Summer jobs etch a place in the soul, long after those high school or college years end.

I can still sense the chilly, gooey feel of raw chicken livers, floating in their own juices, waiting for me to wrap them in bacon and secure it with a toothpick. During my stint at that hotel restaurant, I wrapped so many livers that if their chicken donors remained alive, they could’ve filled every guest room in the place.

At 16, those bird organs just seemed like gross, gelatinous party concoctions for intoxicated adults. Now, I realize that restaurant kitchen job, which I kept for two years, educated me. I learned that earning a paycheck wasn’t always a bowl of cherries — it could be a tray of cold livers. I also gained a new, first-hand admiration for my parents’ ability to live their work ethic and lead a family.

The job gave me gas money, too.

Those first working summers are “a really important time for young people,” said Mitch Daniels, a labor market economist for the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

Unfortunately, landing such jobs may be tougher this summer than any year since 1948. Nationwide, only 1 out of 3 teenagers (16- to 19-year-olds) will be employed this June, July and August, according to estimates by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. Indiana and Illinois — once national leaders in teen employment — have been hit hard. Illinois’ summer teen employment rate fell to 45.6 percent in 2006-07 from a robust 58.9 percent in 1999-2000 — the seventh-greatest drop among all 50 states. In that same span, Indiana’s glittering rate tumbled to 42.5 percent from 61.7 percent, a 19.2-percent decline — the second-largest in the United States.

The summer of 2008 won’t be any easier, especially in the Wabash Valley, battered by layoffs and $3.85-a-gallon gas prices.

“I don’t think it’s likely to be that good, because of the [plant] closures that have occurred,” said Bob Guell, professor of economics at Indiana State University, “and people that normally wouldn’t be willing to do the jobs high school kids or college kids do, might be willing now because of the economic situation.”