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My Resume
My
first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got canned ... couldn't concentrate.
Then
I worked in the woods as a lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe.
After
that I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it. Mainly because it was a sew-sew job.
Next
I tried working in a muffler factory, but that was exhausting.
I
wanted to be a barber, but I just couldn't cut it.
Then
I tried to be a chef – figured it would add a little spice to my life, but I just didn't have the thyme.
Finally,
I attempted to be a deli worker, but any way I sliced it, I couldn't cut the mustard.
My
best job was being a musician, but eventually I found I wasn't noteworthy.
I
studied a long time to become a doctor, but I didn't have any patients.
Next
was a job in a shoe factory. I tried but I just didn't fit in.
I
became a professional fisherman, but discovered that I couldn't live on my net income.
I
managed to get a good job working for a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining.
I got
a job at a zoo feeding giraffes but I was fired because I wasn't up to it.
So
then I got a job in a gymnasium (work-out-center), but they said I wasn't fit for the job.
Next,
I found being an electrician interesting, but the work was shocking.
After
many years of trying to find steady work, I finally got a job as a historian until I realized there was no future in it.
My
last job was working at Starbucks, but I had to quit because it was always the same old grind.
You
got any ideas? I'm open for suggestions ... maybe you have something that WORKS ... because I don't.
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The Unforgettable Christmas
In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged
from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway
they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave 15 dollars a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no
food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it.
I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress. I loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and
drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck. The kids stayed, crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to
convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.
The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in
that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids.
She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour and I could start that night.
I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with
her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal
That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job.
And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the babysitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip
money, fully half of what I averaged every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added another strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny
balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home.
One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back
seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing; just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered. I made a deal with the owner of the local service
station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.
I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming
and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would
be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boy’s pants and soon they would be too far-gone to repair.
On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. These were the truckers Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state
trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all-just sat around and talked
through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up.
When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning I
hurried to the car. I was hoping the kids wouldn't wake up before I managed to get home and get the presents from the basement and place them under the
tree. (We had cut down a small cedar tree by the side of the road down by the dump.)
It was still dark and I couldn't see much, but there appeared to be some dark
shadows in the car – or was that just a trick of the night? Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to tell what. When I reached the car I peered warily into one of the side windows.
Then my jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered Chevy was full - full to
the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.
Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to
go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes: There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous
ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of laundry
supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.
As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most
amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning. Yes,
there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.
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