Ask-A-Wench: What was your first job?

Anne here, and today on "ask a wench" we're responding to the question, 'What was your first ever job?'

Pat begins:  Oh dear, I’m not entirely certain where to start. With babysitting? Boring. How about the candy store I set up in the local park?

That was fun but a lot of work. A friend and I had to take a cooler on the bus downtown (we were only fourteen—and our mothers didn’t have cars) to the candy wholesaler. We’d load up on everything we liked, then hauled it back to the neighborhood and sold it out of a little park building no one was using. We made enough that summer to outfit ourselves quite nicely when school started in the fall!

But I suppose my real live out-in-the-world job was a cashier at Value Village, a place I could walk to. I doubt anyone remembers them, a precursor to K-Mart. I was only fifteen (my birthday was a few months away) and not exactly legal, but the store had just opened. They were desperate to fill positions and didn’t ask questions. The entire neighborhood was thrilled to have this exciting new store (oh, those were the days!) and the lines curled to the back of the building for weeks after it opened. I swear I memorized every code in the store because the stock moved too quickly to be marked. Can you remember ever being excited by the opening of a cheap discount store?!

Of course, the best part of that job—besides the paycheck—was that all the guys went there to buy parts and oil for their cars. My IT Guy was one of them. <G>

Christina says:  My first proper job was a summer job working in an office. At the time, I’d been at university in Sweden for a year and I wanted to earn some extra money. Students never have enough, do they! My father worked for a Swedish company with branches all over the world and he managed to secure me a six-week stint in their London office, because he knew the manager. I was very excited to be spending so much time in the UK, staying with my aunt and uncle – that felt like a vacation in itself – although I was a bit apprehensive about the work as I had no idea what it entailed. And when I turned up on the appointed day, I think the manager had forgotten to tell his staff I was coming as everyone was a bit taken aback and no one knew what to do with me!

They soon rallied, however, and I was installed at a desk and asked to help one of the younger secretaries with copying invoices. It wasn’t difficult and she kindly took me under her wing. I spent those six weeks typing and keeping my head down, and not once did I come across the manager. Then, a few days before my job was about to end, he seemed to remember I existed and asked me to come to his office. He must have felt guilty for ignoring me (or maybe he was afraid my dad would find out he'd forgotten me?) because he invited me to dinner and the theatre with his wife and son the following week. To be perfectly honest, I would have preferred not to go since I didn’t know them, but it turned out to be a lovely evening. The dinner was delicious (and very expensive!), he and his family were charming and I really enjoyed the play, an old-fashioned murder mystery. We had great seats, in the dress circle of course, with drinks in the interval, and afterwards they drove me to Victoria station (where I had to catch a train to my aunt’s house) in an old-fashioned, luxurious Jaguar. I felt thoroughly spoiled! So perhaps it was a good thing he only remembered me at the last minute?

Nicola says,  I’d like to say that my first job was in a bookshop but that was only for one day when I was sixteen. I remember it so well, though! I was in absolute heaven and I even sold a couple of books. It felt like the right place to be and I’ve wanted to own a bookshop ever since. Maybe one day.

My first summer job was a 6 week stint as a volunteer working on a steam railway. My stepfather had always been very keen on heritage railways and restoring steam engines, and every year we would go on holiday to Porthmadog in North Wales where he would volunteer as a fireman on the Ffestiniog Railway.

I’m not particularly interested in engines and how they work, but I did find something very appealing about those steam locomotives. Some of them were so elegant and they had very imaginative names such as Merddin Emrys, named after the 6^th century Welsh poet! When I was allowed up on the footplate for part of the journey it was amazing; the heat of the fire, the smell of cinders and the sheer power of the engines was all a new and exciting experience. I didn’t fancy being a driver or fireman myself – too oily – but I did like the idea of working on the railway. When I was sixteen I was allowed to join in and my first jobs were all station-based, selling tickets, working in the gift shop and waitressing in the cafeteria. We worked long shifts and it was very tiring but there was a sense of camaraderie and seeing the trains coming and going, and the visitors enjoying their trips, was lots of fun. 

The best part, though, was when I was judged to be experienced enough to work on the train itself. These were highly sought after volunteer jobs  as you got to travel up and down the line in the vintage carriages, through some of the most beautiful scenery in Wales. My job was to go through the carriages offering guide books and refreshments. We did an at seat service for passengers in First Class and the Observation Car so I quickly had to learn how to pull pints and carry them down a moving train, or balance a tray of cups of tea as I manoeuvred through narrow doorways and over rattling points! It was brilliant and I loved it.

Mary Jo here. I'd done a bit of babysitting and at college, I'd been a dishwasher in a biology professor's lab and then worked part time in the university library, which suited me better.  But my first real job that used my professional skills came in my last two years as an industrial design student when I worked part time as a draftsman at the local urban renewal agency.

I drew maps and made signs and various other useful thing for people who worked at the agency, who were a pleasant lot.  In those days, a typical designer or draftsman worked on a great honkin' oak drafting table with a sliding parallel rule and an adjustable task light attached to the top edge of the board.  The angle of the board could be adjusted to whatever felt best to the user.  The tall drafting stool was also adjustable.

I don't remember the projects I worked on much, but I did learn a fair amount about life.  There was the very helpful young married woman who worked in the same big office and did design work.  She wasn't from Syracuse and didn’t have many friends in the area, so she confided in me because she had to talk to someone when she was afraid her husband was having an affair.  I couldn't do much but offer sympathy.  (I knew her husband and thought he was a jerk; I hope her life since has worked out for her as well as she deserves.)

Then there was the very nice young planner who would come through the office when he needed something done.  He and his wife were expecting their first baby and I was happy for them. Then came the day he propositioned me. I'm guessing his wife wasn't feeling well enough to be a good bedmate. I was horrified, and he ended up wildly embarrassed and retreated at speed.  It was definitely a lesson in life.

But best of all was meeting another planner who was a great guy.  We were part of each other's lives for years, and are friends to this day.  So yes, I learned lessons in life--some of them better than others!

Here's Susan: Like many teens, my first job was in a restaurant, a local steakhouse. I wasn’t a waitress (good thing, I would have been in the I-Love-Lucy category), but was hostess and cashier, so I got to dress up nicely and seat people, and then fumble my way through taking money and credit cards and doing math. The next summer, I worked as a layout artist in a small graphics and printing firm. I was headed to the University of Maryland as an art major that fall, and thought the job would be artsy—it wasn’t, but I did learn to design basic ads, count words and lines, make things fit and be careful about placing and proofing. That part was fun—what wasn’t fun was the creepy guy who owned the company, who was very touchy-feely. I was tiny, timid, and not very wise about the world—and I bolted to the car every time my mom arrived to pick me up, until I finally quit out of sheer self-preservation. 

What I think of as my first “real” job came about after I got my art degree and entered the university’s graduate program in art history, and was awarded a graduate assistantship that paid my tuition and gave me a little income. Assisting professors in preparing lectures, arranging slide carousels, grading papers, all while taking courses and doing my own research and writing, required responsibility, organization, knowledge, and discretion, and I had to learn fast. 

Within a couple of semesters, I was teaching my own classes—ARTH 101, 102, and so on. I was still tiny and timid, and walking into an amphitheater classroom with 150 students staring down at me was terrifying. I could barely see over the podium, clicking slides projected on a screen 30 feet in the air, and I faked confidence. I had to learn how to make the material interesting, get students thinking—and how to keep them awake in that big, quiet, darkened room. If it was funny or dramatic, I discovered, they would listen. I learned more than my students--I learned to speak to an audience, learned history could be fun, learned to stand on a milk crate behind a podium—and art history taught me techniques of good writing and storytelling that came in handy later!

Andrea says: I wangled my first real job as a junior in high school. (I’d done the occasional babysitting up to that point— though that had become far more fraught after I was stupid enough to read Truman Capote's “In Cold Blood” one night while sitting alone in a strange house after the kids had gone to bed!) There is, however, a bit of a backstory. I’d become really interested in photography, and while a Brownie instamatic was okay toplay around with, I was dying to get my hands on a fancy SLR camera. The thing was, they cost WAY more than my babysitting money. So I decided to be a little devious! My mother an artist, and really enjoyed taking photos, too. So I gathered all these brochures on new cameras and showed them to her, saying wouldn’t it be REALLY cool to have one of these to take family pics, etc. My punch line was, “Hey, we could share it, so I could learn a lot about art, which would be very educational." Hmmm . . . I think she saw through my ploy. Still, she agreed that it was a win-win, and soon we had a fancy new camera that we both set out to master. (Little did I realize that I had unleashed a monster, as my mother soon cajoled my father into installing a sink in a small storage closet so we could have a darkroom in which to learn how to develop and print film!) 
I took this picture of an old newsclipping of me on the job in the high school gym from a family scrapbook.

I got fairly proficient with how to compose and shoot photos, and then—I’m not sure how I mustered the moxie, as I was pretty shy—I decided one day to stop by the local newspaper and see if they had any openings for a photographer. (I think I pitched covering high school sports.) And to my surprise and elation, I was hired on the spot as an assistant staff photographer. I did after-school assignments during the school year (my classmates were very impressed that I was an official press photographer) and worked full time in the summer. It was not only fun, but I leaned a lot about responsibility, as when I was given an assigment, I had to come through. Which meant organizing my schedule and being sure that I got to places on time. All good life lessons. And I still really enjoy photography to this day—and marvel at how amazing the technology has become. My i-phone takes incredibly detailed shots . . .and no futzing in the dark with toxic chemicals!

Joanna explains: 
My first money-making activity, an entrepreneurial start-up, was in the field of recycling. I used to bring a shopping bag and collect glass bottles and cans from the industrial area to the south of where I lived.  I got 2¢ each. I immediately invested my earnings in candy bars. I was seven.

That may not quite qualify as a job since the pay structure was what you might call informal ...  so let me fast forward a few years to when I went to work in my father’s office.He was a physician with a large practice, most of whom didn’t actually pay him because they couldn’t. It was not a rich section of town and he treated anybody who walked through the door.

I scrubbed the place before and after working hours, cleaned the examination rooms between patients, filed away records, answered phones, and made coffee. I started when I was 13 and did it till I went away to college. I got paid minimum wage.

In terms of investment, however, I had advanced way beyond candy bars. Now I was old enough to blow it all on paperback Romances.

Anne again. Such an interesting range of first jobs. My very first job came in the long summer holidays the year I finished high school. (Our school year finishes at the beginning of summer, just before Christmas.) Up to then, my parents had refused to allow me to get a holiday job, like all my friends, as we always went away for the holidays and for some reason they didn't want to leave a 16 year old at home alone. (Naturally I didn't agree.)  But this year we didn't go away because my final results would arrive by post in mid January, and I suppose they wanted to wait for them, so finally I was able to get a job.

 So my first ever paid job was working in a cat and dog boarding kennels. I loved interacting with all the animals, but basically the job just involved scooping up dog and cat poo. And feeding them. And popping pills down cats' necks — we had an outbreak of cat flu. (These days vaccinations for the various diseases are compulsory, so the problem never arises.) I got quite skilled at dosing cats.

The following year I went to university, and did a variety of part time jobs to supplement my scholarship money. I baby-sat one day a week for a Lebanese hairdressing couple. They were very glamorous and their house was a mix of middle-eastern and French chic. They had two gorgeous little girls and the food I was given to feed them (and me) was new to me, and utterly delicious.

I  stuffed brochures and company reports in envelopes and got very quick at it, as we were paid (a pittance) for every hundred envelopes stuffed. At Christmas I worked in the central mail exchange, sorting mail, which was more interesting than you'd imagine. It was shift work and I finished my shift went from 2pm to 10pm, which was perfect for summertime partying—and sleeping in.

I also did some research work for professors and one of the best was reading the Fiji Times newspapers from the 1870's in the beautiful reading room under the giant dome in the State Library. I had to note down shipping and exports, which was fairly dull, but the picture that emerged of a developing colony and all that went on there was fascinating. And when I came to write my third book, An Honorable Thief, I used a story I'd read back then as a starting point.

So that's how we wenches started our working lives. What was your first job?

Comments

[Deb Tait]

My first job was working at the on course tote at the races in Sydney. Rosehill, Randwick, Warwick Farm and Canterbury. Every Wednesday and Saturday as well as public holidayS (great pay with penalty rates). Terrific job for a university student. It was enough to live on when I moved out to a share house in Glebe (inner city Sydney, very groovy and squalid) just before my 19th birthday. Some of the big winners would tip me when they won. Ah, those were the days. You saw everyone. The needed and the greedy. A great cross section of Sydney life in the late 70s and 80s.

[Anne Gracie]

Wow, Deb, what an exciting — and lucrative— job. And a window into the world of racing that few others have. I'm envious

[theo]

My first job that didn't involve watching kids was working the concession stand at the local movie theater. For $1 an hour. I actually hated cleaning out the popcorn machine, but it was money.

[Sue McCormick]

First semi-jobs were baby-sitting and working at Woolworths. My first true jobs were also part-time. I got a summer job in the mailing room at Pet Mik Company. We sent out the recipe books that were offered in order to encourage the use of canned milk. This was in the summer of 1945, so the booklets were all war-time recipes.

Just before my job was to be over I recieved an offer to work in the long-lines (long-distance) department of AT&T. i went to Pet Milk, hoping they would allow me to quit early, only to find out that they were hoping that I WOULD quite early, because they had to let someone go and the girl hired after me wanted a full time job. I was given a bonus package of old Pet Milk recipe books which I still have.

So I then became a telephone operator, helping make connections between phones from coast to coast. I was on the job on VJ day. My shift started just before Presiden Truman addressed the nation; but we knew the news. Every switchboard in the huge room lit up in its entirety! Background noises on all calls were sirens, horns, and so on. Very few calls actually got through because too many people were trying to make calls. I think I had a more exciting time working than I would have had at home. (When my father came to pick me up we went down to the river-front and enjoyed the crowd. But I think I had more fun working.

Incidently, we had company on December 7th and didn't know the war started, so I sat out both the beginning and end of that war. But I did spend D-day with the rest of the college glued to the radio.

[Denise]

This is so fun reading of working starts! My uncle had a commercial laundry and for a grand 50 cents an hour, as a young high schooler, I folded clothes and was the attendant in the self-serve section. The best part was if I finished the folding I could read, heaven. Then a new enterprise came to our little suburb of Philadelphia, Fotomat, a 24 hour film developing service where the film was picked up and developed off site, and the processed pictures were returned to me. I worked there every day after school my senior year and through my first year of business school. If I had no customers I could do my school work or read, it paid $2.00 an hour and was the perfect job. One of my customers turned out to be my only first date, and we will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary next year.

[Nicola Cornick]

Have to love a job that allows you time to read, Denise! How fabulous that you met your only first date there as well. Congratulations!

[Kathy K]

Babysitting started about age 13. But my first real job was as a nurse's aide in an elder care facility. I had always wanted to be a nurse and thought it might be a good thing to check out whether I had the gumption to do the work. I learned so much, some it very bad practice which had to be corrected during nursing school. I have appreciated the strong work ethic that my parents instilled in me. It taught me to set goals and work for them.

[Misti]

My first real job was at a little cherry factory at a local cherry orchard. I got to sort through pie cherries as they went by on a conveyor belt. (Kind of like the "I Love Lucy" where she works in the chocolate factory, only I didn't get to eat them - or cause that may problems. LOL). I counted myself lucky I wasn't at the front of the line where you had to pick out dead birds. Luckily the jobs I have had only got better from there.

[Pamela DG]

My first job was an intern for Associated Press in 1984. I was a Poli Sci major. Our professor offered us an opportunity to work for the wire service to work the DNC and RNC that year. It was kind of like an internship now. My job was a film runner and would be assigned to a photojournalist and run film to where our developing lab was. I also transmitted black and white and colored images to newspapers all over the US. The DNC was in San Francisco that year. At the end we were all offered positions AP offered all of us an opportunity to work the Olympics in LA, before heading to Dallas for the RNC. My folks allowed me to go for it. Running all over LA was challenging, I soon learned I need to catch taxis with a press hack card to get to the lab fast. It was not long before a Lady-like upraised hand would not earn me a cab when everybody was competing for one. I learned how to scream and to deliver an ear-splitting whistle. That summer was one of the best experiences of my life.

[Kareni]

From age ten to 14, I babysat for the whopping amount of 25 cents/hour. Frankly, I was a pretty terrible babysitter; I'd sometimes change the clock and then say it was time for dinner and bed. I also got quite the education reading the Playboy and Oui magazines that were left around. (I thought Oui was pronounced Oy until I took French in high school!)

At about sixteen, I started jobs for which I paid taxes. I worked at a country club and made sandwiches at a little snack place on the 10th Tee. The golfers sat in the enclosed space; the caddies I served through a pass through window. I lived in utter terror of the field mice.

[Anne Gracie]

And do you hate the smell of popcorn now, Theo? My cousin worked in a hamburger cafe and long afterwards he couldn't look a hamburger in the eye.

[Anne Gracie]

Wow, Sue, what a slice of history there! What an exciting time for you. And those war-time recipe books are coming back into fashion with coVoid restrictions and shortages, I believe. I saw a recipe on line for a cake recipe that used a can of tomato soup!

[Anne Gracie]

Denise, what a gorgeous story. And yes, time to read at work is such a bonus. I love that you and Wench Pat both met your beloved at your part-time work. Early congratulations on your upcoming anniversary.

[Anne Gracie]

Kathy, a friend of mine worked as a nurse's aide at an elder care facility. The money was good (especially for a student — she was the best paid of all of us) but she got all the worst jobs — the ones that the "proper nurses" didn't want to do — and they were bad! But it taught her a lot, too, not least about human nature.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Misti — shame you didn't get to eat the cherries. But fab that you missed out on the dead birds -- that sounds ghastly. I keep wondering how dead birds ever got onto the conveyor belt.

That episode of I Love Lucy is a classic, isn't it? I know someone who worked in a chocolate factory where they were allowed to eat all the chocolate they wanted -- but not take any home -- and it was a smart policy, because people soon got sick of chocolate. My friend went right off it. Perfect cure for a chocoholic

[Anne Gracie]

Wow, Pamela, what an exciting job that was. And you'd see so much up close that most people would only read about in the papers. And as a student, what a fabulous chance to experience a range of jobs in your area of interest. Thanks for sharing.

[Anne Gracie]

It's so interesting how many people were babysitters as young teens. I don't recall it happening here nearly so much. In fact I was the only person I knew who did babysitting — and I was in my first year of university, not a young teen.
Your golf job sounds interesting — Wench Andrea would approve — but NOT the field mouse part of it. I'm not fond of "meeces" either.

[Margot]

My first full time paying job was after high school as a nurses aide at a Children's rehab hospital. (Before that I had lots of non paying jobs during the summers, canning, freezing fruits and vegetables at a small business, painting inside and outside homes, way too much babysitting.) After that I went to nursing school and had to work short jobs to help pay my way.

Nicola - my husband and I rode that railway many times and loved all the little, medium and big trains scattered around the UK. Diesel and steam. We would pick 3-7 various ones to ride on each visit. I like that photo of the engine as I have photos of most of the ones we have been on.

[Linda S.]

Aside from babysitting in high school for the next-door neighbors (who paid well because they liked not having to drive me home), my first job was at Woolworth's after my first year at college. Like Anne, I had parents who preferred that I vacation with them during high school. I worked in the dry goods department and sold everything from ladies underwear to plastic curtains. I remember trying to talk a man into buying three pairs of curtains with the same scene, but no, he insisted on three different scenes. He didn't want to look at the same scene three times, he told me.

[Linda Hinkle]

My first job was working at a movie theater. This was before the computerized age, so I actually took tickets off of a roll to give to customers when they paid (in cash!). I had to keep a tally of ticket sales by hour, and would have to balance the cash at the end of the day. My how things have changed!

[Teresa Broderick]

My first job was in a grocery/butcher's store when I was thirteen. I was just about to start my Summer holidays from school and was looking forward to long days reading and tramping the fields with my dog which were my favorite past times. My mother came into my bedroom one morning and said I was starting this job the following week.
I HATED it!! The couple who owned the shop didn't get on and were always arguing in front of me and throwing things at each other. I didn't know what to do. The shop closed from 1pm to 2pm for lunch and even if it was raining I had to go out and walk the street and somehow eat my lunch. This was a small village with nothing in it.
But the very worst thing was having to clean the meat machines. Yeuck!! They were gross. I spent most of my time crying doing that job.
I never forgot that job and to this day I shudder when I think of it.

[Anne Gracie]

Margo, what a good idea to try out as a nurses' aide first before taking on full nursing training.

I'm in envy of your railway adventures. The year I took off work to travel I had a eurail pass and used the Thomas Cook guide to travel as many of their "most scenic train trips in Europe" listed as I could. I love train travel.

[Anne Gracie]

Linda several of my schoolfriends had holiday jobs like this in the run-up before Christmas until after the New Year sales. They worked in the city centre, in the big department stores, and had to dress smartly. It sounded quite glamorous and exciting.

[Anne Gracie]

Things certainly have changed, Linda. A movie theatre sounds like fun, especially if you got to watch the movies. A friend of mine did that and she was always telling us which movies were good and which were duds.

[Anne Gracie]

Oh Teresa, that sounds awful. Poor you! And how mean of them to kick you out at lunchtime!! My boarding kennels people did that to me, but it was only the stinking hot days (95+) that I minded, because the owners and their two daughters spent lunch time in air-conditioned comfort inside, while I sweated it out. Then they'd come back and boast how cool they felt. Mean is mean.

I suppose every job you had after that was a step up

[Janet]

My first full-time summer job was working for the US Air Force at the Simulator Training Branch. This was where pilots and crews came to refresh their instrument ratings. There were 3 officers and 2 NCOs who were thrilled to see me because it meant they didn't have to print very small to get their evaluations on the form. I could type them!
There was a kind of serendipity about it too. My father's job as a Staff Sergeant during WWII was using the first generation of simulators to train B-24 pilots in instrument flying.

[Karin]

Great story, Sue!

[Karin]

I am reminded of a babysitting job I had as a teenager, where there was a copy of Peyton Place in the house! I spent most of the evening speed-reading it. My parents never had that sort of salacious pulp paperback.

[Karin]

I had so many different jobs before starting my "real" career; babysitting, working in a knitting mill, office receptionist, day care center, file clerk, hat check girl, sorting apples on a conveyer belt as Misti did with the cherries, cafeteria worker, and lots of waitressing, at Howard Johnson's, Dunkin Donuts, an Italian restaurant, and several 24-hour diners. IF I recall correctly, my first job "on the books" was working behind the counter at a bakery. I worked Saturday and Sunday mornings beginning at 6 am, and it used to get mobbed with customers. My boss was the baker's wife and she was quite mean. My most vivid memory is the day she cut her fingers quite badly on a bread slicing machine, because I am very squeamish about blood.

[Kareni]

I think that perusing book shelves was definitely a highlight of babysitting, Karin. I remember another babysitting job which took place in a hotel room. Foolishly, I had brought nothing of my own to read. I guess that Gideon Bible session balanced the Playboy session I mentioned previously!

[Janice]

I did the usual babysitting along with some small typing jobs here and there, but the first job that I got properly hired for was as a part time salesgirl (an "extra") at Bullock's Downtown in Los Angeles. At that time that store and the ones on Wilshire and in Pasadena were the poshest stores around. I sold belts, scarves and accessories on the first floor. It was an amazing place - the sales floors meticulously kept with beautiful clothes; the salons for the really posh stuff like fur coats; the pneumatic tubes whooshing payments up and change down for those clerks who did not have their own register drawers; the spookiness of the 7th floor, said to be haunted, which was a storage area for unsold old stuff that would be put out during the annual sales; and the customers - the airline pilot from Texas who wanted to buy his two teen sisters absolutely the wrong jacket; the most beautiful woman I ever saw; the ones who would look at all the scarves and belts in detail and buy none. I remember best the staff: Miss Zimmerman the buyer who taught me the lore of cowhide; the lady who did demos of a white pique collar thing, showing how it could be wrapped a dozen different ways to disguise that you were wearing that same dress to work again; Miss Rose the saleslady, a "regular" who got commission of 1% on her sales and lived on that and $1.25 per hour in a hotel room somewhere downtown, who always wore the same two dresses and the same shoes and sat down whenever she could get off her feet.

The Bullock's chain was bought out by Federated, and now all the still existing locations are Macy's branches - and those are folding. The downtown building is still there and it's been many things since then. I wonder if the 7th floor is still haunted.

[Anne Gracie]

What an interesting job, Janet — and I can just imagine the difference typing made to fitting evaluations onto a form. Seems being in the forefront of technology runs in the family. And what a fun job for a young woman -- all those men in uniform.

[Anne Gracie]

Karin looking at that list of jobs, it occurs to me that young people today don't seem to have nearly the opportunities to experiment and try out different kinds of work.
I hope you had a good breakfast before you arrived for work at that bakery. The smell of fresh-baked bread in the morning . . . Irresistible.
And that accident with the slicer sounds dreadful. No wonder you remember it so vividly. Ghastly. I hope her hand recovered.

[Anne Gracie]

Wow, Janice, what a wonderful word picture you've painted. It quite comes alive for me. Wonderful.
And now I'm left wondering what the lore of cowhide is!

[Karin]

Janice, you make it sound so interesting. I remember all the old department stores that went out of business: Best & Co., Stern's, B. Altman, Abraham & Straus, Bamberger's. That's just the New York area.