BACK TO REALITY... Same ole, same ole (Part 165h)

BACK TO REALITY… Same ole, same ole (Part 165h)

Back at home I told Elle about the scene at the Thrift Shoppe and the mess that was left behind when the minister closed it down. She disagreed with me for leaving it that way but I held to my position. I felt the only way to turn it around was for more people to actually see what had happened rather than to just hear about it. With the minister calling for a special vestry meeting it was my hope the parishioners would want to know why and could be referred down to the undercroft to see for themselves. I made the comment to Elle that most of the stuff was worthless and should be taken to the landfill. Upon hearing that she sort of changed her ‘tune’ and asked if I wanted to go through the cardboard cartons now stored in the garage. It was an excellent idea.

I don’t want to belabor the point but what we found was almost totally worthless. I think there were six or seven cartons and a number of what I remember my parents called “coat boxes”; long and not very deep. After a bite to eat we set the kids up in the playhouse to keep them busy and started in. Almost all the clothes were pre WWII in style and a lot of them were wool. Having been stored for so long, moths had done a number on them. That included suits, sports jackets, pants and winter coats. There was a fair amount of women’s clothing as well, mostly dark colors and, in the age of Aquarius, totally out of style. Anything that had been at one time white was now yellow. I was ready to haul it all to the landfill after we got through but Elle said she wanted to make a phone call. One of our friends from back in the days when we were part of the 'group' that was trying to get younger candidates elected to the school board was a volunteer for a group started by priests and ministers from the two villages just to the east of us. The group was called CAST (and I can’t remember what it stood for) and they were a forerunner of groups who now help the homeless. Remember, this was back in the 60’s and the term “homeless” hadn’t yet been coined.

Because our area was rural with the main business being farming, the farmers would hire a ‘crew boss’ to find migrant laborers to harvest the crops. The farmer would pay the ‘boss’ who, in turn, would pay the migrants (sometimes). At the end of the season the ‘boss’ would often take the last pay of the season and take off without any thought for the migrants leaving them without anything. CAST was trying to step in and provide clothes and some meals for those left behind. In any case, Elle wanted to get in touch with Phyl to see if she wanted the clothes for CAST before I disposed of them. Surprisingly, even after seeing the condition of most, she took it all off our hands. As far as the lady in charge of the Thrift Shoppe was concerned, I was prepared to tell her it went for a good cause.

I went to both the 8am and 10am services at church on Sunday. The reaction by the parishioners was mixed but did generate some volunteers who were younger than the ladies in the auxiliary to go through all the stuff in the basement. Elle was a volunteer as well and they set a date of Tuesday to cull out stuff that had little likelihood of being purchased. Most of the vestry attended one or other of the services so they had a first hand look at what the problem was. The timing for the volunteer group couldn’t have been better because the vestry was meeting that very night. If the volunteers were even moderately successful the vestry would be able to make a judgement as to the viability of the shop by observing what was left to sell. When we headed home I had no idea where it was all going but it had to be better than what it had been.

Paramount on my mind as I arrived at work Monday morning was certainly not that the bank was going to be examined (audited). All banks are examined by three different entities each year… The Federal government (FDIC); the State Banking Department and also an auditing firm hired by the bank. It was the last of these that was camped out at the back door when I arrived. I had never really accepted the need for this type examination. In my limited experience I discerned that all the firm did was to read the reports generated by the others and then make themselves look busy going over the things the other two had questioned and then regurgitated it. It was redundant and an expense I couldn’t see as necessary. But, who was I to question their existence? What it meant for me was a disruption in being able to service the customers as well as creating havoc in the workplace because I had to find space for them to be able to do their work. Normally, the Board room would be turned over to them for the week they were there. However, this was the week for the full Board meeting and I knew the Board wouldn’t be willing to be displaced.

On my way to work I’d been looking forward to seeing if the three applicants for the temporary position created by Lynn’s leave of absence would be in for interviews with J J. By the time I had all the tellers up and operating (the auditors have to count all the cash before they are allowed to wait on customers) and had found desk space, such as it was, for all of them it was close to 11am. I thought I’d get a ‘breather’ and time for a cup of coffee but there was a problem. The woman in charge of the group (a 40 something) had been unaware that the bank had shifted its depositor accounting to a service bureau. What should’ve happened was for a couple of the people from the audit firm to go to the service bureau before we started processing accounts. Their lady was like the proverbial ‘chicken with his or her head cut off’, not knowing what to do. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that her line supervisor wasn’t available. When she came to me the noon siren had just gone off. She went on to tell me they were leaving. I didn’t know weather to laugh or get mad. The reason I say that is that once the audit ‘team’ gets settled in they usually aren’t that much of a problem. The decision to leave meant I’d be facing their chaos again sometime if the future. Here it was, noon, and I’d not accomplished anything. I remember wondering what else could/would go wrong.

As soon as Bret was back from lunch I took off. Wanting to get my mind off the bank I headed for the brokerage office thinking that Lynda would be a nice diversion. It would’ve been if she’d been there. Stan, my broker, was just on his way to lunch and asked if I wanted to join him. I knew he usually ate right across the street at Michael’s Lounge and they had good lunches. We got caught up a bit before I asked where Lynda was. He seemed surprised by my question so answered it with one of his own… “You didn’t know?”. I didn’t so sat and listened to him tell me that her husband’s Army Reserve unit had been called to active duty and that she was with him as he drove to his duty station out West. Lynda had never said much about her husband other than he worked for his father, a Chevrolet dealer. With my questioning look Stan explained that he’d “been gaming the system” by transferring from one reserve unit to another and that the Army had caught up with him. I couldn’t tell if that made Stan happy or not but he definitely had a bit of a smirk on his lips.

To be continued…