MORE... surprises and changes (Part 138j)

MORE... surprises and changes (Part 138j)

At church I was reminded that I’d been derelict in my duties as a Vestryman and had missed the last two meetings. I promised that I’d be there for the next one  on the upcoming Wednesday night. It meant I wouldn’t be at the sailing club to help with teaching some of the new members about the rules of racing and tactics. It had turned out to be well accepted and there were usually four to six people attending. We’d usually end up with an informal race where we (the experienced racers) would observe and make suggestions from a couple of outboard motor boats. The results of our efforts had been a much improved quality of racing on Sundays. In fact, that might’ve been the Sunday that my friend, Fritz, surprised everyone (including himself) by finishing second in one race.

As I was putting the Sunfish away I noticed that it was getting dark to the East. The heat wave hadn’t broken but but it hadn’t been as hot and we actually had enough wind to have two races. My plan had been to get home and cook hot dogs and hamburgers for supper but  I was beginning to have my doubts when I pulled out of the parking lot. The darkness was definitely moving to the West. By the time I got to my driveway it was almost dark enough to turn on my headlights and it wasn’t even 6pm. The wind had picked up considerably in just the few minutes it took to drive home. I walked out to the edge of the farm and as I did I saw lightning. The thunder was a bit behind it which meant the storm had a ways to go until it reached us.

In the house the kids were already preparing for the storm. Having a thunderstorm in daylight was rare and I thought it would be a good lesson for them. We gathered in the den where we could get a good view of the open farm field. I felt confident that this storm wouldn’t be anything like the last one that had exploded the tree next door. We got to see quite a few lightning bolts and I showed them how to time the thunder that followed. This storm didn’t track right over the house like the other one did as there was always a delay between the lightning and the thunder. When the sky started to lighten up the wind abated and the rain, which hadn’t been all that bad, stopped. The one bad result of it was that the electric power had gone out.

By then it was almost 7pm and we still hadn’t eaten. The kids still wanted hot dogs so I  went outside to light up the hibachi. I was in the process when I heard a voice from over by the hedge. It was Phyllis, the new principal’s wife. There had been some confusion on my part as to her name but, after listening to her call out to me I realized that she talked with a German accent, somewhat like Elle’s mother. She announced herself by calling out her name. I heard it as Alissa and yet her husband had told me it was Phyliss. In any case, she was asking what she was supposed to do about cooking as the stove didn’t work. I knew from having been over there when Sabrina lived there that it was an electric stove. I turned to her and told her that the storm had knocked out the power. She stood there for a few seconds and the headed my way. ”What I do about it?“ she demanded like I was supposed to fix it. I don’t remember what words were used in the following dialog but it was clear that she didn’t understand the phenomenon of a thunder storm disrupting electric power. I clearly remember being annoyed with her and finally said there was nothing I could do to help her and went inside. Power came back about the time we were putting the girls to bed. Elle and I wondered aloud what had transpired next door for supper without the stove. I remember smiling. The good thing was that the temperature was now in the low 70’s and sleeping would definitely be easier

August, the middle of Summer, was always the slowest time at the bank. On Mondays, the first thing I did was to check to see who of the tellers was on vacation. I’d instituted a rule where only one teller at a time could take vacation. In my first year at the bank I was faced with one week where there were only three tellers. Even with slow lobby traffic it still created problems. When I looked I saw that Gina was off. That was good and it was also bad. The ‘good’ was that I didn’t have to see her giving me 'looks'. The ‘bad’ was that she was the best teller on the line. It also reminded me that Trish was going to be off for two weeks starting the following Monday and I had to find someone to at least fill the desk to handle walk up customers. With nothing on my calendar I decided to take a walk around up in the mortgage department. The bank had hired the daughter of one of Hobie’s personal friends and I, reluctantly, had  placed her in J J’s area. As I climbed the stairs I was trying to formulate a way to have Joanie sit in for Trish. I’d followed up on what she’d been assigned to do within the department and had found that J J was only using her to fill in for whoever was on vacation or was out sick. That meant she didn’t have set responsibilities and if I requested her services J J couldn’t protest too loudly... at least in theory.

J J was in a meeting when I got upstairs so it gave me free reign to go speak to Joanie. It wasn’t that I hadn’t in the few months that she’d been there but it was just ‘small’ talk. She was just finishing up filing some papers so I wasn’t interrupting anything important. As I approached her she seemed glad to talk with me after I asked how she liked her job. The file cabinets weren’t in a traffic area so we were pretty much undisturbed.

I asked her to give me an honest answer when I asked how she liked  working at the bank. As I explained when I first interviewed her, she was one of the most honest people that I’d interviewed. I don’t think she had the capability to lie. her answer wasn’t to the point as it was obvious she didn’t want to hurt anyone. She said she liked working at the bank but that she didn’t actually have a ‘job’. I knew what she meant but chose to ‘play dumb’ to get her to expand her answer. She was uncomfortable as she explained so i cut it short and asked her, point blank, if she’d like to have just one thing to do that she could call her own and she flashed this big smile. I loved this girl!

To be continued...