First real paycheck ... 17, working in the engineering department at Harley - Davidson. If I recall, something like $530/ month. Prior I helped out farmers doing odd jobs: haying, relief milking, ect.

17 Baled hay for a neighboring farm in fall harvested potatoes for the same farm driving a truck with no brakes if you pumped the clutch enough times it mite actuallly shift and graded same potatoes in a dark damp storage building that winter buck fifty an hour plus chores on my Dads farm Felt like a king most guys my age done the same so nothing out of the ordinary getting handed a check Yah great till Dad said if thats what you want to do your whole life You are all set

14 haying all summer

what are we calling a real paycheck

as in the first one anyone thought to take out taxes on ?

that would be 14 I was working construction um I mean for the "farm" I also took a gig that fall at a lumber yard stacking all the lumber in the racks , this was before everything was moved onto pallet racking by a fork truck.
they would get pre winter shipments of lumber and hire a few of us in high school to put it all away.

about 11-12 I was working yard work jobs for widows at church , the job they always had that I hated but it paid. raking all the gravel for the drive way out of the yard every spring.
I hated it but it paid