CLICK ON CLUB TICKET, LEFT, TO RETURN TO NEW ESSO CLUB

CLICK ON CLUB TICKET, RIGHT, TO RETURN TO ARUBA MONEY

 

ESSO CLUB TICKETS

By Dan Jensen

Taken from the book: CARIBBEAN MEMORIES by Dan Jensen
Esso Club Tickets.  I wonder why they were called Club Tickets.  Everyone called them Club Tickets, no one called them Club Money and that is what they were; money, the legal tender of Lago Colony that came in a little book we called Club Books.
Every adult man carried a Club Book in the top left pocket of his shirt.  It was always there, sticking out of his pocket protector, along with the pens, pencils and a ruler or slide rule.  All the tools needed to work at Lago, there in their top pocket, along with the money to spend at the Esso Club, the Bowling Alley, and anyplace else where you could buy things in the Colony, except the Commissary; there you give a payroll number and signed a little piece of paper. Most of the men also carried a small notebook with a reddish cover, filled with blank, ruled pages on which to make notes.  These little books had a black piece of tape along the book's back, covering the two staples that held the book together.
But we are talking about Club Books, not notebooks.
I know Club Books were money because my allowance was paid in Club Tickets.  Each Friday; when I was young, I received a two guilder Club Book.  They came in two, five, ten and twenty-five guilder books, but my allowance was only two guilders.  There may have been fifty or even one hundred guilder books but I never saw them.
I also never remember my allowance ever rising above two guilders.  In fact, I have little memory of any allowance, it was always being withheld, as part of whatever punishment I was receiving for having done something wrong or not having done something I was assigned to do, like feed the dog.

Discontinuing my allowance was always part of the punishment.  I didn't let the lack of an allowance stop me.  I started washing cars with Eddie Brewer and earned my own money.
Eddie Brewer and I washed cars and waxed at least one car every Saturday.  We charged two guilders for washing a car and twenty guilders for a wax job.  Often we were paid our two guilders in Club Tickets.  For wash jobs we were usually paid in real guilders, not Club Tickets, but we didn't care, silver, red paper guilders or different colored Club Tickets, to us it was all money, and we could spend it.
Club Tickets were great.  We used them to pay for the movies at the Esso Club, buy ice cream, milk shakes and hamburgers from the Esso Club soda fountain and we paid off our bets and purchased things from each other with Club Tickets, it was legal tender.
We even used Club Tickets to pay over-due-book fines at the library.  Birthday and Christmas presents, we received Club Books, they made a great gift.  Don't know what to give a teen-ager, give him or her an envelope with a Club Book in it, along with a card, don't forget the card.  I remember getting five and even ten guilder Club Books for Christmas and my birthday.  I wonder if the guy who thought up McDonald's Gift Certificates ever lived in Lago Colony.  The Youth Canteen took Club Tickets as well as the Forth of July picnics at the Picnic Grounds when they sold beer and soda.  When there was a softball game at Lone Palm stadium and the concession stand was open you used Club Tickets.  If the English folk in the Colony were playing cricket at Lone Palm they purchased Gin and Tonic's with Club Tickets.
Club Tickets were also nice to look at, they were many colored and a work of art with first class printing on top quality paper with a nice binding.  The books were the size of a check book and each individual ticket was about three quarters of an inch high and about two and a half inches long.  The Club Tickets were watermarked so they could not be forged.
You could not use real money at the Esso Club, you had to use Club Tickets.  You purchased the Club Books from the front desk at the Esso Club, either paying for them with cash, or, if you had your parents permission, signing for them.  This way they were taken out as a "Payroll Deduction".  It has the sound of losing control, like "automatic debit" from your checking account.  I was not allowed to sign, my Father knew I would lose control.  If I had been allowed to sign for Club Books my Dad's Payroll Deduction would have been greater then his salary.  He knew me pretty well.
One day Clyde Miller and I were at the telephone exchange, next to the Esso Dining Hall, which was across the street from the Main Office Building.  We were searching the Dempster Dumpster for telephone parts and cable. You can not believe what Lago threw away.  We were the original Bin Divers.
On this particular day the Dumpster was empty so we walked down to the Main Office Building.  It was Air Conditioned.
After cooling off we started exploring behind the Main Office Building.  There was a road in the back of he building and next to the road a coral cliff down to the water.  On the edge of the coral cliff we discovered what looked like a large, oversize oven.  The oven had a steel door on one end and a smoke stack on the other.  It was enclosed in a cyclone fence, but the fence was not topped with the usual three stands of barbed wire.  Weeds grew up along the fence and in those weeds we found Club Tickets.  They had been blown there by the wind, then trapped by the fence and weeds.  All the tickets were faded, some were half burned, some were whole and some only had the edges burned.  As we began to retrieve the Club Tickets we realized we had found a Gold Mine.
Then we realized that this was an incinerator, and they were burning the used Club Tickets.  The ones we found had blown out of the incinerator or got away while they were being loaded into the burner.
The gate in the fence was locked so we went over the fence, there was no barbed wire, and opened the door to the incinerator. It was full of singed paper, we pulled out letters, forms, canceled checks and IBM punch card and there in the smoldering mess were whole, unburned Club Tickets.  We were RICH!
An afternoon trip to the incinerator after school became a regular pilgrimage, to the land of free money.  Sometimes we found lots of Club Tickets, usually we found only business paper, but we never got discouraged, the search for Club Tickets continued until one afternoon.
I was at the incinerator, inside the fence, having climbed the fence, looking for free money.  An Aruban gentleman came out of the door from the back of the Main Office Building.  He was wearing a white shirt, white linen pants, a black tie and a white linen jacket.  He was carrying a large paper bag.
When he saw me inside the fence he stopped.
"What are you doing in there?" He asked.
"Looking for Club Tickets." I replied.
He unlocked the gate to the fence.
"You are not to be in here." He told me.
Then he smiled and showed me the contents of the bag he was carrying.  It was full of crumpled Club Tickets.  There must have been a thousand guilders worth of Club Tickets in that bag.  Maybe even a million, more Club Tickets than I had ever seen.
"Are you going to burn all those?'" I asked.
"Yes, I burn this many each week, sometimes, if there is a party at the Esso Club, I burn two bags full."
"You could give me a handful of those Club Tickets before you put them in there, no one would have to know.  I went on to tell the man I could sure use them.
"No", he said, "That would be against Company rules and you better get out from inside this fence."
The Company had a lot of rules.  I remember thinking, even in my youth; If I lived in the States I would be told; "It is against the Law."  But in Lago Colony it was: "It is against Company rules."
I watched in dismay as the man burned the entire bag of Club Tickets.  He was careful not to let any of them get away from him, they all made it into the fire.
I did go back to the incinerator on other days, but never found another Club Ticket.  The man must have been very careful when he loaded the incinerator or maybe he reported finding me to someone in the Accounting Office and another way was found of disposing of Club Tickets.
Whatever happened, it was a shame, because my standard of living declined after that.

RETURN TO NEW ESSO CLUB

RETURN TO ARUBA MONEY