Thursday, December 09, 2010

Anonymous asked a couple of questions

By the way, Anonymous, from now on at least sign a name so I have something better to call you.  Do I know you from somewhere?  
One question that was asked was this:  "What did you do at the catalog company?"  
I was an order filler.  Every half-hour, I believe it was, I was given a bundle of tickets; I'd push a big cart up and down the aisles in the section with sheets and other bedding, "pick" the items on a ticket, tuck that ticket with its items, toss them in the cart, and go to the next.  When I was done and my cart was filled, I pushed it to an order checker, who would make sure I had filled the orders properly.  
Later on I was moved to the yard goods area, so there wan't a cart any more.  I remember pulling the rolls of material from a shelf behind me, laying them on the table, measuring to the length stated on the ticket, cutting and folding, and tucking the ticket into the fold.  But for the life of me, I can't recall what I did with them after that!  
A joke amongst the workers at National Bellas Hess was to call it, "Hell-of-a-Mess".
I was working in the yard goods section the day I heard Kennedy had been shot; a young black lady (back then I would have said "colored lady") who worked with me there began to cry when we got the news the president had died, saying, "I feel like I've lost my father."     
We didn't get a paycheck there; we got cold, hard cash, what little there was of it, stuffed into a yellow envelope.  
The other question Anonymous asks is "Where and how did you meet your prince?"  
I'm going to skip over a lot of stuff here that would make interesting reading, but I do keep some things to myself.  Oh, if people only knew the things that go unsaid on this blog.  
A seventeen-year-old girl named Rena started working at Bellas Hess, right after I had been jilted by the first and only boy friend I had ever had.  She and I became friends.  One evening I went home with her and met her oldest brother, Cliff, as well as her little sister Charlene and her mom and dad.  Within six months, I married my prince.  
The sister who introduced me to Cliff now lives next door in our old house.  
And there you have it.

8 comments:

  1. That is a love story for sure. It's funny the way some people come into our lives. What a blessing that person turned out to be. When I started my first job, I too was paid in cash. As a matter of fact I learned how to do the entire payroll on that job. I learned exactly how to figure to the cent how much cash would be needed to do that and then they'd go to the bank and get the money and I'd fill the envelopes for everyone there and it was done weekly too.

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  2. Lindie1:58 PM

    I guess I must have been paid in cash back then too. I don't remember cashing a check and I didn't have a checking account. My first job was a Christmas job at JC Penneys in St Joseph back when I was 16.

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  3. anjelblaze1:59 PM

    Today, as in the past, you have stirred some memories. Mom and gramma used to get that catalog in the mail.

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  4. Anonymous3:04 PM

    I'd be very nice to that sister.
    :-).
    Great match maker.

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  5. Well, those are nice little snippets!

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  6. My mama didn't drive so she was a great catalog orderer and I remember she did order from National Bellas Hess. I always thought that was a strange company name. Now you can tell us how it got it's name.

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  7. I enjoyed reading this, and you were gracious to answer the questions from "Anonymous".
    Anonymous comments personally bug the hell out of me, but I'm usually pretty good at guessing their identity (on my blog, not yours!).

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  8. As a young girl, I combed the Bella catalog for material for my 3 school dresses. The splotches were small and sometimes when the material arrived it looked different than in the book. Momma sewed these dresses mostly by hand sitting a wooden swing in the back yard in the evening. We played around the area as she worked and Daddy sat beside her. Momma died in 1991 and we lost Daddy in '88. This catalog was part of my childhood. Who would have thought you were pushing that cart around filling our yearly order!

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