September of 1969, glad to be finished with the hospital laundry, I was eager to take on college — but my discomfort was acute. The distance between my home in South Omaha and my college in West Omaha was not a matter of miles.
South Omaha with its lively ethnicities — centered on Eastern Europe, but extending to Mexico and the African American Great Migration — provided a blue collar cosmopolitan experience. Awareness of the wider world came from children of beef luggers and shop keepers, as opposed to books or headlines. We whose ancestors had arrived in the cargo hold of the Mayflower mingled with classmates from second and third generation immigrant families still speaking their languages in the home. They introduced us to their cuisines, their colorful expressions and the proper way to pronounce their names. This polyglot mix created a unified identity — South Omaha.
West Omaha was the other side of the moon. Houses along Happy Hollow Boulevard, next to UNO, were mansions, proper residences for rich and powerful people, utterly foreign to a South Omaha Boy.
Part time jobs: Mail Room worker, Audio Visual assistant, English Composition Tutor — minimum wage was $1.60 per hour ($12.76 in 2023 money)
I would later learn an axiom of the actor’s trade — focus on your work, not on yourself as the worker — that could explain how the transition was accomplished. Student Aid referred me to a job in the campus mail room. Soon I was happily carrying mail from office to office in a canvas bag like the one I used as a paper boy. Anxiety gave way to familiarity with the entire campus, its departments and offices. I never visited the mansions across the park. The people I encountered were not significantly different from fellow South Omahans, some of whom had made the move to UNO with me.
A single job would not be enough, however. The scholarship paid for only one year’s tuition. There were books to buy, and gas to put in my 1962 Studebaker Lark, a commuter campus necessity that Dad found for me for only $75 ($598 in 2023.)
So I took another job with the Audio Visual department, fielding calls from professors and Teacher’s Assistants to resuscitate failing film, slide and overhead projectors — and right now! Class is starting! I never achieved any technical acumen, but learned to poke about until the machine worked — or didn’t. More often than not, I used my magical powers to plug it in.
Fascination born at my Grandma’s kitchen table led me to major in English, which in turn, led me to yet another job — tutoring English Composition students. Concepts of structured writing were introduced to me in the process of me introducing them to others — an exemplary instance of learning by doing.
Through a series of circumstances to be described later, I plunged into the whirlwind of people and activities around the UNO Theatre Department. (How did this happen? Suffice it to say, people asked me. Nothing moves a person like being invited.) As a result, from second semester of freshman year all the way through to graduation, I juggled school work, survival jobs, rehearsals and performances. It was nip and tuck from time to time, but I had found a community, and community generates opportunities.
ETV Crew Member
The theatre folk knew people who knew people, and before long, I joined some of them on the crew of the campus ETV station. It was a nerve-wracking environment, but charged by the excitement of performance — so a job connected to my work.
Programs were black and white, using cameras handed down from local stations. I started handling cue cards and cueing talent, but eventually was trusted to run a camera. There will be more about the station later. It’s where I found my first job after graduation.
Piano player and voice actor for the Ogden Edsl band (sporadic pay)
Another theatre connection got me involved with a group that still resonates in Omaha cultural history: The Ogden Edsl Wahalia Blues Ensemble Mondo Bizarrio Band.
This music and comedy group would go through many changes in format and personnel over the decades it operated. Ultimately, it would be a trio sharing the stage at The Comedy Store in L.A. with Robin Williams and others of his ilk, one of its records, Dead Puppies, listed among Dr. Demento’s discoveries.
In the early 70s, we were creatures of Omaha’s Old Market, the center of counter-culture activity in Omaha. I pounded the piano, sang a few tunes — and made a little money from gigs at hippie bars and dance venues. Playing many comical originals, we also covered songs that were out of the mainstream, ahead of both the Country-Rock and 50s nostalgia trends that would show up later in the decade.
Ambition in the group was high even in these early days, and I participated as a voice actor in a 56 episode radio serial that was shopped around stations all over the Mid West. It was picked up at a few places, but generated no pay.
(Episode 1 of 56) The Adventures of Heavy Duty and Ogden Edsl Wahalia Blues Ensemble Mondo Bizarrio Band.
Otis is the narrator, Bill and Peggy chime in, Denny is Heavy Duty and I am counselor Hymie Wartfloater. Heavy would go on to found a big rock band that would save America.
Our recording studio was a converted dive bar. Nevertheless, the time I spent there led me to jobs performing local commercials, which relates to another job from those years.
Boys Club Librarian - $3.50/hour ($24.50 in 2023)
Summer of 72, I was hired to create a drama program from scratch for the South Omaha Boys Club. Attracting boys into the library from wood shop and basketball was no mean task, however, and at the beginning the effort sagged.
My first local TV commercial put me over the top. An auto dealership paid me $25 ($175.03 in 2023) to chow down on a steak I could afford daily because of the mountain of money I’d saved buying one of their cars.
The day after it aired, I was greeted at the front door of the Club by a gaggle of boys, impressed with me for the first time since I had arrived. Did I really eat steak every night? Could they see the car? I tried to explain the reality to them, but to no effect.
However, from then on, it was much easier to attract boys to my activities in the Library.
Another lasting lesson was provided by an 8 year old Mexican boy with a name conveyed to me as “Nick Barrages.” He had disrupted an all-club event, then angrily stomped out. I was sent to calm him down.
I found him pacing on the basketball court.
“Are you Nick Barrages?” I asked.
“No!” he roared.
“Who are you, then?”
“Nicolito Barajas!” (The vowels were European, the “j” pronounced like an English “h” — the “r” was rolled.)
“Okay, Nicolito Barajas. Come here. I want to talk with you.”
He looked at me in wonderment as he crossed the court. We were solid after that. So Nicolito taught me the connection between personal dignity and being called by your proper name.
I planned to continue this job that autumn as I started my final year of college. But another job intervened — my first job as a paid actor.
Next: First acting job, and post graduation floundering