KEEPING UP… Busy, busy, busy (Part 166o)
I hadn’t forgotten
about the minister’s call and had tried to reach him during the morning
but was unsuccessful. Figuring I could stop by the manse on my way home I
put the call out of my mind for the rest of the day. Even though the
day hadn’t been all that stressful I was feeling the effects (letdown)
of the weekend and chose to leave at 5pm. Pulling in to the minister's driveway I
could see my house from there. I was hoping that the matter with him was something that could be handled quickly. The minister
greeted me at the front door and took me into his office without saying a
word. It was very strange.
Back when Elle and I were in Bermuda
to celebrate our anniversary the daughter of one of the church
parishioners died in a car accident. Neither Elle nor I really knew the
deceased but both of us did know the mother. It was back when there was a
lot of ‘discussion’ on which direction the soon to be opened Thrift
Shoppe should take. When the decision was made to limit the clothes to being fairly current as far as style was concerned, the
woman offered to donate all her daughters clothes to the shop. The daughter
lived in an apartment in the city and her plan was to dispose of her
belongings after a period of mourning. The woman showed up at church on
Sunday and told the minister she was ready… and that was where the
minister wanted me to get involved. In the course of casual chatting I’d
mentioned to him that I’d been appointed to a banking committee that would
require me to go in to the city once a month. I didn’t think of it as
any more than an update on my life in general. However, when the lady
told him she’d set the clothes aside but that he’d have to arrange for
someone to go pick them up… he thought of me. My next meeting in the city was the
following week and he wanted to know if there was any way I could see my
way to picking up the items in question. I’m not sure but I think I
asked how much stuff was there. I do remember him saying that most items
had been boxed but there were some coats and dresses that were loose.
That told me that to do it would entail driving to the city, something I
hated doing.
If there was one thing I wasn’t very good at it was
in saying “No” when asked to do something for someone. I, reluctantly,
(VERY!) said I thought I could arrange it if he’d get the address and
any other details I’d need. I’d been in a pretty good mood for being
tired but this changed it. I’d not had any time to tell Elle about my
weekend nor her to tell me about hers before leaving for work. It was obvious that she had
something important on her mind because as soon as I walked in she
pointed me towards the den. The look on her face told me I wasn’t going
to get a ‘surprise’ that I might like. It turned out that one of the
teachers who she’d done some substituting for in the past had contacted
her. The woman asked if Elle was still on the substitute list as she’d
specifically asked that Elle be called to take her class on two
occasions and yet another teacher had taken her class. Elle had
mentioned to me that it seemed strange that she wasn’t getting calls.
Here it was, mid October, and she’d only been called once. We both knew
that if she was called and then declined her name would go to the bottom
of the list but she hadn't done that. Elle had been at the top of the list all through the
Spring term and yet wasn’t being called for this term. When she heard
that the teacher had requested her and not been called it really disturbed her. She wanted to know what I thought should be done to find out what
was going on. Another situation that I really didn’t have an answer for!
A
partial answer to the Halloween costume dilemma came from an unexpected
source. The full Board meeting for October was the next day and I had to
make a presentation to request additional money for advertising to
finish out the year. When the new branch opened the Board had authorized
funds for advertising that were separate from the regular advertising budget. The grand opening and the gift campaign were to stand on their own. When it
became obvious that the public's response was underwhelming they told me to
“double down” on the advertising, especially the direct mail portion…
but they didn’t authorize additional funds. Now we still had 2 1/2 months to
go and there was almost no money left in the regular ad budget. In what should’ve been a ‘no-brainer’ to replenish the funds used for the
branch opening they decided I had to present an advertising program to
finish out the year. The ad agency was run by two men, one of whom lived
just down the road from where I lived. His brother was an actor who was on
TV in one of the soap operas that was popular at the time. A wannabe actor, he started
and managed a community theater in our town. Elle and I tried to support
it. When he showed up for his ad presentation I, just to start the
meeting off in a low key fashion, asked what was on the upcoming
schedule for the theater. We chatted about that for a few minutes and in
the conversation he mentioned that the group was looking for corporate
donations for costumes. There was the opening. Long story short… I told
him I thought the bank could make a monetary donation and almost
immediately asked if within their collection there might be some
costumes the bank employees could borrow for the Halloween contest. His
answer was a positive one which solved one of my problems. Then we got
down to bank business.
At the Board meeting I had a hard time
keeping from saying what was really on my mind about the reason for having to
ask for additional funds. There were three or four members who, for some
reason, didn’t like the new program the agency presented and gave me
some grief about it. To be truthful there was nothing ‘special’ about
what the agency had come up with and because of that they didn’t think
it was worth the money. It was Bert, the president, who shut them up
when he offered them the alternative… no advertising at all. The
discussion ended at that point and I had the needed money and costumes
as well.
As far as the race car was concerned we pretty much had
decided to meet Saturday afternoon to put the car away for the Winter.
And, since we hadn’t had to pay rent for the space in Cliffy’s father’s
garage, we offered to do a ‘general housecleaning’ of the place as a sort
of payment. Beth, Cliffy’s wife showed up and suggested we have a season ending party
at their house that night. I would’ve been just as happy to be home
with Elle and the kids. As I’ve previously mentioned, other than Elle there
were no other females in the group with any real ‘looks’. Beth was
heavy, but not fat. Ra was skinny, but not anorexic. Alan and Buster’s
wives were really ‘plain Janes’ with no personality at all. In fact,
none of the women liked Buster’s wife. It looked like it would be a long
boring evening coming up as Elle and I headed for Cliffy’s house. We
were the last to arrive and as I parked our car it seemed like there
were some extra cars. Inside, I recognized a couple of the race track
officials from our regular Saturday night racing. It took a minute or
two for me to see one of their wives and all I’ll say is it was enough
for me to change my mind about how the night would turn out.
To be continued…
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