Working For Real Money

Did you have a job away from home in your other life.  You know.  Before becoming an older person.  I did.  Well, actually, I had many, and telling you this story is going to sound like a resumé.  So, please bear with me.  As I remember, I never had a job that I completely couldn’t tolerate.  My first “work for pay” job was taking care of a boy after school, as well as doing some light housework.  I’ve never been keen on doing housework.  But, it was part of the job, so housework I did.  I can’t remember the boy’s name.  He was about eight or nine and, as I remember, a pretty good kid.  I also can’t remember what the mom did for work; I do remember that she was expecting her second child.  The dad worked at one of the local television stations – pretty high-brow stuff for a girl in high school to be taking care of his kid.  Television was really new at that time, and everything about a television station was impressive.

I remember the first volunteer work I did was in the high school library.  The librarian was friends with the city librarian; she helped me get hired for my next paying job as a page in the public library.  I was toying with the idea of becoming a librarian or a school teacher.  School teacher was clinched when, as a senior in high school and the president of our high school’s chapter of Future Teachers of America, I was asked – along with other club members – to substitute for teachers at the junior high level (yes, junior high, not middle school) during a flu epidemic.  That one-day stint helped me make the solid decision to become an educator.

A truly fortunate decision because it was at the college I attended that I met my husband, a business major.  We were married in October 1957 and spent the next almost sixty years together.  And, then, began my longest volunteer job of my life (you know, being a wife).  But, that’s another story.

After graduating with a major in Elementary Education and minors in Art and Library Science, I spent the next two years in a country school; one teacher and eight grades, the first year and six grades, the second.  The school board had decided to allow their seventh and eighth graders to be transported to another school district, leaving me with six grades and kindergarten.  I even lived in the school house, that year.  Money was tight, of course; thirty-six hundred dollars was not much money, even then,  And, by now, we had two daughters.  Larry lived in town with the college librarian’s family – in their basement with chickens (another story).

After Larry graduated, we moved to the “big city” where we rented a house.  A house in a greatly diversified population; we loved it there, but moved to the house owned by his parents because we were expecting daughter # 3.  We lived in what we called “The Logan House” for about eight years while Larry worked at a department store, and I worked on local library bookmobiles.  That’s where I learned to drive a larger-than-life motorized vehicle.  Bookmobiles were a favorite of my jobs.  They were with the Denver Public Library; then, it was Jefferson County’s library with a brand new bookmobile.  And, finally, for Englewood, whose bookmobile was named the Roadrunner.

I finally got back to my real goal of being an educator.  First, in a public school district and, later, serving children who were residents of a local hospital that treated children and adults with respiratory disease.  When I worked in the hospital classroom, there were three other teachers who worked there, as well.  Before I left the hospital work, we were five teachers and a principal.  I really had a great time teaching at that school.  I also started the school’s library.  While putting the library together, I met a wonderful woman who owned The Bookies, a bookstore with a specialized niche of dealing with children’s books, teachers, and parents and grandparents.

I decided that I wanted more and enrolled in a school administration master’s degree program at a state college.  After earning that degree, I moved from the hospital school to a state hospital school as the school director and education discipline chief.  It was challenging, and four years to the date of my arrival, the school was ready to be handed off to someone else.  I worked for a large corporation after that, long enough to return to school and earn certification as a school superintendent.  For three years, I service as a school super for a school district on the Eastern Plains of my state.

Then, I was done.  Being an educator, I mean. After that, I started using skills I learned in high school, working at the local children’s hospital, in the pharmacy, as the secretary to seventy people.  The previous secretary had gone on vacation and never came back.  It was fun … and demanding.  I spent four years cleaning up the job’s secretarial problems; then, I moved on to the University of Colorado’s Department of Pharmacology.  I worked in the office with the Department Chair for three years before I read the sign on the outside of my door that said, “Assistant to the Chair.”  So, I wasn’t the Chair’s secretary, after all.  Of course, I think that if it walks like a secretary and talks like a secretary, it’s a secretary.

As it turned out, that was my last paying job.  I retired.  And, volunteered.  For five months every year, I lived at Ghost Ranch and worked with Pomona Hallenbeck, the watercolorist-in-residence.  I was there from June into the middle of October; Larry kept the house at home and took care of the dogs.  We talked every day by phone.  Again, it was a dream job, and I learned so much.  I always told the students that I was a gopher.  You know:  Go for this.  Go for that.  What fun!

Be Safe and Be Well.

The Cranky Crone

Thoughtful comments are appreciated.