GOOD TIMES... Spring (Part 69j)

Jean, my oldest was going to be three the day before Memorial Day. (We still celebrated it on the actual day back then) and I went to the trailer park office to reserve the meeting hall just in case the weather didn’t cooperate. While looking at the reservation calendar I saw that Mac had reserved the hall for Memorial day afternoon and night. I’d not heard anything more from Mac or others about his decision not to reenlist and to go work on the Alaska pipeline. Elle hadn’t seen much of his wife since she’d starting working more at the hospital so she hadn’t been a source of any ”news“ (gossip). In a way I was upset that Mac hadn’t let me know more after his initial mention of it. I just hoped that if it was to be his farewell party that we’d get invited.

Jo had been working on Lucy to get her to lighten up a bit. I’m pretty sure it was around Memorial Day that she showed up wearing a blue jumper style dress with the hem at least an inch above her knees. I, for one, almost didn’t believe it. I don’t think she’d worn anything that wasn’t a shade of gray or plain old black from the day she started and that wasn’t at the knees or just below it. Jay and I had noticed Jo starting to wear flared skirts that fell at the knee or just above it. It appeared that she was getting to through to Lucy as far a being a little less ”stiff“ about our work habits as well. It truly was a fun place to work... as long as Leo didn’t walk in on us.

As June approached so did Jay’s 1 year anniversary. During that whole year he hadn’t missed a day of work due to sickness nor had he taken a vacation. On top of that he had accumulated almost four weeks of compensatory time for the overtime hours he’d worked. With the success of both the payroll and appropriations accounting programs the initial fear of Data Processing had pretty much disappeared. New program requests were piling up way faster than Jay could write and test them. Under State Civil Service rules an employee cannot be denied vacation time (or compensatory time) and Jay had no desire to go on vacation. However, he had a great desire for money. On a chance meeting with the Controller he took the bull by the horns and told him that he wanted to use the bulk of his time to go on a trip. Between earned vacation and compensatory time Jay had built up almost six weeks. There was no back up for him in the department. I had a little over six months experience and none of it in programming so I wasn’t an option. As Jay explained to me, it was a pure bluff and the Controller, riding the wave of success of DP that been generated, fell for it. Jay told me that the Controller was pleading with him not to do this to him. He offered a few compromises but Jay, seeing that he had the upper hand, held out for being paid for all of the time. He really rubbed it in when he wanted Jo and I included in the deal. Because the Controller couldn’t just arbitrarily authorize it and had to go before the Board of Supervisors, nothing was decided on at that time. Jay came back and dragged Jo and I off for a break and told us about it. In my case it was almost two weeks of compensatory time or the equivalent of a pay check. Needless to say I was excited.

Within the department if there was one ominous thing on the horizon it was that we were just about out of space. We had to keep all the punch cards we used and with the appropriations accounting continuing to grow the stacks of card boxes were infringing on the the work area. Jay had been getting information on a new system that used magnetic tape for storage and, on his own, planned to go to the city for a demonstration. Since it was scheduled for the evening attendance would not interfere with work. As Jay told Jo and I about it we both asked if we could go with him and his attitude was ”why not?“. It was something to look forward to.

For Jean’s birthday party I took a late lunch so I could help Elle with the last minute details. Even though the weather was fine it was a bit cold so we held the party at the meeting hall. We still hadn’t been invited to Mac’s party and it made me a bit upset. A couple of the mothers who came to Jean’s party asked Elle and I if we were coming. Since all of them were part of our unofficial ”group“ it was bit embarrassing to say that we hadn’t. That night, as we were eating supper, there was knock on the door. It was Elise, Mac’s wife, apologizing for not formally inviting us to the party. She explained that Mac had told her that he’d told me about the party and thought that was enough. It was typical Mac.

Elle had promised Jean, as one of her birthday presents, to take her to the Memorial Day parade in town. Since my grandfather lived right in the heart of town it worked out fine as we had a place to park with an optimum view. It also allowed my grandfather to see the ”birthday girl“ and give her a present. It meant nothing to her as it was a savings account with a $100 deposit in it. The cool weather from the previous day had continued only with some wind. Protected by the trees around the trailer park we were caught a little short when we got there as far as warm clothes were concerned. Elle had traded all the maternity clothes that Judy had returned for a nice green and gray and green houndstooth wool pants suit at the church thrift shop and was wearing it for the first time. Because we were basically at my grandfather’s, she had decided against wearing a ”package“, thinking that she had access to the bathroom at the house if she needed it. About a half hour into the parade I remember hearing an ”Oh no!“ from behind me and turned and saw Elle sort of doubled over with her hands crossed over in front of her groin. I knew immediately what had happened but was puzzled as to why since I knew she’d used the toilet just before we left the house to watch the parade. She took Ann and headed back to the house leaving me with the older one to wait and watch for the horses go past. By the time we rejoined them at the house she had calmed down a bit but was still upset. I can still remember her saying, as we got into the car, that she had a feeling that she should have worn the skirt that had come with the outfit.

To be continued...