I Loved My Job

All seasons in Michigan are beautiful.  I cannot say which was my favorite as I loved the snow and wearing sweaters in winter.  Spring was always an awesome sight with leaves popping out on the trees and the flowers blossoming, summer was nice and fall was beautiful with all the colors of the trees.  Mother's Day was the first real hint of spring and we had a Mother's Day tradition.

When we bought the first house in Carrollton, Texas and Wes was newborn the idea came up that if you planted flowers on Mother's Day they would do well.  After the divorce the boys did not have money to buy all the flowers, so their job was to dig the holes and plant what I had purchased.  
(Interesting that I took the boys shopping for presents for their Dad.  Nice me!)  This particular year was a disaster and shows that I had my "bad Mother" moments.

The day started out beautiful and I was up before dawn.  I placed all the plants where I wanted them planted and was really looking forward to the day.  Then 9:00 came and went, 10:00 found the boys still sacked out in their beds.  For some reason I just totally lost my cool, charged up the stairs and yelled "When are you going to get out of bed and wish me a Happy Mother's Day?"  Do I need to say my outburst did not go well?  They were totally shocked and more than a little mad.  Although I tried to be nice during the planting and then later out to lunch it took them a long time to get over my outburst.  I must admit it was terrible and it is something they bring up occasionally around Mother's Day.

My awful attitude that Mother's Day was probably because I was horribly behind in work partially due to the ice show.  I loved being self-employed since I could make time for the boys, go ice skating, go to school things and whatever else came along.The problem was finding the proper balance.  When I did not balance everything there was no money in the bank.   Having a real job, as I have always called them, might have been easier but not nearly as much fun.  Besides I was not sure what I could do with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Chemistry.

Decorating was something I had always done for myself  because it was cheaper.  I had developed a dislike of "real" decorators who arrived at a client's home all dressed up and laid out expensive plans never taking the homeowners ideas to heart.  In Kansas City in the neighborhood we built a house in a certain decorator was called upon to do most of the new homes.  I used to laugh because everyone of them had the same draperies in their living room as their neighbors.  Maybe just a difference in fabric or color.  Through the years I learned that if you asked the right questions and listened more than you talked it was easy to come up with a decorating plan that worked for them and their family.

A friend once told me the reason I stayed so busy was I did not send contractors to a house to paint, wallpaper, install draperies, pick up pieces to upholster or do some small carpentry job.

They only saw me with whatever crew I had working at the time.  I was not ever dressed to the nines but might have a little paint or wallpaper paste somewhere on my clothes.  The best part was the clients who became friends and all the nice people I met through the years.  Because I did all my own sewing of drapes, bedding, valances and headboards and hated to make more than two of anything alike it gave me the opportunity to be creative.  It was a dream job except for the hours as it took many all-nighters to get everything done.   Guess Mother waking me up everyday at 5:00 am taught me to not sleep much.    

As May slowly turned into June it was soon time for Wes's graduation events.  Charles came by almost every afternoon to see Bowser and maybe take us to dinner.  I guess he decided he needed to see more of me as he announced that he had bought a house directly behind mine.  Not sure if that was good news or not.                                   

                                 

Learning Lessons

In the world of the Southfield Ice Company the putting the production together took all year.  Once  one show was over the plans for the next show began. It was a good thing that for the working mother of currently two boys a lot could be done at home until the first of March.  It was at that time that the ice hockey games were over and the ice belonged to the show.  Practice began which meant every evening and all day on Saturday and Sunday until showtime the last weekend in April.

I was lucky, in a way, not being in very many numbers so practice for me was not everyday.  Also nice that I finally decided that Wally was old enough to stay home rather than me dragging him to the rehearsals
and Wes was around most of the time so he was not alone.

The bad part but good at the same time was that I became friends with the show director, Ron.  I was amazed by his ability to put all aspects of the show together.  He chose the theme, the skating numbers, the choreography, the music and the set designs. He also designed the costumes and to my fascination, made all the headpieces and hats. Instead of just showing up for costume meetings or rehearsals I found myself going by the arena during the day when I had time.  There were other women who showed up everyday to sew or help with other aspects of the show.  

Ron was a perfectionist in every thing he did.  There was good reason for me to have been quite frightened of him for the first two years of being in the show.  He was not shy about yelling at people for the slightest mistake in front of the entire cast.  Every piece of cut fabric needed to have a perfectly straight edge, every costume look exactly the same, every drop of hot glue precisely where it belonged and never was there an excuse for someone to be absent from a rehearsal unless they were competing in the World Championships.  That may sound harsh but that was the reason Southfield had the greatest amateur show in the country. 

For all his expecting perfection from the entire cast and crew he was always willing to teach everyone anything they wanted to learn.  It took me taking what little spare time I had or what time I stole from work to realize how much I could learn from Ron. What I learned from him about every aspect of the show like costume design, drafting patterns, sequining and beading, the construction of the hats and headpieces and set construction was invaluable to me in later years.  The fact fact I had led a little sheltered life and not really known any gay men was a real life lesson.  He had his ups and downs in relationships and was very open and honest when he talked about his feelings.  It did not take me long to realize that he had the very same feelings as a heterosexual person. I will always consider myself very lucky to have had him as a friend and teacher.

                                                                              Ron
The show went off very well that year with the usual sold out performances.  There were no major errors and Ron did not have to yell to much.  It was always a terrific let down the day after the show was over.  It was something you had worked on for pretty much a whole year and the all of a sudden it was over.  But I always managed to live through the "letdown" as I did have other people that depended on me.

Perhaps it is a rite of passage but there is something about being a senior in high school that makes kids, maybe more so boys than girls, think they can do just about anything.  When I was growing up the legal age for boys to purchase beer was twenty-one but for girls it was eighteen (or at least that is what the guys told me).  There were numerous occasions when I would purchase a couple of cases of beer for the guys on a Friday afternoon.  Not stellar behavior on my part but girls make dumb mistakes themselves.

One weekend in May Wes was driving the Ford Van leased from Ford Motor Company that was the vehicle they dragged the race car trailer around with.  He was off on Saturday night and went to hang out with his high school friends. He was home that evening at his curfew hour or at least close to it.  On the following Monday his Dad calls me and tells me that the van had been involved in a beer theft on Saturday night.  He wanted to know how I let that happen.  Since Wes was at school and I could not think how I let that happen he said he would come to see Wes that afternoon.  Need I say he was not a very happy camper?

Dennis arrived before Wes got home so I did not chance to talk to him first.  Wes tried to play stupid at first when Dennis told him that the Chief of Police in Royal Oak had contacted him to let him know the van had been involved in a beer heist.  The Chief of Police had gotten Dennis' name as the leasee of the van from Ford Motor Company rather than to just tell anyone which Dennis said would cause him to lose his job, send him to jail and would probably be the cause of the end of the world. He always exaggerated just a bit.  

So the story, partially from Dennis and a few admissions from Wes, was that Wes and five of his friends went to this liquor store.  Everyone but Wes went in as he had a brace on his knee from some soccer injury and some of the boys got the owner busy while two of the boys ran out with two cases of beer. The owner got the tag number of the van before they got away and the police wanted the names of all of the boys. Wes would not budge on giving out the names.  His Dad left in a fury and told him he better give him the names and the police only knew about Wes.

Wes was busy that night talking to his fellow criminals and no one wanted to have their parents find out what they did.  Wes was on the hook but I had to actually commend him for not being a snitch.  All of the boys came from really nice homes and Wes told me it was just like a prank. Senor boys do tend to have huge gaps in their thinking at times.

As the next few days passed discussions with the police Chief revealed 
that the owner of the liquor store did not want to press charges but he wanted each boy to pay him $200.00 dollars.  The police Chief did not have to think very long that wanting the boys to pay him amounted to extortion.  How dumb do you have to be to announce to the police you want to blackmail someone rather than press charges?  Needless to say the Chief was ready to press charges against the store owner himself and stated he could not even believe the heist really occurred.  That was the end of the Great Beer Heist of 1988 as I named it.  

I think the boys realized that what they had done had very serious consequences and was not just a humorous prank.  It is amazing how brains can go dead when all of the boys knew better.  I do have to admit that I had to hide in the kitchen to laugh when Dennis lectured Wes about losing his job as I had heard that when I dented a fender or got a speeding ticket for years in a company vehicle. I think the boys learned a good lesson and perhaps the liquor store owner did also. Maybe Wally, who was so terrified his brother was going to jail, learned a lesson from the whole episode.

Oh, the days before cell phones were great for excuses.  One morning I got up and Wes' car was not in the drive and he was not in his bed.  Being a mother I could think of horrible things that had happened to him.  It was six o'clock in the morning and I started calling around to all of his friend's homes.  I finally found him sleeping in one of the boys basements as he had gotten too drunk to drive home.  The rule I had set forth was that if he was going to be late all he had to do was to call and tell me.  I guess Wes was not thinking when he said he could not find a phone.  Excuse me Wes - how are you talking to me now?  No answer but I did tell him to get his little behind home pronto and I did take his keys away for the rest of the weekend.  Their can't be a worse way to spend a weekend than with your mom and little brother especially when I drove him to work both Saturday and Sunday.

Detroit was a twenty-four hour city.  Because of the automoble plants and their working three shifts a day people did activities at all hours of the day and night.  There was good reason for skating rinks, movie theaters and bowling alley to fill every corner and be open all hours.  Somehow we all like to go bowling.  It was fun, relatively cheap and pretty good entertainment.  There was a bowling alley not far from our house and was the sight of Wally's very first date.  Cute quiet Wally had a huge crush on a really sweet girl named Sarah.  He asked her one day to go bowling and together they walked to the bowling alley.  No sooner had they gotten to the bowling alley but Wally had the nosebleed of the century.  He didn't know really what to do .  Sarah ended up walking home as did Wally.  He arrived home in tears because everything had gone so wrong.  I think it took him a long time to get over his first date but he and Sarah stayed friends for years.  Wally was not the "Joe Cool" his brother was which was not all that bad as their were no beer heists in his future.

Similar to the east coast school was not until the middle of June.  The end of the school year was always fun with Wally's band concerts.  Then we would have all the Senior activities with graduation, sports banquets and of course a senior prom.  Before school was out Wes got a job at a skating rink just a few  blocks from where we lived.  Guess he decided to stay with us until it was time to go to Kent State.

Almost made it through the summer with great stories.......almost.




































                                                                                                                                                                                 

1''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''Phs time to go to Kent State in the fall.

Better Than I Thought

The New Year was always the time to pass out and receive the little plastic bags that contained what would be your costumes for the ice show once you got them made.  This year's opening number was Sun Valley Holiday, a take off of the old Sonja Heine movies.  Ron, the director, must have worked overtime coming up with this one.  The set was complete with huge pine trees and a teflon ramp for the skaters to fly down.  Thankfully I did not have to do that in this costume. Standing up was problem enough with the four foot tall fur covered dunce hat on.  Note to self: Practice more so you can wear the flattering, sexy costumes in the main numbers next year. At least I could dream about it.

Since he was nice enough to have me be the costume chairman for two of the numbers, the boy's 50's and the showgirl costumes for the Bedazzle number, that kept me busy for the next two months getting everyone lined out and making sure they all did what he wanted. Not an easy trick.  The boy's 50's costume was pretty easy and all but one of the twelve men could sew or had some one to do it for them.  I did not trust Kevin, the one who thought you could hot glue zippers in pants, so I made his costume as the sample.  The orange dresses were a nightmare.  They started out pretty simple and every time Ron looked at them he wanted more sashes or frilly stuff plus everyone was a completely different size.

Mother popped in for a two day visit on her way to the Olympics in Calgary, Canada.  Now sporting events were not Mother's favorite thing to go to but she had met some people from Calgary on a trip to California and they invited her to come.  Two days was about the right time limit for her to visit as she did not have enough time to tell me what I was doing wrong as far as work, ice show, Wes and Wally.  I think that was the year when it was not very cold in Calgary but I never had the guts to ask her how often she got the wear the full length white Ermine coat she arrived in.

Time to get serious about work since the phone was ringing off the hook.  Charles sort of came to rescue when I mentioned I needed help with the wallpaper.  His business partner had an eighteen year old daughter who was not interested in going to college or in having a full time job.  Michelle was a bit spoiled but fun to be around at times.  I never quit for lunch as once you took that brake it was hard to get back 
in the working mode.  My deal with Michelle was that I would take her to McDonald's on the way home so she tended to work harder the more hungry she got.  Since most of the clients were not home when we wallpapered as a last resort she would prowl through the refrigerator to find something. After a case of food poisoning she gave up on the refrigerator prowling. But with her help I managed to cut the wallpaper time in half.

                                   Wally                          Wes

Having Wes live with us really was a lot easier than I had thought.  They got along very well except for the usual brotherly little bouts. Wes did increase my stress level a bit as his high school was twenty-one miles across town as well as the skating rink where he worked.  He had the dream job of being the DJ at the rink and worked three or four nights a week.  Friday and Saturday nights when he worked it would be midnight before he got home. I always tried to wait up for him even if it meant watching television with my eyes closed.  I guess when I was in high school and came home it was nice to have someone there. The rink was also good to give him time off if he had a hot date or some school activity.  

Wes and his Dad still had the beginnings of a race car.  It was the same unfinished car that we drug around from Kansas City to Riverton to Detroit to Cleveland.  Dennis must have been waiting for Wes to turn eighteen and be old enough to drive it.  There were weekends when the boys would go to Cleveland or or to a drag race some place.

Speaking about their Dad, Dennis. When the divorce was final I was granted child support for Wally and alimony.  I did not want alimony but my attorney said I had to take it since I was not employed and I would probably need it.  From day one the alimony was a huge point of contention with Dennis.  I knew what he made and did realize that it was a big chunk to pay out each month.  Most of his animosity towards me was due to that.  When Wes came to live with me I certainly did not ask for child support since Wes had a job and his Dad did give him spending money or bought clothes or fixed his car. Even with my not asking for more money for Wes Dennis still could not carry on a civil conversation with me.  Oh, I guess we did not have civil conversations for years when we were married.

I think I wrote that renting the apartment in the Dearborn house would prove to be a mistake. What an understatement!  It did not take long for the phone calls to start coming from both of the two gals.  One night at 2:00 Hailey called to tell me that the girl downstairs was a screamer during sex.  I think she even tried to get the phone some place where I could hear. Then there were calls over whose turn it was to mow the lawn, they divided the basement into halves up to the washer driver and Hailey was not too good about paying rent.  When I took the time to drive twenty-four miles to settle some argument about something stupid all would be quiet for awhile.  Maybe being a landlord was not my calling in life.  Maybe I am too nice for this sort of endeavor.

Much to the dismay of the boys, especially Wes, we got through the winter without a single day of school being closed due to snow.  It snowed several days a week and we all got practice shoveling.  Actually I thought it was good exercise but no one else agreed with that.  It was really nice when spring came.  At the first hint of warm weather and no snow Wally and I sort of found a Volkswagon convertible that we could not live without. It ran very well but certainly had some body issues. It was a little rusty in places which is not unusual for Michigan and then there was not exactly much of a floor in it that did not have huge holes.

We would put Bowser in the back seat, put the top down and carefully place our feet someplace where they did not drag on the pavement and go for rides. The only time I worried about not having a current license,
inspection, all the brake lights or insurance was one time when we were at a Dunkin' Donuts enjoying some sweets when two police cars pulled up and the officers came into the store. We could have left the building and walked down the street like it was not our car but there poor Bowser sat in the backseat waiting for us. So we finished our donuts while happily watching the police officers order some for themselves then we made a break for it.  Maybe the officers only had donuts on their mind and not looking for criminals with a completely illegal vehicle.  Years later Wally developed the theory that you should only buy a $400.00 car and drive it until it dies and then go get another one.
Wes was always driving a new Capri, Mustang, Bronco or something thanks to his Dad but Wally was always happy with a car that would start and four wheels that would roll. Smart Boy!

Half way through Wes senior year there had not been an major problems.  Actually I can remember lots of laughter and fun.  I was blessed with two pretty good kids and each very talented in their own way.  

Could I possibly be so lucky to have the second half of the school year go so well?