Mrs. Cooper fixed them with a stern look. Then she said, "We"re all here to learn."
Another time, Mrs. Cooper asked us to write a report about what we hoped to do with our lives. I wrote, "I want to be a teacher like Mrs. Cooper."
She wrote on my report, "You would make an outstanding teacher because you are determined and you try hard." I was to carry those words in my heart for the next 27 years.
After I graduated from high school in 1976, I married a wonderful man, Ben, a mechanic. Before long, Latonya was born.
We needed every dime just to get by. College-and teaching-was out of the question. I did, however, wind up with a job in a school-as a janitor"s a.s.sistant. I cleaned 17 cla.s.srooms at Larrymore Elementary School each day, including Mrs. Cooper"s. She had transferred to Larrymore after Smallwood closed down.
I would tell Mrs. Cooper that I still wanted to teach, and she would repeat the words she had written on my report years earlier. But bills always seemed to get in the way.
Then one day in 1986 I thought of my dream, of how badly I wanted to help children. But to do that I needed to arrive in the mornings as a teacher-not in the afternoons to mop up.
I talked it over with Ben and Latonya, and it was settled: I would enroll at Old Dominion University. For seven years I attended cla.s.ses in the mornings before work. When I got home from work, I studied. On days I had no cla.s.ses to attend, I worked as a teaching a.s.sistant for Mrs. Cooper.
Sometimes I wondered whether I had the strength to make it. When I got my first failing grade, I talked about quitting. My younger sister Helen refused to hear it. "You want to be a teacher," she said. "If you stop, you"ll never reach your dream."
Helen knew about not giving up-she"d been fighting diabetes. When either of us got down, she would say, "You"re going to make it. We"re going to make it."
In 1987, Helen, only 24, died of kidney failure related to diabetes. It was up to me to make it for both of us.
On May 8, 1993, my dream day arrived-graduation. Getting my college degree and state teaching license officially qualified me to be a teacher.
I interviewed with three schools. At Coleman Place Elementary School, princ.i.p.al Jeanne Tomlinson said, "Your face looks so familiar." She had worked at Larrymore more than 10 years earlier. I had cleaned her room, and she remembered me.
Still, I had no concrete offers. The call came when I had just signed my 18th contract as a janitor"s a.s.sistant. Coleman Place had a job for me teaching fifth grade.
Not long after I started, something happened that brought the past rushing back. I had written a sentence full of grammatical errors on the blackboard. Then I asked students to come and correct the mistakes.
One girl got halfway through, became confused and stopped. As the other children laughed, tears rolled down her cheeks. I gave her a hug and told her to get a drink of water. Then, remembering Mrs. Cooper, I fixed the rest of the cla.s.s with a firm look. "We"re all here to learn," I said.
Charles Slack, as told by Bessie Pender
A Room of One"s Own
Virginia Woolf"s A Room of One"s Own ignited me early on to look for my own special place of peace and solitude. My soul longed for the beauty of some land by a lake- where I could breathe in the scent of pine, listen to the wind in the trees, gaze at an expanse of gray-blue water and follow my dream of writing full-time.
Eventually I followed my heart"s desire, leaving a law career to write books, and now the writing was almost paying for the groceries. Book sales and speaking engagements were beginning to grow, too. Spring was in the air, and I was bursting with moxie.
For a year, I had been making payments on a beautiful piece of land on a lake called Oconee. The land had been a miraculous gift-the price was rock-bottom because no one realized that it was lakefront property. I had pitched a tent there and loved sleeping on my own piece of paradise. But now, I was ready to move up. Without savings or the ability to get a mortgage, I was nonetheless determined to build a home, a place of my own.
But how? I knew absolutely no one in the entire county except the real estate agent who had sold me the property. I didn"t know a thing about permits, county laws or building. All I had was an intense thirst to create a nest. I collected names of carpenters from the local hardware store, made some calls and found two who were interested. We haggled about the hourly price-I had no idea how this was supposed to be done.
From my sketched house plan, I estimated the amount of wood needed. Then I held my breath until it arrived, frightened that I had bought too much or too little. I dug holes, poured concrete, sawed wood for the walls and put my new hammer to use for 11 hours straight on the first day. Blisters soon seemed a natural part of the landscape of my hand.
As the building grew to its two-and-a-half story height, my joy was mingled with dread-I had an extreme fear of heights. But when the carpenters needed me on the scaffold for roof beams, I pushed away the nausea and did the work. No one else knew what I had conquered-my fear has never returned.
At the end of five full days, we had put on the roof. Even without walls or windows, it looked like a house that could protect me from at least the rain. So in a rush of exuberance, I moved my sleeping bag in with the lumber and sawdust and sat alone with my awe, my satisfaction and my aching muscles.
Over many months, in every spare moment and with every spare dollar I could find, I completed walls and put in 27 windows, continually learning better ways to do things. Wherever I was, whatever I was doing, I obsessively plotted and planned my next moves. But what a lovely obsession.
Then I faced the big challenges of running water and electricity. Since I still couldn"t afford to hire professionals, I bought books, studying them for months before I dared tackle a new project.
My initial work pa.s.sed the county inspector"s critical eye, but I knew that even he couldn"t tell if the pipes would withstand the water pressure. The moment finally came to turn the water on. If I had made any big mistakes, I would have a flood inside the house.
After turning on the outside valve, I ran indoors to listen for the dreaded tap-tap of water dripping on wood. I inched my way along every wall. All was quiet. Ecstatic, I turned on the water in every sink and laughed out loud. It was a miracle to have running water for the first time in over a year of building! And I knew every L-and T-connector in the place because I had put in all of them myself.
With writing a.s.signments increasing, I found the cash to have the septic system and drywall installed by professionals. Three days before Easter-one year and eight months from the time I dug the first postholes-I completed installing the last of the kitchen tile. My father and stepmother came for Easter dinner, the first meal cooked in my tiny new oven, and we celebrated the all-important Certificate of Occupancy from the county inspector. As we gazed out onto the sparkling blue lake, with white dogwood petals gracing the view, my heart was so full I couldn"t speak.
My dream and I have grown together. And just as I am a work-in-progress, so too is this house. My dream of a simple shelter has become a house with a gazebo and decks, where I can write and create. I have my nest, my place of refuge and solace.
I"ve learned how to put anything together by seeing the dream in the pieces. How to appreciate the smallest advances and conveniences. How to persevere when no solution is in sight. How to build rather than to blame. This adventure will color the rest of my life, as I dream new dreams and begin the building.
Liah Kraft-Kristaine
Meeting Betty Furness
Opportunities are usually disguised by hard work, so most people don"t recognize them.
Ann Landers It was 1964, the year the tourists shared the famed Atlantic City Boardwalk with the Democratic National Convention.
At the time, I was working as a waitress in a popular steak house, in addition to raising five children and helping my husband with our brand new enterprise-a weekly newspaper. So despite the hoopla and my overflowing tip purse, I was just plain tired and longed for it all to be over.
One evening I approached my next customer without much enthusiasm. She was thinner and daintier than I remembered from her years of opening and closing refrigerator doors on the Westinghouse television commercials in the 1950s, but the cheerful no-nonsense voice was unmistakable. The woman about to dine alone was Betty Furness.
Her warmth and friendliness overcame my awe of waiting on a celebrity. I learned that she had come to Atlantic City to cover the Democratic National Convention from a woman"s point of view for her daily radio program. By the time I brought her check, I"d mustered up the courage to ask her for an interview for our little suburban paper. She responded by inviting me to lunch.
As I neared her motel two days later, I was alternately exuberant at my good fortune and nervous at the prospect of interviewing a woman who had once received 1,300 fan letters a week.
I already knew a lot about my subject. A Powers model at 14 and a movie actress at 16, she went on to become a success on the stage. But she was best known for her brilliant career as America"s number one saleswoman. The name of Betty Furness was as much a byword of the American household as Westinghouse and its Studio One television program.
That"s why, during the interview, her att.i.tude about it all seemed hard to believe-but it was the perfect lead for my story: "I"ll never do another television commercial again as long as I live!"
She explained to me that when she closed the final refrigerator door on her commercials in 1960, she was determined to carve yet another new career for herself- this time in the news medium. "I know the world is full of information and people wanting that information," she told me. "I want to be part of that."
And yet, even though she worked for CBS News, she"d been told repeatedly that technically she wasn"t a news correspondent. "It"s what I desperately want to be, but the news media and the public refuse to take my desire to do news broadcasting seriously."
Something about her story connected in my gut. Everyone saw me as "just a waitress," not a writer at all. "A writer is a person who writes," they said. But when would I ever have the money, time, strength and enough perseverance to make myself who I wanted to be-someone like this woman with four careers behind her that most women would kill for, now seeking yet another for her true fulfillment.
But the real measure of her character, the "dimensions" of this woman"s world, emerged in Betty"s parting statement. "All my life I"ve been governed by one philosophy: Do any job you"re doing well, and you"ll stumble over the right opportunities to do what you truly desire."
In the years that followed that wonderful meeting with Betty, I watched her put her wisdom in action. In only a short time after the convention, her sheer strength of will and positive outlook catapulted her into a new and challenging career as Lyndon Johnson"s special a.s.sistant for consumer affairs. She went on to become the head of New York State"s Consumer Protection Board and the city"s Commissioner of Consumer Affairs. When I heard the news, I remembered her philosophy and wished her well.
In later years, I watched her as the first-ever network consumer affairs reporter every night on New York"s Channel 5. I laughed in recognition when she discussed manufacturers whose contour sheets didn"t fit mattresses. I was glad when she told me what some over-the-counter health remedies really contained. And typical of the reports was one of her last: how to protect yourself from hospitals-all this while she herself was in and out of hospitals for cancer treatments.
Through the years I continued to study her words, which I"d taped across her autographed picture. Amazing things happened in my life as I endeavored to apply those words-ones later reinforced by mythologist Joseph Campbell, who wrote: "Follow your bliss, and doors will open where there were no doors before."
Jobs I"d never antic.i.p.ated or wanted turned into jobs I loved; unexpected paths took me places I"d never dreamed of. Eventually, stumble by stumble, I believed, began, and went from waitress to dining room manager to hospital public relations director; from newspaper reporter to a.s.sociate editor of several magazines; from writing consultant to international trainer-and finally, to my dream of professional writer.
The day I saw Betty"s obituary, I read that at 76 she"d earned the t.i.tle of "oldest reporter working on television." As I sat reading about her life and accomplishments, I
8.
ON AGING.
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be...
Robert Browning
Keeping Up with Granny . . .
and the "Old Guys"
I have always dreaded old age.
I cannot imagine anything worse than being old, maybe infirm, perhaps alone. How awful it must be to have nothing to do all day long but stare at the walls or watch TV.
So last week, when the mayor suggested we all celebrate Senior Citizen Week by cheering up a senior citizen, I was determined to do just that. I would call on my new neighbor, an elderly retired gentleman, recently widowed, who, I presumed, had moved in with his married daughter because he was too old to take care of himself.
I baked a batch of brownies and, without bothering to call (some old people cannot hear the phone), I went off to brighten this old guy"s day.
When I rang the doorbell, the "old guy" came to the door dressed in tennis shorts and a polo shirt, looking about as ancient and decrepit as Donny Osmond.
"I"m sorry I can"t invite you in," he said when I introduced myself, "but I"m due at the Racquet Club at two. I"m playing in the semifinals today."
"Oh, that"s all right," I said. "I baked you some brownies..."
"Great!" he interrupted, s.n.a.t.c.hing the box. "Just what I need for bridge club tomorrow! Thanks so much!"
"...and just thought we"d visit awhile. But that"s okay! I"ll just trot across the street and call on Granny Grady." (Now, Granny Grady is not really my grandmother; she is just an old lady who has lived in our neighborhood forever, and everybody calls her "Granny.") "Don"t bother," he said. "Gran"s not home: I know, I just called to remind her of our date to go dancing tonight. She may be at the beauty shop. She mentioned at breakfast that she had an appointment for a tint job."
I wished him luck with his tennis game (though I was much more interested in his game with Granny) and bade him good-day.
But I am not easily discouraged. I had set aside that afternoon to call on somebody old, and by golly, I was going to find somebody old to call on!
I called my mother"s cousin (age 83); she was in the hospital... working in the gift shop.
I called my aunt (age 74); she was on vacation in China. I called my husband"s uncle (age 79). I forgot he was on his honeymoon.
And then I remembered old Sister Margaret, a nun who had been my teacher in grade school. She lived in a retirement home for nuns, and it had been several years since I had seen her. I wondered if the old dear was too senile to remember me.
The old dear wasn"t there.
"Whom did you want?" the receptionist had asked when I had inquired if it would be convenient for me to visit.
"Sister Margaret," I had repeated.
"Sister Margaret..." mused the receptionist. "Oh! You mean Mercedes! She"s away on tour this week."