Page 54 - Firehouse Pond

In 1966, at the age of twenty-four, I achieved owning my own bakery, "Sugar

and Spice Bakery" at the corner of Muscatine and First Avenue in Iowa City.
I was going to say it was the first time I owned a business, but I guess that's
not accurate. Most of the work I did as a kid was essentially my own creation

and business, run by me. I ran the bakery for about six and a half years. My
wife and I did well and felt we were "in the dough".

Then Donutland came. That hurt. Then they changed the parking spaces by

my place to a bicycle lane on First Avenue. That killed us. We made the place
as spiffy as possible and had an auction. I made part of what I needed to pay
back the loan, and the bank gave me time to pay back the rest.

Then I went back to work for Randall's as bakery manager for another six and
a half years. Randall's wanted me to be a "bake-off " baker (just stick ready-

made things in the oven) and I was a "scratch baker" so I left. They wanted to
take all the skill out of the job! During that time I also bought into a carpet
cleaning truck with my stepfather.

I then went to work for the Physical Plant at The University of Iowa starting
out as a custodian, although management said they wanted me as a supervisor
from the start. I told them that I would rather start at the bottom and learn the

talk and the walk. I was a custodian for about four months and then got
promoted to supervisor. This didn't go over very well with the other
custodians.

While at the U, I built up so much comp time doing what needed to be done,
that I accrued six weeks off. As time went on, I became the head custodian at
Carver-Hawkeye Arena. I was a lead custodian for seventeen years. I really

liked the people I worked with and had very few problems with the athletic
staff. The re-finishing of the basketball court was my highlight each year.

During my time at Carver, I was called to re-finish the wood floors at Old
Capitol after the fire. I was asked to run the project crew which was a big
challenge. During my time with the University, I also had several part-time

jobs working at what I call "Get and Go Stores."