CONTINUED: Time To Go

      Almost a year later Mina (she pronounced it MY-na) walked along Genesee St. in the bright sunshine of an October afternoon on her way back from school. A crisp rustling sound moved ahead of her as a breeze blew red and yellow leaves across the front yards and down the sidewalks of the homes she passed. She walked by pretty and inviting houses that looked to have fresh coats of paint and neatly trimmed shrubs. There were nice cars in the driveways. The lawns were a special shade of green this time of year when the sky shone down so blue and clear.

Sometimes she would see pretty and frilly curtains in an upstairs bedroom window that might mean a girl her age lived there, a girl who went up to bed at night after watching Desi and Lucy, first kissing her mother and father goodnight and giving her dog one last pat on the head. Her heart would ache with loneliness for the rest of the walk back. She crossed Hampden Place, a side street from which the greasy smells of Jean’s Beans and Fish Fry would come wafting down on Fridays. She loved that smell. It reminded her of Friday night take-out with her family.

Mina stifled a shiver and shrugged herself deeper into her sweater, holding it tightly closed at the neck. She thought of crossing the street to be in the sun, but if caught she would be spoken to for not following the exactly prescribed route back from school. The days were getting colder, but the coats hadn’t been given out yet to those who were without them. She didn’t like this route because it passed the theater where her mother had taken her to see movies all the time. Well, maybe twice, but these were now remembered as very special times. She came to King Cole Ice Cream and remembered her father bringing the family for cones one hot and humid night last summer after a picnic in Frankfort Gorge. This was before her world was destroyed by the fire. 

Mina neared the Uptown Liquor Store with a mixture of pleasure and dread. In the window she knew she would see a small cardboard sign on which a couple smiled out at her, holding drinks and each other’s hand. They looked very much like her parents. Each day since she had noticed it, Mina would stop for a while and stare at the cardboard display. But she knew a child could stand looking into a liquor store window for only so long before someone came out to speak to her or called the orphanage to report her.

This day, when she approached the store’s window, the sign was gone. She entered the store and asked the clerk if the picture-sign of the couple holding hands was to be thrown out. “It’s gone,” he said, “ probably somewhere in the cans out back.”

Mina ran around to the back of the building and looked through trash cans and old cardboard boxes. She found the sign and sat for a while staring at the couple that looked so like her parents. The printed cardboard was about one by two feet and thin enough to fit under her sweater, up under her chin. One end of the sign showed below the bottom of her sweater, but she would somehow hold her books very low to cover it up. She hurried toward the orphanage holding the sign against her beating chest. She would somehow sneak it into the building and up to the dormitory she shared with nine other girls and quickly hide it in her half of the dresser. She would conceal it at the bottom of a drawer under her socks and underwear and denims and play blouses, hide it from anyone who might tell on her. Then when the aloneness pressed in on her she could spread the clothes apart and look down at the couple holding each other’s hand as they smiled up at her. The memory of her mother and father was so much more vivid with the sign. Mina would feel them with her.

She resolved that if her secret were ever discovered, she would figure some way to keep the picture at any cost. If necessary, she would steal out of the building in the middle of the night and take it with her. She would never give it up. Her mother and father hadn’t given her up.

When Mina returned from the refectory after supper that evening, Sister Cliodhna (klee-UN-a) was standing at the dresser in the dormitory. The nun looked first at the girl and then into the opened drawer. Then she closed the drawer and took Mina by the hand to a room next door with a few upholstered chairs that was sometimes used by the visiting social worker.

“Mina, honey,” said Sister, “your mom and dad are never coming back. They’re up in heaven with your little sister.”

“I know,” said Mina, as she looked over the nun’s shoulder.

“Look at me, honey. We don’t allow pictures of the family … even pretend pictures … because you have to start a new life.”

“I know,” said Mina, as she continued to look over the nun’s shoulder.

Sister Cliodhna,continued to look at the girl and didn’t know what more she could say or do. She wasn’t convinced herself regarding the policy, whether it was right or wrong, helpful or harmful. But she knew that for Mina it was time to move on. “I’m going to let you keep the picture for a few days,” said the nun, “if you promise me to keep it a secret from everyone.” Mina agreed. “And you must promise that you’ll think about what I said and make sure the picture is gone from here before Saturday.” Mina shook her head.

The fall weather had begun in earnest as Mina sat in her classes on Friday morning. She was glad that last night the hats and coats had been handed out to those in need. The wind whipped the rain around outside and splashed it against the 4th grade classroom windows and the overhead lights were turned on against the gloom outside. She had had to bend the sign in two to fit it into the plastic book bag she carried on rainy days. The pretend picture couldn’t go back to the orphanage and Mina did not yet have a plan for what to do with it. She would not throw it out.

The rain let up during the afternoon and when school was out Mina headed back to the children’s home. She followed the prescribed route, but not precisely. When she came to the liquor store, Mina walked down the alley to the back and looked around for a place to hide the sign. Finally she settled on what seemed like a dry area underneath the small loading dock, up under a heavy timber. There she left the pretend picture of her mom and dad so she could gaze at it whenever she came from school.

Over the next few weeks she stopped every day. The spot under the dock was not as dry as she had hoped and the sign deteriorated more and more. The couple holding hands were now barely recognizable after being outside in the alley for so long. Eventually, Mina arrived one day after a windy rain storm and the poster was gone. She looked frantically around the back alley to see where it might have landed.

After a while, she gave up the search and sat down on the dock as the season’s first snow began to lightly fall. The smell of fried fish and french fries came to her from up the street at Jean’s Beans. She felt truly alone in the world. It was hard to let go of her life with mom and dad. She felt it was right to try to hang on. But she couldn’t.

Maybe the loss of the sign was for the best, she thought. The couple weren’t her real parents. Sister Cliodhna told her yesterday there was an older couple interested in having Mina come to live with them. Maybe she would have an upstairs bedroom with frilly curtains on the window.

Maybe the people would be as nice as mom and dad. Maybe, but she really didn’t think so. She knew that it could never be so. She looked around the alley as the snow continued to fall. She knew it was time to go.

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copyright David Griffin, 2007

The Windswept Press

Saugerties, NY

Write to me. www.windsweptpress.

CONTINUED: Never Again

When I raised my eyes again, I saw him deep inside his doorway, waiting for me, watching me.  When my courage began to falter, he knew.  Just when I was about to turn back, he stepped forward out of the shadow to show himself more clearly.  I recognized him by the shirt he wore, a popular style that year with large panes of pastels, blue and pink and yellow and green, colors I associated with safety the rest of my life. 

My father knew me well.  As a child,  I sometimes wondered if he read my mind.  Later in life I recognized we had almost identical ways of thinking and brooding, doubting and procrastinating.   Mentally, we might have been twins born thirty years apart.

Mostly, he left me alone. I wasted much of my youth in a manner that would scandalize any modern parent, intent as they are in ensuring their child's efficiency and productivity.  When I look back on my high school days, I see misty mornings and lazy afternoons, with time on my hands during the long stretch of summers.  The early hours of a day held so much promise, but my young fires burned hot and quick, leaving me drained, spent on myself.  There were myriad mornings in July and August when the hours lay before me full of interesting tasks … things to write, to draw, to plan, to accomplish.  As the day warmed and the katydids raised their whining voices in praise of the hot sun, I squandered my time, letting it seep away until I burned with disappointment.  And having wasted the morning, I would fritter away the afternoon, first in self pity and later dreaming about the wonderful day coming tomorrow and all the projects I would finish.

In the evening I crawled into bed and sleeplessly worried about tomorrow, doubting I would fare better in my struggle to be free of the ennui that gripped my young soul.  Always focused on a fuzzy point somewhere in the future, I neglected the present and the need to engage it, as though I was unaware of the obvious, that I would never be here again.  I seemed always to be somewhere else, not where I should have been.

My father didn’t push me.  I was fifteen before I wondered why he never complained about my lethargy.  Perhaps he remembered his own youth and knew I would survive, that inside me a small clock was set to ring at the right time.  And it did, although by then my father was gone. 

I was still a young man  when he died.  I stood beside his bed as he sighed for the last time.  His soul got up and left.  I felt as I had years before as a little boy when I sat  crying on my mother’s porch in the hot afternoon sun,  the whining katydids mocking me as I stared down the block and wished my father would come home.

And after a year he did.  But like everyone the world has ever held, eventually he left for good.

After Dad’s grave-side service, workmen stood by ready to roll up the fake grass and lower the casket into the earth.  I didn’t care if they waited all afternoon,  I wanted a few more minutes with my father.  I needed to say things to him I had neglected. 

I stood staring at the newly dug pit and discovered I had no words. I thought only of that early morning when he watched as I walked to his house, and how he stayed in the shadows until he was sure I couldn’t go on without a little help.  Of everything he ever did for me, I remember that as the most caring.

As a chilly spring wind blew through the rows of headstones,  I walked up and placed my hand on the casket.  To the east, the clouds broke on the horizon and scattered into pinks and warm greens and golds.  Inexplicably, I heard my father shout and I swung around to the west where his voice had come from.

In the distance, over the roof of the little chapel and beyond the tall pines that circled the cemetery,  I saw Eternity in a sunset emblazoned on a sky of deep indigo blue, and knew my father had gone there ahead of me. He was finally where he was meant to be. 

A majestic bank of purple clouds rolled up and away from the fiery sun and marched toward the blackness of clouds gathering above me. The harsh, dark colors spoke of danger, power, birth and death.  I tingled from head to toe with an exhilarating renewal of my spiritual nativity. A strong spirit like a woman beckoned me away from the pastel skies of my boyhood and pulled me towards a mature life, a tumultuous expanse of the heavens above and ahead.  I could have refused, but my psyche burst from my soul and my head spun with delirium at the possibilities to be lived.

Born in that moment was the day I call my adult life, a bright morning of promise and an afternoon of achievement, love, loss and a few times of failure.  I often forgot I had the same mind as my father, but with different opportunities.  Still, I would re-make many of his mistakes.  

As the years went by I seldom noticed the slanting sun telling me it was getting late.  The hours rolled on and on and seemed not to be numbered, but they were.

My life has now reached its evening and someday when the purple sunset rolls up to crown my journey, thundering upon me as a great cloud of blackness, I will dread it and I will have no words.  I will have to accept that it is finished and I must leave.  I will never be here again.  I will be elsewhere, finally where I’m supposed to be, but hopefully not where I deserve to be.

copyright 2011, David Griffin

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The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

dave@windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: theology

I held out the jar.  He looked at it and smiled, rising up from behind his beautiful desk, an old executive’s model probably saved from the dump in recent years.

God was sixty-something years old with gray hair and a paunch littered with pipe ashes.  He was well over six  and a half feet tall.  He just kept going when he stood up,  and I followed him until my neck clicked.    Resembling a  heavy-set Moses,  he would  have passed for a Charlton Heston, though he had less hair.

God looked down from his lofty height and regarded me with a face full of condescension,  He stalked around to the front of his desk and motioned for me to follow him to the florescent light cartons.  Here he allowed me the honor of dragging 500 light bulbs in their boxes over to the conveyor belt to prepare them for their trip to the shipping area below.  The belt ran at a steep angle down between floors and had to be loaded carefully. 

“Cock the boxes a little, like this,” he said, “so they don’t all slide off and crash when you get the belt moving.” 

While I worked, he bestowed upon me some of his encyclopedic knowledge of light bulbs, and droned on through their entire history since Edison.  This God loved light bulbs and everything about then.  As he talked on and on, I became less patient.

And I was in a hurry, to tell the truth.  I wanted to get back down to the office floor to watch blonde and blousy Belinda, the girl who answered the warehouse telephone.  When it rang, she would set her body’s poetry to motion.  She had a way of picking up the phone that just set my heart all a-titter.  As she raised  the instrument to her ear, shiny bracelets and bangles would slide and clang  as one lovely arm brushed across her bosom.   I liked that part.  She flipped her head and pulled her hair back to swing a four inch long earring out of the way.  And just before she said “Hello,”  … I swear I didn’t imagine it, even if I was seventeen … a tiny shrug would begin in her shoulders and flow down over her body.  With clinks and jingles, she greeted the no doubt surprised caller.   To me, her ritual was frankly erotic and might have been outlawed in an earlier time. 

Anyway ….. I was still stuck upstairs and God was beginning to bore me with his prodigious knowledge of lighting technology and his sermon on lumens and filament tensile strengths.  He paced around the floor as he talked, stooping to look out the various windows as though awaiting the return of a lost squad of angels.  He lectured about power ratings and glass safety and Underwriters Laboratories.  He said his biggest vexation was when stuff was left on the belt down on the dock.  It backed up his system.  ”God can’t deliver if the world isn’t ready to receive,” he said.   I hurried through my task without much attention to how I placed the cartons on the belt. 

When I could no longer stand his oration, I pronounced the loading task complete and interrupted his monologue. 

“So,” I said, “you’re the God of light bulbs?”  Turning hard eyes my way, he reared up to his full height and looked down on me.

"I am," he said, "the most senior employee in this company.  Mr. Lewis (the owner) was in diapers when his father hired me."

"Well, that's certainly very interesting," I said, as only a disinterested teenager could say it.

"And this entire business,” he said, “all the people in it, and now yourself included, appear to have no other purpose in life than to entirely piss me off."

"Well..." I began, in defense.

"Except for Belinda," he interrupted.  "She's a lovely girl."

"Yes, she's very...."

"I've seen you mooning at her.  Make one move toward that girl and I'll break both your legs and send you back down the conveyor belt where you came from."

Oddly, I was more impressed with his concern for Belinda than his bullying of me.  I simply nodded  and  left his presence.

The Lord Herb Almighty wasn’t the only employee with a biblical perspective.  The entire crew of men played out a farce all through the work day by speaking only to each other as you might imagine the Apostles did … at least on parchment …  always with a religious overtone or subtext.  I suppose I might have doubted their sincerity, but at that age I seldom questioned the motives of adults.

“Behold, His only begotten son,” Huey said of Gordon one afternoon.  And Louie would ask, “If I’m a worker in the vineyard, where is the wine cellar?”    But I more often heard biblical references to forgiveness.  “All blasphemy will be forgiven, except that against God,” Gordon told Dewey.  “Stop swearing so God damned much,” Hughie told Louie,

The Biblical bits and bites the men used no doubt came from Sunday mornings when their wives dragged them off to church.  They may have been unable or unwilling to accept the proclaimed precepts heard there, because the faith of their fathers had been warped by feminized Christian sensitivities a century before.  This was especially true of the music.  It was doubtful Gordon or his friends would have been  comfortable singing the hymn about “laying my head tenderly on Jesus’ breast.”  So the men cobbled together their own theology to suit the world as they knew it, a process not entirely different from that used by better known theologians.

On a cold afternoon as Christmas neared, the pace got very hectic.  I am still clueless as to why an electrical supply house got so terribly busy around the holidays.  God was thundering around up on the top floor and bellowing down the conveyer belt shaft, damning everyone to hell for all eternity.   Huey, Dewey and Louie were arguing and getting in each others’ way.    Gordon called us into his tiny cubicle.  We all took a deep breath and let our shoulders sag.  Opening a desk drawer, he brought out a Roy Rogers thermos jug, intended for milk in some kid’s lunch box.  Four shot glasses appeared and, excluding me, he poured a finger into each from the thermos that had Trigger’s picture on it.  As they lifted the tumblers, Gordon pronounced, “There is a spirit here that commands forgiveness.  We’re lucky to have it.  It is our covenant.”  As scripture citations go, that was close enough.  Huey said, “Thank you, Jesus.”  Louie said, “Thank you, Roy.”
 I grew accustomed to the men’s chatter and after a while I began to discern a shape to their banter.  They were certainly trying to get along with each other for eight hours a day, yes, but there was more to it than social grease. 

Later in the morning that Saturday, after having loaded the belt upstairs to the best of my lackadaisical ability, I descended from light bulb heaven back to the first floor, where I stationed myself at the foot of the conveyor belt on the indoor part of the  dock.  Crossing my fingers … an intemperate act for a Catholic … I pressed the button to start the conveyor belt.  As I stood waiting for the first box of bulbs to come down, I heard a thump above me, followed by a couple more thumps and then a lot of thumps in rapid succession.   Just as I heard the first crunch of breaking glass above me, an avalanche of boxes came down the belt out of the ceiling, breaking open and bursting out into millions of pieces of glass.  It happened so fast!  I stood there in shock as a Niagara Falls of florescent bulbs showered me from on high.

Gordon ran out of his little cubicle and stood with me among the destruction and debris.  Mr. Lewis came running, too, slipping on the tiny particles of glass strewn across the floor.

“My fault,” Gordon said to Mr. Lewis. “I guess I didn’t load the cartons as well as I thought I had.  We’ll clean this up.  There aren’t as many broken bulbs as it appears.”  Mr. Lewis harrumphed and turned to regard me.  I was trying to look like the most innocent of bystanders.  He spun around and stomped back to his office.

“Geez, I’m sorry, Gordon, “I said.

Gordon looked at me.  “Just think of me as the son of God, sent down to save your sorry ass.”

“Herb’s your father?” I asked.

“That’s what he tells me, Dave.  And he’s the biggest guy here, so I’m not going to argue.”

Over the years I’ve come to realize these young husbands and fathers, who were not especially religious, were working out their personal beliefs as they improvised an on-going religious skit,  performed as a kind of joke but staged on the more serious premise of locating themselves in the universe.   They had only a few years before seen their young lives through the lens of the Korean War, and often endured harrowing combat experiences.  Gordon and his crew … sometimes with the mature leading from “God” on the third floor, when he was behaving himself …  wanted answers and sought a prescription for living.  Not always consciously, the men hammered out  a theology … spelled with a small “t” … that made sense to them and helped to answer their questions and to ease their fears.   They somehow sensed their friendship  could be a sacrament … an outward sign of their regard for each other.  As well, they felt the human need for the mystical.   In the hurly burley of everyday work, even at home in the stressful affairs of heart and family, they yearned for peace and purpose amid the numerous klaxons demanding their attention.  In one way or another, they prayed their lives would not end in desperation.

The son of God and I were down on our knees behind the conveyor belt cleaning up the debris and were unseen by Belinda  when she entered the dock area, hiked up her skirt and tugged her stocking tops up where they belonged.  The most beautiful girl in the world within sight shimmied her skirt back down and then quickly returned to the telephone and desk inside, jingle-jangling all the way.  We had evidently discovered her secret dressing room, and I wondered what else she fiddled with during the course of her work day.

As our eyes followed her back through the door to the office I wondered how I might appease God and gain permission to flirt with Belinda.  I whispered,  “Does God ever grant wishes?”

Gordon turned from watching the girl and looked at me.  “Tomorrow, you could take him two jars of marmalade.”

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Copyright by David Griffin, 2007

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Everyone Is Selling Something

In the days before the "eggs" that are now sold with rolled up pantyhose inside, stockings came in thin white cardboard boxes lined with tissue paper.  Each pair had printed on the edge of the box the gauge; the color and the size.  When the customer would ask to see her desired choice; we would open the box;

fold back the tissue paper; slowly slip our hand inside the top of the stocking and gracefully show the sheerness of the gauge.  Displaying the stocking was an art and long fingers with lovely polished fingernails at the end of each digit was essential to show off Miss Johnson's stock.   While I had the nicely polished fingernails, I couldn't change the length of my fingers, and I suspect that is why I was moved into the sweater department where I excelled in form and deed.   There, I had no trouble displaying the beautiful colors;  keeping the stock in orderly piles when called upon to show it and explaining the merits of Wool over cotton....or over anything else. 

Jessie McGuire, was my Sweater manager, slightly older by two or three yrs. and six inches shorter.   She was what we would now call a dynamo except the word wasn't used in that respect then.  Miss McGuire was neatly packaged into a neat frame of  4'10".  She was a pretty curly headed brunette with blue eyes, extremely efficient and charming.  She caught the eye of all Arnold Constable's single male counterparts....even some who were not so single.  To make up for her short stature she balanced herself on three inch high heels and walked quickly over the mosaic floors.   (I can still hear the click click click of those heels as she passed between the Sweater and Blouse aisle, heading for the stock room where she took her break.) 

Salesgirls were not allowed to sit down behind the counter.  Indeed, there were no seats.  We had to be on our feet, always ready to answer any questions the customers had.  Talking to friends or relatives that came in to chat or to guys that came in to ask for a date, was strictly frowned upon so it had to be done surreptitiously while informing the "customer" of the quality and color of  Arnold Constable's newest wool cardigan.  Mr. Edgbert was the floor walker who kept constant vigil making sure we all played strictly by the company rules.   My sales experience of always being kind and friendly to customers was learned and highly developed within the walls of the Arnold Constable establishment, which proves you can always learn something valuable from every job - even from selling in a department store.    

A move to California to help in the Country's war effort ended my career with A.C. and I again took up my chosen profession of selling... but this time it was in a hole in the wall in the small town of Richmond, outside of San Francisco.  It was one shop really, divided in half, down the middle with a photographer on one side and a jeweler on the other.  I was the photographer but to call me that was quite a laugh because it was one of those places where you got five pictures for a quarter - or was it .50 cents?  There wasn't much selling involved.   I just had to place the customer on a stool, turn on the lights; stand by the small door and push a button five times; enter the door;  put the film in a solution and wait for the image to develop.  Our customer's were mostly from the armed forces and it was easy to please the boys.  No real selling, but a steady flow of customers and lots of fun!

A side benefit was what I learned in the art of selling from listening to the technique of the jeweler's wife, Stella.  She invariably looked at the watch coming in for repairs, and before giving any information as to why it didn't keep good time, her declaration was that it was dirty and had to be cleaned first.....".and that will be $14.95".  I suppose each industry has it's nuances but this put me wise in the years to come whenever I entered a jewelry store to be on guard for the standard response of cost repair.  

The war ended before we experienced a full year and our return trip back to the East coast was made without needing to use any gas rationing coupons.  Gas flowed from every pump at the gas station which was a welcome surprise!

Marriage and four children kept me in the hospital, the kitchen and the house over a span of some time but eventually my husband needed help with the finances.  I wanted to be an at home Mom so with  furniture and other goods supplied by relatives and friends I held garage sales which was a fairly new industry just starting up. The popularity of my yard sales was so great that at each sale we had to stretch a rope across the end of the driveway to keep the customers at bay until the appointed hour of opening.  Quite often there were 10 or more people waiting.  I would giggle behind the garage door thinking it was not unlike opening up Macy's Department store.   Selling and redistributing those things was easy but eventually I ran out of my own stock of collectibles and was then thrown into the business of Estate sales when friends would ask me to sell their things.  I usually took a commission of 15 percent... which was good money then.  My selling acumen reached fever pitch during this period and many chapters could be written giving the interesting experiences of trying to please both customers and owners.   It was often necessary and at the same time difficult to fend off buyers who wanted to come ahead of the pack with stories like this :  "My sister is having her kidney stone operation tomorrow ..... so could we see what you have for sale today?"   Needless to say, I learned to say politely that, "I advertised antiques and if I sold them the day before the sale, my ad would not be truthful...so please come back tomorrow."  And then there is always the question of:  " You are asking $15.00 for this, can you do better?"  Smiling, I would often say, "Yes,..... how about $15.50?"   One has to know just how to handle that question.   If the item is fairly priced one can hold steady but the trick is to size up the customer and know just when to fold and when not to fold.  It's a fun lesson of jovial repartee in dealing with buyers and I thoroughly enjoy the exercise.  

Real Estate was another try.  I joined a Century One Agency and listed one house - the lovey home of a dear friend who wanted to move back to California.  When the house sold a month or so later, as the listing agent I received a commission of  $900.   Wow!  "That was easy", I thought!   The check was signed by the manager of the branch and I gleefully went to the bank to cash it,  but it bounced!  I was told by the bank teller, that I could come back in a few days and try again.... OR.... I could go back to the Agency and complain.   I chose to do that but the "50 something" manager's young 23 yr. old wife was there  - 8 month's pregnant.   I was told to put the check in again on Tuesday.  I tried, but again the bank teller said there were still no funds there to cover it.  I knew I wouldn't stand a chance of getting my money by appealing to the law before a judge with the very pregnant wife in full view so I gathered my acting ability together and stormed the agency.  The lady owner was the only one in the office - no manager or wife.  Thrusting the bogus check before her, I gave an Academy Award performance announcing my intention of suing the manager, the owner AND Century 21.  She had no knowledge of what the Manager had done. ...so she said.  Whereupon I was told to come back at 7:00 pm and she would have the cash for me.  I arrived back at the exact hour and received all nine crisp one hundred dollar bills in a white envelope.   Thus I voluntarily ended my R. E. selling experience with that Century 21 branch.   What did I learn?   I learned it's not always easy to receive what was rightly mine, compensating me for my time and effort..... but I did enjoy meeting the public. 

After one Christmas season my husband fell into bed with the words that he didn't know how we were going to pay the bills.  We owed both Sears Roebuck and W.T. Grant over $100. each.  (Lots of money in 1965.)  I resolved to try selling (myself) the next morning and without telling my husband my plan,  I rose early, dressed after he left for work and headed first to Sears and the Manager's office.  His secretary did what secretaries do best.... she ran interference and wanted to know the nature of my business.   I gave her no explanation but stated firmly that I wanted to speak privately to the Manager.  Whereupon, after a few minutes of their consulting with each other, I entered the brightly lit office of Mr. Angelone.  He was a good looking Italian man, with rosy red cheeks about my own age.  He sat quietly behind his desk and listened to my story.   I poured it out.  I explained how my husband was worried at not being able to pay the bill and I wondered if I could work it off in some way in some department.  (Remember I had worked for Arnold Constable years before.)  He was so moved, I thought he would be reduced to tears at my very unusual proposal.  I sat waiting for his response.  It came.   He asked what I would like to do and I said, "I'll do anything."   He said, it just so happened that the Coffee Shop needed a night manager because the girls working there were giving away the hot dogs to their boy friends who came in after school.  He asked "Could you work from 5 - 9 each day?"   I was given the job on the spot and I left carrying a size #12, white cotton uniform to wear the very next day.   With joy, I raced home and skipped the thought of asking for a job at the the less attractive store...  W. T. Grant.  When my husband arrived home at the end of the day, he was very happy to hear my news.   After each pay day I marched into the Accounting office and handed over my pay check until the entire bill was paid off.   It only took two weeks.   At the end of that time they asked me if I would like to stay on and and so it was that I worked the next six months until the school year ended and I was needed at home.  In the Fall they asked me to come back and I did that working again until the next summer.  They asked me a third time for another six months, and at the end of that time they offered me the Full Managerial roll of the Coffee Shop.  However, I had to decline because the daughter that was putting the prepared meal on the table was going off to college in the Fall.  The next oldest child was a boy and altho he loved eating potatoes. he didn't know how to cook them.  There remained the youngest boy who was too young to set the table and do the dishes.  Ahhh.... but the lessons I learned during that chapter of my life were many including:  that Management valued loyalty, honesty and dedication.  

After being introduced to the Market Place, so many years ago, with all these challenges, selling our house of 44 years when downsizing was in order, was easy....not to mention selling the various cars that have passed through our lives (and garage) as well.  When you look around everyone is busy selling .... from the hardware store to the bagel store; from the car salesman to the funeral director; from the politician to the bartender; from the Medical Industry and their pills to the NRA and their guns; from the girl on the street corner to the big box stores; from the financial advisor to the guy with illegal drugs.....from eBay to Crag’s List...from television advertisers to gullible listeners......"Everyone is Selling Something"! 

copyright June T. Bassemir, 2016

CONTINUED: Dog 101

I’ll need a responsible job ... one that pays well and provides top notch benefits such as a cute little secretary of an esteemed breed.  Maybe a Collie for good looks, or a Chesapeake if I locate near the water.  Of course, a big Newfoundland would be comforting on cold winter nights.  And a German Shepherd would tear the heart out of anyone who threatened.  But come to think of it, a diminutive Chihuahua might add a little Latin zing to my life.

As usual, I’m ahead of myself.  Before I spend a lot of time contemplating what I want in life, I need to get ready for today’s world of win or lose, triumph or heartbreak, Winner’s Circle or Circle K.

Part of one’s preparation for a worthwhile life is of course a proper education.   I’ve read that college provides ample opportunity for eager-beaver students to witness adult men and women … the faculty ... make a comfortable living by doing mostly nothing.  But they do it with style.

“I’m thinking I’d like to do my undergraduate work at MIT,” I told Himself, “and then pursue my PhD and ongoing academic glory at Stanford and maybe wind up on the faculty of Princeton.”

He looked  down at his feet.

“We have possibly enough money set aside to send you to typewriter repair school.”

“What’s a typewriter?

“They were used before personal computers.  You can buy one real cheap today.  You can learn to fix them for even less.”

I could foresee an awkward moment some day in the future when my Curriculum Vitae was read off at the Nobel Prize ceremony and my only entry was Phil’s Typewriter School.

“You have no need for a technical or professional education,” Himself said.

“Why not? Let each become all that he is capable of being.”

  “Because no one is going to hire a university trained dog as a junior executive to analyze insurance forms.”

“You’re probably right,” I said  “But I was kind of hoping I could talk Home Depot into hiring me as an appliance salesman. I’m certainly personable.”

“But Murphy,” he said, “the only person who understands you is me.”

“We haven’t tried Berlitz yet,” I said.

“It may take more than that,” said the old man.

“But once I learn to talk like you and Herself, there’s no limit to my potential.  I could even become a TV Weatherman.”

 “So you could tell people who never go outside it will rain tomorrow.”

“Well, yeah ...”

“For thirty years, every night. ‘Temperatures moderating over the delta, periods of

rain likely ...’”

I had to admit it. “That does sound pretty boring.”

“Anyway,” said Himself, “you do have a few talents that might be put to use.  Maybe as a  Nanny for a suburban family.”

“I don’t like most of the children I’ve met.” I said. “If I could tie them up and hide them in the cellar that  might work for me.”

“Or how about a therapy dog …” he said, his voice trailing off as if he was sorry he mentioned it.

“I think people just need to get over it,” I said.

“Murphy, perhaps you need an education in the humanities that is tailored especially for anyone who is not intellectually inquisitive.  A plan for someone who will navigate through life without a great deal of precision.”

“Where could I go to school for that?” I asked.

“Right here. You needn’t leave home.”

“You mean a correspondence school?”

“Not exactly,” he said, “although much like it.”

“I don’t know.  I was kind of looking forward to all those campus activities I’ve read about.  Those that tickle a young man’s fancy and do just about the same for a dog.”

“You mean “booze, broads and mini Coopers?” he said.

“No,  I meant sleeping late, skipping housework and being irresponsible.”

“Yes,” he said.  “You’d be good at that.  Do you like Chinese?”

“You know I like any kind of food.  Or garbage.”

“I think,” he said, “everything in your universe, everything you need to know, you will find on the paper slips found inside fortune cookies.”

“Really?”

“Yes, listen to this gem: “A smile is your passport into the hearts of others.”

“That’s pretty astute,” I said.

“And this one: “Change can hurt, but it leads a path to something better.”

“Wow,” I said.  “I’d sure like to be able to quote sayings like that.”

“I propose we have take-out two or three times each week and you can memorize your fortune cookie lesson each time you eat the cookie.”

“And that’s a proper substitute for classes, books, term papers and final exams?

“Yes, for you it is,” he said

“What about Beer Brawls,  fraternity smokers and all night beach parties?”

Himself raised his eyes heavenward and sighed.

“No,” he said. “You’ll be too busy with your studies.”

So I feel a lot better, now that I have education plans in place. I’m to be taught by the finest scholars of the current dynasty, the People’s Republic of China.  I have to hand it to the old man.  He almost always has a solution for any problem. 

A couple of my friends outside the fence scoffed at the plan to educate me with Fortune Cookies.  Billerica the Boxer asked  why not just memorize a Chinese restaurant menu.  “Because,” I told her, “if asked about the cause of modern mankind’s social dilemma, I certainly would not want to answer  “General Tso’s Chicken.”

Hudson, the Airdale Terrier,  said I should be concerned about my triglyceride levels.

And so today, for lunch we went down to Mr. Chow Wu’s take-out:

Chow’s Hot Chow

Wet Drinks Our Specialty

All Food Must Go.

I got the Sweet and Sour Pork and the  first lesson of my academic career.  I cracked open the cookie and rolled out the slip of paper.  I’ll share it with you since it may apply more to you than me.

Your shoes will make you happy today

I should have it framed and hung in the corner of the kitchen where I do my homework. Maybe I’ll use it someday in the opening of my Nobel acceptance speech.

http://www.fortunecookiemessage.com/archive.php

Paws are not very useful for holding and writing with a pen or pencil, so I dictated this to my man-servant here ... the old fellow who insists he owns me like some kind of pet.

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copyright, 2016  David Griffin

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

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