DALLAS — The return of summer means the return of seasonal jobs for students out of school or anyone else looking for a little extra cash.
While the gig economy makes it easy to make money with all the extra spare time, some summer jobs are timeless and classic.
As people head to the lakes and pools, lifeguards are typically always a job in demand. A 1971 WFAA story archived in SMU’s Jones Film Library focused on one lifeguard at the North Dallas Pool. As she bluntly put it, “It pays pretty good for sitting around and doing nothing.”
Other seasonal work requires a little more energy.
Camp Carter is a staple of the summer in Fort Worth and it cannot happen without counselors. In 1971, WFAA legend Jerry Park got a few youngsters to show him how to canoe, shoot a bow & arrow, and ride a horse at the camp that has hosted youth for more than 70 years in Cowtown.
But another moneymaking activity has mostly fallen by the wayside. A 1974 WFAA story on reclamation centers showed people bringing in big bags of aluminum cans to recycle and also take home a little bit of cash for their trouble.
The story reported the reclamation centers were receiving nearly 60,000 pounds of cans per week and paying 10 cents a pound to those who collected them. One family collected 497 pounds by scooping up beer cans between Fort Worth and Weatherford. An effort that netted them a grand total of $49.70.
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