A New Day

I don't express too many political views. But, I am a witness to what's happening in the world, and I have to say, America is due, maybe past due, for change. I'm glad Obama won the election. I'm glad because he seems the most articulate, compassionate, and graced candidate we could have hoped to lead us. In the waning days of the election, I think his opposition lost their perspective. The one thing that rang true with Barack Obama was his integrity, his love for his family, and, I really believe his best intentions to run our country with honor, integrity, and grace.

He has been left a difficult position, in terms of our own country and the world. I have faith that he will do his best to help us- regain our place as a leader among countries based on integrity (and not on what we can finance), establish our country as financially secure (can someone please tell Wall St. to take a 6-week vacation?), and make sure our future is securely grounded in our childrens' education, their strength, and not their position as economic fodder for a government that just doesn't give a damn anymore?

If Home is where the heart is, where are all the other body parts?

Home is where the heart is...
...and therein lies the rub. (As Shakespeare would have so aptly put it.)

If this is indeed an extended Epitaph, where does one dispose of the component body parts? Hmmmm. Head could go almost anywhere, except, I think it might be better off put in the concrete beneath the NEXT City Hall Plaza building. Perhaps brains will have a more positive influence in death, than they have had in life. To wit: No more freakin' Super Bowl bids! In fact, NO MORE BS about Economic Impact unless it's reality-based. (Now there's a curse!)

Send my right arm to my daughter who might need it should she choose to have a child. That right arm should protect everyone within her sight. Send my left arm to my youngest. He will need to learn protection from sinister folks, because he's the baby, despite the fact he has a grin that would make a canary quiver. Send my legs for "kickin' butt" to Eric. Now, you might think Eric can kick his own "butt," however, I think I would prefer to serve that role as he's a big lost teddybear.

As for my heart, just send it off to rest in the Stephen's Cemetery in Mantachie, MS. My heart was always there anyway.

The Anti-Resume

Wednesday, June 04, 2008
The Anti-Resume
I was recently told, in order to get an interview, I had to submit a resume, just following the Memorial Day Weekend. I did not do this. It may have cost me a job, but it got me to thinking, what on earth would they have learned from a one-page resume that was NOT on the stupid job application? So, then I began thinking about how much better off potential employers would be if they researched a potential employee's ANTI-RESUME. This document would include ALL THE THINGS YOU HAVE NEVER DONE ON THE JOB.

So here goes:

Sharon S. Graham
ANTI-RESUME OF QUALIFICATIONS

College:

Graduated Cum Laude from the University of S. Florida. Cheated? NO Cheated upon? YES

Formal Career:

1970-1975 - Tampa Hillsborough Public Library System (various branches) . I did NOT slough off work for coworkers, I only closed a library once, when the children waiting for the pool to open next door paid me a visit and knocked over five large library shelves, stole from my purse, and generally terrorized me. (My co-worker was arrested that morning for shoplifting, that's why she never showed.)

1975-1977 - Got married instead of committing to graduate school. Honestly thought marriage would save me from a lifetime of drudgery. (OK, I was REALLY NAIVE!!!) so my next career was with the Museum of York County, SC. I did NOT have any affairs with coworkers (although some strange people suspected me of this). I did get lost retrieving goats from Pineville one time. I got sent to West Chester State College to learn to be the Planetarium Director for the Museum. I had the BEST BOSS EVER, Chris Houmes, at the museum. If she wasn't there I wouldn't have lasted 6 months. Thanks, Chris!! I learned that I liked the non-poisonous snakes better than little rodents, as the little rodents always bit me, and the reptiles never did. (Although crossing the Catawba Bridge in sandles, with a small alligator on the floorboard on the passenger's side of the VW Beetle, always made me nervous. I did LOVE Timothy the Chinchilla. Petting him was like caressing a cloud. (How anyone could consider making such a lovely creature into a coat appalled me!)

1977-1983 - Charlotte Public Library System. OK, lets see what I did NOT do there. I did NOT contribute to the paranoia of a coworker that sent him over the edge. He got that way all by himself. I did NOT deliberately go to a retirement party at Belks for a coworker, then pay for, but miss my meal, running back as fast as I could, only to get back to the computer 15 minutes late to a boss who said, "Well, we wondered if you were ever coming back!" (Thanks, Carol). I admit to playing 21 questions with the typists, but still will not admit to missing any typos while I did so. I also admit to being, "The Mad Librarian." Jane Parker & Kitty Hughes, I have missed you greatly over the years.

Informal Career: (1972-1983)

I had a few other jobs. I was a shampoo girl in Charlotte, NC. An illegal one, but I did a good job and it bought the groceries. I was also a bartender at the Holiday Inn at Carowinds. It lasted until they thought I should wear a costume like some goldrush bimbo, at which I drew the line. I did a lot of construction work too: waterproofing, roofing, painting, etc. I worked a lot. I never sloughed off a job, nor did I steal, nor did I slack.

In 1983 I had my daughter, Liz. It snowed the day she was born.

Before I left the hospital with her, I knew I had find our escape.

Back in Brandon, in 1983, my beloved Brother In Law David, was working for the Tampa Tribune. He knew they had an opening coming up for an NIE coordinator, so I went for it.

I got the job and worked there from 1983-1985. I ran the High School Journalism Workshop and Spelling Bee, plus worked on some NIE textbooks. I won't say I never cursed out the Trib's computer system when it lost 22,000 correctly spelled words I had placed in the system. Everything was lost. I just started over. I LOVED my coworkers. Probably the best, most creative opportunity I ever had. I was allowed to do promo ads, slide shows, just, was free to be as creative as possible. (Thanks, Roger!) I did NOT take the job for granted and appreciated every opportunity they gave me. I do admit to overhearing a conversation in the ladies room, shortly after I started. It was about weight loss. I commented that I had lost over 160 pounds of ugly fat. The women exclaimed, You Didn't! HOW?? I simply replied, "I divorced him."

1985 - Present
I've worked for the City of Tampa, first, as the Franklin St. Mall Administrator (dealing with daily vendors, daily entertainment, and some special events) in the Franklin St. Mall district. What haven't I done in this position? I haven't cheated a soul. Have tried to give potential vendors honest advice, reserved a space - permanently - on Franklin St. for a vendor who will not be coming back, have dealt with zealots, bigots, pimps, and even the Klan. Have I caved? No. My philosophy is to treat everyone equal under the law. And that's how it's been. No special favors, no gifts, no presents, not nothing, not even a hot dog, because, I can't be bought, not that anyone would try. I would never accept even the appearance of it. I would like to believe I have the trust of my vendors that I've treated them the same. If not, I would like to hear from them. I've worked with promoters from all across the country and I believe they feel the same. I hold the same standards for everyone (unless, of course, I am told not to by my superiors). And that happens too.

I'm ready for a new challenge. I am accomplished at many things, just not avarice, distrustfulness, gossip, cruelty, meanness, faithlessness, lust, etc. I do think, though, in my current position, I am in danger of loosing my humanity. I really can't bear to hear about yet another "Good cause, non-profit, you know organization." I do favor cats over dogs, but, have an abiding interest in Cesar Milan.

I think my blog is one long epitaph

It dawns on me that my blog is like one very long epitaph, but, who better to write my story than me? Maybe people who tell me the things we share on the internet will live on forever as some strange binary message to be interpreted at some much later date are telling me the truth. If so, that's cool.

Speaking of epitaphs, my favorite is one by Dorothy Parker:
"She hated bleak and wintery things alone,
All that was warm and quick, she loved too well.
A light, a flame, a heart against her own,
It is forever bitter cold in hell."

The title of that is simply "Epitaph."

This is the same Dorothy Parker, who wrote: Razors pain you, Rivers are damp, (you know, the ode to suicide that ends, "you might as well live..."

I don't know what made Dorothy so ambivalent with regards to life and death. Maybe it was fear. She must have had a good Catholic upbringing. I'd like to think so. At least, if you're Catholic, you can confess at the last moment of your life (have candles lit for you and your sins), confess, be forgiven, and make it through the pearly gates provided you are honest in the end. But, if she was raised as a Southern Baptist, forget it. She knew she was a sinner and doomed from birth. I was raised that way, and have frequently thought that suicide is a more fitting end than any other for a sinner. "Shoot me now!" Have I not said that a thousand times during my life?

Anyone who has ever committed a mortal sin, whether Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, or any other denomination has to wonder, what now? Does our spirit demand reparation when our soul departs? I have to wonder.

I think if we remain as ghosts, that's probably what the Catholic's refer to as Limbo. It's between places. I just hope they're wrong about babies and "unsaved" souls. That would be too cruel. Southern Baptists, on the other hand, are just all black and white about it. Babies and children before the "age of awareness" (or whatever they call it) are saved; all others, whether they've "heard the message of Jesus, or not," well they're just doomed.

When I learned this as a child, I was offended. How could God abandon any child who didn't have the opportunity to learn? To know about Jesus. This just sort of made me mad. No, this just made me mad, period.

Don't get me started on the Southern Baptist's take on the souls of animals, and whether or not they meet us in heaven.

Maybe that's when I lost it. Maybe, I started to read Mark Twain's "Letters From the Earth" and found a more compassionate and human view of Adam and Eve. And maybe I found in Mark Twain a better apostle than any I'd read about in the bible.

I would love to find redemption. I would love to find absolution. But I won't ever accept those things at "any cost." Like Mark Twain, if the only folks in heaven are sitting around on clouds, playing harps, badly, then, like him, maybe I belong elsewhere.

The Grandfather as an Eccentric and Trickster

Peeps. (Not the marshmallow treats, my Grandfather)
Peeps. AKA PeePaw. This was my maternal grandfather. He was the trickster. He would pretend to drink tabasco sauce from the table. My cousin Steven would mimic him, getting a large mouthful of tabasco sauce in the process. Peeps thought this was funny. He kept monkeys. He called every one of them Sam. He would give Sam a lit cigarette, only to have Sam apply the lit cigarette to his rear end, scratching with it. Again, this was thought of as funny. Our "Sam's" always had large cages, probably 20' by 10' by 10' in size. They were well provided for, given fruit, and monkey chow, but they weren't happy. Sometimes Sam ran away. One time, aunt Doris and I tried to lure Sam down from a large tree (an Australian pine) in a neighbor's yard with a bar of soap. (For some reason Sam liked to eat soap.) I think aunt Doris caught him (by his slight but strong tail) and we took him home. Poor, Sam. He might have developed his own tribe of Monkeys in south Florida (near the Opa Locka Airport) and might have become famous (as far as monkeys go) with his own indigenous tribe. Alas, this was NOT to be.

Peeps had a gas station (my dad said he thought Peeps would buy excess airline fuel at a much higher octane and put it in his tanks). Dad said, Peeps' customers' old jalopies ran like crazy on that super high octane. I remember when his gas station had gas at 19.9 cents per gallon. Peeps also had a restaurant, right behind the gas station. I'm pretty sure they called it Frenchy's.

Frenchy's was one stop burger joint. It was an outdoor cafe with barstools all around (more like a bar than a burger place, but, it was a work of art in development. My mom worked there for a time. He also had a waitress with one blue eye and one brown one. She was the most incredible woman I had ever seen. He had a "bunny hop" contest right after it opened so it must have been Easter. He also had a postcard made of the place.

My grandfather was sort of like Ernest Hemmingway in his time. He was certainly larger than life. He was a stranger in a strange land, Florida in the early 1930's. He disappointed his wife and younger children at every turn (he was a major womanizer, an alcoholic, and had an abiding disrespect for the family unit) but, still he had a certain charm.
Labels: Life on the Edge., PeePaw, Peeps

When Charm is Not Enough

I honestly don't know when my grandfather's charm became lackluster for my grandmother. For my mother, I think it began when she told her father she was marrying my father, and he gave her $20.00 and suggested she buy sheets with it. Please bear in mind, my mother, the younger of her siblings had managed to care for the family (my grandmother HAD to work for the phone company), for probably twelve years. In that time, her daddy had acquired another daughter (in Nashville) and had joined the Merchant Marines, leaving my grandmother and the children in desperation, while he blithely headed off for San Francisco.

Early on in my life, I was taught that my grandfather was not the best of guys. Still, he gave me my first beer at almost just over a year old and enjoyed the show when my mother returned to find me holding the cat by its tail, giggling, under the dining room table. To this day, I can remember how angry my mother was.

Frankly, Peeps was NOT to be trusted.

My grandmother was induced to remarry him at the urging of my Aunt Doris and Uncle Buddy. These were the older siblings who put Humpty Dumpty together again... My mother and Uncle Bobby were NOT pleased. (Think they did not want to move to Miami, and besides, they, along with my grandmother, had gotten their lives together again.)

For the life of me, I can't imagine what really made my grandmother try again. He was simply NOT salvageable. But, he was charming, funny, evil. They were married three times and divorced twice. To each other.

You know, when I think about it, perpetrator of the multiple marriages; his damaged children were. I think, based on my experience, every child must want the puzzle of a broken family fixed. To have the pieces match, to fit the broken pieces back together at last. To have one cohesive picture.

Ironically, that can never be.

Right now, I'm looking for a missing aunt. For all I know, Peeps, gave her away when my grandmother was sleeping. I really wouldn't put it past him.

My dad found her birth certificate, Cora May French, b. 5/13/1927 in Chicago to our grandparents, Elizabeth Louise Campbell and Winford Clifford French, in Cook Co.

Dear Aunt Cora May,
I want to find you for NO OTHER REASON than to tell you, you have family that exists and loves you, today! You were named for my grandfather's sister. We want nothing from you, just to know your life has been filled with love.
Labels: Cora May French 5/13/1927