Dog Days of Employment Are Old Hat to Celebrities

--Former President Gerald R. Ford cleaned paint drums. Actor Dennis Weaver sold vacuum cleaners. Comedian Jerry Lewis packed hats. “It was just plain disagreeable,” said Ford, recalling the worst job he ever had. He was among those interviewed in the September issue of Cosmopolitan magazine who had bittersweet memories from the days of lowly livelihoods to more celebrated careers. Ford said he worked during high school and part of college in his father’s paint-manufacturing plant. “I had to climb down inside the big paint drums, scrape the edges and clean them up so another batch could go in,” he said. Not only was the smell bad, said Ford, but the plant wasn’t air-conditioned. Of his job as a vacuum cleaner salesman, Weaver said: “I sold three, all to friends. When I ran out of friends, I lost the job.” Lewis lost hats. “The orders would have letters that indicated how many to the box, but the owner had strange codes that didn’t make sense,” he said. “I think I put him out of business.” Other worst jobs: Actor Gene Hackman went door-to-door for the San Bernardino Health Department trying to track down unlicensed dogs. He got a dollar for every citation. “It was really awful,” he said. Actor Jack Lemmon loaded flour barrels for his father’s business. “I carried a lead pipe to kill the alley rats that tried to gnaw at the barrels,” he said, “but I didn’t have the heart to do it, so I just stunned them and threw them outside.”

--A man whose refusal to mow his front lawn in Kenmore, N.Y., sparked an expensive and lengthy court battle says he is leaving western New York for good. Stephen Kenney would not disclose where he plans to move, but the former state University of Buffalo English teacher said he and his wife, Emilie, found “a two-bedroom house on a private road at the top of a mountain” where deer and bear often come calling. Kenney, 30, upset his neighbors in the quiet Buffalo suburb of Kenmore when he began growing wildflowers and other plants instead of grass on his 20-foot-by-25-foot lawn. Village officials said his refusal to mow the lawn violated zoning laws. He was found guilty and fined, but has not paid the village any money pending an appeal. Kenney said harassment by neighbors has upset his studies and cost him his job.