Eben

I was born in a small city in Massachusetts during WWII while my father was still at war. My mother was very sick and depressed at this time, but he came back alive and reasonably healthy. We later found out he had had a heart attack while he was conscripted, but no one told him this. When my Dad started to work along Rt. 128 at a scientific installation my family moved north of Boston. I missed the city, and never made many friends in the suburbs. As a kid I read many books about dogs, a Bomba the Jungle Boy series my Dad had collected as a kid, and just about every science fiction story published by Amazing and Analog; I only occasionally read sci fi now as most of the plots became familiar by the time of Star Wars and Star Trek. My father had heart attacks every few years, and we usually didn't have much money, but we did live in our own house. We just never went out to eat or joined anything. We did get to go camping in the White Mountains ever summer for two weeks, though, and we all loved that. I was expected to be an "A" student so I worked really hard in school. I wanted to go out for track, but was told girls were not allowed. In high school, the most exciting thing that happened to me was that I won a trip to the United Nations through an OddFellows' essay contest. I was supposed to give speeches about it, but was so terrified that I only had to give one, to the OddFellows. The next year, they corrected their mistake by letting an extrovert win, who didn't bother to take any notes, but preempted mine and never gave them back. (I felt it was a fair exchange!) I studied French in High School, but only was able to average C's. However, when I went to college, I was the only one from my High School to receive advanced placement! This appeared to annoy my HS French teacher, but it was not her fault. My short term memory is very weak, but my long term memory is pretty good. I had trouble learning French, but then was able to retain most of what I learned. I am also very bad with names for this reason, and also because I get anxiety amnesia when I try to remember names. I also usually have to meet a person at least twice to recognize them. I attended the University of Massachusetts and graduated with a major in English and minors in psychology and education. I was actually most interested in psychology, but the behaviourists had full control of the department at the time. It was years later, in a bookstore in Harvard Square, that I found books which mentioned Carl Jung, and realized that what he wrote about was what I had been seeking. I have collected several of his books and nibble at them from time to time. He presents so much detail I tend to get overwhelmed by him, which is how some authors also affect me. I think I understand his basic theories to some point, and also what projection is. My favorite and most appreciated course at UMass was in botany, the New England Flora course, which taught me to really look closely and to see things. Now, when I look at paintings of flowers, I can always tell if the artist was really looking. It was not until I was an adult, with two young children of my own, that I discovered why I had not majored in science. After a trip to the National Air and Space Museum, I became very ill, and remembered thinking, as a child, that my father wanted me to become an astronaut! That was the most horrible fate I could think of, since it invoved, essentially, being shut up in a small metal can in the middle of an enormous void far from earth. (That one could be blown up even before that did not occur to me at the time.) During the summers, while I was in college, I folded sheets in a local laundromat. I got quite good at it. It was very hot in there, and one of the workers was a very old woman who was not entitled to social security because she had come to the USA when she was already quite old. Her job was to take the wet sheets from a bin and put them on a table so two other women could feed them into a steam press. My partner and I would then take the hot sheets off at the other end and fold them up halfway, before the finisher took them to complete the folding. Another woman in the laundromat spent all day ironing dress shirts. (I was later told that she eventually developed diabetes and had to have both legs amputated, which I suspect had something to do with having to stand all day like that.) After graduation from college, my first job was as a copyeditor for a publishing company along Rt.128. When they built nice new offices for the salespeople in their new building and left the copyeditors in small, dark cubicles, I realized I was in a dead-end job, and took a chance with a position substitute teaching. I taught for about four years (mostly junior high English), but found it incredibly draining. I finally realized that I was too introverted for that kind of work. In the meantime, I had married my present husband, who is from Kansas, and moved to Richmond, Virginia; so when I decided to give up on teaching I took a civil service test for the city of Richmond.I was told that I would make a good caseworker! I did not know what a caseworker was, but I agreed to become one. My minor in psychology made me eligible.For the next two years I worked in Adult Services, mostly with people on General Relief because they were unemployed or too ill to work. When I left that job, I was told by the director that I had gotten more people approved for Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled than anyone else in the agency's history. This was a good thing, in my mind, because the people I was trying to help were truly disabled, if not in the process of dying, and what I did was to help them to have food and a warm place to stay until they died.I began to work on a Masters in Vocational Rehabilitation, but my husband switched jobs to one in South Central Pennsylvania, USA, just before the end of my first semester. I was pregnant at the time, and had spent much of my personal savings to start it, but had to withdraw. The remainder of my savings was spent on a downpayment for our first house.Soon after moving to Pennsylvania I had two children, first a daughter, and then a son. My daughter is an engineer. My son works for a small telecom company in Texas. While my children were little I joined the League of Women Voters, and then worked as a part time, independent contractor for Legislex. That was an information company begun by two LWV members to track legislation in all of the states. It was interesting to see how the flow of information was provided in the capitol building; it took a meeting with a rather intimidating gatekeeper to acquire a mailbox, so I'd be certain to receive copies of all the bills. I also learned how to log onto the computer provided for the news reporters, who would sometimes kick me off of it when they had deadlines to meet. Unfortunately, Legislex eventually went out of business. I then did Gallup Polls for awhile.I played around with precinct politics then, with no particular political agenda; I just thought it was something I should do, since I had done little during the Vietnam War. After that, I became trained in Active Listening, which I am now quite good at, by a nationwide hotline, and did some volunteer work for the hotline for several years. I also gave a speach as a private party in support of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania, when many were opposed to this, and managed to elicit cheers even from members of the opposition that had been brought to appear against it. (As I am an introvert, this satisfied me tremendously.)I ended up being appointed to the boards of directors of both my local library and the hotline for several years, probably as a member of the "general public," as almost everyone else was an attorney, businessperson, or politician. I also was on a consumer panel for an electric company. During this time, I also attended a training workshop of the MBTI, Myers-Briggs Personality Type Inventory, which I kstill find very helpful in understanding others (I usually test INTP).Finally, when my kids were preteens, I returned to work full time, again after taking a civil service test. For the next twenty years, I worked as a caseworker for a county agency dealing with child safety. I saw a lot of people who were having difficulties with their families and worked hard to help them be more successful. It was a very difficult and lonely job, but it was also extremely interesting. I had gone to some human growth workshops and trainings while I volunteered for the hotline, and for quite awhile was able to go to trainings through my job, as well. By the time I retired, teams of people, including trained therapists, were being assigned to work with families doing what I had been doing single-handedly, and my job's paperwork had doubled.While I did casework, I tried to garden. My gardening helped me to keep my sanity back then. My yard is now full of plants I personally planted. I dug most of the holes to plant them myself, although my husband did quite a few. In the summertime, our backyard is like a woodland now, interspersed with the flowers that survive the shade from all the trees and shrubs. Right now as I write this there are five small tree peonies in bloom back there, in white, pink, and rose. There is a woodchuck back there somewhere, if the neighbor that doesn't like woodchucks didn't trap it yet. The birds like our yard, and so do the squirrels. I planted two walnut trees as well. It is a very peaceful place, except for the mosquitos. At night, during the summer, a skunk usually cuts through our yard.I also have a little sitting area in front of my house, with a little raised garden strip in front of that. I crammed the 15'x5' spot full of every flower I thought could survive the heat and dryness; and right now bleeding hearts and Virginia bluebells are in flower. Lots of other things are coming up and I enjoy waiting for them.There is also a little wooded patch in front of our house that used to be just a patch of dried out grass. A rabbit usually sleeps in there.I have been retired now for two years. In my last year of work, my husband had open heart surgery. He seems OK now and walks the dog five times a day. He also does volunteer work at a local garden, hangs out at the local farmer's marker, and belongs to a steam engine society. (My daughter air freighted us her dog and two of her cats; they're ours now. My mother, who is now 88, got another cat of hers!)I had been hit (as a pedestrian) by a car and thrown 25 or 35 feet back in '88; by the spring of 2005 a long-standing limp had gotten so bad I went to Rehab for it. Despite the efforts of my excellent rehab therapist I had to have my right hip replaced last October. (I was using two canes by then--now, none!) In a way this was a blessing, because I became much more interested in physical fitness. I now work out and swim 4 or 5x a week, and hope to gradually get down to a more reasonable weight.I have been very selfish over the last two years. I decided to do casework on myself. I am beginning to feel much better. I have decided to mostly only do what is really fun to me, and only force myself to do things when absolutely necessary. I have lots of books, which I collected over the years. Some of them are about botany and human growth; most are nonfiction. I also have been collecting affordable DVDs and have worked to build a usable music collection. I find that between my swimming and internet activities I have little time to be bored. I am also working (as a hobby!) on a plot for a sci fi screenplay, and trying to learn how to sing. Eventually, I may try to do more hotline volunteering, but right now I want to keep free to visit around the country to see my mother and offspring.Copyright 2006. No reproduction in whole or in part without written authorization by author. Malicious infringement may result in prosecution.