Mesa Musings:

My wife, Hedy, and I went out for breakfast the other morning.

A woman, whom I would estimate to be in her mid-to-late 20s, waited on us. She was incredible, but obviously and seriously underemployed. Yet she exhibited no attitude, no resentment and no sullenness. The job wasn’t beneath her best effort. She was wonderful to her customers.

Now, I don’t wish to generalize about serving, which is an honorable profession. But lots of people are underemployed in today’s economy. People are doing what they have to do to get by.

This bright young woman may have been a college student, maybe a single parent; or perhaps she was supplementing a spouse’s income. I didn’t ask. But she was doing what she had to do. And doing it well.

I’ve been there.

When I was discharged from the Army at 22, I enrolled in college. I went for a couple of semesters and worked part time at a paint store in Santa Ana. I moved in with some buddies.

My GI Bill benefits and meager salary covered my expenses.

Then, I made a mistake. I married on a whim, and was soon managing a household. Because of financial difficulties, school became impractical for me. I dropped out and went to work full time at the paint store.

I was miserable. I was 23, working with one guy my age and a bunch of guys who were at midlife and beyond.

“What are you doing here, kid?” they would ask. “This is a dead-end job. Is this what you want to do with your life?”

It wasn’t.

I listened to them as they told stories about their pre-paint store exploits. Exaggerated tales spewed forth in the break room. One guy had been an FBI agent — or so he claimed. I loved listening to his “stakeout” adventures. Another had been a corporate executive, but had fallen into a bottle and never recovered. He sometimes slept in his car behind the store.

A third had owned his own business. A fourth had been a chef, and two others were retired Marines.

Now, they were hawking paint, spackle and wallpaper paste. For that matter, so was I! I was associating with some fairly hard-bitten guys with names like Jack, Joe, Frank and Woody.

I harbored a chilling fear that I might someday end up like them — trapped.

There was a female cashier who worked at the store, Terry. She was a mom type, a real sweetheart. “Jimmy, get back in school,” she’d admonish almost daily.

One day, my parents visited the store and watched from a distance as I waited on a customer. I was embarrassed. I felt like I’d let them down.

Because the store was close to Costa Mesa, I’d occasionally run into a former Costa Mesa High School classmate. I hated that.

They’d usually say something like: “Gee, Jim, I never pictured you working in a paint store.” Yeah? Me neither.

In the summer of 1967, a buddy of mine returned to Orange County after graduating from film school in San Francisco. He was scraping for work, so I got him a part-time job at the paint store. He lasted a week.

“I’m over this,” he told me one night as he headed out the door. He never returned. I envied his independence.

But working with those great guys — and, yes, they were great! — changed my life. They served as mentors. They convinced me that I didn’t want to reach 40 and discover that I’d never found out who I was. Living vicariously through others’ “war stories” wasn’t living.

We downsized our apartment, I found a job where I could work nights and weekends, and I returned to school full time in 1968. I graduated three years later, then completed a master’s degree. I was blessed with a 36-year career in higher education.

I’m now retired.

The guys I worked with at that paint store are likely all gone now. I miss them. I have this mental picture that, if I drove to Santa Ana this very afternoon, I’d find them still together, even though the building they inhabited was knocked down a decade ago.

Jack, Joe, Frank and Woody taught me about life. Too bad I never thanked them.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.