Tag Archives: jobs

IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME

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Did you ever consider the possibility of turning back time, and what would you change if you had that capability? And did you consider how changing the past would affect the present and your future? We have all made poor choices in our lives, but others have often told us that we learn a lesson when we make mistakes. However, science has shown that we often fail to learn from past errors. Instead, we are likely to keep repeating the same mistakes.

Looking back over my life, I recognize the mistakes I’ve made along the way. In fact, I often repeated the same mistake many times over the course of my lifetime. And I’m not alone. Many people repeat the same mistake over time. I have come to a point in my life when I have made a concerted effort not to make the same mistakes I made while I was young.

Freud

When I researched this subject, I found that Freud called this the repetition compulsion: In his words, we feel a subconscious compulsion to repeat mistakes from the past. Perhaps hoping that this time the situation will work out differently, but it rarely does. Of course, there are some experiences where we learn not to repeat those mistakes. For instance, if you pick up a hot pot or pan without any protection for your hand. You are going to get burned, and the next time, our brain will remind us to use a pot holder because of the pain we originally experienced. So we will not injure ourselves again in the same way.

However, most mistakes are often repeated over and over again, regardless of the consequences. For instance, you may have a habit of hitting the snooze alarm, turning it off, and not getting out of bed. As a result, you are always late for work or a doctor’s appointment.

However, in my own life, I found that my father’s habits strongly influenced my behavior while I was growing up and continued into my adult life. My father could not tolerate being late or anyone else being late. In fact, he was always early for everything.

In addition, my father was fastidious in every task he undertook. He was a highly intelligent man with many skills, talents, and interests. He enjoyed building things. He and his friend built a house from the roof down. He accomplished this while working full-time as the head dispatcher for PTC, the Philadelphia Transit Company Bus Company. He devised the system they used for many years for the bus drivers, public buses, and trolleys. He worked at PTC for over forty years. And he became something of a legend for his intelligence and ingenuity. He was never late or took a day off.

He was creative, and for many years, he designed collages from pictures he cut out of magazines and old books. I recall he made a large piece of art from a pool tabletop. For good luck, he attached pool cues, pool balls, playing cards, dice, and a horseshoe. It hung over our fireplace for many years. My father made the fireplace out of glass blocks, and instead of fire burning at the base of the fireplace, my father cut a mirror and fit that space. At Christmas time, he put Christmas lights inside all the glass blocks.

My father- 1960's

My father, Hugh Carberry

My father held high standards in terms of being organized. For instance, he had a basement workshop holding all his tools. And not a single thing was ever left out of place. And it would behoove anyone who borrowed his tools to put them back in pristine condition in the right place. That was me, for the most part. I was always snooping through his drawers to see what was hidden away. I was always careful to put everything back where it belonged because I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of my father’s anger.

Yes, my father liked to gamble, he played cards for money, he gambled on horse races. He was not a perfect human being, but who is?

As a child who grew up under my father’s influence, I also became highly organized and neat to the extreme. I couldn’t stand anything being messy or out of place. And I have to admit I haven’t changed much over the course of my lifetime. I have a low tolerance for anything being out of place or, god forbid, messy.

I put a lot of thought into every decision I have made throughout my lifetime. I rarely asked anyone for their advice since I trusted my own judgment. I admit I’ve made mistakes over many years, but I learned from them and didn’t repeat them.

Having said that, I find myself reconsidering some of the choices I’ve made in the past, and I don’t believe I’ve made any choices or decisions that I would want to go back in time and change my choices.

I have been retired for ten years, but I’ve kept busy doing things I enjoy. In addition, I have volunteered for the past eight years at an animal sanctuary. I have always had a deep appreciation and love of animals since I was a young child. As a child, I befriended all the dogs and cats in the neighborhood. Not to mention that I used to spend hours in our backyard watching the birds fly around our house and in and out the big Willow tree that grew there. I used to sit back and watch the birds, wishing I could fly.

Over the course of my lifetime, I have lived in New Jersey, Florida, and California, and now I’ve retired to North Carolina. I don’t regret any of it. It allowed me to meet and get to know many interesting people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I had the opportunity to experience things I wouldn’t have been able to do. I had many interesting jobs. And a few that weren’t particularly interesting. I wouldn’t change any of it.

I‘m glad I’d had the courage to live true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Some of the things I did during my lifetime are ones I’m proud of and would never regret. I didn’t have the opportunity to go to college when I graduated from high school. I attended Temple University when I was thirty-six and graduated at forty-one. The only adult student that graduated with my class. It was a challenging experience but nonetheless wonderful. I graduated with a 4.0 average cum laude and art teaching credentials. As a result, I opened an Art School in my home in Pitman, NJ, and taught art to children, adolescents, and adults for many years until we retired.

I worked at Ranch Hope in Alloway, NJ, as a counselor for adolescent boys adjudicated by the courts to reside there. I worked there for four years. The boys that lived there were from the age of seven to eighteen. It’s called a Christian facility, but in truth, it was a prison for adolescent boys. 

I worked for the Center for Family Services in Camden, NJ, for Project Cope. I visited parents who were incinerated in prisons about allowing their children to have a mentor who was a member of one of the five churches within Camden. Camden has a crime rate of 44 per one thousand residents; Camden has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes – from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 23. Once I established a relationship with the incarcerated parent, I would explain how their children would benefit from an adult Mentor from the city in which the children lived.

Ranch Hope and Project Cope were two opportunities that I feel did the best for the people I was trying to assist in attaining a better life than their parents had achieved.

The list of jobs I’ve had over the years is long. I do not regret a single moment of any of them. I feel as if life handed me opportunities to improve myself and do good in the world. And to take advantage of every opportunity that came my way. I did just that. I have no regrets about any of my experiences. Regardless, I still look forward to whatever life has to offer me as a challenge, and I will put all my energy into succeeding in whatever that challenge entails. Life is short, live it to the fullest that’s my point of view. And always will be until I breathe my last breath. I have no regrets whatsoever. Even though I am in my retirement years, I will continue to meet any challenge that comes my way. I’ve never let fear or trepidation stop me, and I will not allow it to stop me in the coming years that remain in my lifetime.

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IN LIFE YOU LEARN AND GROW THROUGH PAIN, STRUGGLES, LOVE AND JOY

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I find it hard to believe at times, but I’ve gotten to that stage in life when I realize my most valuable possession is the time I have left to live and what I do with it. It seems like a blink of an eye since the day I sat in the church auditorium waiting for my name to be called as one of the graduating Seniors at St. Mary of the Angels Academy high school. This was an all-girl academic Academy in Haddonfield, NJ. It was June of 1969. My graduation marked both an ending and a beginning for me. The end of my Catholic School career and my childhood, and the beginning of my future as a working adult.

To be perfectly honest, I had never given any real thought about what I would do when I graduated from high school. And no one ever asked me what my plans were. And if they asked me, I would have had to say, “I have no clue, honestly.” That is until one day at the end of my final semester at SMAA (St. Mary of the Angels Academy). Sister Eileen Marie, the principal at SMAA, called me to her office and told me that she had a job for me. Apparently, Sister Eileen Marie found jobs for students who were not going to go to college. She informed me that she had recommended me for a job as a dental assistant for Doctor Edward Wozniak, who lived in and practiced dentistry in Haddon Township, New Jersey. It was about a thirty-five-minute drive from where I lived in Maple Shade, NJ. 

Sister Eileen told me that Dr. Wozniak’s wife had attended SMAA back in the day, and she wanted to hire a graduating student from St. Mary’s to come and work at her husband’s dental office since she had two small children and couldn’t work in the office. I was told I should arrive at Dr. Wozniak’s office on time, dress properly, speak up, and make a good impression. I recall having the interview with Mrs. Wozniak, but not how I got there since I didn’t have a car. I have to assume that either my father drove me there or I took public transportation. It was a short interview, and Mrs. Wozniak explained what my duties would be and my hours, and my pay. The only money I had ever earned previously was babysitting which I probably made about a dollar an hour. Mrs. Wozniak ended her description with the question,” So when can you start?” I told her my graduation day and said,” Any day after that.”

I can’t say I remember being nervous about starting my first job, but I probably was. But, as it turned out that although I never had any work experience, I was a quick learner. And in no time, I was learning how to be a dental assistant, develop dental xrays, answer the phone and make appointments, and call patients to confirm their appointments. I also was a chairside assistant, cleaning the rooms and setting up the instruments for each patient. I escorted each patient into the room where their dental work was going to take place. I talk to each patient and try to calm them down if they were nervous or just past the time of day with them. I also had to clean the rooms, including the lab, at the end of the day.

It was a challenging job. But I have to admit I really liked it. Dr. Wozniak was a kind man and always thoughtful to both myself and his patients. I worked there for about four years. I believe that working at Dr. Wozniak was an excellent experience for me. I became more confident in my abilities and more outgoing. Since I had to talk to all the patients and reassure them, answer all the phone calls. I learned to be organized, efficient, and friendly to the people I came in contact with me.

In fact, every job or position I have held over my lifetime has been of benefit to me. I enjoyed some jobs more than others. But, overall, every experience prepared me for the next one. I was no longer shy and reticent. I was outgoing and confident. Life, after all, is full of learning experiences that benefit you from that day forward if you are open to them.

I have to admit that I have had and held many jobs over the years. And that not every job was a dream job; some I downright hated. But, still, I learned something along the way. And I met many interesting people. After I stopped working at Dr. Wozniak, I decided I wanted to do something more challenging and different. And I did just that. I applied for a job as a psychiatric aide at Ancora State Mental Hospital. It was a good hour and a half drive from where I lived. My brother, who was a psychologist, had at one time, early in his career, worked at Ancora. He gave me the contact number of one of the people he worked with at Ancora. And so, I called her and got an appointment for a job interview. I did well at the interview and was hired. I was informed that I would have to take several weeks of training before I could work with the patients in the active psyche ward. I said, “But I told you I wanted to work with children. And she told me not at this time, but perhaps at some point in the future.

So, I had to take a thirty-day training with several other candidates. We had to take a written test at the end of the training. It turned out that a young woman named Joan Hall and I were the only ones who excelled in the test. The instructor told us we should both consider getting further formal education since we had both stood out from the crowd. Joan was assigned to a different ward than I was, and I never came in contact with her again.

I was assigned to the Active Psyche Ward. And I have to admit that “active” was not the best description of the behavior I observed in the first couple of days I worked there. You have to remember that this was in the early 1970s, and few medicinal drugs were available to treat mental illness. Most of the patients I encountered were taking Thorozine. They often walked around like zombies, or they slept all day. In the children’s ward, I often saw young children running around without clothes on. I have to admit I was shocked since my own life. I had always been sheltered to some extent by my parents.

At one point, I was assigned the duty of supervising women’s showers. There really aren’t any words to describe that experience. Seeing so many females, young and old undressed and standing in the showers. I was told they were not allowed to share showers with other patients. So, the first time I supervised the female patients in the shower, I spent my time separating grown women who kept trying to shower with other women and kept touching one another. This was not a good experience for me, and I informed my immediate supervisor that there was no way I could do that anymore.

In addition, I had to accompany patients from one part of the hospital to another. In inclement weather, I would take the patients through a system of underground tunnels. It turned out this was a place where many patients would arrange clandestine meetings with one another to have sex. I learned to avoid looking at these interactions and tried to block them from my memory.

It turned out that I was put on the three to twelve shift. And because I had to drive for nearly an hour to return home, my parents didn’t want me to continue working there. I requested to be assigned full-time to the children’s wards since their work shifts were during the day. At one point, the doctor in the ward where I was working told me he wanted me to observe an electroshock treatment that was being done on a young woman.

I never observed such medical treatment before since I was only out of high school for three years. I was somewhat terrified as I stood there and watched the young woman being treated. Since she was strapped to the table and had no recourse, she started reacting negatively, crying and asking them to stop. The doctors laughed and kept going. They made fun of her. It was just awful. It turns out that patients treated with electroshock treatment suffer memory loss. I’ve never been able to forgive those “doctors” for degrading the poor woman. Who was supposed to be treated with kindness and understanding and be on the road to recovery?

At this point, I decided this was not my job. Because my core beliefs would not allow me to stand by and let another person, one that was struggling with life, be treated with such disregard. I gave them two weeks’ notice and quit. It was a learning experience for me. I quickly realized who I was and what I was and was unwilling to do to earn a living for myself.

I never told anyone what I had observed while I was working at Ancora. Because I didn’t really have the words to express the horror I felt at how my fellow human beings who were supposed to be helping this poor miscreant treated the people they were supposed to be supporting to a return to mental health. I felt the system had totally failed these people. And I could not imagine spending any more time working there. So, it became apparent that I was going to have to get busy looking for another job. And I was successful in doing just that. I applied for a job at Ellis High-Risk Auto Insurance Company on Haddon Avenue in Haddon Township, New Jersey. And it turned out to be a good choice. But, I will speak to that experience in my next memoir about jobs I have had over my lifetime.

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SUNSHINE, HAIRCUTS AND MANICURES

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It was 1974, and I was living in Jupiter, Florida. I didn’t know anyone there other than my husband, Bob, and his family. In the past, I had worked as a dental assistant, and for a high-risk auto insurance company in New Jersey for several years. However, I had difficulty finding a job in Florida because companies had a policy that you had to have been a Florida resident for at least six months before they would hire you. And I had only lived there two months since moving from New Jersey.

Fortunately, Bob’s cousin, Margie, had worked at an insurance company B.D.Cole. Margie said I could use her as a reference. So after two interviews, I was hired to work as an assistant for Elaine Ayoub. Who had worked at that office for years and was nearing retirement age. Elaine was having difficulty keeping up with the workload and had made some mistakes. So, they hired me to assist her.

Colonnades Hotel add 1970’s.. I’m under the blanket.

I was told to go through her outgoing work every day and make sure it was in order. It was a challenging job since I wasn’t up to date on all the insurance laws in Florida. And they were different from New Jersey. Elaine didn’t seem aware that I lacked the pertinent information, and she didn’t attempt to teach me what I needed to know. She had a somewhat imposing personality, and I was young and slightly intimidated by her.

After working at B.D. Cole, for about six months, Bob and I got married. We took a three-day honeymoon in Miami. Where it rained, cats and dogs the entire time. The hotel room’s roof leaked, and the water leaked non-stop over our bed for three days. It was a honeymoon that I would never forget, that’s for sure. Bob lost his wallet somehow, and he had no clue where it was. When we returned to our apartment in Lake Park, we found it on the driveway.

We had adopted a puppy we named Ullyses a couple of months before we were married. And we had put him in a kennel for three days while we were on our honeymoon in Miami. When we picked him up from the kennel, we discovered that he was infested with fleas,  as was our apartment. After three days, the fleas were extremely hungry and bit us from top to bottom. It was not a great beginning. We had to use a flea bomb to kill all the fleas and treat Ulysses, our puppy, to kill all fleas on him.

The following day when I went back to work at B. D., Cole, I was called into the main office. I was informed that I was being laid off. The company was downsizing. And so, after three days of marriage, a wet honeymoon, and being attacked by fleas on our return. I was once again without a job.

I spent the next several weeks trying to find another job with no luck. And I decided that I would go to a hairdressing school. I found out there was a school in West Palm Beach. It was called The Florida Beauty Academy. Looking back on this decision, I can not imagine what made me think I would be a great hairdresser. I never had a talent for styling my hair, nor did I have any experience.

 I began my training to become a hairstylist. It was a small school, and there were only about thirty students attending that year. The students were primarily young people. But there were two adult students who I believed were in their mid-fifties.

They stuck together because they were the same age. But, I became friends with one of them. Her name was Maggie Wassenen. I used to visit her in her home and became friends with her entire family. Her husband was a mailman. And he would often talk about the people he met along his route delivering mail. One of the things that I remember the most about her house was that they had a tree in their backyard where they grew both oranges and lemons. I didn’t know about grafting trees back then, and I thought it was some kind of magic.

Unfortunately, halfway through the hairdressing course, Maggie’s friend, the other adult student in the class, committed suicide because her husband left her. And Maggie became depressed for the remainder of our time there. She didn’t talk to me often after that.

As it turned out, I had a natural talent for cutting hair and giving perms. I was able to roll a perm in less than ten minutes. I found I liked coloring hair as well. Most of our customers were older women that lived in the West Palm Beach area. And occasionally, we would cut the hair of homeless people in West Palm Beach. I enjoyed talking to these people since they offered a view of life that I had been unaware of up to this point in my life.

One of my teachers Mr. Diego, taught me how to cut hair. He was such a kind and supportive person. He had moved to Florida from Cuba. He often shared his early experiences with me about what it was like moving from his country of origin to Florida.

The one experience I recalled disliking the most was nearly all the students and the teachers smoked. And they smoked in the student’s break room. And unfortunately, it was the only place where the students could sit down, eat and take a break from standing all day. The smoke was so dense that you could barely see who was in the room.

Occasionally  I took a walk down the street from the school and go to Walgreens to get a soda or some snack or eat breakfast. There wasn’t any smoking allowed so I could breathe some fresh air for a little while. One morning a woman who frequented Walgreens came over and asked me if I was a  nurse since I was wearing a white uniform.

I said, “no, I’m a hairdressing student at the Florida Beauty Academy down the street.” People were friendly back then and thought nothing of starting a conversation with someone they didn’t know. I realized how much I enjoyed meeting and talking to people that I wouldn’t ordinarily speak to in the past. It helped me to become a more outgoing and open-minded person.

Of course, some experiences were not so pleasant. Some people who came in to get their hair done hadn’t washed their hair or taken a bath in a long, long time. I wasn’t gifted with a great sense of smell, and my fellow students knew that. And I would often get more than my share of people with, shall we say, “stronger body odor” than others. Sometimes, these poor people also had lice. And when that happened, the whole place would have to be fumigated. And I don’t even want to describe the condition of their feet when I did pedicures.

The first customer I gave a manicure to had unbelievably long nails that they curled under, and she wanted them to get new polish. I was so astounded by the length of her nails I just stood there and stared at her nails for a couple of minutes. And I said, “Holy Mackerel.” And she just laughed and laughed. I cleaned her nails and painted her nails bright red.

While attending Cosmetology School, I volunteered three afternoons a week with a family in Palm Beach, Florida, whose two children had Cystic Fibrosis, an inherited lung disorder. They were about ten and twelve years old. They lived on Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach, directly across from the ocean. Their house was immense. They had a chauffeur and a limousine, a cook, and a maid. Their mother taught me how to do clapping therapy on their backs to help them breathe better. Children with this disease did not often live to adulthood since no treatment was available at that time.

When I finished the course, I found out that it was tough to find a job as a hairdresser unless you knew someone that owned a salon. Eventually, after several months of applying to every hair salon in the area, I got a job at the Colonnades Hotel on Singer Island. It was owned by John D. MacArthur, one of the wealthiest men in the United States at that time. He was married to Helen Hayes, a famous actress at one time.

I was hired to do facials on wealthy clients who stayed at the Colonnades. I also used a machine that was called Panthermal.  They would lie inside this machine with their head sticking out, and the machine would heat up a liquid, and the steam would flow over them from their toes to their necks. It was supposed to help them lose weight. But I have no idea of how it would work or if it worked. But people paid a lot of money to get the Panthermal Treatment. I was making an astounding $3.00 an hour plus tips, which was almost unheard of at that time.

And one of the most pleasant surprises was when my older friend, Maggie Wassenen, was hired to do massages at the Colonnades Health Center. It was owned by a wealthy couple, the Zimmermans.

I worked at the Colonnades for over a year, and then my husband, Bob, decided he wanted to attend Brooks Institute for Photography in Santa Barbara, California. And we were off on another exciting adventure.

I found a job at St. Vincent’s School in Santa Barbara, working with disabled and mentally disabled children as a houseparent. It was one of the best experiences of my life. And the most satisfying.

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THOSE WERE THE DAYS

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Dear Kathleen.

High School Graduation 1969

You asked me recently if I would tell you about some of the things I did when I was young so here it goes. It was1970 and I just turned nineteen years old. I was working as a dental assistant. The dentist’s office was in the dentist’s house. I started working there part-time while I was a senior in high school. And after I graduated I worked five and a half days a week. I was off on Wednesday afternoons since that was the traditional day the Dr. Woz and all other dentists golfed.

He trained me and I learned how to develop x-rays, be a chairside assistant, sterilize the instruments and set up the room for the patients. I also answered the phone and made appointments, typed out the bills, and called all the patients the day before their appointments to remind them. I was really busy the whole time I was there and the day just flew by.

I realized that I enjoyed being busy and that I was highly organized. So I decided to try and get a part-time job at a florist shop on my day off from the dentist. I didn’t have any experience working with flowers but I always considered myself to be highly creative. I happen to know the florist that owned a shop called Fabulous Flowers. The owner’s name was Liza. She told me that she would give me a chance and see if I could learn by observing her create flower arrangements. And then I could start off doing easy arrangements like centerpieces for tables. Meanwhile, I could answer the phone and take orders.

On my first day, I was alone at the shop for a short time as Liza was out making a delivery. She called me to tell me that she was going to be delayed and was expecting a flower delivery. She ask me to unpack the flowers when they arrived and put them in the refrigerator.

About a half-hour later a delivery truck pulls up in front of the shop. The delivery guy brings a large box to the door and waves at me from outside the door. I two-timed it over and open the door for him since his hands were full.

He said, “oh, you must be new. Is Liza around?“

“Not right now. But she told me to accept the package and put the flowers in the frig.”

“Alright then, can you sign your John or should I say, Jill Hancock here? And I’ll be on my way.” So, I signed it and he was out the door in a flash. I didn’t even get a chance to ask his name or say goodbye. Oh, well next time.

I open the box and there was a gorgeous bunch of long-stemmed red roses in it. I was about to start taking them out when I noticed something was moving inside the box. I couldn’t imagine what it was. I carefully moved one rose at a time out of the box when I heard the bell on the door chime. I looked over at the door. It was Liza.

I said, ” Hi, Liza.” And then all of a sudden I felt something moving across my hand. It was the biggest spider I had ever seen, and it had fangs. That’s right fangs. I just totally freaked out and I jerked my hand above my head and the spider flew across the room and hit Liza square in the face. And then we were both screaming. Lisa knocked the spider off her face onto the floor and then she slammed her foot down on the spider and squished it with her size nine and a half clod hoppers. And that my friends was the end of that spider. He traveled all the way from South America only to be smashed into oblivion by a terrified florist.

But I have to admit it was an exciting beginning to a part-time job. I was making a dollar sixty an hour and Liza told me she could use me all day so at a dollar sixty an hour for eight hours. I was making an additional twelve dollars and eighty cents. Plus the ten hours a day for five days a week at the dentist I was making an unbelievable eighty dollars a week. I felt like I was rich beyond my wildest dreams. I started to make plans on what I would do with my newfound riches. The only money I ever made before was for babysitting my nieces and nephews.

During the first week I worked for Dr. Woz I was in the office talking to someone on the phone and I heard a buzzing noise. I had no idea what it was so I just ignored it. The buzzing went on and on. And I thought huh I wonder what that is all about. I started taking patients’ files out for the next day. All of a sudden I heard Dr. Woz say, “Sara didn’t you hear me buzzing?”

“Well, I heard a buzzing noise but I didn’t know it meant anything let alone that you were trying to get my attention.”

“What did you think it meant?”

“I don’t have a clue. What does it mean?”

“It means I need you to come in the room and assist me.”

I look at him and said, “alright but next time you probably should tell me about it first because my father didn’t raise any mind readers.”

He stares at me and I stare back at him. Then he laughs, and says, “I guess you’re right. I’ll keep that in mind.” I was only a kid, but I wasn’t a dummy. And I wasn’t going to let anyone blame me for something that was their fault.

The first few months I worked there I took the bus to and from work. And then my father said he was going to let me use his old car since he was going to get a different one. I had  just recently gotten my driver’s license. And I wasn’t an experienced driver. But the next thing I knew I was driving back and forth to my job. I was a little scared at first but I soon got used to it. The car my father gave me to drive was old. It had seen better days. It was a hoopty, in fact, it used to be a taxi. So it had a whole lot of miles on it.

But that car was my ticket to an independent life. I realized that I could come and go as I wanted. It meant I didn’t have to take the bus everywhere or ride my bike. I could go to any old place I wanted to go and no one could stop me. Once I turned eighteen my friends and I started going down the shore on the weekends and going to nightclubs on Friday nights and dancing. We had a ball. There was no keeping us down on the farm anymore. Not that we lived on a farm. It meant we were free to go anywhere we wanted to go. Gas was only about thirty-six cents a gallon back then. And we would all chip in and oh boy, those were the days. We had some fun.

One Wednesday when Dr. Woz was out golfing or at least I thought he was out golfing. I went into their house to let Mrs. Woz know that I was leaving for the day. So, I called out, “Mrs. Woz, Mrs. Woz I’m leaving now.” But she didn’t answer. And then all of a sudden I saw Dr. Woz standing at the top of the steps. And he was wearing nothing but a tiny pair of jockey shorts. I stood there momentarily shocked. And then I ran out of the house and left.

When I got home I told my mother that I couldn’t go back there again. She kept asking me, “why what happened?” But I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her. I told my mother to call Dr. Woz and tell him I wasn’t coming back. My mother said, “you have to tell him yourself.”

The next day I called Dr. Woz’s office and I said, “I’m not coming back.” And he said, “Sara, it’s alright. I didn’t know you were downstairs in the living room or I wouldn’t have come out at the top of the steps without my pants on. Please come back. Everything will be alright. I can’t run the office without you. You are doing a great job.”

So I said, “OK, I’ll come back tomorrow.” For the first couple of days, I couldn’t look him in the face. But after a while, I got over it. But I never forgot to this day him standing at the top of his steps in his tiny jockeys and how hairy he was from his neck to his ankles. I wondered if all men were as hairy as monkeys for a long time.

I worked for Dr. Woz for quite a few years until I decided it was time for a change. My father was upset that I quit working at the dentist since he thought it was a great job. And it was a great job. I enjoyed it. But I hardly had any free time.

So I started looking for another job. And I finally found one in another town not far from Dr. Woz’s office. It was an insurance company owned by two brothers, Harry and Evie. It was called Ellis Insurance. They sold high-risk auto insurance. This means that their customers had a tendency to be involved in high-speed accidents or had a great many accidents or tickets and lived in low-end neighborhoods and had difficulty getting insurance somewhere else.

I liked working there because there were two other young women there about my age. And it was the first time that I didn’t work alone all the time. The two men that owned the agency did not have a great work ethic. Especially Harry and he often took us all out to breakfast or lunch almost every day. They used to joke around all the time so it was a fun environment. The pay was better too and I didn’t have to work in the evenings anymore or Saturdays. I also got an increase in pay. So, it was a win-win situation.

I worked there for several years until I started dating someone seriously. And then I decided to move to Florida. And that started a whole new chapter in my life I’ll have to tell you about that when you next time I write. So, what have you been up to?

Best wishes, TTYL, Love, Sara

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Twins Susie on the left & Karen on the right

“Yeah, I have to confess I was born a long time ago. No, not in the caveman days, as you seem to think. But, in the 1950s. You don’t have to bug your eyes out like that. You are young, so young that your Wisdom Teeth haven’t fully erupted yet. Why don’t you sit down and let me tell you a story, and maybe you can come to a better understanding of why people my age have a different perspective than your generation does.”

Many people have described my generation’s childhood as idyllic. And in some ways, it was idyllic. That is if you only scratch the surface. And secondly, even though most middle and working-class people lived in similar homes, most kids attended public school. It doesn’t mean that everyone’s childhood was perfect. Every family was different than you might realize.

I grew up in the small town of Maple Shade. It could have been any small town in America. But mine was in New Jersey on the other side of the Ben Franklin Bridge from Philadelphia. Most families were large. There were six children in my family. Why you may ask would anyone want six kids? There was a reason for that, lack of adequate birth control. And the fact that many families were either Irish or Italian and therefore Catholic. And the Catholic church put the onus on birth control.

In other words, if you were Catholic, you were forbidden to use artificial means of birth control, including condoms. They did allow the rhythm method of birth control that meant keeping track of when the woman ovulates. This was not a guarantee of unwanted or unplanned pregnancies. As I have explained, many families were large. I had friends who had fourteen siblings in their families. When the birth control pill was first made available, only married women were allowed to get it with their husbands. Doctors would not prescribe birth control to single women.

I recall when I was about fourteen or fifteen years old, my mother confided to me that when she was younger, she envied women in town who only had two children. I can remember being somewhat taken aback by her statement since I was number six in our family. It made me feel like she thought I was a burden that she wished she hadn’t had. I don’t think she meant to hurt my feelings. She was expressing how she felt being a mother of a large family. Still, her statement hurt me.

My mother was a kind and caring person. She put all her energy into being a parent and wife, which left precious little for herself. I rarely saw her sit down. In fact, even at meals, if she took the time to sit down and eat with us. She would get up and down, wait on everyone, and clean the table off and wash the dishes. She never asked for help, and none was offered. She wasn’t a great cook, but she was a great baker of cakes and cookies. Almost all the meat was fried except for roasts, which we had once a week on Sundays. She fried the meat in the bacon fat leftover from the bacon she fried on Sunday mornings.

The rest of the time she spent cleaning the house, endless washing of clothes, and ironing. I remember coming home from school, and she would be standing at the ironing board ironing the seemingly bottomless basket of clothes and sheets. There was no wash and wear clothes back then.

My mother was a quiet woman; she would listen while I recounted my school day. She undoubtedly grew tired of my complaints of how I hated schools and the nuns that taught me. Since from my perspective, they were mean spirited. In reality, they were overcrowded with fifty or sixty students in each classroom. Whenever I had a  difficult day and had been punished for one reason or another, my mother would offer to go up to school and talk to the nun in question. That would put an end to my complaints for a while. Since I was terrified at the thought, she might tell the nuns what I had said. And I believed they would go to even more extraordinary lengths to punish me. I had already been locked in the boiler room all day, had my head banged hard on the blackboard, told I was stupid daily. And compared unfavorably to my sister.

Now you may think this was just because I attended a private school. But no, corporal

high school graduation picture

Susan Culver- high school graduation picture

punishment was the norm in all schools in those days. And so was verbal abuse.

“Oh, you want to know if I have any good memories. Yes, plenty. Because my mother and most mothers back then were so overworked, they didn’t have time to micromanage their children. We were often told to “go outside and make sure you are home on time for lunch or dinner.”

And the fact is, neither my father nor my mother ever questioned what I was doing or where I went. If my mother said, what did you do today?” I would answer, “I was out riding my bike with my friends.” And no further questions were asked. Even if I had been gone for five or six hours, I guess it was all a part of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell mindset of their generation.

And believe me, they should have asked, because my friends and I would ride all over the place on our bikes. Sometimes several towns away. We used to sneak into swimming pools at the hotels on route 73, which were only a fifteen-minute bike ride from my house. I used to like to take long walks by myself and often talk to people I didn’t know. If someone asks me if I would like to come in and have a cookie, I would say,” Sure, I love cookies.” And off I would go with strangers. Luckily, no one ever hurt me. My parents never ask what were you doing all day? If we came back alive, then all was good in their minds.

There was no stranger- danger back then, no fingerprinting; on the other hand, the schools did have a bike safety lesson, so we all knew we were supposed to ride our bikes on the right-hand lane. So, there was that; we were completely unprepared.

And corporal punishment wasn’t off the table if you got into any terrible trouble, like talking back to the teachers or your father. Suppose you didn’t have a desire to live longer. Talk back to your father, and even I never did that. Well, I did talk under my breath, but my father was partially deaf and didn’t hear me.

We weren’t given an allowance, so if you wanted to buy anything, you had to become an entrepreneur at an early age. I started babysitting when I was about eleven. I loved little kids, but I really didn’t have any experience since I was the youngest in my family. It was a learn on the job kind of thing.

I used to walk all over town and pick-up soda bottles. Then I would take them to the local store and turn them in for either 2 cents or 5 cents. After I got the money, I would spend it on candy at Schuck’s. It was a store that sold candy, hoagies and had a soda fountain, and had a Jute Box in a separate room, and the teenagers used to dance in there.

You could say that my generation was the first to recycles glass bottles and then spend it at local stores, which benefited everyone. Plus, we picked up the glass bottles that were left in the street.

If I didn’t spend the money on candy, I would feed my addiction to comic books. I was a die-hard enthusiast for Superheroes and Wendy the Witch, and Casper the Ghost. I used to buy them and then sneak them into the house. Before I graduated from grade school, my father found my comics stash and it was the last I ever saw of them. Of course, I never questioned him. Since I wasn’t interested in my father being angry. You didn’t want to see my father angry, believe me. It was a terrifying sight.

When it was time for me to enter high school, my parents decided to continue our Catholic School education. We had to take a test to get into the Catholic high school. There were two Catholic High Schools, Saint Mary of the Angels Academy and Holy Cross. By some miracle, I passed both tests. My parents thought an all-girl school was the best choice.  So away, I went to four years at St. Mary of the Angels Academy in Haddonfield, NJ. I wasn’t a good student as I rarely put much effort into schoolwork or homework due to being told how stupid I was since first grade by the nuns and my father. So, I thought, why bother? I won’t be able to do it anyway. I had no self-confidence at all.

People try to keep in mind if and when you have children that children believe what you tell them about themselves. If you tell your child he or she is stupid repeatedly, they believe you.

In my senior year, the Principal of St. Mary’s Sister Eileen Marie called me into her office and told me they had found a job as a dental assistant for me in a nearby town. Since I had nearly all the credits I needed to graduate; I started working part-time there until I graduated. And so, I did, and I worked there until I was twenty-one or so.

I found out that I was indeed quite competent, capable, organized, friendly, and outgoing. And the most surprising thing of all I realized that I was not stupid as just about every adult told me most of my life, but I highly intelligent. I believe Sister Eileen Marie had insight into me that even I wasn’t aware of until I started working. And also, Sister Venard taught me French for four years. She encouraged me and assured me repeatedly that I was indeed capable of learning French. And here I am some fifty years later, still able to read and write French to some degree. And for these two dear sisters who believed in me, thank you.

And so, straight out of high school, I had a full-time job that taught me many things, including a sense of responsibility, being organized, and be reliable and trustworthy. And I believe I have done just that my entire life. I have always given my all to every job to every commitment I ever made.

When my parents were in their last years, my mother developed dementia, and my father was diagnosed with lung cancer and emphysema. These were long, sad, painful days. They passed away eight months apart.

The years when my children were young, and I watched them grow and learn and hopefully taught them what they needed to know in life and left them with some happy memories that will remain with them long after I’m gone. I was fortunate to learn what intelligent and incredibly talented people they would become.

At thirty-six, I decided to go to college. I didn’t have the opportunity to do that at the traditional age out of high school. My parents didn’t have the money, and at the time, I wasn’t inclined to go to school when I graduated from high school. Then, my father believed and shared with me that it was a waste to send girls to college since they would end up just getting married and having children. This was not an unusual belief for fathers in 1969. Girls and young women were not looked at as people that really needed higher education.

I prepared a portfolio of my work and applied at three different schools: Temple University, Moore College of Art also in Philadelphia (an all-girl university and Hussian School of Art, which was at a school that concentrated on graphic arts and illustration. I was accepted into all three schools. I was offered a full scholarship for my first year at Temple and grants for some of the three years after that. I never made a better choice than going to school. It was hard because my children were relatively young, my oldest was six, and my youngest was three. I graduated in the top 10% of the entire Temple graduating class in 1991 with a double major in Graphic Arts and Art Education with a teaching certificate when I was forty-years-old.

If I had a wish, it would have been that my parents were still alive to see me graduate. I wonder what my father might have said to me on my graduation day.

After graduating from college with a teaching degree, I found out that schools were phasing out art in schools across the North East, and retiring teachers were not being replaced. I was unable to find a teaching position. It was beyond discouraging.

I decided to find a job helping children. I worked at a residential treatment program in Alloway and New Jersey called Ranch Hope. I was a houseparent responsible for kids from the inner city, Camden, NJ. The courts had adjudicated them. These were boys at risk because of poverty, drugs, gang violence, family problems, or kids who grew up in foster care tossed from one family to another. When I left, I was the Assistant Supervisor in Turrel cottage with fifteen boys ages fourteen to seventeen. Also, I took these boys to Scared Straight Programs in Federal and State Prisons to speak to prisoners and hopefully learn from their experiences.

My next position was in Camden, NJ. At Project Cope, I worked with five churches with kids at risk and matched them to mentors in the churches. I also visited all the prisons in South Jersey and Philadelphia area to talk to incarcerated parents about their at-risk children.

And now here I am thirty years later after a lifetime of hard work of being a wife, mother, student, and advocate. I’m retired, it’s true. In the last four years, I have become politically active. My husband Bob and I were volunteer Captains working in Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign for President. During the last election, I was a volunteer for the Democrats in Johnston County here in NC.

I  started this blog in 2018 and wrote one or two stories a week since that first story was published. I volunteered in the NC courts protecting at-risk children with the Guardian ad litem. And I volunteer three days a week at an animal sanctuary taking care of exotic birds for the past four years.

I look to the young people to take the torch I and the rest of my generation carried, and it’s time to pass it on. And know that I and the majority of my generation worked hard, did what we thought was right. I know we made mistakes along the way. And we tried but did not always succeed in leaving the part of the world we lived in a better place. Nothing was ever handed to us. We worked for it every day.

Please try not to judge us too harshly. Know that most of us did the best we could and forgive us for our mistakes along the way. Be aware that your generation and the ones that come after you will judge you as you are doing to us; your generation will make its share of mistakes and realize as you get older.

And here I am now in the Winter of my life and have concluded that overall, I have lived a good life with ups and downs as everyone has. There had years when things were so bad that I didn’t want to get up out of bed, but I did anyway.

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