We were exposed to quite a lot of flirting and we were not used to the attention. I was seventeen year's old and all of a sudden we had real men flirt with us. Just take note that my sister in law was only fourteen on her way to fifteen but she looked older and she worked with us. Flirting was something that we became pro's at because we wanted to get good tips. It obviously worked and we made big bucks and lived royally. We could now pay our own way and not look into our parent's eyes for money. BUT we learned work ethics and when we worked we worked hard. We were very committed and motivated and just by working at such a young age, taught us responsibility.
Don't get me wrong, we worked hard, and don't let anyone EVER tell you that a waitress has an easy job, because it is not true. We worked long hours and eventually we could only work on weekends because we had school during the week. We had lots of fun though, and in those days we could still walk home after our shift at three in the morning. We stayed about two kilometers away from the restaurant, so we used to walk home alone at three in the morning and we felt safe.
Nowadays I cannot even send my son outside or to town on his bicycle because he might get robbed along the way.
It's sad how things changed over time, and what we had we will never ever get back again. I know it is not good to live in the past but life was so easy then and I can't believe our biggest dream was to get out on our own and be grownups. How stupid can children be?
The best part of your life is when you lived with your parents and they looked after you, now we know exactly what they went through and I know exactly why they restricted me from going out with my friends as such a young age. They knew best, but they made us aware of what was going on around us, and we were not exposed to bad things happening all around us.
When the restaurant closed down it was a sad day in our lives. The owner wanted to move to a new location in a different town and it was just impossible for us to work anymore. We had a big party on our last night, and a big part of our lives were now missing. No other restaurant could ever give us the same work satisfaction than the one where we trained. It's been more than thirty years and I still think of that time as a happy time. Hell, I still have flashbacks and I will never forget the music tracks the owner played permanently. It was still cassettes in that time, and Climie Fisher has never been the same to me again.
The fact that we worked together as friends made us more of a family than we could ever imagine. My sister in law is three years younger than me, but she is still my best friend. She has been there for me through all the difficult times in my life, and I love her to bits.
I finished school the next year and she stayed behind. I went to study at university and I started a new life on my own.
To be continued
