Monday Memories

Did I ever tell you about my plan to open a bookstore?

After three really terrific contract librarian positions at Ohio State University from 1978-1983, I finally landed a full-time, tenure-track, faculty rank job. Problem was, it was incredibly clerical and I hated it, so I resigned. What to do? By this time the children had entered high school. "Oh, I know, I'll open a business--a book store." The kids could help--keep them off the streets, etc. We would bond. How hard could it be?

I visited the local Mom and Pop Christian bookstores and chatted up the owners. To my discerning ear these folks had no experience either in business or with books; they prayed, and poof! a store fell in their laps. Well, I could do that! So I prayed, and prayed and prayed, but I sure didn't see any doors opening up that said, "Bookstore Here." I also visited a franchise Christian bookstore and wrote to the company, and discovered that would take about $70,000 (which was a lot of money then--still is, actually). And yes, I read one book about the publishing industry (although I was a librarian I didn't have the foggiest idea how books were made and distributed).

So I thought maybe God was waiting for me to do something. Experience maybe? So I dropped in at the Pickwick Discount Books which had recently opened near us (a division of the Dayton-Hudson chain I think) and applied for a job. The assistant manager was thrilled to have me, said she could only pay me $.25 above minimum wage, but I could buy books at the employee discount. I figured it was for my education in the school of hard knocks, so I didn't care. Besides, I was on my way to my dream of owning a bookstore! Pause here for reflection: I've checked my resume, but you don't usually stick minimum wage jobs in the middle of your professional work record, so can't place the date, but I think it was fall 1983.

Reality is what wakes you up from a dream, not a nightmare. Let me count the ways that clued me in this wasn't for me. Ten things come to mind that returned me to the bosom and comfort of state employment.

1) The building had formerly been a pharmacy (Nicklaus, as in Jack's parents), and had no elevator, but all books and magazines were stored in the basement, which meant hand carrying them up a steep stairway for stocking the shelves. Worse though, was carrying them down. Freight operators are unionized, and their contract called for dumping the boxes of books at an address, not inside the door. If cars were in the way, they might be placed anywhere on the parking lot. We clerks had to bring these terribly heavy boxes inside on a dolly, and carry them to the basement storage. Rain or storm--we had to bring them in, and just look awful for the customers.

2) Destroying books was part of the job. For a librarian that was like drowning kittens. We had to sit in the cold basement for hours and tear covers off books that couldn't be returned (all those print runs you read about are phony statistics--printed doesn't mean sold). The covers were tracked and bundled for return and credit. Then the guts had to be carried back up the stairs and lifted over your head into the outside dumpster some distance from our building so people wouldn't steal them. Between ripping up boxes with heavy staples, and stripping covers off books, my hands felt like bad sandpaper.

3) We had to accept whatever magazines the distributor dropped off. I heard (but couldn't confirm) that the distributor in Columbus had ties to organized crime. That might explain all the obscenely trashy porn we got. We women staffers would conveniently leave most of them in the basement, bringing up only the better known titles like Hustler and Playboy, and trust me when I say they were definitely gross, but were the least objectionable. But even having to handle these disgustingly anti-female, violent porn rag sheets was traumatic.

4) The sweet assistant manager who hired me was only making $.50 more an hour than I was, but had horrid hours, and was always on call. I never did her job, which seemed to be constantly checking computerized sheets on a clipboard and sending reports. She dressed and wore her hair like a 1960s flower-child. Her live-in boyfriend also worked there and she was his supervisor. I guess it isn't nepotism if you're not married. I rode a bike to work on nice days because I lived near-by--I don't think they had a car or a choice. The stress of the job made her colitis act up and she was sick a lot.

5) The cash register was probably the latest version of computerization, and I never caught on. I couldn't clear an error, or get the drawer to open, or accept a gift certificate. I was the clerk you either feel very sorry for or hate if you're waiting in line. My self-esteem plummeted the few months I worked there. I was 43, but you become an "older learner" around age 25 (your brain cells freeze), and I never had enough time to learn anything well. The public can get a bit testy. Hateful, actually. I would almost start to tremble if I got a complicated transaction and the customer decided to be chatty.

6) Our best clerk who was a whiz with the register and bailing me out, resigned to go work as a paraprofessional in a - - library! Not once did I ever see her smile. Almost no place pays as low as libraries, so she wasn't making much either.

7) Books were disappearing and we discovered the thief was an OSU grad student who worked at the - - library!

8) Most of my tiny salary went for books because the discount was so good, and books were already discounted (many remainders and overruns).

9) The district manager was "transferred" by corporate to Minnesota when she was 8 1/2 months pregnant. Her husband was employed in Columbus, so I don't know what she did. Leaving her OB at that point, or packing for a move, would have been tough. She could barely walk, but would've needed her medical benefits.

10) But the most memorable event was the day my daughter called and said, "Mom, I've cleaned up most of the blood but you need to come home and take [her brother] to the ER." He had forgotten his key and decided to go in through a window.

No, I never opened that bookstore, but smile and nod with recognition when someone mentions that as an ideal business venture.

1. Melli, 2. Lazy Daisy, a genius in the family 3. Lady Bug, funny story about hubby 4. Carmen (a meme but no memory when I checked) 5. Chelle, a teacher we wish we all had, 6. Libragirl's memory is really fresh, 7. Renee faces life's storms, 8. Purple Kangaroo, mommy of 3 adorables, 9. Beckie, recalling blessings, 10. Shelli's dear friend

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Monday Memories: Did I ever tell you about: When my letters turned into a memoir?
When my children left home about 20 years ago, I was suffering from empty nest syndrome big time. I decided to gather up the letters I’d written to my mother and sisters and the ones they’d written me and excerpt the “crazy” time in our year--from about Halloween through January so I would have a written record of our family life. Both children have November birthdays, so that’s about the time things really heated up at our house.

After looking through the letters (which my mother had saved), I pushed the time line back another 10 years and started with my years in college until I had about 30 years worth of letters. And I added in letters from girl friends, cousins, and in-laws. (I never throw away a letter). It was hours of typing (at the office after work since I didn’t have a computer then) and careful editing out really personal stuff. My husband designed an artistic cover, and I had the little book reproduced and bound at Kinko's.

Although the collection recorded all the cute and interesting things about my children’s growing up years, it also inadvertently became a story about a group of women--with a few men around the fringes--who were keeping things going by following a few familiar holiday traditions. At the beginning, I'm a college student and my mother is 47 years old with three children in college, a married daughter and two little grandchildren. My niece and nephew are 3 and 2 in the first letter and then are parents of their own children at the end, and repeating many of the same traditions, questions, and yearnings we letter writers had. Some people who didn’t write letters are in the collection anyway--their health and well-being and activities reported by the women who tell the stories year after year.

These letters recorded the ordinary events of our lives to the faint drumbeat of the cold war, the civil rights movement, space flight, the VietNam war, political campaigns, Watergate, economic growth and slowdown cycles, the rise of feminism, employment crises, career changes and family reconfigurations. On and on we wrote, from the conservatism of the Eisenhower years, on through the upheaval of the 60's, the stagnation of the 70's, then into the conservatism of Reagan/Bush in the 80s. National and international events are rarely discussed in these letters as though we were pulling the family close into the nest for a respite from the world's woes. If you were to read the letters, you might miss that we were even aware of world events. Or maybe because, as one of my sisters noted in a letter, when you're struggling on the home front sometimes there isn't much left to give to others.

The edited letters became the rhythm of women's lives--nursing a dying parent, holding a sick child, putting up the tree, playing the old records, going to the post office, baking favorite Christmas cookies, helping with school work, going to holiday programs, creating crafts with the children, shopping for gifts, checking the sky for some sunshine, wallpapering the hall, folding the laundry, looking for that just right job.

E-mail and blogging will have an effect on family memoirs--it will be interesting to review this phenomenon in 30 years. Digital is much less permanent than paper. Print out what is worth keeping--your children will be grown and gone the next time you turn around. And when they ask you why you printed them out for safe keeping, tell them, "Because Norma said so."

Links to Other Monday Memories
1. Kimmy, 2. AnvilCloud 3. Katherine, 4. Courtney, 5. Frog Legs, 6. Shelli, 7. Libragirl, 8. Melanie, 9. Beckie,


(If you participate, leave your link in the comments and I'll post it here)

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Monday Memories

Did I ever tell you about The day I had 80 people for brunch on a Spring day? This is my list of instructions I taped to the inside of a cabinet door, so I could check our progress as we went along. My daughter, son-in-law, and their sister-in-law were helping me. I found this list going through my files today and thought it made a nice "memory" blog. The menu was breakfast egg casserole, tender crisp fresh asparagus, rolls and muffins, mixed fresh fruit, and beverage. I used china and silver, but did use paper napkins. Food 2 baked breakfast casseroles (which my daughter prepared at her house) here by 10 a.m. One bacon, one no meat. Start 4 casseroles in the oven at 350 at 10 a.m. Two sausage, one bacon, one no meat. Start 2 casseroles at 11 a.m. Baking time is about one hour, and can sit awhile to firm up. This means the oven is on for 2 hours. If it gets too hot, open the kitchen window. One fruit mixture has strawberries. Use it first; large glass bowl. Other has apples. Keep water at near boiling temperature and cook asparagus as needed in large saucepan. Keep 2 vegetable bowls rotating for asparagus. There are 8 doz dinner rolls, 47 muffins, 16 sweet rolls, 10 pumpkin-cranberry, 19 coffee cake. Use the large glass plate and put only two types on a plate--have another plate prepared in kitchen, ready to go; do not put out a selection of all. Margarine and butter. Home-made jam. Beverage Coffee urn serves 30; ask Peggy to make. Decaf in maroon caraffe; make in 12 cup drip. I think the coffee will go fast, so we might want to make a 12 cup to keep ready while the 30 cup is re-brewing. Sweet 'n low, sugar, creamer, half n half, skim milk. Glass cups--15-20; we'll need to use styrofoam for backup (cups that match china are too difficult to use away from a table). Tea bags and cappuccino in kitchen with hot water next to dining room door. Orange juice on buffet in glass pitcher. Plastic cups for oj. Flatware and china 20 plates and flatware on table; when this is used, put out green pattern plates from kitchen counter. Meanwhile (son-in-law) collect used plates, scrape and wash and replace on table with clean flatware. Napkins inside cabinet. Kitchen Keep south counter for stacking clean dishes. Wash left to right with space immediately left of sink for dirty dishes. Leave north counter clear for fruit and bread preparation. Use dishwasher top next to stove for casseroles and asparagus preparation. Keep trash container under sink. Dirty pans go to laundry room--wash later. All food prep and serving in kitchen; carry to dining room Seating By 11:30 it should be warm enough to be sitting on the patio. 2 tables, 12 chairs. 3 director's chairs with snack table on driveway side for smokers. 4 chairs in den. 9-10 in office. 11 in living room. If looking for a place to sit, can also use my office, or the guest room upstairs. Hang coats in front closet. Addendum, Feb. 2006: It was a fabulous day; everything went as planned; everyone had a great time and plenty to eat. And the hostess had a good time. If it had rained. . .there would be a different blog here. Links to other Monday Memories (If you participate, leave your link in the comments and I'll post it below) 1. Joan, 2. Running2K, 3. Kimmy and Jacob, 4. Ladybug

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526 How do you fix a broken zipper?

It all began on a Thursday in 1982 and ended on a Saturday in 2004. That’s a long time for a pair of khaki slacks to survive homemaking, career, travels, weight changes and fashion trends. I found them in a small “dress shop” in Kenny Center (it disappeared years ago along with dresses) that carried over-stocks and out-of-season sportswear. The zipper broke sometime during last Saturday’s yard sale when the metal clasp jumped the track of the nylon treads. Out of season--yes, indeed, twenty two years out.

The children were not only out-growing their clothes that year, but becoming very conscious of fashion faux pas and fads. So I probably really debated about the extravagance of buying something for myself. Straight leg slacks and jeans with a natural waist and small front pleats were all the rage. My hip hugger flares were definitely out of style, so they were off to the “missionary barrel.”

My daughter calls the 80s our “beige years.” I was driving a 1977 beige Buick, and our second car was a lighter beige Fiesta. We were living in a beige house, with beige walls and carpet. So why not beige slacks to complete the ensemble? I was a Democrat and Ronald Reagan was President. The children both entered high school that year, 9th and 10th grade as the school system changed from a three year to a four year high school.

That was most likely the year our son started smoking--it was allowed in school in those days, and it was a way for a lowly Freshman to hang out and be accepted by the upper classmen. Thank you, UA Board of Education, for a habit he still can’t kick.

I’d need to check a resume to see if and where I was working--but I think I was clerking at Pickwick Discount Books on Lane Avenue to see if I really wanted to open a book store. I didn’t, I discovered. Being a librarian was far easier, and less physically demanding. I couldn’t figure out the cash register, or the ordering system and I learned that the truck drivers delivered those heavy cartons of books only to the front door and dumped them. We employees had to carry them to the basement. We had to accept the pornographic magazines along with the regular consumer titles (we hid them in the basement until it was time for returns).

I do remember the day my daughter called me at the bookstore (I had ridden my bike to work and she had the beige Buick) and said, “Mom, don’t worry, I’ve cleaned up all the blood, but we need to go to the ER.” Her brother had forgotten his key and in an attempt to crawl through a window, he had broken it and sliced his wrist on jagged glass.

So maybe I bought myself those slacks as a reward. I didn’t know in 1982 the worst was yet to come with the teen years, but we all survived and so did the slacks. The khakis traveled to library conferences in Boston, Missouri, and Texas; went on summer vacations at Lake Erie and northern Illinois. Last year they rode Amtrak to California and back, and this year they traveled by bus to Buffalo and Canada.

There’s probably a few good years of wear left; they are hardly broken in. Anyone know how to fix a zipper?


Leaving california 

220 The value of a college education--in dollars

What is a college education (BA or BS) really worth in dollars? This site says the average college graduate will earn about $600,000 over and above what the average high school graduate will earn.

I thought I would die of a broken heart when BOTH my children decided not to go to college--actually, refused is a better word. I was the third generation in my family to go to college--and I was on the faculty at a fine university. OK, I thought. A few years in the market place and they'll come around. Didn't happen. So we spent the college money on a summer cottage--no kidding--and eventually they'll reap the benefits of that since it has appreciated from $53,000 in 1988 to about $200,000 according to our latest tax assessment.

But here's the what if. . . Say we had invested $20,000 (the cost in the mid-80s of a state university education) in the stock market for 45 years, until their retirement age. Would they have that $600,000 to cushion their golden years? No, they'd have $1,604,000 using the conservative figure that over time, stock investments level out at about 10% a year, even factoring in the wild ride of the 90s.

Both of our adult children earn an income of the average college graduate or slightly more. They love their jobs and feel fulfilled and satisfied. The one who liked school the least and did the poorest, has actually completed two college level courses and done extremely well--but that accomplishment didn't inspire further interest in education. The other assists with continuing education in teaching people with 10-12 years more formal education and 6 figure incomes and will be off to San Antonio today for such a workshop.

Go figure. A mother who was wrong and admits it!

Our life and times

This is a collection of links to different “memory” type entries in my blog, mostly about our family.


My brother, me and Mom at the farm, 1984

Camp and camping--Monday Memories

Our lost and missing beds

The end of childhood

My plan to open a book store--Monday Memories

Grandma's grandparents

The Marriage Test--Monday Memories

Sunday night suppers--Monday Memories

Serendipity--Monday Memories

Horse crazy--Monday Memories

World War II Service

My grandparents in the 1920s--Monday Memories

A collection of letters--Monday Memories

My husband's lady friends--Monday Memories

My green thumb--Monday Memories

80 people for brunch--Monday memories

Bits of metal and plastic

Grandma's poem for sons at war

Norma's 1958 diary

My favorite cookbook

Happy Birthday Marines

Christmas Eve dinner

Housing reruns

The Vioxx Case

Waffle Makers

Queen for a Day

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

When we were young and high tech

Mother's Weather and Crop Reports

On Fathers and Dads

Rebuilding America

Bad Hair Day

Freshman Yearbook

Armistice Day, November 11, 1918

Reunion of the SLOBS (Arsenal Technical H.S., Indianapolis)

High School Letter Sweaters

Reunion of books and things

Revisiting the Robie House

Our Class Reunions

How do you fix a broken zipper

The 50th Anniversary

I love Martha Stewart

Piero Fornasetti Plates

The value of a college education in dollars

The Good-Bye Letter

Six Reasons to be Late for the Party

Summers at Camp Emmaus

Children and Sleep

Christmas in Indiana

An irregular face

Cancer with the Experts

The night the cat died

Canine Cardiology

Happy Birthdays

The ghost of William B. McKinley

Wenger genealogy

Mouse Dirt (Forreston)

Family memorabilia

Halloween in the 70s

Lake Webster 1953

October 4, 1957

On being a good parent

Veterans Day 2006--Uncle Clare

Mt. Morris and Forreston, Illinois

Grandma's hymnal

Cousin Marianne's 90th birthday

The generations

Uncle and nephew

Life after high school

Carol, Cindy and Greg

Debbie and John visit Lakeside

Our Schurch [Shirk, Sherk] genealogy

Sisters, 2007 and 1957

Remodeled kitchesn

Big Hair

A genealogy prayer list

Spring snow 1975

Paper dolls