A First Job With Lasting Impressions

A butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker?

Just about everyone remembers their first job. For some, it might be a regular babysitting job. For others, it might be lawnmowing jobs, a paper route, or working in their family’s business. For me, it was working nights in a small hometown bakery the summer after I turned 17.

The bakery was located on what we called “Main Street,” even though its actual name is Wisconsin Avenue. It’s been years since it closed, and I don’t really know why it did. Most likely, there wasn’t enough business with the local supermarkets opening bakeries of their own. After all, a person can only eat so many doughnuts.

I drove by the place when I was in town for my sister’s funeral a few years ago. The storefront is still there and looks the same as it always has. Today, it houses a small furniture store with wooden furniture on display in the large front windows.

Next to it was a small cafe, where I decided to stop in for breakfast. As I walked toward the cafe, a Maine Coon cat looked down on me from the canopy of the furniture store. Unable to resist, I looked in the windows of the store, and at that moment flood of memories came to me.

In 1975, this building was Otterholt’s Bakery, and it was where I got my first real job. I…