WINDING DOWN... Summer (Part 140c)
Joanie had left a folder of
work that she hadn’t completed and came down to go over it with Trish. I happened to be
looking over towards Trish as Joanie approached. Trish was completely unaware of Joanie’s make-over. I think her lower jaw
hit her chest she was so surprised. With shorter hair and dressed in
current styled clothes, Joanie was a completely different person (on the
outside). They chatted for a while before getting down to ‘business’. As
soon as Joanie left Trish went over to Laura (her cousin). I knew what
that conversation was about. I fully expected that she would say
something to me but as of lunch time, not a word.
On my way to
lunch I passed Joanie and Laura on their way back to the bank. I could
see they had a somewhat guilty look after I hailed them. It didn’t
matter. I was just glad that Joanie had become friends with Laura. They
were similar in age and their backgrounds were mirrored in that they’d
not had a chance to be normal teenagers having had to assume adult like
responsibilities at an early age.
With lobby traffic at low ebb
and my vacation looming it was hard not to think about it and all that I hoped
to do. I guess it could be called day dreaming. The main item of concern
outside the bank was the open school board meeting scheduled for the
next day. The main question on my mind was where the money was coming
from to pay for the brand new
position of elementary school principal and also the two new physical education teachers. At a party,
my friend Bob who was on the Board, had let slip that money might be a
problem “down the road”. I wanted to know just when that might be. As
much as I disliked Pat (the PTA lady) I ended up calling her and pleaded
with her to make that one of the ten questions the public was going to
be allowed to ask. Always the ‘boss’, she wouldn’t commit but did agree
that it was an important consideration.
Elle made arrangements
for Barbara, from next door, to come over and watch the kids. It was too
much of a hassle to take them to her mother’s and then have to pick up
the two older girls and get them ready for sailing lesson the next morning. Barbara had promised to show the two older girls some school cheers from her
old school so they were excited about that. Kaye was excited just to be
around Barbara. Since the school board had mandated that the session be
over at 9pm the cost would be minimal.
Long story short... the
meeting was contentious. Some of the parents would have none of the
rules as set forth by the Board. Pat would ask a question and Wally, the
president, would start to answer but would soon be interrupted by
people in the audience. As I remember it, maybe two question got
reasonably answered. Pat did get to ask my question but she phrased it a
bit differently which sort of ‘muddied’ it up a bit. Once the subject
of money came up all sense of order disappeared. It was almost 8:30pm
when Wally stood up and said the meeting was over and proceeded to walk
off the stage with the rest of the Board members following. A couple of the ‘ya-hoos’ who kept interrupting tried to
storm the stage and prevent them from leaving. Fortunately, two men in
the audience were off duty policemen and they quickly put an end to
that.
The only thing accomplished was that the classroom
assignments had been posted in the lobby so parents could see who their
kids teachers would be. Elle, for one, wasn’t happy. Jean was assigned a
new teacher with absolutely no classroom experience. The teacher she’d
requested had been moved to a different grade. If I were to have made a guess
as to how many people left the building upset it would have been 95%.
We finally left the parking lot around 9:30pm having spent almost an hour
talking with people we knew and all of us were frustrated. The one
ironic thing about the mess was that the parents had wanted change and
that’s why we voted Wally on to the Board. Now they wanted his head.
Barbara
was interested to hear what had taken place. After all, it was her
father who was the principal of the school. I tried to couch my answers
(trying to be politically correct way before the term had been coined)
so as to not alarm her. What her father would tell her was up to him. As
we talked I continued to be impressed with how mature and ‘grounded’
she was. To change the subject to a more lighter vein I asked how the
‘cheering’ had gone. That made her eyes light up. Basically, she said
they’d had fun and she’d even gotten Kaye involved a bit. She told us
that the girls had mentioned that Elle had been a cheerleader and still
had her outfit. Elle kind of sloughed it off but I took the ‘bait’ and
ran with it. I told her that Elle had worn it to a Halloween costume
party the past Fall. I remember Barbara’s eyes lighting up and watching
her move forward on her seat. She told us that she’d promised to get out
her outfit from her last school and wear it to show the girls. She also
said she’d get her sister to do the same and now, hearing that Elle
still had hers, pleaded with her to dig it out and wear it. She was
truly excited about the prospect as she headed home. Elle wasn’t mad at
me for bringing out the fact that she still could wear her cheering
uniform but let me know that she would’ve preferred that I’d kept my
mouth shut. I just smiled.
I couldn’t wait for 6pm Friday night.
The week at work had dragged and Friday was the worst. I tried to ‘con’
Bret into taking my late Friday night duty but he had to baby sit his kids
and actually left early. Trish, as she was leaving, came up to me and
finally mentioned the new look that Joanie was sporting. I didn’t know
weather to take it as a compliment or if she was ‘riding’ me when she
called me a “ladies bank”. I knew what she was referring to what with
the money I’d loaned Laura and now Joanie. I decided to keep my mouth
shut and just smiled. I’d already anticipated that she’d find out but
also felt confident that she’d keep it quiet. Lena, the president’s
secretary, had been my ‘partner’ in outfitting Joanie and I knew, for
sure, she wouldn’t say anything. So, I just let it go.
She hadn’t
made it out of view when I had something very large blocking it. It was
‘Big B’... a complete surprise. He was on his way home from a week long
sales trip upstate but wanted to make sure he caught up with me so he stopped.
I’d made arrangements with him to use his Lightning class sailboat on my
week off. Normally he only used it on Saturdays and Sundays because he
was ‘on the road“ during the week. I’d told him I’d pick up the sails
and other gear at his house on Sunday night but his plans had changed.
He’d been invited to go on a scuba diving trip to explore some of the
sunken ships off Nantucket and was leaving first thing in the morning.
He wanted to make sure I got the stuff before he left. As he walked out
the door I just shook my head in amazement. Here he was well over 300
pounds and it seemed like there wasn’t anything he wouldn't try.
To be continued...
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