He later worked as a “hop” at the Crescent Laundry on Second Street. Customers would pull into the parking lot, and Jim Burnham would pick up their dry cleaning and give them a claim ticket.
But the money was always greener on the other side of the block. When he was a sophomore at Lanier High School, he marched over to the Grand Theatre (now the Grand Opera House) and applied for a job as an usher.
“It was a better paying job,” he said. Then he laughed. “I got 33 and a third cents an hour.”
