Summer Job at Lake Gregory

Tanning by the Lake

A summer job at a lake in the California mountains had to be the absolute ultimate.  My parents were members of San Moritz Lodge on the lake and my father made arrangements for me and two of my best friends, Nancy and Anne, to wait tables during the lunch hours from 11am through 2pm.  Wow!  That left afternoons to soak up the sunshine and arrive back at school in the fall with tans to die for.
         
This was the summer of 1948 between Jurnior and Senior High School years.  We each had a boyfriend back in Pomona Valley, but it was fun flirting with the lifeguards who were Freshman students from Claremont Men's College.  We girls lived in a cabin co-rented by our families and they saw to it that we had an adult female 'house mother' who made sure we were well watched over.  We could be out in town with other young people providing they passed the test of being 'good, trusting companions' and that the three of us would stay together and be back before 9:pm so we were totally protected that's for sure.
        
I should ad that we three girls were probably the most 'square' damsels of the day, brought up in the church and in households that demanded honesty.  Each day, at the lake cabin, began with a hearty breakfast then chores assigned to each of us that were completed in time to get into our waitress uniforms and be dropped off at the lodge.  Our paychecks were put into savings  at the local bank and the tips were ours to spend as we wished for personal items and little gifts to take home at the end of summer.  One very important item was baby-oil mixed with a Iodine to insure a darker tan - and it worked.  Today my dermatologist suggests it was probably the worst idea we could've had and so far lucky not to have skin-cancer.
         
Our families came up on assigned weekends to keep tabs on us and bring the items we had listed as "desperately needed" to add to our wardrobes.  Of course it was especially handy to send our dirty laundry back to be washed and ironed then sent up the mountain with the next group.  And, it was fantastic to have special tasty dishes from home such as potato salad, cake, pie and cookies.  We always had a good lunch as part of our pay at the lodge, generally a soup and salad combo.  We were three skinny-minis so could eat just about anything which included a chocolate-fudge-sunday at least once a week.
         
One weekend, we convinced our 'house-mother' that we would be perfectly safe to go with two of the lifeguards down the mountain to watch car races in San Bernardino.  We left the track soon after arriving when a wheel came off one of the race cars and plummeted into the crowd.  We weren't close enough to see who was hit, but later heard over the radio that a young girl had been killed and several near her were hospitalized.  Certainly the worst date any of us had ever been on.  It was years before I could watch another car race.  Very sad indeed.
         
All in all, as the job and vacation came to an end, we basically had enjoyed a wonderful summer of earning regular paychecks and doing a whole lot of growing up.  Our boyfriends wrote to us every week and we quickly answered their letters, certainly leaving out the particulars concerning our flirtatious escapades.
         
After we graduated from High School we lost touch with one another.  I did catch up with Nancy at a 20 year Class Reunion.  I have no idea what Anne's future held.  Very difficult that women marry and take the name of their husband losing themselves.  If I had it to do over again I would insist on keeping my maiden name.  After all, this tradition is followed in many places of the world.  Seems the best we do here in the US is use an hyphenated name.  Oh well, a name can be just a name, but a summer job as a teenager can be fantastic!