larry what I should do with it. Larry looked at the ten, then at me, then slipped the bill out of my hand and walked over to the cash register. He opened the register, put the ten dollars in the till and pulled out two fives. He put one five in his pocket and handed me the other one. He then said (and oh how I wish you could hear the voice I'm hearing in my head right now), "Mr. Mihills. You have just learned a very valuable lesson." I had indeed learned a valuable lesson.
After a few more days in the Modern shop I was considered "trained". I could remember the various prices, I knew how to act toward the guests, and most importantly, I had mastered the art of sewing names on the hats with the modified Singer sewing machines. This was a talent most would never learn and absolutely no one would ever need post Pom Pom Hats. I don't know how I picked it up so quickly. It was a sewing machine mounted on a wooden box with a hand control under the box. It would turn the thread and needle as needed to write out a simple name on any hat sold. You would think most people would say "No thanks" to a name sewed onto their new hat but oddly it was very popular. After I was moved down to Boom Town to be one of the Ace name writers, a little boy walked up and handed me a white sailor hat he had chosen from one of the stacks of hats. He also handed me a dollar bill and said he wanted his name on the hat. I took his dollar for the hat and put the hat on the machine. I asked him his name. He whispered, "Henwy". I asked a second time because I didn't hear him. Again he whispered, "Henwy". Still a little confused I asked if he could spell his name for me. He said, "yeth, H-E-R-N-Y." I spun that name out real quick and put it on his head wishing him a "great rest of your stay at Six Flags". He wandered off happy with his new purchase. About ten minutes later this big six foot plus, two hundred and sixty pound line backer who was Henwy's dad walked up, slapped the hat on the counter and said, "FIX IT". I fixed it....real quick!
I had more fun working in Boom Town than Modern. It was more relaxed, not as busy, and the popcorn girl in the wagon outside our shop was so darn cute it hurt. I dated her a couple of times but my 80 hour work weeks made dating kind of hard. If I wanted to take a day off it was fine with the owners but man oh man that loss of eleven hours of pay was hard to take. If I was working this hard during the summer so I wouldn't have to work during the school year, cute little popcorn girls had to be put on hold. I admit I weakened at times and gave up at least enough hours to go out occasionally. One of the guys, named Ronny, was a senior at Abilene Christian College (now ACU). He was engaged to his high school sweetheart but didn't see her much during the summer. He worked 12 to 14 hours every day of the week except Sunday when he would leave at six to go to church with his sweetheart. Typically, he averaged 90 hours per week and never spent a cent of his money. I remember close to the end of my first year there Ronny came to work with one of his shoes slapping the sole with every step. He hid his feet from the owner so he wouldn't get in trouble and then taped the sole onto the shoe with black electrical tape to keep it together. That next Monday Ron showed up wearing a new pair of shoes. We teased him about finally spending some of his money but he admitted his girlfriend's dad had bought him the shoes.
Ronny and I were typically the only two in the Boom Town shop after five each day. The others all took off to have a life while Ronny and I worked our silly brains off just so we wouldn't have to work during school. After five in Boom Town was when we had the most fun. It was great shooting staples into the balloons the girls wandered around selling. Three or four balloons would pop all at one time and the girls would stop, look around, then wander on off like it was a normal part of the day. We also had contests to see who could shoot a cricket into a crowd with the most finesse. One evening we really got bored and shot flaming crickets into the air like an ugly fireworks display. We did get really bored in Boom Town. The flaming cricket caper almost cost us our jobs though so we decided to grow up a bit.
You know, these memories are just the tip of the iceberg. Six Flags was a great place to work. Sadly, most of the really funny stuff that happened out there needs to stay in my memories. I never did anything I'm ashamed of but boy oh boy the opportunities were sure available. If I told some of the things done by some employees, there might be litigation problems. I personally avoided anything unsavory to the point of earning the nickname "The Christer" which I didn't appreciate at all. It was hard work staying as good as my mama wanted and still be accepted by the crowd I worked with. When I get to heaven my mama is going to say, "You did good Rusty. You can't sing worth a lick* but you were a good boy."
*This is a set up for another story down the road.
