I lived for my Grinnell paycheck of 85 cents an hour from working 20 hours a week. I had the highest-paying job on campus, 20 cents more than waiters got at Cowles Dining Hall. I washed pots and pans during Saga Foods’ management of cafeteria services in the 1960s. This paid for my daily coffees at the Union and my 3.2 percent beers at the Rex off Route 6.
When there was an opening for another pot walloper, I invited my roomie George Santoni ’61 to join me. Fifty years later, after his retirement as a professor of French at SUNY-Albany, he said, “Walt, that was the worst job I have ever had!”
The work wasn’t that bad, except when the cook made scalloped potatoes. Then I needed a putty knife to clean pans of baked-on food. If they’d given me anything sharper, we’d have had a mortally wounded cook.