... and, in the case of Bud and me, impossible. Bud had moved back in with his grandparents when we split up, but discovered that living on his own was preferable, so he and Eddie (you remember Eddie from the clock company) got an apartment together in Perry Hall, MD near Bud's grandparents. When Tim and I went our separate ways, he got an apartment in Cockeysville, MD,which was not near anything except three million other apartments. I'd never seen such a conglomeration of apartment complexes jammed together in one spot. Cockeysville was truly Yuppie Town, USA. I moved to a complex in the Fullerton area with easy access to the interstates. The job I had taken at the brick factory was on the south side of the city in an industrial section call Brooklyn Park. The entire area went from lower middle class blue collar to indigent and ghetto or worse. Every day I drove through the Harbor Tunnel (the only one that existed in 1980) to get to work and to get home. It was a nightmare even on the rare days when there were no accidents in the tunnel. However, I still preferred living on the north side of town. I had worked too long and too hard to get away from the poverty and squalor I had known as a child, and I was not gonna take any steps backward just for the convenience of being close to my job.
I dated some after Bud and I split, but my heart wasn't really in it. I just didn't "click" with anyone. It hardly seemed worth the effort, and I hate that part of dating when you have to get to know each other. It's so phony and uncomfortable. Based on the packages of condoms I found in the glove compartment of Bud's precious Malibu, I'd say he did a little dating too. I guess it didn't work out so well for him either, because though we no longer lived together, we never actually quit seeing each other. Shortly after we split, we attended the World Series together. Hey, we already had the tickets and I was excited to be going to my first (and as it turns out only so far) World Series. Just because we had split up, I didn't see any reason why we couldn't act like civilized people and go to the games together. At least up until I got walking pneumonia, and Bud had to go to the final game without me. We also had some friends who were getting married and had asked us to stand up for them. Well, just because we weren't together any more didn't mean we could bailout on our friends. So we attended the wedding together. Then, of course, there was the time the doctor said I had mono. Then he said I didn't have mono. Then he said I did. I don't know whether I ever had mono or not, but I do know I was horribly ill. So who do ya call? The Budster! He came to my apartment and picked up my prescriptions and took them to the pharmacy and went to the grocery store and got me milk and beer and bread and soup and stuff that I might eat if I got desperate (I still wasn't much for feeding myself). Then we sorta started dating again. I'd spend the weekend at his place, or he'd spend the weekend at mine. I guess we were together again, just in separate places.
Then a really odd thing happened. Somehow, that charming man Wayne Carr lost control of the clock company. I didn't work there any longer and Tim wasn't my roommate any longer and Frank had fallen in love with a terrific young woman and was getting married, so I was way out of the loop as far as happenings at the clock company went. But, Wayne was out and Frank and Tim were still in. One of the first things they did was call Bud and ask if he wanted to come back to work for the clock company. This made Bud one of the happiest men on the planet, and he immediately quit his job at the insulated glass company and went back to Daneker Clock Company as a supervisor. As I said, I was out of the loop, so I'm not really sure about the timeline of these events. I know Bud went back to the clock company, but I don't know when. I know Frank got married in early May, but I was unable to go to the wedding as that was the same time the doctor couldn't figure out whether I had mono or not and I was too sick to go anywhere. Tim was Best Man at Frank's wedding. We all loved his new wife, Susan. He picked a winner his second time around, though I honestly believe she picked him.
Bud and I were pretty much seeing each other exclusively again, though we kept separate apartments. The brick factory was hit by some hard times and was experiencing major layoffs. It was obvious with the union work force getting smaller, the need for supervisors would decrease as well. I was low man on the totem pole. But, as it turned out, I had an ace up my sleeve I didn't even know about. The General Manager had somehow discovered I had administrative experience and they needed someone to manage the union SUB (supplemental unemployment benefits) pay for the laid-off workers. It seemed none of the women in the office could make head nor tails of the system. He asked if I thought I could figure it out. Ta da! I transferred from the factory to the office in less time than it took to blink. The SUB pay system was incredibly involved and completely convoluted because it was based on regular unemployment benefits as well as time employed and position and myriad other minor technicalities. However, I tamed the beast in relatively short order and created a niche for myself. If you think working with blue collar union people is difficult, try dealing with them when it's about money! Sometimes I was not the most popular person on the company campus, but I was the most fair. Even if it took me hours to explain why a certain person only got a certain amount, I never gave up until I saw the little light bulb come on inside his or her head.
Bud and I joined a bowling league together with some of the people from the office at the brick factory. One night when we were driving home after bowling, I looked up and saw a sign for the Harbor Tunnel. I'd seen that sign hundreds of times since I drove that route almost every day. But this time it sent a funny little chill down my spine. I shivered and Bud asked what was wrong. I told him I didn't know, but I'd just got the strangest feeling soon we would be looking at these road signs differently. He asked what I meant and I said I wasn't sure, but I thought it meant we weren't gonna be living there much longer.
The Daneker Clock Company had run its course. All our hard work had only delayed the inevitable and it was dying a slow and painful death. No one wanted to give it up, but there was nothing left to be done to save it. Now when Bud went to work, it was to help put the poor old dog to rest. But Frank and Tim had another idea. They still wanted to make high end, superior quality grandfather clocks. They went in search of someone with money, willing to invest in a new venture. The old clock company couldn't be saved, but starting a new one from scratch just might work. They found some interested investors and presented the plan. Lo and behold, they bought into the idea and Sovereign, Ltd. was born. Frank and Tim went to North Carolina in search of a place to make clocks. High Point, NC was the center of the furniture industry and as the company would need skilled furniture craftsmen, the Triad is where they searched. They found an abandoned factory in Greensboro, NC that had recently been used by the Ridgeway Clock Company and made arrangements to take possession. Several of the production supervisors and most of the administrative staff decided to make the move to North Carolina. Only a few important people stayed behind, so the company was off to a good start from the beginning. In October of 1980, Bud moved to North Carolina. I remained in Maryland and did not, at first, have any plans to move, though I resented his going further south (though not closer to the beach) and leaving me behind.
Almost every weekend when he could get away, Bud made the six to seven hour drive back to Baltimore. He wanted to see me, of course, but he also wanted to keep in very close touch with his grandparents. It was a good thing the state of Virginia did not have a reciprocal agreement with North Carolina at that time, because Bud got so many speeding tickets in Virginia. He would never have been able to move there because they would have either thrown him in jail or refused to issue him a drivers' license. However, those tickets were never reported to North Carolina so he never got any points on his license. Things sure are different now. Each time he came back to Maryland he told me how great North Carolina was and how much he missed me. He wanted to talk me into moving without it appearing as if he was talking me into moving. Men! But, the job I had carved out for myself in the office at Harbison-Walker was slowly disappearing as the layoffs lasted longer and longer and the SUB pay started to run out. It was obvious I wasn't going to find another magical safety net under me when the bottom fell out this time. So, I told the folks at Harbison-Walker I was leaving at the end of the year, and I let Bud think I had decided on my own that I wanted to see what was going on in North Carolina.
We planned my move for December 27, 1980 -- Bud's 24th birthday.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Three bean salad
The end of 1978 saw Tim's apartment lease and my apartment lease come up for renewal. Bud and I were now both working closer to Baltimore City and were looking at apartments in that area. Tim said it didn't matter where he lived since he was on the road constantly and wondered if the three of us might share a place. His thought was it didn't make a lot of sense for him to pay full rent for an apartment to store his furniture and clothing if he wasn't going to be in it very much. And, he would enjoy living closer to the city on the occasions when he was at home. So in January, Tim and Bud and I moved into a brand new two-story townhouse in a suburb of Baltimore called Parkville, Maryland.
When Tim had originally been hired by the clock company, he was brought in as Plant Manager. He had been working as Assistant Plant Manager for U. S. Furniture Industries in High Point, NC and his employment history was all in production. At the clock company, Tim was in charge of production but reported to the Vice President of Production. We had a clock show coming up in Scranton, Pennsylvania and one of the sales reps (that guy named Million I dated for awhile) and I were going up to handle the show. I was the Barbie Doll in this case, even though I did know enough about the clocks to actually sell them. My purpose was to be there and look pretty to attract male buyers. Yes, I know how chauvinistic that is, but hey, it works. We took Tim along to help load and unload and setup and dismantle the clocks. Tim and I were the only ones who sold clocks that weekend. Million tried valiantly but struck out, whereas Tim struck paydirt. Turns out Tim is a natural bullshitter and could sell ice to Eskimos. He had so much fun messing with the buyers' minds, and jerking them around in circles until they were so dizzy they would agree to anything. I, on the other hand, merely smiled (yes, I know I'm not normally a smiler -- it wasn't a normal situation) at the cretins and told them how many women would be drawn into their stores by our beautiful handcrafted clocks. I don't mean to insinuate all male buyers are jerks, but many of them are. You use whatever works best. Tim, of course, immediately realized he had missed his calling and upon returning to Maryland convinced the "powers that be" to let him try working in sales for awhile. He was an immediate success and eventually ended up as Vice President of Sales. He has been in furniture sales from that time forward.
We crammed all my junk from my apartment and all Tim's junk from his apartment and whatever junk Bud had (he had not yet had his own place) into a three bedroom unit. Space was at a premium, but we made it work. We selected an interior unit, thinking the end units would be more costly to heat and cool. That was a good thought. Unfortunately, when we moved in, the building was new and no one lived on either side of us. It was January in Maryland. It was cold! The first heating bill almost had us ready to move out. Fortunately, once we got the place heated, it didn't cost as much to keep it that way, and we soon had neighbors on both sides to provide radiant heat from their units.
We quickly settled into a routine. Monday through Thursday, Bud and I were there alone. Bud was working four-day weeks, 10 hours per day. I was working five days a week, 8 hours per day (sometimes more). When I left the clock company I worked as a temp for awhile. One of the places I worked was at the Exxon Corporate office in Towson, MD. This was during the first gas crisis, when gas prices changed daily (unlike hourly as they did in the latest crisis) and lines and rationing were the norm. What a mess! Then I took a full-time job as a corporate headhunter. Surprisingly, I did reasonably well at this job, but I had a hard time living with myself. What I did wasn't exactly illegal or immoral, but it made me feel a little slimy and kinda like I needed to take another shower. Tim, being in sales, was able to set his own hours, and decided since he was on the road from early every Monday morning, he would come back into town on Thursday night whenever possible and use Friday to catch up on his paperwork. That meant Bud and Tim were almost always home alone on Friday while I was at work. On weekends we usually had house guests; friends from out of town and whoever the femme du jour was for Tim. Tim went through women the way I go through books. He never had any problems with "breaking up" because there was never enough of a relationship to break. Somehow, he managed to remain friendly with almost all of them. Bud and I often needed a program to keep up with players.
To say our life was a bit unusual would be an understatement. Tim's mother was horrified we were "living together". I tried to explain to her we weren't living together, we were roommates; Bud and I were living together. I'm not sure she ever understood the difference, but she finally conceded it was good there was someone there to look after her son. Oh, if only she had known, she would have died. Tim was doing quite well financially, and Bud had a steady, good paying job (more about Bud and his money later). We often went to Carney Crab House, which was a short distance from our townhouse, and ate bushels of steamed crabs and drank gallons of beer. Sometimes we went sailing with Frank who owned at 27' sailboat and loved to sail the Chesapeake Bay. We regularly went downtown to the inner harbor simply to be near the water. I did not capitalized inner harbor because at that time it was not a proper noun. In 1979, the inner harbor consisted of mainly deserted and decrepit warehouses and hundreds of wharf rats the size of dogs. There was an old man with a pushcart who sold hot dogs and beer, and there was the wonderful aroma of spices in the air from the McCormick Spice factory still operating nearby. One day Tim's current girlfriend and I walked out to the edge of the landing in the harbor. There was a boat with four guys cruising by and when we stuck out our thumbs they came over and offered us a ride. We laughed and explained we actually were there with two guys, but the four in the boat said to get them and we'd all go. So the four of us hopped on the boat and these guys took us for a cruise around the harbor. They offered us beer, and then took us to a dive on a nearby island where we all played pool and ate and drank some more beer. Then they dropped us off where they had picked us up and went on their way. What a hoot!!! The Inner Harbor is a proper noun now, and a great place in and of itself. It is still a destination every time we return to Baltimore, but as the saying goes, "those were the days".
Because Tim and Bud were so flush (and I was holding my own), they started accumulating bottles of sparkling wine (which at the time was still allowed to be called champagne). We drank a lot of it, but we had bottles stuffed in closets, under love seats and sofas, in the pantry, in dresser drawers. It was truly comical, but never let it be said we weren't prepared for visitors. When we moved out a year later, we found some of the bottles we had somehow missed during the fun. Unfortunately, we also found shriveled up fruit and vegetables left over from one of our food fights (all in fun). Apparently, we didn't have any vermin to eat the stuff (thank goodness), but that's a surefire was to attract some. In February of 1979, Baltimore had a blizzard with over 20" of snow. We were all housebound for three days. Well, let me clarify that a bit. None of us could get our cars out for three days. After the first day, it appeared we might be running out of wine for dinner so Tim and I bundled up and walked a mile or so to the wine store. We didn't like the selection at that store, so we trekked another mile or so to another store. We found a good selection there and made our purchases (enough to last several days), then hoofed it back to the townhouse. After all, if we weren't going to be able to get out to go to work, we had to have something to keep us occupied. I'm not sure if it was the same snowstorm, or another one, but one of Tim's friends from NC named Greg came to visit. Greg drove a 10-wheel drive military truck he named Butch. Butch was able to drive through anything, and he did. There was not a snowdrift in the liquor store parking lot capable of stopping Butch, so our trips for wine were a little easier while Greg and Butch were visiting.
Since I worked on Fridays and neither Bud nor Tim did, they would often do household chores to help out. They always did all the cooking and usually helped with the cleaning, but on this particular Friday they decided to help with the laundry. As I mentioned earlier, we crammed 2½ apartments worth of stuff into our townhouse. That meant mucho many linens and towels and such. Having been in the military, I knew how to fold things very small in order to fit into tight places. Even at that, our linen closet was overflowing. When I got home from work on this particular Friday, Tim was headed up the stairs with a stack of freshly laundered towels, sheets and underwear. I glanced at him and offhandedly said "You can't put those away like that", meaning, of course, it would never fit. He stopped, looked at me, said "oh, okay" and came back down the stairs, opened the front door, and threw the entire pile of clean laundry out into the snow. After I got over the shock, I asked him exactly what the Hell he thought he was doing. He answered something to the effect of since I told him he couldn't put them away like that, he didn't. I was furious, but the boys thought it was hysterical. They said they had been "slaving" all day to get the place cleaned, get the laundry done, and get the dinner cooked, so I would be able to relax when I got home. But, what did I do when I got home? I criticized. This is not at all true, but they didn't want to see it my way. I picked the laundry up out of the snow (which was still clean), refolded it, and put it away. To this day, neither Bud nor Tim will fold laundry, using this absurd scenario as their excuse. Lame! Really lame!
When I realized I could not be an Executive Recruiter any longer, things started to go downhill in my relationship with first Bud and then Tim. When Bud had originally moved in with me, I told him he didn't have to worry about rent or utilities since I had already been paying them myself. I did ask him to contribute toward food (as I never was much for feeding myself) and to pay for his long distance calls if he made any. Bud actually resented the fact that I made more money than he did. Hello? I had been in the working world significantly longer than he, I was not a factory worker (though he was skilled), and I had paid my dues coming up through the ranks -- something he had yet to do. When I left my job at the Personnel Agency, I was without income for the first time in my adult life. I mistakenly thought since I had "carried" him for awhile and since we were in a relationship, he would pick up the slack until I could get another job. WRONG! He was of the opinion that his money was HIS and he hadn't agreed to be paying all this other crap. Talk about a rough way to discover you're in love with a piker. We had numerous disagreements about this subject and it finally culminated in my asking him to leave. According to his grandmother (who almost never forgave me), she had never seen anyone with such a broken heart before. Well, I'm truly sorry I hurt him, but he had hurt me too.
Around the time Bud left, I found another job, this time as a supervisor in a factory that made refractory bricks. I was totally out of my element. These guys were members of the United Steelworkers Union and I was the only female supervisor. I loved it. It was so unlike anything I had ever done. I wasn't afraid. I guess I should have been; some of them were more than just mean. There were gunfights in the streets where they lived. One guy cut off the ends of three fingers so he could receive the workers' compensation money. These were not men to be trifled with. But, once we got to know each other, they were just like any other burly group of guys. I was the supervisor, but they knew what they were doing. Unless someone screwed up, I didn't give them any gruff. Unlike most of the male supervisors, I treated them with respect for their knowledge and abilities. One day one of the meanest of the bunch walked up to me and handed me a 45 RPM record. The name of the song was Carla My Love. I had never heard of the song or the artist. I was a little worried about why he gave it to me until he explained he had overheard a conversation in which I said I wondered why no one ever wrote a song about someone named Carla. He gave me the record to show that someone had.
With Bud gone, Tim and I found we had a difficult time being roommates. We didn't bicker much, but there were plenty of periods of long silences. We both decided about the same time that it just wasn't working out and started looking for separate places to live. In January, he went his way and I went mine. Our three ring circus was now divided into individual acts and it appeared we had come undone.
When Tim had originally been hired by the clock company, he was brought in as Plant Manager. He had been working as Assistant Plant Manager for U. S. Furniture Industries in High Point, NC and his employment history was all in production. At the clock company, Tim was in charge of production but reported to the Vice President of Production. We had a clock show coming up in Scranton, Pennsylvania and one of the sales reps (that guy named Million I dated for awhile) and I were going up to handle the show. I was the Barbie Doll in this case, even though I did know enough about the clocks to actually sell them. My purpose was to be there and look pretty to attract male buyers. Yes, I know how chauvinistic that is, but hey, it works. We took Tim along to help load and unload and setup and dismantle the clocks. Tim and I were the only ones who sold clocks that weekend. Million tried valiantly but struck out, whereas Tim struck paydirt. Turns out Tim is a natural bullshitter and could sell ice to Eskimos. He had so much fun messing with the buyers' minds, and jerking them around in circles until they were so dizzy they would agree to anything. I, on the other hand, merely smiled (yes, I know I'm not normally a smiler -- it wasn't a normal situation) at the cretins and told them how many women would be drawn into their stores by our beautiful handcrafted clocks. I don't mean to insinuate all male buyers are jerks, but many of them are. You use whatever works best. Tim, of course, immediately realized he had missed his calling and upon returning to Maryland convinced the "powers that be" to let him try working in sales for awhile. He was an immediate success and eventually ended up as Vice President of Sales. He has been in furniture sales from that time forward.
We crammed all my junk from my apartment and all Tim's junk from his apartment and whatever junk Bud had (he had not yet had his own place) into a three bedroom unit. Space was at a premium, but we made it work. We selected an interior unit, thinking the end units would be more costly to heat and cool. That was a good thought. Unfortunately, when we moved in, the building was new and no one lived on either side of us. It was January in Maryland. It was cold! The first heating bill almost had us ready to move out. Fortunately, once we got the place heated, it didn't cost as much to keep it that way, and we soon had neighbors on both sides to provide radiant heat from their units.
We quickly settled into a routine. Monday through Thursday, Bud and I were there alone. Bud was working four-day weeks, 10 hours per day. I was working five days a week, 8 hours per day (sometimes more). When I left the clock company I worked as a temp for awhile. One of the places I worked was at the Exxon Corporate office in Towson, MD. This was during the first gas crisis, when gas prices changed daily (unlike hourly as they did in the latest crisis) and lines and rationing were the norm. What a mess! Then I took a full-time job as a corporate headhunter. Surprisingly, I did reasonably well at this job, but I had a hard time living with myself. What I did wasn't exactly illegal or immoral, but it made me feel a little slimy and kinda like I needed to take another shower. Tim, being in sales, was able to set his own hours, and decided since he was on the road from early every Monday morning, he would come back into town on Thursday night whenever possible and use Friday to catch up on his paperwork. That meant Bud and Tim were almost always home alone on Friday while I was at work. On weekends we usually had house guests; friends from out of town and whoever the femme du jour was for Tim. Tim went through women the way I go through books. He never had any problems with "breaking up" because there was never enough of a relationship to break. Somehow, he managed to remain friendly with almost all of them. Bud and I often needed a program to keep up with players.
To say our life was a bit unusual would be an understatement. Tim's mother was horrified we were "living together". I tried to explain to her we weren't living together, we were roommates; Bud and I were living together. I'm not sure she ever understood the difference, but she finally conceded it was good there was someone there to look after her son. Oh, if only she had known, she would have died. Tim was doing quite well financially, and Bud had a steady, good paying job (more about Bud and his money later). We often went to Carney Crab House, which was a short distance from our townhouse, and ate bushels of steamed crabs and drank gallons of beer. Sometimes we went sailing with Frank who owned at 27' sailboat and loved to sail the Chesapeake Bay. We regularly went downtown to the inner harbor simply to be near the water. I did not capitalized inner harbor because at that time it was not a proper noun. In 1979, the inner harbor consisted of mainly deserted and decrepit warehouses and hundreds of wharf rats the size of dogs. There was an old man with a pushcart who sold hot dogs and beer, and there was the wonderful aroma of spices in the air from the McCormick Spice factory still operating nearby. One day Tim's current girlfriend and I walked out to the edge of the landing in the harbor. There was a boat with four guys cruising by and when we stuck out our thumbs they came over and offered us a ride. We laughed and explained we actually were there with two guys, but the four in the boat said to get them and we'd all go. So the four of us hopped on the boat and these guys took us for a cruise around the harbor. They offered us beer, and then took us to a dive on a nearby island where we all played pool and ate and drank some more beer. Then they dropped us off where they had picked us up and went on their way. What a hoot!!! The Inner Harbor is a proper noun now, and a great place in and of itself. It is still a destination every time we return to Baltimore, but as the saying goes, "those were the days".
Because Tim and Bud were so flush (and I was holding my own), they started accumulating bottles of sparkling wine (which at the time was still allowed to be called champagne). We drank a lot of it, but we had bottles stuffed in closets, under love seats and sofas, in the pantry, in dresser drawers. It was truly comical, but never let it be said we weren't prepared for visitors. When we moved out a year later, we found some of the bottles we had somehow missed during the fun. Unfortunately, we also found shriveled up fruit and vegetables left over from one of our food fights (all in fun). Apparently, we didn't have any vermin to eat the stuff (thank goodness), but that's a surefire was to attract some. In February of 1979, Baltimore had a blizzard with over 20" of snow. We were all housebound for three days. Well, let me clarify that a bit. None of us could get our cars out for three days. After the first day, it appeared we might be running out of wine for dinner so Tim and I bundled up and walked a mile or so to the wine store. We didn't like the selection at that store, so we trekked another mile or so to another store. We found a good selection there and made our purchases (enough to last several days), then hoofed it back to the townhouse. After all, if we weren't going to be able to get out to go to work, we had to have something to keep us occupied. I'm not sure if it was the same snowstorm, or another one, but one of Tim's friends from NC named Greg came to visit. Greg drove a 10-wheel drive military truck he named Butch. Butch was able to drive through anything, and he did. There was not a snowdrift in the liquor store parking lot capable of stopping Butch, so our trips for wine were a little easier while Greg and Butch were visiting.
Since I worked on Fridays and neither Bud nor Tim did, they would often do household chores to help out. They always did all the cooking and usually helped with the cleaning, but on this particular Friday they decided to help with the laundry. As I mentioned earlier, we crammed 2½ apartments worth of stuff into our townhouse. That meant mucho many linens and towels and such. Having been in the military, I knew how to fold things very small in order to fit into tight places. Even at that, our linen closet was overflowing. When I got home from work on this particular Friday, Tim was headed up the stairs with a stack of freshly laundered towels, sheets and underwear. I glanced at him and offhandedly said "You can't put those away like that", meaning, of course, it would never fit. He stopped, looked at me, said "oh, okay" and came back down the stairs, opened the front door, and threw the entire pile of clean laundry out into the snow. After I got over the shock, I asked him exactly what the Hell he thought he was doing. He answered something to the effect of since I told him he couldn't put them away like that, he didn't. I was furious, but the boys thought it was hysterical. They said they had been "slaving" all day to get the place cleaned, get the laundry done, and get the dinner cooked, so I would be able to relax when I got home. But, what did I do when I got home? I criticized. This is not at all true, but they didn't want to see it my way. I picked the laundry up out of the snow (which was still clean), refolded it, and put it away. To this day, neither Bud nor Tim will fold laundry, using this absurd scenario as their excuse. Lame! Really lame!
When I realized I could not be an Executive Recruiter any longer, things started to go downhill in my relationship with first Bud and then Tim. When Bud had originally moved in with me, I told him he didn't have to worry about rent or utilities since I had already been paying them myself. I did ask him to contribute toward food (as I never was much for feeding myself) and to pay for his long distance calls if he made any. Bud actually resented the fact that I made more money than he did. Hello? I had been in the working world significantly longer than he, I was not a factory worker (though he was skilled), and I had paid my dues coming up through the ranks -- something he had yet to do. When I left my job at the Personnel Agency, I was without income for the first time in my adult life. I mistakenly thought since I had "carried" him for awhile and since we were in a relationship, he would pick up the slack until I could get another job. WRONG! He was of the opinion that his money was HIS and he hadn't agreed to be paying all this other crap. Talk about a rough way to discover you're in love with a piker. We had numerous disagreements about this subject and it finally culminated in my asking him to leave. According to his grandmother (who almost never forgave me), she had never seen anyone with such a broken heart before. Well, I'm truly sorry I hurt him, but he had hurt me too.
Around the time Bud left, I found another job, this time as a supervisor in a factory that made refractory bricks. I was totally out of my element. These guys were members of the United Steelworkers Union and I was the only female supervisor. I loved it. It was so unlike anything I had ever done. I wasn't afraid. I guess I should have been; some of them were more than just mean. There were gunfights in the streets where they lived. One guy cut off the ends of three fingers so he could receive the workers' compensation money. These were not men to be trifled with. But, once we got to know each other, they were just like any other burly group of guys. I was the supervisor, but they knew what they were doing. Unless someone screwed up, I didn't give them any gruff. Unlike most of the male supervisors, I treated them with respect for their knowledge and abilities. One day one of the meanest of the bunch walked up to me and handed me a 45 RPM record. The name of the song was Carla My Love. I had never heard of the song or the artist. I was a little worried about why he gave it to me until he explained he had overheard a conversation in which I said I wondered why no one ever wrote a song about someone named Carla. He gave me the record to show that someone had.
With Bud gone, Tim and I found we had a difficult time being roommates. We didn't bicker much, but there were plenty of periods of long silences. We both decided about the same time that it just wasn't working out and started looking for separate places to live. In January, he went his way and I went mine. Our three ring circus was now divided into individual acts and it appeared we had come undone.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Special Olympics -- wheelchair racing
One of the more skilled workers at the clock company in Maryland was a young man named Doug. Doug was born with a congenital deformity similar to Achondroplasia Genetic Disorder. His torso and head were normal, however both arms and both legs were seriously misshapen and much shorter than average. Doug had leg braces and crutches, but most of the time he used a wheelchair to get around. Doug was in charge of our repair department and though crippled was able to perform amazing feats when working with delicate clock mechanisms.
When Bud returned to work just a few hours after the accident in which he almost lost his toe, he was for the most part also wheelchair bound. It was only a matter of minutes before Bud and Doug were side-by-side at the starting line. Bud was bigger and stronger, but Doug had years of experience in wheelchair operation. Of course, none of the management team was aware of the little sideshow about to take place down the middle of the factory. Once we found out, we thought we put a stop to the foolishness, but Bud and Doug still raced against each other at every opportunity. Sometimes they were caught and reprimanded, but most times they got away with their shenanigans. Fortunately, no one was injured (participants or spectators) and no clocks mysteriously needed to be resanded and/or refinished. Thankfully, Bud was only in a wheelchair for a few weeks so the Olympics were soon over.
On Valentine's Day in 1978, Bud showed up at my front door on crutches and carrying what had to have been a three pound bag of pistachio nuts. In 1978 the majority of pistachios came from Iran and for some reason were dyed red. That meant your fingers always turned red when eating them, sorta like eating Cheetos (something else I could eat by the wheelbarrow full) and having your fingers turn orange. Though I had never discussed my love of all things nutty with Bud, he thought the red color covered the holiday and HE loves pistachios. I was surprised and thrilled by his romanticism. To this day he never forgets Valentine's Day.
A few days later (it couldn't have been very long, I still had some of the nuts left to take with me) I took a trip on Amtrak to visit my sister Cindy, who was at that time living near Tampa, Florida. Cindy got the same Gypsy gene most of the rest of us got. Cathy and Glenn seem to be the exceptions, yet Cindy and Cathy are genetically identical. Really makes one wonder. Cindy has lived in Florida, Texas and Colorado as an adult. When she moves, she really moves. Anyway, I was off on Amtrak to Florida. I had never ridden on a train before. I did not get a sleeper, though the trip would take some 18 hours, because I amcheap thrifty. I also only learn lessons the hard way. To my horror, and I certainly hope this is one thing that has changed in train travel, I discovered the toilets emptied directly onto the track. After that little piece of information (I used to walk along the tracks when I was a kid --- eww), I refused to eliminate anything from my body. That meant I couldn't consume anything either. Then, to make my abhorrence of trains complete, on the return trip the train hit a car that was stalled on the tracks. There was no one in the car when the train hit it at about 80 miles an hour, but I saw pieces of sheet metal flying past my window as the brakes were screeching in an attempt to avoid the inevitable. The accident, of course, delayed the return trip by several hours while the local police conducted an inquiry and reports were filed. The visit with Cindy was spectacular, but me riding on trains is a mishap to be avoided at all costs. Anyway, while riding the rails I had plenty of time to think about my relationship with Bud. It did not seem possible to me, but I had a sneaky suspicion I was actually falling for the guy. I explained to myself all the reasons there was no future in a relationship with him -- he was much younger, we worked together, he had long hair, I was terrified, he was inexperienced, and anything else I could think of or make up to discourage taking the next step. Yet, when I got off the train in Baltimore and he was standing there waiting (without crutches), my heart nearly exploded and I knew I was a goner.
Bud soon moved in with me . Now this was beyond bending the no fraternization rule, so I made it perfectly clear we would have no demonstrations of affection anywhere near the workplace. Bud took me to a Sha-Na-Na concert, and unfortunately the secretary / receptionist (we had replaced dear old Donna) was at that same concert -- oops. In April, I was hospitalized for what was supposed to be minor surgery but turned into a major mess (my reproductive system was constructed of spare parts and put together with a staple gun and glue). Bud brought me a handpicked bouquet of spring flowers and a stuffed animal. Again I was amazed at how romantic this guy is. Though I was supposed to take it easy to allow the surgery to heal properly, a week later Bud and I were trekking around fields and over fences, following the Maryland Hunt Club race. Not only did this little excursion cause serious problems with healing (and later adhesions requiring additional surgery), but we were captured on film and broadcast on the evening news for all the world to see. And too much of the world did see us, including the men who owned the management company that employed me. Not just oops, but holy shit we screwed up bad!
The following Monday, the president of the management firm called me in to tell me he was aware of my extracurricular activities. He said it was company policy to immediately terminate both parties, but he felt my skills were too valuable to lose and, therefore, only Bud would be terminated. I, however, was strictly prohibited from discussing the impending doom with Bud, and the nitwit actually went so far as to demand Bud move from my apartment posthaste and insisted I have the locks changed on my doors. Who did he think he was? However, after a moment's reflection, I could see no purpose in both of us being unemployed at the same time, so I decided on a ruse to make this jerk think he was getting his way. While in his presence, I called my apartment complex manager and asked that the locks be changed. Then I meekly went back to my job and hoped the subject would be dropped. It was. He thought I had caved. That night when we got home from work, I told Bud he was going to be fired the next day. This is the only time in my entire working history I divulged information I had specifically been forbidden to communicate. I didn't feel good about it, but I felt it had to be done. At first Bud was livid. He wanted to go in and protest that he was being singled out when there were others (specifically Tim and his current honey) who were also breaking the prohibition. After some time I finally convinced him it would do no one any good to have both of us without income, and it would put a serious crimp in his friendship with Tim if he were to insist on spreading the blame. The president of the management firm was too cowardly to fire Bud himself, so he sent poor Frank in to do the job. He did not even have the decency to explain to Frank why he was firing Bud, but I filled in the details for him later that day. Bud did NOT move out, but as he was no longer employed at the clock company it was no longer forbidden to fraternize. We both got new keys to the new lock on the apartment door. Frank and Tim took Bud out for drinks and told him how sorry they were about the way things turned out and offered to help in any way they could. Bud, to this day, has not gotten over his hatred of the man who had him fired. Interestingly, not too many years later that same man was arrested, tried and found guilty of the premeditated murder of his wife. As you can imagine, he was an extremely controlling tyrant and apparently she had decided to leave him. It seems he couldn't let her do that, so he beat her to within an inch of her life and then set the house on fire and left her to burn, or so the story goes. He went to jail for several years, but managed to get out on a technicality. You can read about him here and make your own conclusion: Wayne Carr. I know what my vote would be.
Bud found another job, then another. At the first job he worked in a hot, sweltering rubber plant and lost weight at an unbelievable pace. He looked good, but felt exhausted constantly. The second job put him back in a supervisory position in an insulated glass factory. Plus, he worked only a four day week. My mother had been in the hospital in Atlanta at the same time I was in the hospital in Maryland. She never came out. Her heart bypass surgery went horribly wrong. Though she remained in a coma for months, she finally passed in July. Another interesting little tidbit, I was born 18 days before my mother turned 30; she died 18 days before I turned 30. I will forever be grateful I had Bud to help me through that horrendous time. I stuck around at the clock company for several months, but never got over my resentment of the things that had happened. I was also suffering extreme periods of depression over the loss of my mother. Finally, one day I just walked in to Frank and said "I can't do this anymore. I'm bustin' my ass 14 or 16 hours a day for something I no longer believe in. I quit."
Next time, our version of Three's Company -- Carla and Bud and Tim share a townhouse.
When Bud returned to work just a few hours after the accident in which he almost lost his toe, he was for the most part also wheelchair bound. It was only a matter of minutes before Bud and Doug were side-by-side at the starting line. Bud was bigger and stronger, but Doug had years of experience in wheelchair operation. Of course, none of the management team was aware of the little sideshow about to take place down the middle of the factory. Once we found out, we thought we put a stop to the foolishness, but Bud and Doug still raced against each other at every opportunity. Sometimes they were caught and reprimanded, but most times they got away with their shenanigans. Fortunately, no one was injured (participants or spectators) and no clocks mysteriously needed to be resanded and/or refinished. Thankfully, Bud was only in a wheelchair for a few weeks so the Olympics were soon over.
On Valentine's Day in 1978, Bud showed up at my front door on crutches and carrying what had to have been a three pound bag of pistachio nuts. In 1978 the majority of pistachios came from Iran and for some reason were dyed red. That meant your fingers always turned red when eating them, sorta like eating Cheetos (something else I could eat by the wheelbarrow full) and having your fingers turn orange. Though I had never discussed my love of all things nutty with Bud, he thought the red color covered the holiday and HE loves pistachios. I was surprised and thrilled by his romanticism. To this day he never forgets Valentine's Day.
A few days later (it couldn't have been very long, I still had some of the nuts left to take with me) I took a trip on Amtrak to visit my sister Cindy, who was at that time living near Tampa, Florida. Cindy got the same Gypsy gene most of the rest of us got. Cathy and Glenn seem to be the exceptions, yet Cindy and Cathy are genetically identical. Really makes one wonder. Cindy has lived in Florida, Texas and Colorado as an adult. When she moves, she really moves. Anyway, I was off on Amtrak to Florida. I had never ridden on a train before. I did not get a sleeper, though the trip would take some 18 hours, because I am
Bud soon moved in with me . Now this was beyond bending the no fraternization rule, so I made it perfectly clear we would have no demonstrations of affection anywhere near the workplace. Bud took me to a Sha-Na-Na concert, and unfortunately the secretary / receptionist (we had replaced dear old Donna) was at that same concert -- oops. In April, I was hospitalized for what was supposed to be minor surgery but turned into a major mess (my reproductive system was constructed of spare parts and put together with a staple gun and glue). Bud brought me a handpicked bouquet of spring flowers and a stuffed animal. Again I was amazed at how romantic this guy is. Though I was supposed to take it easy to allow the surgery to heal properly, a week later Bud and I were trekking around fields and over fences, following the Maryland Hunt Club race. Not only did this little excursion cause serious problems with healing (and later adhesions requiring additional surgery), but we were captured on film and broadcast on the evening news for all the world to see. And too much of the world did see us, including the men who owned the management company that employed me. Not just oops, but holy shit we screwed up bad!
The following Monday, the president of the management firm called me in to tell me he was aware of my extracurricular activities. He said it was company policy to immediately terminate both parties, but he felt my skills were too valuable to lose and, therefore, only Bud would be terminated. I, however, was strictly prohibited from discussing the impending doom with Bud, and the nitwit actually went so far as to demand Bud move from my apartment posthaste and insisted I have the locks changed on my doors. Who did he think he was? However, after a moment's reflection, I could see no purpose in both of us being unemployed at the same time, so I decided on a ruse to make this jerk think he was getting his way. While in his presence, I called my apartment complex manager and asked that the locks be changed. Then I meekly went back to my job and hoped the subject would be dropped. It was. He thought I had caved. That night when we got home from work, I told Bud he was going to be fired the next day. This is the only time in my entire working history I divulged information I had specifically been forbidden to communicate. I didn't feel good about it, but I felt it had to be done. At first Bud was livid. He wanted to go in and protest that he was being singled out when there were others (specifically Tim and his current honey) who were also breaking the prohibition. After some time I finally convinced him it would do no one any good to have both of us without income, and it would put a serious crimp in his friendship with Tim if he were to insist on spreading the blame. The president of the management firm was too cowardly to fire Bud himself, so he sent poor Frank in to do the job. He did not even have the decency to explain to Frank why he was firing Bud, but I filled in the details for him later that day. Bud did NOT move out, but as he was no longer employed at the clock company it was no longer forbidden to fraternize. We both got new keys to the new lock on the apartment door. Frank and Tim took Bud out for drinks and told him how sorry they were about the way things turned out and offered to help in any way they could. Bud, to this day, has not gotten over his hatred of the man who had him fired. Interestingly, not too many years later that same man was arrested, tried and found guilty of the premeditated murder of his wife. As you can imagine, he was an extremely controlling tyrant and apparently she had decided to leave him. It seems he couldn't let her do that, so he beat her to within an inch of her life and then set the house on fire and left her to burn, or so the story goes. He went to jail for several years, but managed to get out on a technicality. You can read about him here and make your own conclusion: Wayne Carr. I know what my vote would be.
Bud found another job, then another. At the first job he worked in a hot, sweltering rubber plant and lost weight at an unbelievable pace. He looked good, but felt exhausted constantly. The second job put him back in a supervisory position in an insulated glass factory. Plus, he worked only a four day week. My mother had been in the hospital in Atlanta at the same time I was in the hospital in Maryland. She never came out. Her heart bypass surgery went horribly wrong. Though she remained in a coma for months, she finally passed in July. Another interesting little tidbit, I was born 18 days before my mother turned 30; she died 18 days before I turned 30. I will forever be grateful I had Bud to help me through that horrendous time. I stuck around at the clock company for several months, but never got over my resentment of the things that had happened. I was also suffering extreme periods of depression over the loss of my mother. Finally, one day I just walked in to Frank and said "I can't do this anymore. I'm bustin' my ass 14 or 16 hours a day for something I no longer believe in. I quit."
Next time, our version of Three's Company -- Carla and Bud and Tim share a townhouse.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Optical Illusions
I have just made a very interesting discovery. I have a block on my iGoogle homepage that randomly posts optical illusions. I've always been a fan of this type of art and am particularly fond of M. C. Escher. What I have discovered is though my entire world constantly spins at varying rates of speed but never stops, when I look at optical illusions which to the rest of the world appear to be moving, they are perfectly still to my eyes. I've always thought it was odd I could read without difficulty, but cannot perform the simplest of household chores without barfing. Now I find that what the rest of the world views as moving, I perceive as static. SCDS gets curiouser and curiouser.
Second date
After New Year's turned into such a nice surprise, for a few weeks Bud and I only saw each other at work, where we were obviously more friendly. The owners of the management group to whom I reported (and who were conveniently located in Atlanta, GA) had a strict no fraternization policy. I also have never been in favor of mixing work and play, so it has always been incredibly important to me to maintain a distinct separation between my professional life and my personal life. However, the guys who owned the management group took their policy beyond anything even approaching reason. They had taken Tim and Frank and me from our home environments (Frank and I were from Atlanta, GA and Tim was from High Point, NC) and moved us to this God forsaken little burg (Fallston) just north of Baltimore where we had no friends and, in Tim's case and mine, no family. Frank was married and had brought his wife, but their marriage was disintegrating so he was probably even more lonely than Tim and I. The three of us were 29 or 30 years old, and we spent 14 to 16 hours each workday and often on weekends toiling closely together under extremely stressful conditions. Our managers prohibited us from developing friendships among ourselves. They even went so far as to make certain none of us lived in the same apartment complex. This, of course, was not only absurd, but it was impossible to control. Take three isolated, lonely, smart, young adults and throw them together in Hell and see if they don't band together. What a joke. Frank, Tim and I became fast friends and remained so until Frank's untimely death several years ago. Tim and I added Bud to our little circle of misfits and picked up a few more questionable lunatics along the way. I actually tried dating both Tim and Frank (after his marriage ended), but it was so obvious romance was not on the menu. We were intense friends and would remain so, but amore was reserved for others.
After a few weeks, I conjured up an excuse to see Bud socially again. It was starting to become obvious he was not gonna make that important first move, so I threw caution to the wind and asked his help in moving a typewriter from my office to my home. I suppose I could have managed the move myself, or ask Frank or Tim to help, but that wasn't quite what I had in mind. It was one of those old IBM Selectric typewriters that was the size of a large microwave (which were, incidentally, barely beginning to come into common everyday use at the time) and weighed around 50 pounds. I just figured a nice, strong, young man like Bud Masek would be extremely helpful in toting that thing home for me. After the typewriter was moved, I offered to take Bud out to the Pizza Inn (or Hut, who can remember this crap) as payment for his assistance. We had pizza and beaucoup pitchers of beer while we talked and laughed and learned more about each other. I invited him back to my apartment and things became a great deal more personal between us.
Somehow, we just slid into a relationship from there. The next time he showed up at my front door, which I believe may have been the very next day, he was carrying a brand new Mr. Coffee machine. He said if he was going to be spending any time at my place, he was going to have decent coffee. Up to that point, I only had instant. I hate instant coffee, but I was not about to buy a coffee pot and make a whole pot of coffee for myself in the morning when I would be leaving for work almost immediately. So I would get up each morning, make a cup of disgusting instant coffee to get me through the routine of showering and dressing, then dash out the door to work. Immediately upon arriving, I would start a gigantic pot of brewed coffee, which I and the office staff would empty and refill constantly throughout the day. Since it was usually quite late when I finally got home each night, coffee was the last thing on my mind. Remember this was 1978. Only the extraordinary coffee makers had timers and presets and automatic shutoffs. I don't think anyone offered single cup capability. Most people were still using percolators as the Mr. Coffee had only been available for six years. But, Bud had his decent coffee, and he started spending time at my apartment -- a lot of time. I would like to point out that just one of the thousands of ways Bud changed my life is that I have NEVER had another cup of instant coffee.
I usually was the first of the office personnel to arrive each morning, but the factory had almost always started the production day before my arrival. It was common, after the factory shut down for the day, to find Frank and Tim and me out on the production floor cutting wood, sanding, building, or installing movements for the clocks. I was painfully aware of every aspect of clock building and knew what was normal procedure for each of the departments along the production line. By this time, Bud had been unofficially promoted to supervisor of the upfit and movement installation departments where the grandfather clocks were readied for final inspection prior to packaging.
One morning I arrived about 7:15 AM. The factory had been operating since 6:30 AM. When I pulled into my normal parking spot I took note of the fact that Bud's precious Malibu was in his normal spot. However, before I had even gotten the first pot of coffee started, the phone rang. It was the Fallston hospital, which fortunately was within walking distance of our factory. The emergency room nurse explained they had a patient named Charles Masek there and wanted to verify his employment and that this was a work related injury. I am not the hysterical type, but I have to admit the bottom dropped out of my stomach. I confirmed that Charles worked for us and asked for additional information regarding the injury before I could confirm that it was work related. She explained he had been brought in around 6:45 AM with an injury to his (I believe) left foot in which it appeared they were going to have to amputate his big toe. By the way, this was a long time before HIPAA and you could find out almost anything you wanted about anyone from hospitals. And in another one of my famous asides, I had once upon a time been engaged to a young man who had amputated the big toe on his right foot while operating a manure spreader (don't ask me, I only know that's what he told me). The major components in your balance system are your big toes and your inner ear (about which, unfortunately, I now know entirely too much). He had to learn to walk from the beginning again. Back to Bud -- I told the nurse I would go into the plant and find out what happened and give her a call back. I found Eddie almost immediately. Aside from being one of Bud's closest friends, he was also a busybody and nothing went on that he didn't know about. He told me they had been unloading a shipment of lead clock weights and had stacked the weights on a shop cart to be moved to the stock area. The cart was holding about a ton and a half of weight and as it was being pushed from behind, Bud was guiding it from the front. The cart hit a bump in the floor and the front wheel rolled across Bud's toes. He was wearing sneakers. It was a bloody mess. The production manager had rushed Bud to the hospital and that's all Eddie knew. I went back to my office and returned the call to the emergency room nurse to verify it was a work related accident and whatever treatment was required was covered by our Worker's Compensation insurance. I asked her to call me once they had determined the extent of damage and what steps were to be taken in repairing the damage. Then I finished making the coffee and sat in my office and worried. Damn him! He wasn't supposed to intrude on my work persona, and he damn sure wasn't supposed to get himself injured so I'd worry about him. Frank and Tim both knew I was seeing Bud socially. They both knew it was a no-no but couldn't have cared less. As a matter of fact, Tim was dating one of the young women who worked in the factory so he was just as blatantly ignoring the fraternization rule as I was. So when they came in and I told them what had happened they gave me a whole lot of breathing room. The nurse never called back, but about two hours later Bud showed up back at work. His toe was still attached, but sporting a huge bandage. He had crutches and a wheelchair and was told to stay off his feet for the next four weeks. Ha! They should have known better when he refused the pain medication they offered.
Tomorrow (or whenever, since it is clouding up and supposed to snow tonight) I will continue with Olympic wheelchair races in a busy production facility.
After a few weeks, I conjured up an excuse to see Bud socially again. It was starting to become obvious he was not gonna make that important first move, so I threw caution to the wind and asked his help in moving a typewriter from my office to my home. I suppose I could have managed the move myself, or ask Frank or Tim to help, but that wasn't quite what I had in mind. It was one of those old IBM Selectric typewriters that was the size of a large microwave (which were, incidentally, barely beginning to come into common everyday use at the time) and weighed around 50 pounds. I just figured a nice, strong, young man like Bud Masek would be extremely helpful in toting that thing home for me. After the typewriter was moved, I offered to take Bud out to the Pizza Inn (or Hut, who can remember this crap) as payment for his assistance. We had pizza and beaucoup pitchers of beer while we talked and laughed and learned more about each other. I invited him back to my apartment and things became a great deal more personal between us.
Somehow, we just slid into a relationship from there. The next time he showed up at my front door, which I believe may have been the very next day, he was carrying a brand new Mr. Coffee machine. He said if he was going to be spending any time at my place, he was going to have decent coffee. Up to that point, I only had instant. I hate instant coffee, but I was not about to buy a coffee pot and make a whole pot of coffee for myself in the morning when I would be leaving for work almost immediately. So I would get up each morning, make a cup of disgusting instant coffee to get me through the routine of showering and dressing, then dash out the door to work. Immediately upon arriving, I would start a gigantic pot of brewed coffee, which I and the office staff would empty and refill constantly throughout the day. Since it was usually quite late when I finally got home each night, coffee was the last thing on my mind. Remember this was 1978. Only the extraordinary coffee makers had timers and presets and automatic shutoffs. I don't think anyone offered single cup capability. Most people were still using percolators as the Mr. Coffee had only been available for six years. But, Bud had his decent coffee, and he started spending time at my apartment -- a lot of time. I would like to point out that just one of the thousands of ways Bud changed my life is that I have NEVER had another cup of instant coffee.
I usually was the first of the office personnel to arrive each morning, but the factory had almost always started the production day before my arrival. It was common, after the factory shut down for the day, to find Frank and Tim and me out on the production floor cutting wood, sanding, building, or installing movements for the clocks. I was painfully aware of every aspect of clock building and knew what was normal procedure for each of the departments along the production line. By this time, Bud had been unofficially promoted to supervisor of the upfit and movement installation departments where the grandfather clocks were readied for final inspection prior to packaging.
One morning I arrived about 7:15 AM. The factory had been operating since 6:30 AM. When I pulled into my normal parking spot I took note of the fact that Bud's precious Malibu was in his normal spot. However, before I had even gotten the first pot of coffee started, the phone rang. It was the Fallston hospital, which fortunately was within walking distance of our factory. The emergency room nurse explained they had a patient named Charles Masek there and wanted to verify his employment and that this was a work related injury. I am not the hysterical type, but I have to admit the bottom dropped out of my stomach. I confirmed that Charles worked for us and asked for additional information regarding the injury before I could confirm that it was work related. She explained he had been brought in around 6:45 AM with an injury to his (I believe) left foot in which it appeared they were going to have to amputate his big toe. By the way, this was a long time before HIPAA and you could find out almost anything you wanted about anyone from hospitals. And in another one of my famous asides, I had once upon a time been engaged to a young man who had amputated the big toe on his right foot while operating a manure spreader (don't ask me, I only know that's what he told me). The major components in your balance system are your big toes and your inner ear (about which, unfortunately, I now know entirely too much). He had to learn to walk from the beginning again. Back to Bud -- I told the nurse I would go into the plant and find out what happened and give her a call back. I found Eddie almost immediately. Aside from being one of Bud's closest friends, he was also a busybody and nothing went on that he didn't know about. He told me they had been unloading a shipment of lead clock weights and had stacked the weights on a shop cart to be moved to the stock area. The cart was holding about a ton and a half of weight and as it was being pushed from behind, Bud was guiding it from the front. The cart hit a bump in the floor and the front wheel rolled across Bud's toes. He was wearing sneakers. It was a bloody mess. The production manager had rushed Bud to the hospital and that's all Eddie knew. I went back to my office and returned the call to the emergency room nurse to verify it was a work related accident and whatever treatment was required was covered by our Worker's Compensation insurance. I asked her to call me once they had determined the extent of damage and what steps were to be taken in repairing the damage. Then I finished making the coffee and sat in my office and worried. Damn him! He wasn't supposed to intrude on my work persona, and he damn sure wasn't supposed to get himself injured so I'd worry about him. Frank and Tim both knew I was seeing Bud socially. They both knew it was a no-no but couldn't have cared less. As a matter of fact, Tim was dating one of the young women who worked in the factory so he was just as blatantly ignoring the fraternization rule as I was. So when they came in and I told them what had happened they gave me a whole lot of breathing room. The nurse never called back, but about two hours later Bud showed up back at work. His toe was still attached, but sporting a huge bandage. He had crutches and a wheelchair and was told to stay off his feet for the next four weeks. Ha! They should have known better when he refused the pain medication they offered.
Tomorrow (or whenever, since it is clouding up and supposed to snow tonight) I will continue with Olympic wheelchair races in a busy production facility.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
28 Going on 33
Today is the 28th anniversary of the day Bud and I actually got married. If you tried to tell me oh those many years ago that I would stay with the same man longer than five minutes (that's an exaggeration but not by much), or live in the same place longer than three years, or even hold the same job longer than three years (the length of my military enlistment), I would have laughed in your face and called you a dreamer. Seriously, my friends used to write my information in their address books in pencil so they could erase it when I married, unmarried, married again, unmarried again, moved (again) or whatever. Based on my experience in the first 30 years of my life, I was totally incapable of forming lasting relationships with anyone or anything. And to be perfectly honest, I was not unhappy with that arrangement. Then along came Bud and everything in my life changed.
Bud and I met on December 7, 1976 (Pearl Harbor Day should have been a warning). We took an immediate and intense aversion toward one another, which remained in place for most of the next year. Bud was young, hard-headed, volatile, loud and intensely opinionated. He was a worker in the clock factory in Maryland where I had just been employed as part of a troubleshooting management team to attempt to bring the company back from the brink of financial ruin. Bud didn't want any part of the "new" management and didn't hesitate to say so as often and as stridently as possible. It wasn't just me he hated, it was the entire management organization. He actually had no formal leadership position among the workers in the factory, but he was obviously a pacesetter and even old timers and supervisors followed his lead. He was genuinely a gigantic pain in the butt and often more trouble than he was worth. However, as managers we all realized his potential and took it upon ourselves to help him see the error of his ways. We felt if we could win him over to our point of view, the rest of our personnel issues would evaporate. At one point, in an effort to demonstrate his total disregard for me, he deliberately made it seem as if he was gonna cold-cock me right on the production floor. If he had actually hit me, it would have been brutally painful because he was a healthy young man. I had seen him lift a box of clock weights that I knew for a fact weighed at least 300 pounds and walk across the warehouse with it as if it were filled with packing peanuts. If he had hit me, it would have also been the end of his employment and he would have spent some amount of time in jail for assault. I'm sure he knew these things, and I'm sure his intent was only to frighten me. Fortunately, I realized he was no dummy and he didn't really want to wreck his life, so I knew he was bluffing. I just continued to walk past him as he raised his balled fist for the strike. Oh he swung, and he missed. He hit the wall directly beside my head as I walked through the doorway. The plaster shattered, but I didn't even blink. I just kept on walking under the assumption that I had the right-of-way and should pass through the doorway first. As the pieces of plaster were falling to the floor, I looked back and said something to the effect of "you're gonna want to repair that". Was I frightened? You bet I was! But if I had shown any sign of fear, he would have won. The only way we were going to convince him we were trying to help was to show him no signs of submission. After that, things got a little better between us. He realized I wasn't just some sissy girl put in the job as a token. The rest of the management squad went about recruiting Bud in their own ways, and before too very long, he started to see his way toward the beginning of a life long career in management. He had the basic skills, he just needed to polish his edges more than a little bit. He was a born leader -- the rest was just experience and proper guidance.
Our first date was on New Year's Eve 1977. It was an accident. The secretary / receptionist I hired for the front office (yes, the same one who ended Frank's letters with Frankie) was having a New Year's Eve party at her apartment. She invited me and though I wasn't really interested in becoming "friends" with her, I didn't have any other plans so I said I would stop by for an hour or so. She told me the only reason she was having the party was because no one had asked her out so she decided to make her own fun. I did not inquire about others she may have invited as I did not expect to know any of them. I arrived at Donna's apartment around 9:00 PM or so, planning to leave long before the ball started to drop in Time's Square. As an aside (who me?), I have been to Time's Square for New Year's Eve once in my life. It is not something I would recommend to my best friend or my worst enemy. What a nightmare? It is a surging mass of humanity with no purpose other than to get drunk and watch the stupid ball drop while freezing your patootie off and being stepped on. Never again! Okay, back to Maryland 1977-1978. Around 9:30 PM Bud and his sidekick Eddie showed up at Donna's apartment. I'm sure they were as shocked to see me as I was to see them. Eddie also worked with us at the clock company and, as it turned out, had a bit of a case of the hots for our girl Donna. His lust was unrequited. Somewhere near 10:00 PM as I was starting to make excuses for why I should be leaving, Donna received a telephone call from some guy who decided at the last minute (well, he actually had almost two hours yet) to ask her out. She accepted, and turned to all of her guests and said something along the lines of "I have a date now, so you are all going to have to leave." I was flabbergasted and highly amused. Eddie was devastated and Bud was flummoxed. It seems the boys did not have a backup plan and were more than a little upset with Donna. In a move that is totally out of character for me and to this day completely inexplicable, I suggested Bud and Eddie come back to my apartment and the three of us would see the New Year in together. Also totally unexpected and completely baffling, they accepted. So off we went, me in my little brown Datsun B210, Bud in a souped up electric blue Chevy Malibu and Eddie in a white with red racing stripes Mustang Cobra. They were following me, since they had no clue where I lived. I drove through the little town of Bel Air, Maryland at about 60 mph. Those two were cussing me and calling me every vile name they could come up with because they were both in highly visible vehicles driving through a 25 mph citywide speed limit, while I was just zipping along in my unobtrusive, barely noticeable (can it really go that fast?) Datsun. Fortunately, the city cops had other things on their minds that night and none of us were pulled over.
Once we got to my apartment, and after the two guys finished berating me for my driving habits, we ordered some pizza and drank some beer. I had a collection of 45 RPM records that I had been accumulating since the early 1960's so I drug them out and started playing them. Much to my delight, Bud's taste in music was very similar to mine and he was actually well acquainted with a large number of my records. Eddie fell asleep on my sofa. Bud and I sat on my living room floor for the rest of the night and played every one of those records, and there were hundreds of them. Of course we talked, and got to know each other better, and found out we had a lot of similar likes and dislikes. Around 7:00 AM we woke Eddie up and I sent the boys off to their respective homes. I needed some sleep. I didn't think much would come of our "date", but I had enjoyed myself and I now had a far better opinion of Bud.
One of our topics of discussion over the course of the evening was marriage. I'd already tried and epically failed at the institution and wasn't particularly interested in venturing that way again. Bud had been 21 for four whole days. He had never been married, and at that point insisted he would never be married. I told him that was ridiculous and I would bet that he would be married before he turned 27, never for one second thinking I might be the blushing bride. He bet me $200 that he would NOT be married before his 27th birthday. We were married eight days after he turned 26. He has not yet paid me my $200, but he has given me unbelievable riches in so many ways. I think I'll let the debt slide.
Tomorrow (or whenever I get around to it next), more on the love story of Bud and Carla.
Bud and I met on December 7, 1976 (Pearl Harbor Day should have been a warning). We took an immediate and intense aversion toward one another, which remained in place for most of the next year. Bud was young, hard-headed, volatile, loud and intensely opinionated. He was a worker in the clock factory in Maryland where I had just been employed as part of a troubleshooting management team to attempt to bring the company back from the brink of financial ruin. Bud didn't want any part of the "new" management and didn't hesitate to say so as often and as stridently as possible. It wasn't just me he hated, it was the entire management organization. He actually had no formal leadership position among the workers in the factory, but he was obviously a pacesetter and even old timers and supervisors followed his lead. He was genuinely a gigantic pain in the butt and often more trouble than he was worth. However, as managers we all realized his potential and took it upon ourselves to help him see the error of his ways. We felt if we could win him over to our point of view, the rest of our personnel issues would evaporate. At one point, in an effort to demonstrate his total disregard for me, he deliberately made it seem as if he was gonna cold-cock me right on the production floor. If he had actually hit me, it would have been brutally painful because he was a healthy young man. I had seen him lift a box of clock weights that I knew for a fact weighed at least 300 pounds and walk across the warehouse with it as if it were filled with packing peanuts. If he had hit me, it would have also been the end of his employment and he would have spent some amount of time in jail for assault. I'm sure he knew these things, and I'm sure his intent was only to frighten me. Fortunately, I realized he was no dummy and he didn't really want to wreck his life, so I knew he was bluffing. I just continued to walk past him as he raised his balled fist for the strike. Oh he swung, and he missed. He hit the wall directly beside my head as I walked through the doorway. The plaster shattered, but I didn't even blink. I just kept on walking under the assumption that I had the right-of-way and should pass through the doorway first. As the pieces of plaster were falling to the floor, I looked back and said something to the effect of "you're gonna want to repair that". Was I frightened? You bet I was! But if I had shown any sign of fear, he would have won. The only way we were going to convince him we were trying to help was to show him no signs of submission. After that, things got a little better between us. He realized I wasn't just some sissy girl put in the job as a token. The rest of the management squad went about recruiting Bud in their own ways, and before too very long, he started to see his way toward the beginning of a life long career in management. He had the basic skills, he just needed to polish his edges more than a little bit. He was a born leader -- the rest was just experience and proper guidance.
Our first date was on New Year's Eve 1977. It was an accident. The secretary / receptionist I hired for the front office (yes, the same one who ended Frank's letters with Frankie) was having a New Year's Eve party at her apartment. She invited me and though I wasn't really interested in becoming "friends" with her, I didn't have any other plans so I said I would stop by for an hour or so. She told me the only reason she was having the party was because no one had asked her out so she decided to make her own fun. I did not inquire about others she may have invited as I did not expect to know any of them. I arrived at Donna's apartment around 9:00 PM or so, planning to leave long before the ball started to drop in Time's Square. As an aside (who me?), I have been to Time's Square for New Year's Eve once in my life. It is not something I would recommend to my best friend or my worst enemy. What a nightmare? It is a surging mass of humanity with no purpose other than to get drunk and watch the stupid ball drop while freezing your patootie off and being stepped on. Never again! Okay, back to Maryland 1977-1978. Around 9:30 PM Bud and his sidekick Eddie showed up at Donna's apartment. I'm sure they were as shocked to see me as I was to see them. Eddie also worked with us at the clock company and, as it turned out, had a bit of a case of the hots for our girl Donna. His lust was unrequited. Somewhere near 10:00 PM as I was starting to make excuses for why I should be leaving, Donna received a telephone call from some guy who decided at the last minute (well, he actually had almost two hours yet) to ask her out. She accepted, and turned to all of her guests and said something along the lines of "I have a date now, so you are all going to have to leave." I was flabbergasted and highly amused. Eddie was devastated and Bud was flummoxed. It seems the boys did not have a backup plan and were more than a little upset with Donna. In a move that is totally out of character for me and to this day completely inexplicable, I suggested Bud and Eddie come back to my apartment and the three of us would see the New Year in together. Also totally unexpected and completely baffling, they accepted. So off we went, me in my little brown Datsun B210, Bud in a souped up electric blue Chevy Malibu and Eddie in a white with red racing stripes Mustang Cobra. They were following me, since they had no clue where I lived. I drove through the little town of Bel Air, Maryland at about 60 mph. Those two were cussing me and calling me every vile name they could come up with because they were both in highly visible vehicles driving through a 25 mph citywide speed limit, while I was just zipping along in my unobtrusive, barely noticeable (can it really go that fast?) Datsun. Fortunately, the city cops had other things on their minds that night and none of us were pulled over.
Once we got to my apartment, and after the two guys finished berating me for my driving habits, we ordered some pizza and drank some beer. I had a collection of 45 RPM records that I had been accumulating since the early 1960's so I drug them out and started playing them. Much to my delight, Bud's taste in music was very similar to mine and he was actually well acquainted with a large number of my records. Eddie fell asleep on my sofa. Bud and I sat on my living room floor for the rest of the night and played every one of those records, and there were hundreds of them. Of course we talked, and got to know each other better, and found out we had a lot of similar likes and dislikes. Around 7:00 AM we woke Eddie up and I sent the boys off to their respective homes. I needed some sleep. I didn't think much would come of our "date", but I had enjoyed myself and I now had a far better opinion of Bud.
One of our topics of discussion over the course of the evening was marriage. I'd already tried and epically failed at the institution and wasn't particularly interested in venturing that way again. Bud had been 21 for four whole days. He had never been married, and at that point insisted he would never be married. I told him that was ridiculous and I would bet that he would be married before he turned 27, never for one second thinking I might be the blushing bride. He bet me $200 that he would NOT be married before his 27th birthday. We were married eight days after he turned 26. He has not yet paid me my $200, but he has given me unbelievable riches in so many ways. I think I'll let the debt slide.
Tomorrow (or whenever I get around to it next), more on the love story of Bud and Carla.
Monday, January 3, 2011
OBLIGATION: The act of binding oneself by a social, legal, or moral tie
"Don't worry. We have an excellent friend who will be caring for our home and our dogs while we are away." --
Quote from my blog post I Am My Own Worst EnemyFamous last words! Apparently I am functioning under a misconception about responsibility.
We went to Baltimore to share Christmas with Bud's brother and his family. We have done this for many years and up until this year it was never a problem. When we are planning to be gone for longer than just a weekend, we hire the services of professional (?) pet sitters to come to our home twice a day to feed the dogs, make sure they are well, give them attention and treats, make sure they have water and bring in the mail. We have used the services of this man and his wife for more than a few years. They have up until now been reliable, responsible and fulfilled their obligation. I referred to them as friends because we have used their services for so long and because we think of them as more than mere acquaintances. I am trying to convince myself since they have only failed in their obligation once in all these years, it is not such a terrible thing, but I am still very upset.
It snowed in the Triad area of North Carolina on Christmas Day for the first time since 1969. It was one of those storms that came up from the south rather than across the mountains, so it had the potential to be seriously bad. It also snowed ever so slightly in Maryland, and by slightly I mean it just barely covered the grass. We checked the news and weather reports from Greensboro and knew our home was getting much more of the white stuff. We had planned to stay in Maryland until Tuesday the 28th or Wednesday the 29th. Since the 27th is Bud's birthday, we had plans to go out to dinner with Mike and Andee at P. F. Chang's (Bud's choice, but also one of my favorites). On Sunday the 26th we received an early morning phone call from our pet sitters. According to the wife, there were already 8" of snow and it was still snowing. She said there had been numerous accidents the night before and she was not going to be able to get to our home to feed our dogs. WHAT??? Don't tell me you can't feed my dogs when we have paid you to perform this service. As professionals, did you not think weather might be an issue in the execution of your duties, and plan for it accordingly? Does living in the south exclude you from acting like a responsible adult? When I was still among the working population, I had a set time at which I was expected to be at my job. That time did not include an exception during bad weather. If I knew the weather was going to be bad, I prepared for it, and left my home earlier than normal so I might arrive at my destination ON TIME. I'll admit, since I've moved to the south I was often the only one to arrive on time, and sometimes the only one to arrive at all. But, I never expected anyone to do anything that I myself was not prepared to do as well.
Rather than let my dogs go without food on a snowy day when they would need additional fuel, we called some "real" friends who live not too far away and happen to own a 4-wheel drive vehicle (note to pet sitters -- think maybe one of these might be useful in your work?). Bonnie and Jeff agreed to go over and feed our dogs, but we could not expect them to continue doing this as they had real livestock (as in cows, horses, pigs, chickens, sheep, goats) to tend and the snow made it more time consuming for them. So, we reluctantly packed up and made a hasty departure from Maryland. I wish I could say this was done peacefully, but when I am upset, I am totally unreasonable and invariably say and do things I wish I had not said or done later. Fortunately, Bud and I have been together so long, even our worst disagreements don't last very long, but I know I am a trial to him at times like this.
Though we made an agreement with Mike and Andee not to exchange presents between the grown-ups (the girls are adults but we still consider them kids), they got a GPS for us for Christmas. We had a GPS a few years ago, but it was stolen from our car one day while we were in Camden Yard enjoying a baseball game. That is another blog in and of itself. As it turned out, the GPS was very useful in getting us home again. We knew from checking the Weather Channel the storm was moving up the east coast and I-95/I-85 were smack in the middle of it. Bud, being the Eagle Scout he is, decided we would go west and go down I-81 which was completely clear of any bad weather. We had not been on I-81 since we went to visit my brother Joe when he lived in Tennessee around 1979. But the GPS got us from Westminster, Maryland to I-81. Of course, we didn't need any guidance on the highway, but getting from I-81 to Greensboro was a bit tricky. Again, the GPS made it so easy even I could have done it (well, if I was allowed to drive, which I'm not). We encountered only a few snowflakes falling from the sky (by a few I mean less than 50 individual flakes). As we approached Greensboro, we could see significantly more and more snow, but all the roads were perfectly cleared. We were worried that the road we live on would be a problem. We live atop the highest elevation for miles around, and the incline uphill on our road is fairly steep. There have been a few times we had trouble getting up the hill and one time we had to go several miles out of our way and sneak in the back way. This time, however, the hill was not a problem at all, which only made me more wacky. In fact, at our house, the total accumulation of snow was about 4½", NOT EVEN CLOSE TO 8". The roads were clear and the worst part of the whole trip was getting up our driveway, but we still made it on the first try.
I was so pleased to see my babies and they were happy to see us and get in the house and out of the cold and wet. On Tuesday, I offered to take Bud out to P. F. Chang's for his birthday but he said it wouldn't be any fun with just me. I guess I'm getting old or something, but I understood that and didn't even get my feelings hurt. We planned to leave again on Thursday to go to the mountains with the Webbs and the Hendersons for New Year's and as we had already paid the pet sitters for these visits as well, we just left the arrangements as they had been made. We went to the mountains and had a splendiferous long weekend with our friends. It rained while we were gone and all the snow has washed away. There were no more incidents.
We will probably continue to use the same pet sitters in the future whenever we will be away on extended vacations. Realistically, they have been reliable ALMOST all the time, so I guess I can allow them one strike. Plus, I hate the concept of interviewing and searching for replacements. Bud and I are no longer angry with each other. I said something stupid to my brother-in-law and I need to call him to explain and apologize, but once that is done, the whole thing can be put away. I hate drama. But more than that, I hate thinking my babies have been abandoned. So, yes, I'm a bit of a drama queen too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)