Administrator's Note: Dorothy Dolores is dealing with a family matter this week so we are revisiting one of her delightful posts form Year 1 of this blog.
Some Jobs 1963-1977
Cleaning straight pins from the floor of the dressing rooms at Heyward Mahon where my grandmother worked. Payment was a bottle of coke with peanuts dropped in it. Well, I looked forward to it. Age 5-8 and working seemed like it was going to be the best thing EVER!
When I got a little easel style blackboard for Christmas, I began my teaching career with my sister and fellow neighborhood children who would soon grow tired of my boring lessons...."This is what you will look like if you eat apple seeds, children..."
Babysitting, lots of it. "When can we fim in our fimmy poo?" "After lunch, Kenny." repeat.... And the baby I babysat for the first time. I peeked at him sleeping in his little crib and was glad I did. If I hadn't seen his nose, his schnozz, his snoot, before he woke up, I might have screamed. As it was I merely gasped. I'm sure he grew into it.
Title Insurance company-Abstractor. Worked at St. Louis City Hall. What do I remember about this job....? Mainly the characters, the smarmy real estate agent who'd stop by, my chain smoking boss who wore a neck brace and was terrified of fevers. So terrified that he asked me to drive him home one day because his daughter had a fever - after instructing his wife to give the child tylenol and put her in a cold bath, he rushed home. Marie, who was old and thin and gypsy like and her cloud of Tou Jour Moi perfume. The basement of city hall where some of the older plats of the properties were housed. The beautiful exotic looking daughter of one of the big-wigs whose job was to stamp things, which she did, wearing a new outfit everyday it seemed. Looking good, stamp, stamp, stamp....
When I was later transferred to the Clayton office, there was a Shelley Duvall look-alike who'd recently been married to a Scott. Scott, Scott, Scott. She was a typist, and her friend Laura, and how the two of them wore mules to work. Shoes that were all the rage, ala Lonnie Anderson of WKRP in Cincinnati. I worked part time at that point, in the afternoons for a few hours. I'd arrive after having eaten a bag of cheese popcorn and a coke in my car, for lunch. Each day driving from Florissant Valley Community College after classes. I wanna Kiss You All Over, or, I Guess You're Just What I Needed on the radio with hot wind blowing in the clever vents of the unairconditioned VW Bug. I did not like the Clayton Office, though it was more convenient to get there after school. I didn't last long, there, either...I was fired. I can't remember if it was for being late or if I was just shitty at that job. Because I really can't remember what I did there, so...
Sales Clerk at Famous Barr downtown, Stamp and Coin collecting department. There was also an antiquities section of this department, that sold artifacts like old oil lamps from the middle-east.This was a really wonderful job, and sometimes I imagine working there again. Filing the little stamps in their cellophane bags, retrieving them for our interesting customers, one of whom was an artist who really looked the part. She was tall and thin and might have cut her own hair which was brown and uneven. She wore paint streaked sweaters and was very pale with a faraway look in her eyes. Not interested in conversation as I recall. Our boss who made my friend Lynn and I trade sly smiles when he exclaimed, Dede, I had my first dream about you last night... I think he regularly told Lynn about the dreams he had about her. But we wondered and we hoped he'd never tell us if there were any other parts to these dreams.I recall being amazed and just wishing, wishing, I could make $10,000 a year, like my boss. Visiting the perfume department at lunch, discovering My Sin and Chartreuse, two beautiful green scents which are no longer made. The perfume department at Famous was really topnotch in 1977, seriously well stocked. Having rutabaga and cornbread and pea soup in the employee cafeteria. The polished wood of the escalator handles. The busyness of that business at that time. Real retail days, a job I looked forward to. and still enjoy remembering
~Oldgirl
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