WHEN I WAS A LOOPER

by Gina

One of the many jobs I held as an undergraduate was Looper.

"Looper" sounds exciting. The word conjures images of aerial acrobatics in a bi-plane, or at least the common college passtime of getting looped. The reality was more mundane.

Loopers, essentially, make loops. We make them by twisting little pieces of wire. In other words, I made junk jewelry.

For those unfamiliar with the terms, there is "fine jewelry," which includes the high-priced diamond and platinum kind of stuff, then there is "junk jewelry," made with less expensive materials. "Findings" refers to the little pieces of wire and other materials that go into every necklace, earring, etc.

I worked for a company called Odyssey Creations in a windowless basement rank with sulfur fumes. Copper findings take on the appearance of antique gold when boiled in sulfur water. We were paid by the piece -- ranging from $0.15 for a pair of earrings to $0.30 for a complicated necklace -- so everybody worked intensely, looping as fast as humanly possible. Once you got the hang of it, you could make $5 an hour or more, decent wages for the early '70s. We weren't paid extra for new designs, but I'd create new pieces on occasion when I couldn't stand making the same old things a moment longer. After a few months, I could reach into a vat of earring wires (the little hooks that go through the holes in pierced ears) and pull out the exact number that I needed, six, three dozen, whatever. I would see heaps of beads and findings every time I closed my eyes. We worked with rosary pliers, small needle-nose pliers with a built-in wire-cutter. The wire would be threaded through beads or decorative metal pieces, looped, then attached to a chain or earring wire. Boring repetitive work. We had a tape of James Taylor's Sweet Baby James that we would play over and over again. I'm a steamroller baby. Yeah.

So what did I learn from this job that helps me as a writer? Aside from the technical terms defined above, I learned that creativity helps fight the boredom. I learned to sit in one place hour after hour, concentrating intensely. In other words, it helped me to develop "bum glue."