The first job I never had

Congratulations, graduates! And deepest condolences

To those of you graduating from college around now, I say this: If you think job prospects look dismal, you’re right.

But my generation survived a tanking economy too. And I’m here to show that one man, if he works with fierce commitment to achieve his goals and is willing to make enormous sacrifices, can actually realize those dreams.

Unfortunately, I’m not that man.

The U.S. job market was ridiculously tight when I graduated. The oil crisis — yes, we had one then too — had ushered in an era of stagflation, something economists worldwide thought was practically impossible.

Unemployment hit a 30-year high of 9 percent the month I finished school.

It was also the Watergate era when it seemed every other undergrad was switching majors to journalism. My talented friends found jobs, mostly covering sewer boards and utility commissions in small Florida towns.

Within a couple of years they had worked their way up to bigger, better papers, cooler beats, columns and editorships.

If I could’ve skipped the years of grunt work, that career path would’ve greatly appealed to me. But I had saved up a couple of grand from leftover bar mitzvah gifts and ice cream soda jerk wages. Instead of sending out résumés, I decided to try freelance magazine writing for a while.

First, though, I needed more life experience. So I went on vacation.

When I returned to Gainesville, where I’d been going to school and working at the Alligator, the student-run daily covering the University of Florida, several of my friends were unexpectedly preparing to move south.

A rough-edged shrimp boat captain in the Florida Keys had decided to start a weekly newspaper and had driven 450 miles north to recruit a four-person staff from the Alligator newsroom.

Artist’s rendition of the new publisher

I’d already been talking with two of them about starting a magazine after graduation. Our enthusiasm for that idea had waned, but now there was this new adventure, and they invited me along.

A week later we were sharing a house in Marathon, setting up production equipment and learning the Keys.

The first big story we came upon was Mel Fisher. For years, Fisher and his seafaring family had searched for the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a Spanish treasure galleon believed to have sunk near Key West in a 1622 hurricane carrying silver, gold, emeralds and priceless artifacts from Spain’s American colonies.

In good times and bad, Fisher always repeated the same mantra: “Today’s the day.” That’s a strong core belief I recommend to you job-seekers. Any day might be the day.

After all, we’re all searching for our own kind of treasure, aren’t we?

Fisher’s crews had already been recovering silver bars, gold chains and emeralds from the seabed for years, but in July, 1975 his oldest son and closest collaborator, Dirk, discovered nine bronze cannons weighing a ton and a half each, bearing serial numbers and foundry marks identifiable from Atocha records.

They had finally confirmed the wreck site. The search intensified.

Early on July 20, I headed out to Key West with Acey Harper, our art director, to do a feature on Fisher and Treasure Salvors, Inc. We had barely crossed the Seven-Mile Bridge when we heard on the radio that Dirk Fisher, his wife and another crew member had drowned when their boat capsized overnight.

After years of Mel Fisher pulling treasure from the sea floor, the ocean had taken something back.

We got to Key West just as the recovery boat came in. I photographed Mel sobbing inside the cabin while crewmen carried the three covered bodies onto the pier.

We wired that photo and one of Acey’s to UPI, and they ran in newspapers around the country.

For weeks afterward, our paper stayed on the story. One piece we ran about the State of Florida fighting with Fisher over the treasure’s exact value ran with the headline, “Scrutiny on the Bounty.”

Mel Fisher, in happy times

Not only did we become adept at covering the Keys, we also learned how to produce a newspaper from scratch — design pages, set type, haul layouts to the printer, even distribute copies all over Marathon.

We did pretty much everything but sell ads.

Unfortunately, the shrimper-in-charge wasn’t doing much of that either, which is why after four issues, he summoned us to his office down the street, paid us off and told us to get lost.

Wait, did I say “us”? Actually, he paid my friends, but in all this life-changing excitement, I had neglected to negotiate an actual employment agreement. He reminded me of this not with words, but by physically shoving me aside after handing my friends their cash.

And so I learned the final lesson I’d like to pass along to today’s graduates: Find work you love so much you’d gladly do it for free, but don’t let the boss know that until after you’ve agreed on the paycheck.

As for the rest of you, those who long ago secured gainful employment can help me continue mining these columns from the depths by upgrading your subscriptions below.

Somebody’s gotta keep this operation afloat.