Odd and colorful jobs

Before they established careers, Mason County residents performed jobs where they ducked ice thrown at their head, cleaned up human remains scattered inside an airplane, and withstood putrid fumes while clearing sewer lines clogged with grease.

They also taught native Alaskan children how to sing Hank Williams tunes, empowered Chinese teens to blossom onstage and fought forest fires on mountainous eastern Washington terrain.

The Journal sent questionnaires to residents asking them to share the details of their oddest and/or most colorful jobs. The questions were also posed on local community Facebook sites, including Shelton Talks, Mason County Talks!, Belfair Community and Belfair Rants and Raves.

Tamra Ingwaldson works with formerly homeless veterans with New Horizon Communities as the program support specialist at the Shelton Veterans Village. In the mid-1980s, she was a bouncer and a doorperson at the Double Tree Infinity Lounge at the Southcenter Mall south of Seattle.

The best part of the job was people watching and helping to "diffuse situations that built up," she recalled. The worst part? "When I had to escort one of my workout buddies out of the club," she wrote. "He apologized the next day at the gym."

And what did she learn from the job? "How to better interact with others to diffuse situations. Increased awareness of, and improved ability to read body language. That being a female was actually an advantage."

Mason County resident Jacqueline Eve Edwards and her husband taught in Xi'an China from 2016 to 2020. She produced a musical theater show with Chinese high school students, the school's first experience with a western-style drama, she wrote. They created a musical version of the "Gingerbread Boy."

"The students and the faculty loved it," Edwards wrote. "The Chinese government wasn't keen on exposing Chinese students to Western culture, but since it was a private school we managed to do it. Lots of wonderful and awful experiences from living there, but we loved the students, very respectful and hard working. What I loved about doing theater with these kids who by nature are more reserved, theater allowed then to come out of their shell and truly have fun. The students in China have a very rigorous academic routine which allowed very little time for hobby interests. At least that was how it was at our school. Just seeing the joy and pride in their creation was incredible."

The couple then taught in Thailand before returning to the United States in January 2020. They departed just as the COVID was "shuttering everything."

Robert Herron is in charge of the conditions of eight school buildings as the director of facilities management and construction for the Shelton School District. In the early 1990s, he was the assistant general manager of a hotel in Reno, Nevada.

The benefits included discounted hotel stays when Herron was traveling, positive guest interactions, and a Reno hotel business that was "always colorful and active 24 hours a day," he wrote. The worst part was "negative interactions," he recalled.

"I once had a guest who was angry about the ice machines being down in the entire hotel, so he walked to a nearby store, bought ice, walked back to the front desk and chucked it at me. I also had to evacuate the entire hotel due to a bomb scare when a maid discovered what she believed to be a pipe bomb in a guest room. The bomb squad responded with a robot who grabbed the bomb, placed it into a container and rolled it outside and detonated it. My boss asked me to an interview to the local evening news. Turned out the pipe was not a bomb, only contained a screwdriver. The guest returned and was very unhappy with me for calling the authorities and destroying his screwdriver!"

Herron said the job taught him patience and listening skills.

"The gentleman who threw the ice at me, turned out he was from a small town 100 miles from Reno," Herron wrote. "His wife was in a car accident and was life flighted in. She had died en route. When he got to the hospital and found out, he didn't know what to do. He immediately checked into my hotel. We just don't know what people are going through. I am thankful I did not react to having ice thrown at me and just listened."

Jim Morrell is the president and CEO of Peninsula Credit Union and has worked for credit unions for more than 30 years. After his freshman year in college, he worked as a deckhand on a 65-foot motorboat that offered 11-day cruises from Seattle along the coast of British Columbia.

The best part of the job was "as a family-style cruise, I met so many interesting people from all over North America," he wrote. "Also, waking up in the morning on the top deck where I slept to water that was like glass, save the one or two loons who were taking a swim."

Cleaning the "heads," the bathrooms, was the worst part of the job, especially "after a male guest would use the toilet standing up when at the same time a wave jostled his aim."

Morrell said he learned "being on the water is a beautiful place to enjoy different types of people, their stories, share stories of the Indigenous People who took care of the area for thousands of years."

As a teen, Kellyanne Klink worked as a magician's assistant. "That was fun!" she wrote. "Too many weirdos in the industry of entertainment for my young self at the age of 19."

As a college student, Todd Inlow worked at a frozen yogurt job. His early morning duties included cleaning and lubing up the pumps that ran the soft serve machines.

Donna Collins was a process server. "Very dangerous," she wrote. "Had guns pulled on me. Had to retire because it wasn't worth it anymore."

Before they ran school districts

Paul Wieneke is the superintendent of the Southside School District. His first year as a teacher was as a substitute music instructor in remote native Alaskan villages.

The best things about the job were travelling "from village to village via dog sled and taught Hank Williams country songs to native Alaskan children. Traveled on the frozen river in the winter. Camped in villages one week at a time." The worst part was camping with dogs between villages, sometimes with the temperature 40 degrees below zero.

"I learned to love teaching," Wieneke wrote. "I learned to love Alaska and taught there for 25 more years ... learned to raise dogs and guide them by whistle commands. I learned to assimilate with other cultures through song, and through respect for traditions. I saw the northern lights over 1,000 times."

Wieneke also met his wife in the Aleutian Islands. They've been married 35 years.

"I once bought her a snow blower for her birthday."

Gerry Grubbs is superintendent of the Grapeview School District.

"Of course, I love the work I do now but there are two jobs that I did while growing up that are colorful and strange," he wrote.

Both were in McMinnville, Oregon in the early to mid-1980s. During high school and his first year in college, Grubbs earned $3.25 an hour working weekends at an airport. "I was a line boy and did miscellaneous jobs from cleaning, errands, washing airplanes and fueling airplanes," he wrote. "In the summer I would help the crop duster get his fertilizers ready for early morning spray jobs. I loved getting to visit with all the old pilots and got to ride along in many different kinds of airplanes."

Variety and the co-workers were was the best part of the job. "The worst thing that happened at the airport was when someone went to spread the ashes over the ocean of a loved one," he recalled. "Most of the ashes ended up in the back of the airplane. I had to clean up 'Uncle Bob.' "

Then came a summer job working at a sewage treatment plant.

"It was a great job that has a lot of variety of activities," Grubbs recalled. "Hosing down tanks, mowing lawns, painting, using the jack hammer, repairing pumps, and taking the big sewer cleaning truck out to clean the lines around town. I enjoyed the variety, and the physical nature of the work. It didn't really smell all that had, most of the time."

The stink came while cleaning sewer lines filled with grease, the worst part of the job.

"I learned that most any job can be great if you have the right attitude! Even if they are colorful and strange."

Before they governed

Shelton Mayor Eric Onisko's resume includes 10 years working for a hotel in Olympia and 10 years as a convenience store manager. But he chose fighting forest fires for about three weeks in eastern Washington as his most colorful job.

The job came through a forestry fire management company from Taylor Town that subcontracted with the state Department of Natural Resources.

Onisko remembers arriving on a "crummy bus" to battle the Curlew and Tanaka blazes.

"All these big guys called me 'Mouse' and had bets on how long I'd make it," he wrote. "Well, to make a long story short, I made it the entire time and outlasted most of them."

The worst part was the hike up the mountain before tackling the fire. "I learned it was extremely hard work, and I have tremendous respect for first responders to this day, and the people of the small towns relied on us to save their homes and businesses," he wrote.

Before he wrote newspaper stories

I've been a newspaper reporter for 40 years. When I was a full-time student at Highline Community College from 1979-81, I worked at the metal detection machines at the security checkpoints at Sea-Tac Airport.

if you walked through the machine and beeped, I asked you to empty your pockets of metals, place them on a tray and try again. Mostly it was coins and keys and foil Wrigley spearmint gum wrappers. Sometimes that five-pound belt buckle triggered the machine. A vial of cocaine once clattered onto to the tray, to the surprise of myself and the man heading to Alaska; I allowed him to place it back in his pocket, much to his obvious relief.

Airport security was a lot more lax 45 years ago, before 9/11. Friends and family were allowed to come to the flight terminals to see people off and no one had to take off their shoes. Occasionally, someone forgot they were carrying a handgun in their purse. I found a machete in a guitar case.

I learned people like, or need, to get drunk or drugged before they step onto an airplane. A highlight was the occasional celebrity interaction. I talked to actor Scott Baio ("Happy Days," "Charles in Charge") while he was sitting in a chair waiting for his flight. After sharing thoughts on the Seahawks, he asked, "Are there two Seattles, one here with the Space Needle and one in Alaska?" I peered into his bleary eyes, perplexed. "Oh, no," he blurted. "There's two Washingtons!"