• For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.

What perks did you have as a kid because of your parent's job(s)?

Thread Starter
TS
Philpug

Philpug

Notorious P.U.G.
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
42,624
Location
Reno, eNVy
My mother was a very good cook and taught me the basics of how I cook today. She also was a pretty astute business person and would keep me out of school regularly to take me to business meetings and back closing. She felt I would learn more from them then I would in a day of school.
 

Dave Marshak

All Time World Champion
Skier
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Posts
1,454
When I was 8 years old, my father's job moved to California. The company flew my whole family coast to coast first class in a DC7, which was the top dog at the time. The perk was that a neighbor who worked for the airline was coincidentally on the plane, and he took me up to the cockpit. I got to sit in the co-pilot seat, listen to the weather on the headphones and fly the plane. Apparently I did a pretty good job because the plane didn't crash.

dm
 
Last edited:

David Chaus

Beyond Help
Skier
Team Gathermeister
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
5,529
Location
Stanwood, WA
My dad was a Boeing engineer, while he travelled a lot, we as a family didn't, but we lived in Buenos Aires for 4 1/2 years (for me, age 6 to 10). As he was born there, there was a lot of extended family waiting for us.
 

Bad Bob

I golf worse than I ski.
Skier
Joined
Dec 2, 2015
Posts
5,843
Location
West of CDA South of Canada
@Philpug I can relate; my Mom was just the same only totally different.
She was absolutely nuts for snow and the mountains. 10 &11th grade we were in Colorado Springs, on a snow day (if Dad was on TDY which was fairly often) she would keep me out of school and we would head for Breck or Vail for the day. She was more about seeing the pretty snow on the trees, I was more about a powder day with the 1967 crowds. She never had a problem with rewriting a few rules.
Everybody was happy, even the dog, a Saint Barnard named Heinrich who went along too.
 

Posaune

sliding
Skier
Joined
Mar 26, 2016
Posts
1,914
Location
Bellingham, WA
My mom was a teacher and so there were no excuses and no days off, but on the other hand I ended up being one too.

My dad was a regional sales manager for Kaiser Gypsum so he flew all over the place and a couple of times we got to go along. I remember trying to swim in Great Salt Lake with a skinned knee. Not a good idea.

He was also a big shot in the Army Reserves so he would take us to "summer camp" where we were treated like royalty. My mom hated that.
 

SpikeDog

You want Big Air, kid?
Skier
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Posts
823
Location
Wyoming
As an Army brat, the privilege to move every few years and start over making friends.

The most exotic place we got stationed was Schweinfurt, Germany. It was close to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which is virtually the birthplace of American skiing since most GI's in Germany learned to ski there in the '50's and '60's. I'd say it's a toss-up between the 10th Mountain Division and Garmisch.

My dad bought my sister and I some little wooden skis there, and we dragged them all over the US to ski in the backyard with. Well, maybe not in Phoenix. When we finally stayed put in Boise in the early 70's, we all got skis at a swap meet and headed to Bogus Basin. So I guess my dad is as much to blame for my ski habit as anyone.
 
Last edited:

BC.

NEPA ShopRat/Skier
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Aug 27, 2017
Posts
2,035
Location
Lake Wallenpaupack, PA
Oh, where to begin? My dad worked at Penn State University as a chemistry professor. Among other things:
  1. We made home made ice cream using liquid nitrogen
  2. Dry ice bombs
  3. Home made fireworks (aka, thermite). First time Dad stuck a piece of magnesium into the mix and handed me the torch. So I light the magnesium which burns blindingly bright and then it really goes off. Look at YouTube videos of thermite reactions. I'm surprised I didn't singe my hair off (or worse).
  4. And, best of all, PSU acquired various personal computers in the late 70's, early 80's. TRS-80's, Apple II's, IBM's, etc. Every weekend for probably years my brother and I would camp out at PSU's computer labs and taught ourselves programming. Dad acquired an Apple IIe for home so that we just needed to go downstairs instead of get driven to the labs. I was devouring every book I could find on Apple II architecture and assembly language programming. My high school and collegiate programming courses were a joke; the proverbial 10,000 hours was well underway long before I was formally taught anything. I remember being amazed when I learned that I could do for a living what I had already been doing for the past 5, 10 years. :thumb:

Did you guys live in State College and then u went to PSU for college? College town/prof kids usually either stay.....or get as far away as possible?...lol.
 

Jenny

Making fresh tracks
Skier
Joined
Dec 6, 2015
Posts
1,839
Location
Michigan
Dad was an assistant principal, in charge of discipline - best perk was that it was NOT at the school we attended. I didn’t realize until later that he was protecting us from repercussions of his job.

Mom was a librarian so there were always books and I never had overdue fines.
 

BC.

NEPA ShopRat/Skier
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Aug 27, 2017
Posts
2,035
Location
Lake Wallenpaupack, PA
Both parents were elementary teachers......I always had a great pencil collection (sports teams/leagues) from those ever popular book orders from the early 1980’s.....and books of course...lol.
 

Jerez

Skiing the powder
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 25, 2015
Posts
2,993
Location
New Mexico
I was a Foreign Service brat and my parents had the good sense to take us with them everywhere. And we did go everywhere. So many privileges that it's embarrassing to even think about it. I had about as good a childhood as it gets without being rich.
 

markojp

mtn rep for the gear on my feet
Industry Insider
Instructor
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
6,604
Location
PNW aka SEA
Parents with work and enough disposable income in a location where skiing was just part of life. Pop was also very smitten with the broader world. He loved his time and travel in the service, made frequent trips to France when I was little, and told great stories about his adventures, experiences, and people he'd met. No doubt he was a huge influence on my travel and adventure bug, as well as general interest in people and cultures.
 

KevinF

Gathermeister-New England
Team Gathermeister
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
3,345
Location
New England
Did you guys live in State College and then u went to PSU for college? College town/prof kids usually either stay.....or get as far away as possible?...lol.

No, my Dad worked at one of the branch campuses. I grew up near Reading. I attended Berks for my first two years and then up to University Park for my junior and senior years.

The joke at State College was that the only fun thing to do there was leave. ;) Two years was enough.
 

Doug Briggs

"Douche Bag Local"
Industry Insider
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 9, 2015
Posts
7,484
Location
Breckenridge, CO
I grew up in an inn in North Conway.

We had ice cream in the 5 gallon containers, the size you see at Baskin Robbins and the like. Homemade chocolate sauce by the gallon. Brownies by the baker's sheet. Pounds and pounds of chocolate nibs (the small ones). Can you imagine the ice cream brownie sundaes I used to have?

Some seasons my parents would hire cooks, others they'd be the cooks. The hired cooks would make doughnuts many mornings, cake doughnuts of course. My bedroom was upstairs from the kitchen and I could smell them as they cooked. I'd come down, stick a finger in a doughnut, dredge it through the sugar next to the dozens of fresh hot doughnuts and mow down.

Last night's biscuits grilled on the griddle with butter.

A 100 year old, 35 room country inn to play in, including spooky attic, basement and equally old carriage barn, during the off seasons.

Of course, being in North Conway had its advantages for becoming a skier for life.

The down side was that during winter and summer (and a lot during shoulder seasons) my parents were busy with the inn in one way or another. A lot of meals were sans parents. During seasons we were open, you could tell the day of week by what was for dinner.
 
Last edited:

Pat AKA mustski

I can keep a Secret
Ski Diva Tester
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 15, 2015
Posts
4,871
Location
Big Bear, California
My dad was a project manager for Expo 67 and the 76 Olympics in Montreal. I got free tickets to both. I wasn't terribly impressed with world fair (Expo) as I was only 7 but I loved the 76 Olympics and went down every single day. I even had some friends competing in the diving and swimming events.
 
Last edited:

SSSdave

life is short precious ...don't waste it
Skier
Joined
Sep 12, 2017
Posts
2,516
Location
Silicon Valley
Was going to write no perks. But then recalled one significant brag I've never publicly talked about. I went to 11 different schools during K12 years that is a whole other subject. During the Apollo years I was in the USAF while my father was a rep for the contractor that made the astronaut's backpack. Note dad passed away in 1998. He would fly down to Houston and retrieve the backpacks for later company analysis. There was always tiny moon surface debris inside the plastic sealed pack so not a few people beyond official "Moon Rocks" provided for science studies, have unaccounted for Moon sand/dust souvenirs including my dave.
 

Scruffy

Making fresh tracks
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 16, 2015
Posts
2,429
Location
Upstate NY
I came from a long line of farmers and carpenters/cabinet makers (many did both for a living including my dad). In addition to my parents, I grew up with grandparents and uncles/aunts, all working together on two different farms. If you know anything about farmers you know they are jack-of-all-trades: mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, electricians welders, hunters, fisherman, animal husbandry, vegetable and fruit experts, businessman, food preservers, cooks, and the list goes on and on. Basically, you don't pay people to do things you can do yourself. So, in addition to learning and doing all the above, you learn to be a self starter, self educator, and have a keen sense of self reliance; those are the perks I learned from my parents and extended family. Of course, I didn't realize any of that as a young man. Oh, I was happy to have access to all the tools and shops/barns, and knowledge, ( and I took all that for granted when I was a kid :nono: ) but I didn't want their life. I wanted to do something different, so I went to college and got into high tech, but the lessons I had learned from my childhood served me well there. Except for the fact that I have the DIY sickness! I do everything myself so it's done right. Consequently, I have too many irons in too many fires...hahah. Someday I'll catch up, I swear :roflmao:
 

wiread

Out on the slopes
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Feb 1, 2021
Posts
487
Location
54942
My Dad was a builder, lots of log homes and lake houses. from 4th grade on i was going to worksites with him in the summers and doing some work, not full days or power equipment, but hauling shingles, boards a real go 'fer at the start. I got to spend a lot of time with my dad, but 8th grade I could do about any step in the process of building from concrete up to finish carpentry and plumbing pretty well. I didn't realize that would be a perk until later in life it was just a PITA I had to go "work" while my friends were doing something else at that time.

The real perk, i got to do a lot of fishing. 4th grade, "move that pile of lumber" when I was done there was a lot I couldn't yet and he'd just tell me to go fishing because we were always on a lake and most times the owners had some sort of canoe or row boat at the very least they'd let us use. I remember one summer we built a house on a little island in northern WI. I probably caught 10 bass everyday at lunch.

My dad traveled a lot so when i wasn't working with him, I didn't see him much. But sometimes we got to go with. mostly northern WI and MN, but also the Dakotas, CO, Built a monster log home in VA when I was in 8th grade. They put us up in cabin in the Shenandoah River Valley and I skipped the last 2 months of school that year. Really got to do and see a lot with my parents. The stuff we did was fun even though it was work related most of the time and later I realized how lucky of a kid i was having spent all that time with them.
 

Jim Kenney

Travel Correspondent
Team Gathermeister
Contributor
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 27, 2015
Posts
3,588
Location
VA
Another military brat (Navy), when I was five years old we lived on a US Navy base in Morocco about 50 miles from Casablanca. Some locals stole our dog's doghouse once, they were desperate for the wood.
:cattledog:

When I was in 4-6th grade we lived in a Navy base in California that had a theater that showed movies for 10 cents. We'd go to the movies every weekend and I saw four Sean Connery 007 films there.
james bond.jpg
 

Sponsor

Top