We would ride together to Concord ( an hour) and sing songs, listen to the radio, play "I-Spy!" or tell each other stories. Her colleagues were like characters in a movie to me...There was "The Boss", "The Secretary", "Elaine - the witch", "Carolyn - her friend" and of course..her students... who adored me.
When she was teaching I would wander the halls of the building alone...I'd find the locker rooms and the lab rooms which were filled with plastic heads with teeth for the students to practice on. I'd bring a notebook and find an empty classroom and pretend to be a teacher. Or i'd swivel around in her office chair and tell my imaginary friends "what to do."
I was never bored.
Going to work meant uninterrupted time with my Mom, playing pretend and lunch out at a restaurant! As a child I never understood that my mom wasn't bringing me to work just "for fun" it was because I was sick or my school was on vacation and she was a working-mom...and that's just what working mom's do!
They find games to play with their kids in their offices, in a conference room, or out on the road visiting dental offices. They make the mundane seem fun and what probably was a parental predicament into an adventure for their daughters.
It isn't until I became a working mom that it all came together. I only hope I can be as creative as my own mother.
I used to LOVE going to work with Sue Ellen! I felt the same exact way!!
ReplyDeleteI loved her secretary, who would "let" me file. She had the most glorious long, painted fingernails - something glamorous I that the adult women in my life didn't have.
I remember when Carolyn and Elaine and the students too. It used to make me feel so grown up to hang out at a college all day!
Sometimes, we'd go to the cafeteria and I would get orange juice in a can....ORANGE JUICE IN A CAN!!!!!!! OMG I loved that processed, sweet, disgusting juice!
Then we'd go out to lunch and back then, Dad worked in Concord, so we'd meet him and it was amazing.
Then when you were little, when you still went to Shaker, we'd pick you up and she'd always have a treat for you for the ride home. You loved Junior Mints. It was so much fun to ride home singing with the radio and being made to feel like a grown up.
I'm totally with you on this memory.
I LOVE that you have memories of that too!! It's so vivid for me. I even loved the orange colored lockers.
ReplyDeleteBTW..you're my favorite commenter.