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All The Days Of My Life-Part One of Work experiences

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ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE-

     I grew up in the 1950s in Maple Shade, New Jersey, about a thirty-minute drive from Philadelphia, PA. My experiences as a baby boomer greatly impacted the adult I eventually became. Some of the experiences that impacted me the most were related to the fact that I grew up two houses away from the Catholic Church, called Our Lady of Perpetual Help or OLPH. My mother was a devout woman and attended church seven days a week. And was a member of the Altar-Rosary Society that would gather each day after Mass and say the Rosary. As a result, most of my siblings (six of us) and I attended Catholic School. I went to a Catholic elementary school for eight years. And I attended Saint Mary of the Angel’s Academy in Haddonfield, New Jersey. This was an all-girl high school. My twin sister and I attended St. Mary’s of The Angell’s Academy.

I have to admit I was somewhat immature in high school and had no interest in boys. The only boys that I had any contact with during my high school years were attending Bishop Eustace High School. And we girls who attended St. Mary’s of the Angels Academy were informed that all the boys were studying to become priests. So, we never bothered to get to know any of the boys. Of course, that wasn’t the truth. Few of the boys attending Bishop Eustace became priests for St. Mary’s of the Angel’s Academy. I only knew one of my classmates who became nuns. So, much for that.

When I turned eighteen, I decided I wouldn’t attend church. And I haven’t, except for weddings and funerals. The reason I made this decision was because my mother spent years and years praying for my oldest sister, Jeanie, who was diagnosed with alpha-one deficiency. A genetic form of emphysema. She passed away when she was a mere forty-one years old. She was such a wonderful, funny, and intelligent person, and she had two children who were left motherless at a young age. I lost my faith in god, and that was the end of going to masses and going to confession as far as I was concerned. If there was a god, he had left my sister to die from a long and painful death. And I didn’t want to pray to him again if he existed.

When I was a child, I was shy and quiet. I hated having to talk in the classroom. Probably because the nuns showed no mercy to quiet and shy children, they had no difficulty saying harmful and hurtful things and embarrassing students by making them stand in the corner or not allowing them to go to the bathroom unless it was when all the students in the class stood in the hallway and waited their turn. Unfortunately, I was blessed with intestinal problems and IBS, which was a relatively unknown illness in the 1950’s and 1960’s. This caused me to have accidents in the classroom, Which ultimately caused me to hate Catholic School even more.

Not everything about elementary school was bad. I made a lot of friends during my eight years of elementary school and four years at St. Mary of the Angels Academy in Haddonfield, NJ. I have to admit I didn’t put forth much effort in my twelve years of school, possibly because I was constantly told how stupid I was during those twelve years.

My experiences after I graduated from high school by the skin of my teeth proved to me that I was certainly not stupid but quite intelligent. Right out of high school, I found employment as a dental assistant for Dr. E. G. Wozniak in Haddon Township, where I worked for five years. Then, I worked at Ellis Insurance for Evie and Harry Ellis for several years until I met and married my now husband, Robert. We have been married for fifty years and have two adult daughters.

Over the years, I have had many jobs, including selling high-risk auto insurance and hairdressing, as well as being a counselor at St. Vincent’s School for Exceptional Children in Santa Barbara, CA.

How, you may ask, did I end up in California? After Bob and I married in 1974, Bob moved to California so he could attend Brooks Institute to study photography. We lived there for three years. And I loved every minute of it—such a glorious and beautiful place to live. And I made many friends while we lived there. The first year I was there, I got a job selling hats and wigs at Robinso, which isn’t a department store. I worked with a decent and kind boss but hated the job. Standing eight hours a day trying to sell hats and wigs. A friend who worked part-time at Robinson’s school told me about St. Vincent’s School, and I immediately went there and applied for a job as a counselor.

      I called them several times a week for a month until they gave in and interviewed me for a full-time job. I immediately said, ‘Yes.” For the next three years, I worked as a counselor at St. Vincent’s School in the cottages where the girls lived. And I supervised teenage girls. I can honestly say that this position was my favorite job ever. That’s saying a lot because, throughout my long life, I have had many, many different jobs and employment opportunities. My father always had difficulty understanding why I ended up working with nuns( they taught in the school where the kids attended.) since I always detested them when I was in elementary and Catholic high school. I had minimal contact with the dear sisiter’s since I only interacted with them when I picked up the kids from school, a short distance from the building where they lived.

     As I sit here contemplating my life, I feel blessed to have had all the experiences throughout my lifetime. I have learned from each one of them, and I met wonderful people. I will be writing memoirs in the not-too-distant future. Going to college when I was thirty-six next was a challenging and positive experience for me. Since I was the only adult student to enter Freshman year at my “advanced age of thirty-six,” I attended and excelled at Temple University, Tyler School of Art. They were at once the most challenging four years of my life and the most rewarding..  Not only was I, not your typical college freshman, as I was thirty-six years old, and I had two children, seven and four. And so began my life as a college student. More to come in Part Two.

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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