After finishing school in June 1944, I went to work as a mechanic’s helper and earned $12 a month. I started in the autobody shop where we repaired dented body parts or replaced broken windshields or door windows. I learned to weld sheet metal sections like torn fenders. Like some of the other jobs in the project, a truck would pick us up at our block, take us back for our meals at lunchtime and back again when the workday was over.
I had worked at the motor pool for nearly a year, and in the spring or early summer of 1945 I changed jobs and became a drafting technician for the project Engineering Department. There I got to draw various plans of the camp and once in a while, go out with the surveying crew to locate and plot out utility lines like water and sewer. It was a good experience, and it was probably a forerunner to what I eventually decided to do about my lifetime career. (Many years later, I had the opportunity to go to college, and finally became an architect.)
However, having a job did not change the routine one had to go through each day. It was the usual early morning ritual at the bathhouse, in the mess hall line and off to work now instead of going to school. After work, we went through the same routine of dining at the mess hall and participating in different activities until bedtime. In the summer months we usually had softball games in the evenings and more games on weekends. I must have played in over 100 softball games during my stay in camp.