Legacy Matters

Five Things You Don't Know About Me.

For those of you who want to begin creating your personal legacy archives, but who, for one reason or another, balk at the idea of writing your life story consider easing into it with Things You Don't Know About Me.

Jeremy of Lifestylism has tagged me with the current meme which, unlike most memes,  I like  and so to his challenge, Five Things You Didn't Know About Me, I reply.

1. When I began working at the Department of Interior, as the Special Assistant to the Solicitor,  I  wrote a number of speeches for the Solicitor, one of which became infamous,  picked up by the Associated Press across the country and, in the end, selected by Parade magazine in its year-end round-up as the best or funniest  environmental stories of the year, I can't remember which.

Let's face it, it's hard to find something interesting and relevant to write about for the South Dakota  Stockgrowers Association, - that's cattlemen to you.    So, when in the course of reading reports from the EPA, and the International Climate Change Committee, I came across the fact that grants were being awarded to study cow flatulence and digestion  as one of the major sources of methane contributing to climate change, I knew I had a winner.  "Windy cows" it was.  The speech wrote itself and the cattlemen loved it.

2. I can't tell the difference between cars with the exception of PT Cruisers and sometimes Volkswagens.  My first real boyfriend was unduly proud of his red Alfa Romeo so when walking ahead of him one day, I climbed into a red volkswagen thinking it was his, I broke his heart.

3.  When in college, I was strapped for cash.  I had the brilliant idea of starting a chain letter with myself at the top so people would send me money.  Within hours,  I was called into the Dean's Office to be told why this was not a good idea.

4. I began working at 16, two hours a day at a local bakery where I worked behind the counter, slicing bread and wrapping up pastries for customers.  At 16, I was old enough to go to Revere Beach with friends from school, taking first a bus, then a subway, then a transfer to another line, before we reached Revere Beach with its boardwalk, amusement park and beach.  It was a long, hot trek so we didn't do it very often.  Now this was the time the Boston Strangler was at large, but  we had our defenses - a hatpin we would wear under our collars, so we could poke him the eye.

On one such outing to Revere, I had to leave early to go to work.  I was fine, I thought until I noticed a man with a creepy smile who seemed to be following me as I walked alone to the subway.  He followed me when I switched lines, then followed me on the bus, then followed me, trying to talk to me  as I walked to the bakery.  By that time I was really scared and hid in the bakery's basement because I didn't want to see him again.  The ladies who worked with me were very nice and one walked me home.  I told my mother who was leaving with my father that night for a weekend on Nantucket, the first vacation they had ever taken away from me and my six brothers and sisters.  The babysitter for the weekend was one of the eight Callahan girls, just up the street, so no worry about a back-up.  My parents were very concerned of course and debated whether they should go or not.  Finally, they called the police and explained  the situation.  The police promised to keep us on cruiser watch for the weekend and every half hour, a police car would pass our house very slowly.  Despite the high excitement,  nothing happened.

It was years before they captured the Boston Strangler, Albert de Salvo.  When I saw his picture in the paper, I recognized him immediately.  He was the man with the creepy smile who followed me home that day from Revere Beach.      My brother Robby doesn't believe this story.

5.  After I graduated from law school and passed the New York Bar, my first job was with a very large Wall St firm whose flag was, I kid you not, completely beige.  It was one of the most boring jobs I ever had and I didn't last more than a year.    Way before computers revolutionized legal research, we "shephardized" our research using pencils, wearing them down so quickly the firm  had a man whose job it was to go from office to office every afternoon just sharpening all our pencils.  Since I worked on only two cases for the managing partner, one of which had been on appeal for over 20 years  in the U.S. Court of Claims with hundreds of millions of dollars pending on whether deferred but uncollected insurance premiums had to be included in income.    I did research on one arcane point after another but would get so bored, I  would start to fall asleep with a type of brain fog that no amount of coffee could clear.  To stay awake, I would go to the ladies' room and read a short story in the New Yorker.  Soon, I was carrying collections of short stories every day, parceling them out, one every hour or two.  I read more short stories in that one very long year than I ever had before or ever would again.

I now tag 5 women about whom I'd love to learn more.

Patti 
Rhea                              
Theresa
Evelyn
Nellie

UPDATE:  Since David Bowles of Westward Sagas tagged me with the same meme, I am simply going to repost this because he especially will appreciate the windy cow story much as I enjoyed learning how much ranching is in his heart, even though he had to finally sell his family's ranch.