All You Ever Wanted to Know
(And Didn't Want to Know)    

      ABOUT ME

My Jobs

I was earning money to go to the worlds fair, held in Quebec that year. I ran the snack bar, all by myself too! Busses would come in following an approximate schedule and I had to have everything pre made, as much as possible, ranging from hamburgers and hot dogs, already wrapped and in a hot moist drawer, to all flavors and sizes of drinks. 

As the people got off the bus they hurried either to my counter, the cafeteria line, or the rest rooms. I would sometimes have a line that ran all the way to the back door. I had to take their money and get anything special for them that wasn't pre made, and keep up the coffee and other self serve items.  

Sometimes people would ask me to do them strange favors, like one woman who was traveling with 3 small children asked me if I could hold her baby for her while she took the other two to the restroom. Since I wasn't busy, I did it.  Some of the other stories are too crude to write here.

Junior Achievement products I helped make, does this count?

I was in Junior Achievement all three years of high school (back then the ninth grade was with the junior highs) and I worked by manufacturing, selling, and keeping books for the various companies I was in. If you don't know what it is, it is a organization that teaches high school kids what companies are about by having them do all the aspects of it. 

One year we made fire starters. We melted paraffin mixing it with saw dust and pouring it into cupcake papers. We made wicks out of construction paper and folded them and swirled them into each one. 

Another year we made French salad dressing. We had to mix all the ingredients and make sure the bottles we poured it into were clean. We had to clean up any mess we made and discovered that the dressing was also an excellent cleaner of that old wooden floor.

One time we had a service instead of a product. We painted the house number onto the curbs in front of homes. We had stencils and spray paint and did a great job.

We all had turns taking care of the books too, one year I was the treasurer, ha ha. We also got paychecks. 

1968 Fall, at the P. Hotel Coffee Shop (I am not giving out the name of my town and telling you the name of the place might give it out, sorry)

I was a full fledged waitress in what was considered one of the classiest places to eat, even though it was called a Coffee shop. I worked here twice, going to college in between. The name of the cook was Dick Cook, appropriately. I liked this job mostly, but some of the older waitresses seemed to resent me, and especially seemed to resent that I was young and going to college off and on. There was one woman, Linda, who befriended me and wasn't threatened by me. 

This is the restaurant that anyone who was famous and came through our town ate at. One person was J. D. Rockefeller. There were several famous musical groups, of the old fogey era (my mom's, like from the 30's, 40's and early 50's) who ate there and I am not sure so I won't write what I am guessing at. Henry Ford ate there.

We had table cloths and I hated having to change them. Smoothing them out was a hand killer, I mean, the skin on them got so raw from constantly smoothing them out. 

I remember the day that a young man was treated to a dinner by his proud parents. He had just been hired at the local college as a professor in the music department. I always remembered that and felt privileged I got to serve them. It was things like that I liked and remembered, not too much of the bad parts although there were those moments too. One night the same college had their Homecoming dance and 3 couples were seated in my station. I forgot their vegetables and the guys, trying to impress their dates or something treated me rather poorly for having forgotten.

A fun thing was in the middle of the week day afternoons. The court house was just across the street and the lawyers and judges would come in around 3 and all sit together at one of two large tables. We called them the coffee clubbers, since they just came in for a break. One of them, Marcus D. treated me like a favored niece. He even jokingly told the others that he was contributing to part of my college education. 

I met a man from France on business from Chicago, Richard P. who ended up asking me out on a date. He was 33 and I was only 17, just turning 18 as we dated. That was ridiculous. I won't even attempt to tell you the stories about him and me!  My oh my, how the gossips at work talked about that!

1969, Worked at Cedar Point amusement park for most of the summer. 

You can read all about that and see pictures of my friends on the link up above.

1970, Bill Knapp's restaurant.

I was in the crew that opened up one of the Bill Knapp's when it was brand new in our town. They were training us in another large city until the one in our town opened. I was going to work every other quarter and go to college the other ones. I had already gone two quarters to college when I started at this job.

The best thing about this job, over all others, was my boss, Ardith S. She was an interesting, intelligent, and fun boss. At times she felt like my sister or best friend, but I always knew she was the boss and respected her too. This restaurant chain if you don't know it, is sort of like a Denny's, family oriented, and about that price range.

When the restaurants recently filed for bankruptcy and even our local Bill Knapp's was shut down it was a loss for the community. It was a place where a lot of people have memories, not just the workers, but so do our customers. I remember one time a family came in after burying their mother/wife and they asked for a quiet section in one of the back rooms. I was their waitress. I tried to be more compassionate and more business like combined. Unfortunately, while they were dining, someone hit their car in the parking lot and I had to go tell them. 

I have tons of stories about this place, after all, I worked there for 4 and a half years, but will come back and do that another time.

In September of 1974, I took a medical leave to have some minor foot surgery done. I never came back. I had been married in 1970 and by September of 1974 my life and married life changed so much that I left the state.

I traveled for almost a year in starting in November of 1974.

My new husband and I traveled from Ohio to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans and then through the Grand Canyon (well, not through it) to California. We both got jobs working for an actor family. So...

April, 1975, Live in help for actors in the mountains next to Malibu one month

Go to a long story about this if you want, its pretty interesting, at least to me.

October, 1975, McDonald's.

 I was pregnant when I started working here and quit when one of the cooks kept coming in to work sick. I didn't want my baby to catch it.

January, 1976, Full time babysitter in Houston, Texas

A woman who owned a day care center hired me to watch her own 9 month old baby since that baby got sick easily and couldn't tolerate being around a lot of other children. Courtney was a sweetie that I got to watch grow up from a baby into a toddler. I quit as planned a couple of weeks before my first baby, Eric, was born.

Diane and K (his first name was just that letter) were really nice to me. I would stay after work and chat with Diane, first telling her everything of interest about her baby, and then about life and the world and anything else.

There were two other little girls in the family, Deanne and Chrissy. Deanne would walk home from school and join Courtney and myself. She had mandatory piano practice time after school and then she would have a snack, or vice versa. It was a pleasant afternoon with her and a very nice family. I often wonder what happened to them. The last I heard they had moved to northern Texas and her husband who had been an insurance executive quit his job to have a motorcycle business, something he always wanted to do. I hope they are all happy.

June, 1976, Full time mom with first of three children.

June, 1977, Waitress at Deno's by Lake Erie

My then husband and I had moved back to Ohio after the death of one of his sisters. I found the first job so he stayed home with our one year old son. Deno's was mostly a tourist supported restaurant by Lake Erie. This is where I was working when Elvis died. 

Deno's was the first restaurant that I had even seen with a salad bar. I liked it because it gave us more time to do other things and the customer was happy. No one else had a salad bar yet in 1976.

I was only hired for the summer and left in the fall.

I worked at a couple more restaurants and then...

 In the spring of 1977,  I went to work in a factory, back in my hometown.

What do you want to know about this? It was fairly easy work, mostly boring, but sometimes just because it was so boring that freed up my mind so I could think about other things. There is something about putting your body on auto pilot, so to speak, and letting your mind soar anywhere it wants to go. It was better pay than any other job I had before that, although not as well paying as most factory jobs.

I can't remember why, but for a while, I also worked part time in an Arby's, being there when it first opened.

I quit both jobs and then was a full time mother until I moved to Austin, Texas, in 1994.

Apartment manager, Austin, Texas, October of 1994.

I enjoyed this job and cared about the residents there. Read my page about it, with lots of pictures too.

Apartment Leasing Consultant, December of 1995.

This was my very favorite all time job. I still had a lot of interaction with people and worked in a busy office and did lots of things that it takes to keep a huge apartment complex going.

Part time leasing consultant for vacation fill in.  Summer of 1996.

After we moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, I found a very part time, very occasional leasing position at a new  apartment complex on the edge of town. It was okay, but I didn't really get to know the residents and just barely knew my co workers. I probably worked 4 week-ends and a few days during the week, total. Oh, and they asked me to come in during their open house to help serve guests and just help out in whatever way possible.

We moved back to Ohio and I haven't worked since.  December of 1996.

I applied at a couple of places, but the one I really wanted, a leasing consultant at a brand new apartment complex in town, turned me down, favoring someone with more managerial experience. I was crushed.

Okay, that's it. If I think of anything I left out I'll get back and add it. 

Now here's my list of pages in this series, if you want to see more.

 

Here are all the pages with pictures &
stories of other stays with home schoolers.

When we home schooled and had to travel across the country, we were hosted by other home schooling families. Here are pictures and the stories of the different families, on our different trips. These were all great people who opened their homes to us. It was much more fun and educational than staying in motels. Thank you to all of you!

1 Vacation/Informational Trip: Ohio to Roanoke, Virginia, in 1985	7 Moved: From Ohio to Austin, Texas in August of 1994.
2 YES!Seminar: Ohio to The Farm in Tennessee, in the Spring of 1993.	8 Visitation Trip: Austin to Ohio in January of 1995.
3 Pictures of The Farm itself.	9 Custody Trial: Austin to Ohio, July of 1995.
4 NCACS Conference: Ohio to Virginia then Raleigh, North Carolina, Spring of 1994.	10 R & R after trial: (Rest and Relaxation): Ohio to California, August of 1995.
5 North Carolina Camp Out: North Carolina, just after visiting Raleigh.	11 Back to our home:in Austin (with the girls) September of 1995.
6 Home Schoolers near Ashville: Going home after the Camp Out-Get Together.	12 Our Ohio Home Schooling Group: Pictures of our support group consisting of only 4 families..

Hey, when I said "All about me," I really meant it!

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This page was created September 8, 2002,
and last revised on September 21, 2002.

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