From the Fall of '65 took the bus from the corner of Old Lee Highway and 236 through the Circle and Old Lee Highway all the way through Falls Church to DC with all the kids who took public transportation to O'Connell the only Catholic High School and all the Government workers....over Key Bridge to Georgetown and past the Circle to walk a couple blocks up 17th to the Corcoran School of Art in the Corcoran Gallery a block from the White House and next to the DAR. Drawing teacher was Mr. Schmutzart (sp after all these years) who was still there in the 1980's when my friend's daughter went to the Corcoran. Design teacher was Joan Carol who had been Carol Channing's college room mate and had great stories of New York and whose specialty was theater stage design.
Lunch was up 17th past a restaurant where Washington luminaries held tables can't remember the name but personalities like Art Buchwald and other Washington glitterati held daily sway. The doormen there made sure we art students didn't accidentally get in... to another restaurant that did allow us in with Petra Fischer whose mother was NATO and who had gone to school with Lucy Bains Johnson. Petra was beautiful but very small chested and did not like Lucy because when they were 11 or 12 Lucy said "why I've been wearing a Brawl (bra) since I was 10 years old" copying Petra's German accent copying Lucy's Texas accent....or the Campus Club a block or two away on the George Washingtron University Campus area for the most delicious hamburgers cooked over an open fire on rolls thick and wonderful... .it was here we took Kahlida Baeg when Indira Ghandi came to town and her entourage would pass by the Corcoran because she was Pakistani and her father was Assistant Ambassador and hated Indians..the two countries had been warring for centuries...in the Spring we would take bag lunches and eat in the park at the back entrance to the white house and tourists would take pictures of us.
Nightlife was the Crazy Horse on M, or an invitation to The Ambassador's birthday party at the Ghana Embassy, or Dupont Circle and the first of the Anti Viet Nam War propaganda I ever saw, and Miss Meekka and the other "ladies" (remember, Allan)...exciting to an 18 year old from Fairfax....but mostly the Campus Club for me and my pals and Matt Cain's Little Bit of Ireland for the soldiers we worked with at Woodies 7Corners from Arlington Hall.....or most especially The Journey Inn which was our home away from home the summer of 1966.
I loved DC.
Post Script: My friend Ralph Cherry has let me know that the restaurant by the White House was the San Souci.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
MENDOCINO
In June for several years running Rod and I accompanied family on trips to Fort Bragg on the north California coast camping and fishing and abalone diving. The first couple of years we came up from our South San Francisco home where we lived under the marine layer of clouds and fog and wind and were used to it but our relatives from the north Sacramento Valley came to the coast from temperatures in the hundreds and this was a great relief to them.
We towed our twenty foot Grady White the John Frederick with us and took it out salmon fishing and had great fun taking our grandson and nephews out on the ocean. I handled the wheel while Rod manned the downriggers and helped the boys. If someone yelled "fish on!" you had to get out of the boy's way as they rushed the poles. Rod would get the biggest kick out of this. We used to take our Grandson with us all the time and he was a great sailor and never got seasick Rod says probably because young people don't know they're supposed to. I used to love fishing the Mendocino coast because you only had to go out two miles to be in deep water.
While we were salmon fishing others of our group were diving for abalone a sea mollusk that is absolutely delicious. They went out about a quarter of a mile and dove in about 10 to 15 feet of 48 degree water on a low tide over the rocks where the abalone grew wearing wet suits and flippers and snorkel gear and a weight belt to help them not be so buoyant. An abalone knife for prying them loose from the rocks and a sack to put them in completed the rig. Every time you see a picture of a sea otter lying on it's back opening a shell this is what they are feeding on. When our nephew Robbie was young he used to swim out with an inner tube with a net strung over it and he'd swim back and forth and dive with each of his kids. The one thing you really had to be careful of is Great White Sharks as this is their domain.
After a couple of years we left the Grady White home and took the Zodiac a seventeen foot rubber boat that was Rod's first boat. It could hold all the divers, their gear, and the catch at water level and was easy to dive from. One time Rod decided to dive, too, as he did when he was a young man and went over the side after setting the anchor wearing the weight belt he used for gold dredging in the Feather River (which is another tale for another time) and the weight belt was too heavy and not adjusted for the ocean. He started to go down and he would have never come up. They would have found him drowned had not Robbie, a big strapping handsome boy not grabbed him and unbuckled the belt which promptly sank to the bottom. Robbie helped Rod back in the boat and retrieved the weight belt for him and still got his limit of abalone. All this while Bobbi, his wife and I are sunning ourselves on the beach and picking up shells and completely unaware of the drama.
Back at camp with their catch the guys all set to cleaning the abalone and taking mallets and pounding them till they are thin and tender for cooking. You coat the steaks in egg and roll then in crushed cracker crumbs and salt and pepper and fry them up in olive oil about three minutes to a side. With all the other things we've brought with us from gardens and our home kitchens we have a wonderful feast. To let you know just how special abalone is Rod and I were a Duarte's in Pescadero and they had it on their menu. Abalone Sandwich $45.00.
In the evening we sit around the campfire in warm jackets and talk and laugh and tell stories. When the kids were real young they'd run around the campsite playing but as the years passed and they became teenagers and young adults they had their own great fire to sit around. Mendocino and Fort Bragg have wonderful antique/novelty shops and restaurants for other distractions on a long weekend. Halcyon Days.
We towed our twenty foot Grady White the John Frederick with us and took it out salmon fishing and had great fun taking our grandson and nephews out on the ocean. I handled the wheel while Rod manned the downriggers and helped the boys. If someone yelled "fish on!" you had to get out of the boy's way as they rushed the poles. Rod would get the biggest kick out of this. We used to take our Grandson with us all the time and he was a great sailor and never got seasick Rod says probably because young people don't know they're supposed to. I used to love fishing the Mendocino coast because you only had to go out two miles to be in deep water.
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| ROD AND ROBBIE TAKING THE GIRLS OUT FOR A DIVE |
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| BARBARA, BOBBI, AND ME WAITING ON THE BEACH |
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| THE BOYS BACK AT CAMP WITH THEIR CATCH |
In the evening we sit around the campfire in warm jackets and talk and laugh and tell stories. When the kids were real young they'd run around the campsite playing but as the years passed and they became teenagers and young adults they had their own great fire to sit around. Mendocino and Fort Bragg have wonderful antique/novelty shops and restaurants for other distractions on a long weekend. Halcyon Days.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
STORIES TO TELL WHEN YOUR OLD
If you don't have experiences when your young how will you have stories to tell when your old:
Like flying out of San Carlos CA in a little Cessna 150 heading out over the coastal hills to fly over Half Moon Bay and up the coast in the evening. Flying over the Golden Gate Bridge on a clear night the cars on the bridge and the lights of San Francisco are twinkling and so beautiful. I'm helping Rod watch for other air traffic as we don't want to fly into anything. Over the San Francisco Bay across to Oakland to Livermore and the Red Baron a "fly in" restaurant for dinner. Cross winds and turbulence prevented us from putting the plane down and it almost felt like we were hovering there on the approach to the runway like a helicopter forever. We've flown in here a number of times for dinner so tonight we head back across the Bay to San Carlos and end up having dinner at the restaurant in the Sheraton on the Peninsula.
Like the time we were flying on employee passes on United out of Washington Dulles and we stood by but didn't get on any non-stop flights to San Francisco and our only hope was a direct flight through Denver. There's non-stop flights and connecting flights which are two different planes and two different flight numbers... but there's also what we call direct flights which are flights that may make a stop but it's the same flight number and plane all the way to the destination. There's also change of gauge flights that I might explain at some other time but they don't relate to this story. Well, we stood by for the direct flight through Denver and got on and just before the plane landed they announced from the flight deck that this plane which was scheduled to go on to San Francisco after the Denver stop was going to Colorado Springs instead so they dumped all us standbys and paying passengers out at Denver. There was only one flight left to San Francisco from Denver left that evening so we all hoped we would make it... Rod and I and all the other employee standbys who were hoping to get back to the Bay Area that night. The plane that was going to San Francisco was coming from Seattle and the only passengers on the flight was the Denver Broncos who had played Seattle that day. I don't know who won or what but we stood there watching all the Broncos deplane and they were HUGE. The flight was delayed because the Broncos had trashed the plane and they had to clean up the mess. It wasn't looking good for us because the flight was a full flight out of Denver and the gate agents advised all us standbys that there was a flight into San Jose we could probably all make and then we could carpool in cabs up to San Francisco Airport to pick up our cars. Rod and I decided if we didn't get on we would try for the redeye out of Denver back to DC and arrive for the early non stops to San Francisco the next morning so we continued to stand by for the San Francisco flight while all the other standbys went for the San Jose flight. It's a good thing we did because we were then the only standbys and we got on in First Class and finally made it home that night.
Like pulling into the dock at Pillar Point after salmon fishing all day on the Pacific ocean and Rod tells me to get in the bow of the Grady White to jump off and tie the boat to the dock as we pull in only there's someone on the pier I hand the rope off to and he holds the boat for Rod and ties her up. I think I can step off the front over the rail and don't realize how high up I am so what I do is crawl over the rail and land flat on my back on the pier it's a wonder I didn't fall in the water.
Like boat camping on Lake Shasta. We're pulled into a cove and Rod has tied us up in the middle and we've stored everything in the cabin after dinner and blown up the air mattress to sleep in sleeping bags on the deck under the stars. You feel so close to eternity because without city lights the stars in the night sky are so clear. We've got a tape in the little TV we've brought with us and we're settling in in the dusk cause night falls real fast on the lake. Our poles are still in the rod holders with the line pulled up and secured when we hear a jetski come into the cove and a female voice calling out "Oh fishermen, aren't you worried about your poles?" When we hear this our heads pop up and we startle this poor girl and she heads out of the cove exclaiming "Oh, I'm so drunk". Don't know what she expected.
Like the next morning when Rod releases the ropes so we can pull into the bank to go up into the woods to do what everyone does in the morning after coffee and he pulls into the bank for me to step over the bow to jump down only as I go over my right heel catches and I'm hanging there with my hands clenching the rail and my arms stretched and my heel caught on the rail like a ballerina with the highest kick in the world and I'm yelling for him to push my heel off it's stuck and Rod's looking at me with huge eyes. Finally he lifts my heel off the rail so I can drop down but when I come out of the woods back to the boat he's turned it around so I can step over the back into the boat. Whew.
I just read this to Rod and he smiled and said "Hopeless" and I smiled and said that's what my family calls "Doing a Sandy".
Like flying out of San Carlos CA in a little Cessna 150 heading out over the coastal hills to fly over Half Moon Bay and up the coast in the evening. Flying over the Golden Gate Bridge on a clear night the cars on the bridge and the lights of San Francisco are twinkling and so beautiful. I'm helping Rod watch for other air traffic as we don't want to fly into anything. Over the San Francisco Bay across to Oakland to Livermore and the Red Baron a "fly in" restaurant for dinner. Cross winds and turbulence prevented us from putting the plane down and it almost felt like we were hovering there on the approach to the runway like a helicopter forever. We've flown in here a number of times for dinner so tonight we head back across the Bay to San Carlos and end up having dinner at the restaurant in the Sheraton on the Peninsula.
Like the time we were flying on employee passes on United out of Washington Dulles and we stood by but didn't get on any non-stop flights to San Francisco and our only hope was a direct flight through Denver. There's non-stop flights and connecting flights which are two different planes and two different flight numbers... but there's also what we call direct flights which are flights that may make a stop but it's the same flight number and plane all the way to the destination. There's also change of gauge flights that I might explain at some other time but they don't relate to this story. Well, we stood by for the direct flight through Denver and got on and just before the plane landed they announced from the flight deck that this plane which was scheduled to go on to San Francisco after the Denver stop was going to Colorado Springs instead so they dumped all us standbys and paying passengers out at Denver. There was only one flight left to San Francisco from Denver left that evening so we all hoped we would make it... Rod and I and all the other employee standbys who were hoping to get back to the Bay Area that night. The plane that was going to San Francisco was coming from Seattle and the only passengers on the flight was the Denver Broncos who had played Seattle that day. I don't know who won or what but we stood there watching all the Broncos deplane and they were HUGE. The flight was delayed because the Broncos had trashed the plane and they had to clean up the mess. It wasn't looking good for us because the flight was a full flight out of Denver and the gate agents advised all us standbys that there was a flight into San Jose we could probably all make and then we could carpool in cabs up to San Francisco Airport to pick up our cars. Rod and I decided if we didn't get on we would try for the redeye out of Denver back to DC and arrive for the early non stops to San Francisco the next morning so we continued to stand by for the San Francisco flight while all the other standbys went for the San Jose flight. It's a good thing we did because we were then the only standbys and we got on in First Class and finally made it home that night.
Like pulling into the dock at Pillar Point after salmon fishing all day on the Pacific ocean and Rod tells me to get in the bow of the Grady White to jump off and tie the boat to the dock as we pull in only there's someone on the pier I hand the rope off to and he holds the boat for Rod and ties her up. I think I can step off the front over the rail and don't realize how high up I am so what I do is crawl over the rail and land flat on my back on the pier it's a wonder I didn't fall in the water.
Like boat camping on Lake Shasta. We're pulled into a cove and Rod has tied us up in the middle and we've stored everything in the cabin after dinner and blown up the air mattress to sleep in sleeping bags on the deck under the stars. You feel so close to eternity because without city lights the stars in the night sky are so clear. We've got a tape in the little TV we've brought with us and we're settling in in the dusk cause night falls real fast on the lake. Our poles are still in the rod holders with the line pulled up and secured when we hear a jetski come into the cove and a female voice calling out "Oh fishermen, aren't you worried about your poles?" When we hear this our heads pop up and we startle this poor girl and she heads out of the cove exclaiming "Oh, I'm so drunk". Don't know what she expected.
Like the next morning when Rod releases the ropes so we can pull into the bank to go up into the woods to do what everyone does in the morning after coffee and he pulls into the bank for me to step over the bow to jump down only as I go over my right heel catches and I'm hanging there with my hands clenching the rail and my arms stretched and my heel caught on the rail like a ballerina with the highest kick in the world and I'm yelling for him to push my heel off it's stuck and Rod's looking at me with huge eyes. Finally he lifts my heel off the rail so I can drop down but when I come out of the woods back to the boat he's turned it around so I can step over the back into the boat. Whew.
I just read this to Rod and he smiled and said "Hopeless" and I smiled and said that's what my family calls "Doing a Sandy".
Sunday, September 9, 2012
THE CEDAR CHEST
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| Mom and Dad on their wedding day August 25, l945. |
The cedar chest was a hope chest. In it she put the sheets and linens and treasures she was saving for her marriage to her own true love. That was my Dad who was her first cousin's pen pal. When Dad came to finally meet Mae he found she towered over him but Mom was just right. This was okay with Mae because Dad introduced her to his friend Warren and they became a couple. Dad and Mom and Mae and Warren were close friends all their lives.
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| My guest bedroom and the cedar chest. |
When United Airlines transferred my parents to San Francisco in 1966 the cedar chest stayed with Linda and eventually became her three boy's toy chest. When she and her family moved to Phoenix AZ in 1979 she left it at my Grandmother's house on Popes Head Road in the basement where it stayed for years. Dad retired from United Airlines in 1978 and Mom and Dad returned to Virginia to the house on Popes Head. In 1994 when Rod and I became engaged after dating cross country for four years I transferred from United Air Lines Washington Reservation Center to the San Francisco Reservation Center and I took the cedar chest with me. United allowed me 500 lbs. of personal possessions which they flew out for me for free. Rod and I were married June 24, 1995 in a ceremony at our home.
I just had Mom's cedar chest repaired and refinished this year. It sits at the foot of the bed in my guest bedroom and holds linens. I treasure it. As for the bedroom set Mom bought at the same time as the cedar chest with the money she made from her first job my parents still owned it at the end of their lives. Momma passed in 1998 and Daddy in 2009.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
ME, NOW
When did I grow up? When did I grow old? I'm five years younger than Grandmother when Mom threw her a birthday party for her seventieth birthday and she passed at seventy-six. I'm seven years younger than Mom when she passed at seventy-two. She didn't even live as long as her mother and the last four years of her life she was incapacitated by a stroke. I don't feel old and the person looking back in the mirror looks pretty good but I'm careful not to look too close.
It seems all my life I was waiting for life to happen and guess what, it just did, whether I participated or not. It's not the life I thought about when I was young. I don't even remember now what I expected because I've been living a catch-up life since I was twenty. I was raised by a family believing in all the things you were taught in church and by a great Mom and Dad and still being a human is a hard job. I would tell any young person now if you get yourself in a situation where you're trying to make a misstep turn out right to just relax and don't push things past no looking back. The consequences may not be as bad as you think and may even be an unseen blessing. Strange how things can turn out that way
It seems all my life I was waiting for life to happen and guess what, it just did, whether I participated or not. It's not the life I thought about when I was young. I don't even remember now what I expected because I've been living a catch-up life since I was twenty. I was raised by a family believing in all the things you were taught in church and by a great Mom and Dad and still being a human is a hard job. I would tell any young person now if you get yourself in a situation where you're trying to make a misstep turn out right to just relax and don't push things past no looking back. The consequences may not be as bad as you think and may even be an unseen blessing. Strange how things can turn out that way
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
WORKING AT WOODIES
When I was living at home in Fairfax and studying art at The Corcoran School of Art at 17th and New York Avenue in Washington D.C. in 1965/66 I started work at Woodward & Lothrop at 7Corners the Friday after Thanksgiving. Everyone called it Woodies and it was my favorite store. My Department Manager whose name I can't remember now forty-seven years later was kind enough to keep me employed after the Christmas holiday was over and I talked my best friends at The Corcoran into coming to work at Woodies, too.
There was Jackie Oberst who was small and red haired and who had been working part time at a cleaners in Vienna where she lived. Jackie worked in the Preteen Girls Clothing on the third floor. Jackie was in love with a boy named Bill and her favorite song was Laura Nero's Wedding Bell Blues...."When will you marry me Bill-il I got the wedding bell blue-ues".
Stephanie King lived in Arlington and had worked at Penny's in Clarendon and at Woodies worked on the fourth floor. This is where toys had been at Christmas but I don't remember what Stephanie sold I think it was kitchenware. She had taken over for Dana Cox who had been a year ahead of me at Fairfax High School and who left to go back to college. Stephanie was tall and blond and very pretty and her Mom was a beautiful red haired Irish woman.
Khalida Baeg lived off Columbia Pike near Annandale and her father was Assistant Ambassador at the Embassy of Pakistan. This was back when Pakistan was East Pakistan and West Pakistan and physically divided by India and before it separated and became The Republic of Pakistan and The Peoples Republic Bangladesh. I don't know exactly which part of the country Khalida was from. She worked as a floater working in different departments where needed but her favorite spot was Men's Furnishings (clothing and accessories)! She was very beautiful with dark eyes and long black hair and wore the costume of her country which was a long tunic with leggings and a long scarf around the neck unless she was working at Woodies, there she had to dress "American". Khalida was Moslem and betrothed since childhood to someone she had never met. Having lost track of her I wonder now how that worked out. She was becoming very Americanized.
Stephanie talked a friend of her's, another Sandy who lived in McLean, into coming to work with us, too. We had two other Corcoran friends whose names I can't now remember who worked one at Woodies Landmark, a brand new shopping center, and one in a shopping center in Maryland. The girl who worked at Woodies Landmark became a flight attendant for Eastern Airlines the next year. We'd get on the house phone and talk to each other instore and interstore at the other branches. All of us who worked at Woodies 7Corners would catch the bus together from Washington and ride to 7Corners. I think all buses and roads led to 7Corners at that time.
Along with my friends from The Corcoran we worked with several young soldiers from Arlington Hall. I can't remember their names now but one was a salesperson who dated Stephanie, and one was Security who dated the other Sandy, and one left for Viet Nam who had dated me. I feel awful I can't remember his name.
Woodies was four floors at 7Corners. The top floor was china, crystal, linens, and cookware and had the offices, cashier, The Virginia Room which had a stage, employee cloakroom, restrooms, and lounge. On the second floor was all women's apparel for every age and had an entrance from the upper parking lot and an entrance to the upper mall. On the first floor was Men's Furnishings, shoes, lingerie, fabrics and sewing, jewelry, and an entrance from the lower parking lot and an entrance to the lower mall.
The basement was budget clothing for the whole family, shoes and hats, etc. and I worked there in women's sportswear. My manager used to let me dress the manikins in my department and I really enjoyed this. It was a pleasure to sell a customer the outfit that I had put together. Ronnie Funderburk worked on my floor in the shoe department and his dad was the Superintendent of Fairfax County Schools. During the weeks up to Easter a friend from Fairfax High School came to work, too. Sherrie Boyd was now Sherrie Brown and was expecting. She was so cute. A Funny thing is she had interviewed with me at The Corcoran and was accepted along with me and it was her dad who had been the one to take us to our interviews. She fell in love and didn't start classes with me the fall of '65 but now had met my friends from school.
The wrap and send desk was in the basement and every floor had a portal where they would send merchandise down a huge spiral funnel to the wrap desk for post or delivery and all this merchandise ended up coming right out on the wrap desk. Our friend from security decided he was going to "surf the tunnel" and notified the ladies and set up a date and time so he wouldn't scare or hurt anyone and no one blabbed. At first he joked he was going to ride an ironing board but instead rode a huge piece of cardboard from the top floor all the way to the basement wrap desk. It was an event! No one got in trouble and was the talk of all our friends for weeks after.
Back in those days department stores were open till 9:00PM on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays only. Every other night they closed at 6:00PM and were closed on Sundays. I worked 6-9 three days a week and all day on Saturday. Sometime in 1966 they started staying open late on Monday thru Friday but still closed at 6PM on Saturday and were still closed on Sunday. This gave me a lot more hours and that meant more money. I think I was making $1.35 an hour. I had been working in a restaurant before coming to Woodies and I always had money because of tips even though I was only making $.50 and hour waitressing.
Working at Woodies was a lot of fun. I think about those friends from long ago and wonder where they are now and if they think about me and our time together, too.
There was Jackie Oberst who was small and red haired and who had been working part time at a cleaners in Vienna where she lived. Jackie worked in the Preteen Girls Clothing on the third floor. Jackie was in love with a boy named Bill and her favorite song was Laura Nero's Wedding Bell Blues...."When will you marry me Bill-il I got the wedding bell blue-ues".
Stephanie King lived in Arlington and had worked at Penny's in Clarendon and at Woodies worked on the fourth floor. This is where toys had been at Christmas but I don't remember what Stephanie sold I think it was kitchenware. She had taken over for Dana Cox who had been a year ahead of me at Fairfax High School and who left to go back to college. Stephanie was tall and blond and very pretty and her Mom was a beautiful red haired Irish woman.
Khalida Baeg lived off Columbia Pike near Annandale and her father was Assistant Ambassador at the Embassy of Pakistan. This was back when Pakistan was East Pakistan and West Pakistan and physically divided by India and before it separated and became The Republic of Pakistan and The Peoples Republic Bangladesh. I don't know exactly which part of the country Khalida was from. She worked as a floater working in different departments where needed but her favorite spot was Men's Furnishings (clothing and accessories)! She was very beautiful with dark eyes and long black hair and wore the costume of her country which was a long tunic with leggings and a long scarf around the neck unless she was working at Woodies, there she had to dress "American". Khalida was Moslem and betrothed since childhood to someone she had never met. Having lost track of her I wonder now how that worked out. She was becoming very Americanized.
Stephanie talked a friend of her's, another Sandy who lived in McLean, into coming to work with us, too. We had two other Corcoran friends whose names I can't now remember who worked one at Woodies Landmark, a brand new shopping center, and one in a shopping center in Maryland. The girl who worked at Woodies Landmark became a flight attendant for Eastern Airlines the next year. We'd get on the house phone and talk to each other instore and interstore at the other branches. All of us who worked at Woodies 7Corners would catch the bus together from Washington and ride to 7Corners. I think all buses and roads led to 7Corners at that time.
Along with my friends from The Corcoran we worked with several young soldiers from Arlington Hall. I can't remember their names now but one was a salesperson who dated Stephanie, and one was Security who dated the other Sandy, and one left for Viet Nam who had dated me. I feel awful I can't remember his name.
Woodies was four floors at 7Corners. The top floor was china, crystal, linens, and cookware and had the offices, cashier, The Virginia Room which had a stage, employee cloakroom, restrooms, and lounge. On the second floor was all women's apparel for every age and had an entrance from the upper parking lot and an entrance to the upper mall. On the first floor was Men's Furnishings, shoes, lingerie, fabrics and sewing, jewelry, and an entrance from the lower parking lot and an entrance to the lower mall.
The basement was budget clothing for the whole family, shoes and hats, etc. and I worked there in women's sportswear. My manager used to let me dress the manikins in my department and I really enjoyed this. It was a pleasure to sell a customer the outfit that I had put together. Ronnie Funderburk worked on my floor in the shoe department and his dad was the Superintendent of Fairfax County Schools. During the weeks up to Easter a friend from Fairfax High School came to work, too. Sherrie Boyd was now Sherrie Brown and was expecting. She was so cute. A Funny thing is she had interviewed with me at The Corcoran and was accepted along with me and it was her dad who had been the one to take us to our interviews. She fell in love and didn't start classes with me the fall of '65 but now had met my friends from school.
The wrap and send desk was in the basement and every floor had a portal where they would send merchandise down a huge spiral funnel to the wrap desk for post or delivery and all this merchandise ended up coming right out on the wrap desk. Our friend from security decided he was going to "surf the tunnel" and notified the ladies and set up a date and time so he wouldn't scare or hurt anyone and no one blabbed. At first he joked he was going to ride an ironing board but instead rode a huge piece of cardboard from the top floor all the way to the basement wrap desk. It was an event! No one got in trouble and was the talk of all our friends for weeks after.
Back in those days department stores were open till 9:00PM on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays only. Every other night they closed at 6:00PM and were closed on Sundays. I worked 6-9 three days a week and all day on Saturday. Sometime in 1966 they started staying open late on Monday thru Friday but still closed at 6PM on Saturday and were still closed on Sunday. This gave me a lot more hours and that meant more money. I think I was making $1.35 an hour. I had been working in a restaurant before coming to Woodies and I always had money because of tips even though I was only making $.50 and hour waitressing.
Working at Woodies was a lot of fun. I think about those friends from long ago and wonder where they are now and if they think about me and our time together, too.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
WHERE'S PUMPKIN?
Yesterday we were getting ready to drive down to the Bay Area as Rod had doctors appointments. Just after noon I said to Rod let's get Pumpkin and Miss Mosby and put them in their carriers to take them out to Dr. Burnham's who will board them for the weekend then we'll come back and get ready to go. Mosby was in the pantry, of course, so we knew where she was but this began the search for Pumpkin who was nowhere in sight. Rod checked the garage, the out buildings, the chicken coop (no chickens in residence but the cats like to go in there.), the pump shed, the pool yard, under all the vehicles, front porch and back porch, and every room in the house. He searched everywhere and couldn't find him so he came back inside and helped me pack and we got everything ready to leave.
Now we're ready to go and we start searching for Pumpkin again. Repeat the above with me walking around everywhere calling at the top of my voice over and over again : Pumpkin, Pumpkin! Pumpkin, Pumpkin! As I round the fence into the front yard Rod, who is outside too, waves me over to the garage apron and points to a chair that I have a chair cover on and lo and behold what do I see? Sticking out from under the chair cover is a long fluffy orange tail. Rod lifts up the chair and there's Pumpkin hiding 'cause he knows something is up!
Linda at Dr. Burnham's was happy to see Pumpkin.
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