A view from the sky tram in Jasper on a family holiday
There are some teachers who should definitely not be teaching. I was about to encounter a couple in my high school years, but Miss Dunlop was not one of them. She did look very different from anyone I or my classmates had ever met though. She was about sixty we decided, or was that just from our fifteen year old perspective. She was thin and straight. I do mean straight, both in the back and in the front. The word that was passed down from so called “in the know” students was that she had encountered cancer and had her breasts removed. Whether or not that was true, I never did know, but often wondered. Whatever the situation was, we didn’t ask. Word also was passed down not to judge, because we would discover she was a very good teacher.
She wore her bright, very blonde, very straight hair in a short bob with bangs. She was always immaculate and like I said very blonde. It was confusing because it didn’t go with her wrinkles. Older women just didn’t go into dying their hair then like they do now, but if she did; she certainly did a good job of it as I never remember seeing exposed roots of a different color. There was plenty of time sitting in a classroom to examine matters like that. She taught English Literature, one of my favorite subjects. I had been fortunate to have good English teachers before and she was certainly one of the best. What endeared her to me and I think others, was that she genuinely seemed interested in us as individuals. She was one of the few teachers who attended extracurricular activities that we were involved in and sometimes commented in class about how good the activity was. She had stimulating class participation. Students sometimes hung around after class continuing a discussion with her. In my third year I sat in the middle row at the very front right under her nose. During an especially exciting class, this got me into trouble. I was very comfortable with her and the subject and often participated. This time I was very involved. Twice I ended up speaking right out. After all, she was right in front of me. The second time she warned me, “If you speak out again without raising your hand, I will have to send you down to the office.” That was fair. We have to have order. The class continued and the excitement escalated (at least for me). Without thinking, I spoke out again, this time as my hand shot up. She burst out laughing. “Oh dear, whatever am I going to do with you.” Fortunately, I was able to contain myself for the rest of the class. It may have helped that I was an excellent student. Anyway, the rest of the year continued without further incident, at least from me. ……………………….. One summer day the radiator in her classroom went faulty. It blasted out heat the entire class time. *_______*, a classmate known for speaking his mind, was seated right next to it. It was becoming quite unbearable for all of us. I can't imagine what it must have been like for him. The office had been informed of the problem. *______* raised his hand. Miss Dunlop tried to ignore him. He kept it up for a while, then rested. Again, he raised his hand. Still, she made a conspicuous effort to be looking the other way. We never knew for sure what he might say. Finally, when he raised his hand the third time, she responded with, “Yes, she said slowly, *______* what is it?” “When I’m done on this side, can I turn and do the other?” The class including Miss Dunlop, burst out laughing. Somehow his comment was just what we needed to give us all comic relief from a very warm situation.
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Today is the day, my first day on the job. I am excited and my supervisor seems to look forward to my working here. He shows me my work space and outlines my duties. The clerical work seems simple enough. I am to fill out bills of lading for the truckers who come to load and transport pipe. I won’t actually interact with the drivers, as they pick up their paperwork in the adjacent room. Formalities out of the way, I get down to work. “Ssshh. Watch your language. There is a lady next door.” “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know.” I can hear the conversations between the truckers and the workers next door as the adjacent room is perpendicular to ours and both doors are kept open to facilitate the working environment. Again and again as new truckers come in, if their language deteriorates, they are given the same advice. Thankfully, they respond well. This is a new experience for me. I have been hired for two to four months, and I am the only lady in the mill. I guess I qualify as a lady, and not a girl, at the ripe old age of thirty-one and a half, besides being married with two children. There are women in the main office, but that is at the other end of the huge yard. When I was interviewed for the job, they told me they want to place a female in the mill as they believe it will create an influence that will clean up the language and the general atmosphere. It seems a worthy challenge and I feel the responsibility already, especially since the twenty-three-year-old at the desk next to mine has a most vile-looking girly calendar on the wall above his desk. All the other walls are empty. The staff have been previously told that a lady is coming and to clean up their area of all pin ups and anything else inappropriate. Obviously he isn’t about to comply. Judging from the very distasteful picture, I wonder if he had put up something worse than the one he originally had. After all, who is this old lady coming in to dictate what he can or can't do? The supervisor says nothing, just grins. It is up to me. Head on, my challenge begins. I am not about to rush in until I am ready and know what I am going to do. I am pleasant to him and spend the day working with my head down. Several fellows, who have errands in our office, stop to introduce themselves and welcome me. No one comments on the calendar, just on the empty walls. It is like it doesn’t exist, but I am very aware it is there and so I am sure is my challenger. I think of a story I once heard of how when a new cow is introduced into a herd, she spends the first few days staying around the edges before she moves into the middle. The message for me is, “I am new here. Tread carefully”. By closing time at three-thirty, I am ready. The room is almost empty. This is good as I don't want to embarrass him in front of others. “*****”. I call his name softly with a question in my voice. “Yes”, he replies somewhat hesitantly. “Is there a reason that you have to have that calendar up there?” He bristles at the phrase, “have to have”. “Yes”, he answers strongly. “I need it for the date. I have to type it on the forms.” “Oh, is that all? Of course! I didn’t realize it was that important. I will go right out after work and buy you the best one I can find.” “Never mind,” he responds disgruntedly. I will phone over to the office and have one of the girls send me over a company calendar”. He picks up the phone and makes his order after taking the offending one down. His shoulders relax. “Thank you, *****". It's over. Later that evening, I consider the situation. This time it worked out well. I need to come up with a way to discourage challenges from coming up in the future. Pin ups! That’s the answer. Create my own atmosphere. I arrive half an hour early for work the next day, armed with my atmosphere paraphernalia. One by one, I make a wall arrangement over my desk from clippings collected over the years: a colorful picture of homemade bread, so skillfully set up that you could almost smell it; nine dirty little boys in a bathtub with bats, balls and uniforms spilled out over the floor; a cartoon astronaut stepping out onto the moon only to find a Safeway cart. All over the wall in front of me, I plaster engaging images that spell out home and family interspersed with cartoons that invite you to come close and read. I set out the glass vase I brought along with a beautiful carnation. Mission accomplished. I am busy with my work as co-workers start to arrive. “What’s this?” they ask. “Why these are my pin-ups of course”, I innocently reply. They chuckle and come closer to read and comment. All the time I keep on working. Soon the word gets around and a few come from other departments to see what is going on. My supervisor seems to enjoy the humor. One or two people comment on the carnation. The flower lasts about a week and then to my surprise the field workers pick wild flowers and continue to keep the vase refilled. I end up staying six months. It proves to be an enlightening adventure as well as serving my own purpose. You might call it a Win/Win. ..................................... P.S. There must never have been intended to be women working in the mill, as there was only a men’s washroom. I was assigned the First Aid room with its facilities to myself. Things have changed a lot since 1974 when I worked there. P.P.S. Regarding last weeks blog: Hurray! I now have walking poles. Remember the Living Fitt class that I took in 2006? (See the September 7th blog) This was another one of our assignments. I don't remember exactly what we were assigned to do, but I chose to make a place mat and to have it laminated so I could use it to remind me of my health goals. The opposite side has another focus that I wanted to incorporate into my life, but I will show you that another time. The place mat has been an inspirational benefit to me over the last ten and a half years. I did take western riding lessons and loved it. I also went cycling on the bike trails with my husband. We would take our lunch and make it a day trip. These days I am working on getting enough sleep and drinking water. I have to tell you that getting enough sleep and drinking enough water can be major life-changing therapies in themselves. I definitely underrated them in the past. When I eat right, drink water and get enough sleep, I get an extra two to three useful hours in my day. One thing I probably shouldn't do though is to wear those spiky heels, although I wish I could. I have yet to get the walking poles. They would probably be a good idea now to give me balance when I go walking. And of course, exercise needs to be a part of living fit. I chose the picture in the middle because I sometimes wore my hair like that when it was long. Although if I had my choice of exercises now, I would much rather ride horses or go dancing. My next best choice is walking and I love to do that in the summertime enjoying the sunshine, fresh air and the smell of the flowers and maybe even hear some birds singing. I love to walk under the trees and feel their energy. The lady on the right is doing a movement that reminds me of cross crawls. They are used a lot in Brain Gym and other healing modalities. It reminds me to continue to do energy work for myself and others to reprogram our brain computers and clear our stuck places. Although the heading says, "Eat Good. Look Great", my focus is more on, "Eat Good. Feel Great". When I make healthy lifestyle choices, my body really likes it. In fact, as you will notice across the bottom it says, "What I do" and "For Me". Yes, it is for me and it does take planning ahead, especially with meal preparation. It is also important to take time to pamper myself. as in the end, then I will have more to give. You can't fill someone else's pitcher from an empty cup and I do love to share. ......................................... P.S. I found it hard to write, "Eat Good. Look Great". The grammarian in me wanted to say, "Eat Well. Look Great". Oh well. It was cut and paste when I made the place mat and that is what I found. Enjoy. Help Wanted Female
"Monday I am going down to get that job. “You can’t say for sure that you will get it”, my husband replied. “I know I will”, I responded. The Want Ad advertised a job “two to four months, some typing, shift work ” and gave an address not too far from our home. It seemed to be everything that I had asked for. What it didn’t say was whether there was Sunday work and how much typing was needed. I had very basic abilities when it came to typing. The column wasn't allowed to say whether they wanted a male or female candidate, but when I saw the ad it just felt right. It stood out for me. I had taken my request to God. (Should I look for work?) I was surprised when the answer was “Yes”. It was the only time in our married life that I had worked out of the home, although since than I have run several home-based businesses. My search began. My first choice was to be a receptionist. I loved meeting people and answering the phone. I wasn’t able to find anything suitable in that line. They were only paying $300. At that time in 1974, there wasn’t yet equal pay for men and women in many places and wages certainly aren’t what they are today. Before we were married, I worked as a long distance operator for the telephone company. I loved it and they were paying $450. I really liked the shift work. In addition, evenings shifts were shorter and paid a bonus. Maybe I should check that out. I phoned my past supervisor and asked if I she would be willing to take me back. She seemed interested. "Yes", she said. “Just put in your application and I will watch for it and pull it.” That definitely sounded promising. There was one thing that troubled me. Operators usually worked every other Sunday. Because of my religious beliefs, I didn’t want to work on the Lord’s Day. Before I went for the job interview, I mentioned in my prayers that although this job looked promising, I was concerned about working Sundays, especially because now we had children. I wanted to set a good example for them. If He had a different plan for me, would He block the application from going forward? The lady from Human Resources seemed pleased with my application. She smiled as she asked me questions until she got to the part about who would look after our sons while I worked. My husband would, when he was available, then my mother-in-law would take over. Slam! The door to the opportunity didn’t just close, it locked with a bang. She obviously had an issue there. She asked a few more questions out of courtesy, but I could tell the interview was over from that moment on. What next? Back to the help wanted ads. Now I was really curious about what was coming. I thought about what I would like as I prayed again. My best prayers are specific. I would prefer shift work for several reasons. Shifts provided variation which I liked. More important, they would give me a chance to trade off so I could be available for our sons’ special occasions. I wanted our boys to be disturbed as little as possible with the change about to take place. I wondered about the industrial area not too far south possibly having something suitable. That would give me less traveling time. This time when I scanned the newspaper, one particular ad stood out from the rest. Like I said, before, "It felt just right." It was now the Monday when I was on my way to get that job I was so sure about. I was excited as I went for my interview. The company produced pipe and steel. The interviewer explained that what they required was someone to type out bills of lading for the truckers who came to pick up pipe. My typing would pass. (It would have been daring for me to even apply for a job that required typing if I hadn’t felt confident this was the job for me. It only required filling in the blanks.) There also was no Sunday work. If they hired me, I would be the only woman in the mill working with the men. “Would that bother me?” They wanted to put a woman in that position so the influence would help clean up the mill. “Was I comfortable with that?” I replied that I was. It was the strangest interview I had ever had because I was so confident. I explained my reasons for wanting work. The interviewer asked me how much I wanted to be paid. I replied $450 a month. He seemed a little surprised. He informed me that he had other people to interview and would let me know the outcome. I returned home even more excited than when I went. Sometime during the week while I waited to hear, I began thinking about the income and the expenses. To my surprise I realized that what was really needed for my purpose was $600. I took it to the Lord. At last the phone rang. It was the interviewer. “Hello. This is Mr. *******”. He paused. “I take it you have come to a decision”, I observed. “Yes, we have.” Again he waited. I could tell he was playing with me. “And did you decide what you are going to pay me?” “Yes”. More silence. “And what would that be?” “$600” he stated. “It’s what we pay the full time men, but you are not to tell anyone.” We both thought that wise. Wow! That was amazing. I had been blessed. I ended up working there for six months. It turned out to be a Win/Win. I got the job I wanted and they got their mill office cleaned up. (Now that’s another story.) But isn’t that often how the Lord works, with a Win/Win? *********************** P.S. On some evening shifts, after I had been working there for a while, there was a young fellow from out in the field, who came in several times to talk to me . He kept telling me that I shouldn’t be working there. I deserved something better. I should go work for the government. Finally one evening he said that he talked with his wife about it and they both agreed I needed to find a better job. Now he had my attention. When I asked him why they were so concerned, he told me that his wife had applied for that same job and was offered $300. She went to work for the government. Now I understood. It was another assurance to me that the Lord was in charge. |
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