The First Pilot At Ground Zero Recalls His First Jobs

00:00:10
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. To search for The All-American Stories podcast, go to the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Peter Braxton was the first military pilot in the air over the burning Twin Towers in New York City. It was his first day on the job. Here’s Peter sharing some stories from a few of his first jobs, including those before and after serving in the Air Force.

00:00:46
Speaker 2: There’s like a pitch-and-putt golf little thing with a little ice cream, miniature golf, and driving range. And, I don’t know, I think like high school, whatever, girlfriend or something like that got me the job, and we’re both working there. And I mean, this is before, I don’t know, they had tractors picking up golf ball. So I used to go out there and scoop them up with a little scooper and the driving range and then run over to the ice cream shop and, you know, try to make a twirly ice cream cone or, you know, and I’d eat the mistakes. I was a kid. I was fourteen or something like that. So I lasted a little while there. But that’s a seasonal job, right? So you can’t do that in the winter. So then I worked at—I applied where I got the job—at Burger King, and I lasted three weeks at Burger King. And the reason I lasted three weeks is I was like bored. My brain was atrophying. I was making these burgers in the back and fries, and they were like, “Oh, you always promote you to the window, you know, the drive-through.” I was like, “No, no, I don’t do that.” Like, now, I thought the cut cash here. “Do you want to be a manager?” I was sixteen years old. I was like, “No, no, no, no, no.” It’s hard work. Actually, I mean, I don’t know if people understand this. This is labor. I mean, you’re—I mean, lunchtime, I mean, these things are flying off the—you know, the bunds are going everywhere, the burgers are flaring up, and, you know, you’re running out of cheese. And obviously it’s fast food, so you gotta think ornice, you gotta drop the fries. And then the alarm goes off and it’s—I was like, “I don’t know if this is right.” Like, “I don’t know if this is where I was built to be.” I didn’t last three weeks at that place. It was—that’s the issue; that was it. It was grueling work. You had to be perfect. People get upset; they’re spending three dollars or ninety-nine cents. They want every penny of value out of that stuff. That’s hard, hard work. You gotta be there on time. It gets pace hectic. People, you know, expectations unmant expectations communicated or not is the root of all conflict. If the burger doesn’t show up without the pickles or whatever, this conflict—an expectation isn’t met. I think it was a good lesson, and I learned about people—you know, people. So I got a job at a grocery store as a bagger. And this is back in the day where they like tip you a buck or something like that, 1991—I don’t know—1990. And I remember this woman came in furious because I put the bananas on the bottom of the bag, and, you know, she had brought them home, and, you know, these dollar ninety-eight bananas were smashed. They were—they weren’t; they were deformed. And, I mean, got in my face and was like, “I’ll buy you a banana tree!” Like, “I’m sorry.” Like, “I didn’t—I apologize.” I was, “You’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry.” And I remember they like put me on, like, punishment. So my punishment was to return all of the things that people don’t buy and go find where they’re supposed to go back on the shelf. And I did that for a while. And, you know, in Road, New York, it snows a lot. And, you know, one night we have this snowstorm, and nobody was coming. I mean, it was just like, “Why is the store open?” And so they—you know—”Pete, you’re going to go out and shovel, you know, the sidewalks and clean them off.” And I was like, “Well, why isn’t Bethanie doing that?” Like, “You know, no, Pete, you’re gonna go shovel the—shovel the sidewalk.” So I go out and I shovel the sidewalk at the grocery store and I’m like, “Where am I gonna put all the snow?” And I covered Bethanie, might this might classmate from high school, her car up in snow, and I thought it was the funniest. It was like “King of the Hill,” right? Like, I was the funniest thing. I just buried her car in snow. And we were—I mean, if she here, he hears the Shultz Show—remember this? And she started laughing. Yeah, she was. She was like complaining, laughing, crying all at once. And Betina, she’s her out—she was like the manager. I mean, I was sixteen. Betina couldn’t have been twenty-two, but I thought she was like forty-eight, right? Like, she was in charge. She’s like, “You’re gonna go clean off her car, and you’re gonna clean it all.” I was like, “All right.” So I went back out in the snowstore and cleaned off bath of these car. I cleaned off Betina’s car. I cleaned off my car. I mean, nobody was coming into the store. You know, you have two hemispheres of your brain for a reason, and one is more logic in math; the other’s art and creative thinking. And, you know, for me, I kind of felt like my—I don’t know if it was left brain and right brain—but the creative thinking site was kind of atrophying a little bit. And so I remember walking out was—I was at Credit Suisse—and I walked out, and it was a suit, tie, you know, the whole Swiss banker looking. And I was. I walked by this art store and I looked in it. It was like a movie. I stopped. I looked in the art store and I went in. I bought these big canvases, huge. Like, you know, I don’t know if they’re four-by-sixes or something like that. And I never painted anything, but I hung the canvas is up. And so I remember, you know, I guess the party trick with, you know, I’d maybe if I brought a date home to cook her dinner or something like that, you know, they’d seen the canvas. You know, some would say… Some would say, “I’m like, ‘Oh, you don’t see it.’” You know, “You don’t see the art.”

00:06:26
Speaker 3: There’s nothing odd. I mean, there’s nothing odd, this thing. I just never got around to do it. But what I did do to kind of fulfill that was to cook. So I like to create things. And here’s the good news: you get to eat it.

00:06:38
Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the editing, production, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Peter Braxton—they’re talking about his first jobs, including those before and after serving in the Air Force, and the one before. It just made me laugh because my first job was at Roy Rogers, and I lasted a very short time because it is brutal work. It’s like an assembly line, and it’s 110 degrees, and people are screaming at you all the time. The story of first jobs, in the end, that’s what this really was: and work in general, and what we learned from it, and some of the things we don’t learn, and especially what we really learned, what God’s made us to do. Peter Braxton’s story of his work before and after his service in the Air Force. Here on Our American Stories. Here are tot Our American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith, and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that need to be told. But we can’t do it without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they’re not free to make. If you love our stories in America like we do, please go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot; help us keep the great American stories coming. That’s OurAmericanStories.com.