This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

And to search for the All American Stories podcast, go to the IHeart Radio app or wherever you find your podcast.

Up next, we bring you a story that starts in my home state, and that is New Jersey.

While most of the world had no idea what the submarine

sandwich was back in the 1960s, one 14-year-old boy took a job making them at a

sandwich shop at the Jersey Shore in Point Pleasant New Jersey. Here's Peter Cancro

to tell his story.

The Jersey shore in the summer it became very, very busy, inundated with so many people from

North Jersey and New York, so the jobs were very plentiful.

So I started out, believe it or not, mowing lawns. So at the age of 10, I had three lawn mowing jobs, one that paid $3, $1,000,

one that paid $3.50, and one that paid $5. So in that year, that was big, big money, cash money.

Used to crawl underneath the boardwalk and pick up the loose change

that people dropped through the cracks,

made money that way, and then washed and clean cars.

And then the first job was at Mike Subs in 71. So as a 14-year-old.

My brother worked there the year before and told the boss, so look at my brother, I know he'll work hard, but I'm not sure

how bright he is. And so that's how I got the job.

Started out at $1.75 an hour. And I was going to possibly work at Hoffman's Ice Cream,

another mentor of mine, Bob Hoffman. He was going

to pay $1.50, but I went to Mike's for $1.75, and that was pretty good money back then.

I think the minimum wage, maybe it was like 80 cents back then, so friends of mine were making

...