LIFE GOES ON... and on... (Part 171m)

LIFE GOES ON… and on… (Part 171 m)

Even though I didn’t get the details of Jerry’s reaction to his “downgrade”, I knew what his new responsibilities were and they weren’t much. In thinking about it now I liken it to being a crook, getting caught and then being told I had to serve my punishment by going to Boca Raton. It was the best of all worlds for him in that he was still an officer with no reduction in pay and, basically, no responsibilities. All he had to do was come in to the office, open the vault, go into his office and open new accounts all day, countersign checks in amounts over $1,000 and then reverse the procedure at the end of the day. The hardest part for him was in knowing that he had two sets of eyes watching him all day long and knowing that if he strayed from that routine it would be noted in a log and called in to the main office to me or to Bret. When it was ‘going down’ my perverse mind was reveling in the fact that he would be under the control of two women who were actually under him in rank. Bret and I’d talked on more than one occasion about how much his wife controlled him. Now, both Betsy and Mae would be controlling him as well.

I’d not been a party to the discussions concerning the change in responsibilities for Betsy and Mae. I’ve written about how smart I felt Mae was and after her ’one on one’ with Hobie she made a point of stopping to see me and thanking me for my part in it. It had been almost impossibly hard not to ‘leak’ some clues about what was going on but I’d not let her, Bret or Trish in on it. But, she knew. Through all the months of turmoil in dealing with Jerry I thought that Betsy and I’d worked well together. However, she never once acknowledged my part in getting her some sort of relief and a pay increase… and that did bother me.

There was another ‘concession’ made by the Board in resolving the situation. With Mae returning to the branch it increased their staff by one. We’d reduced the staff to five people not long after it was realized that we weren’t going to be as busy as hoped. Business hadn’t picked up all that much but when I ‘borrowed’ Mae for the main office I’d rehired the teller we’d let go back in the Summer. When rehired her I didn’t promise anything other than we had a temporary opening and she’d taken it. I’d reminded Hobie of that fact but with not much hope of retaining her so was pleasantly surprised when I was told she’d stay on. As I looked at the make up of the staff I felt confident that if Jerry did what he was told to do there shouldn’t be any more problems… and my life would be a bit easier.

During the eight days it took to resolve the situation I was busy doing the everyday things I always did… plus keeping both Bret and Trish ‘at bay’ as it all enfolded. One thing that helped was I really didn’t know what was going on ‘behind the scenes’. The only clue I gave them was that it had something to do with the recent Federal and State bank audits. When the original Federal auditor was replaced Hobie had told me to warn the staff that it was going to be a “rough go” until they all left. With that information as a basis I was hoping my short answer to their question(s) would suffice. Once the announcement was made about the changes I still kept the details to myself… even though I wanted to ‘editorialize’ them especially as it came to Jerry. The one thing that I would have to address was to hire another teller for the main office.

In my ‘other life’, I managed to get the sign I’d been working on for the country club finished and had gotten paid ($120). With the sponsorship money ($300) from the restaurant,  Cliffy had ordered the new tires we needed for the race car and Alan had gone to pick them up. Cliffy had decided to only attend one of the two practice sessions scheduled at the racetrack which worked out well for me. I was able to get a good head start on yard maintenance… leaves, dead bushes/plants, trimming etc. While doing it I saw the first vestiges of ‘life’ from the house next door. After the tree fell on it during the Winter and Jonesie, the local handyman, had done the repairs, there hadn’t been any activity there at all. I took a peek though the hedge opening (which needed to be opened up again) and saw Jonesie dismantling the back porch. I went over to see just what it he was going on.

There was one very unique, but negative, feature about both houses. They’d been built on the hill that had been created when they built the road. The front yards were at least twelve feet higher than the road. The houses were traditional in that the fronts faced the road but the difference between the two was that they had built a cement stairway from road level to the yard for my house and they hadn’t done the same on the other house. I’d often wondered why they’d bothered as there was no room to park cars along the road. So, in both cases the practical entry was to come up the driveway into the back yard and then come in through the kitchen. At our house it was from level ground with but one step. Next door, the land graded off to the East which caused them to have to build a small porch with four steps to get to the kitchen door. I’d never given it much thought but evidently the new owner had and he wanted to regrade the back yard and add some fill to make it level enough to eliminate the steps. I asked Jonesie if he had any information on when the owner and/or his family might show up. I definitely remember Jonesie shaking his head and smiling… but not answering.

As far as Elle and her pregnancy was concerned, she’d started on her iron rich diet to remedy her anemia. It wasn’t something I’d ever choose but I didn’t complain wanting to support her. She’d not had morning sickness in any of her other pregnancies and, thankfully, it looked like this one would be the same. At three plus months, her ‘bump’ was hardly noticeable and the only thing she had to adjust for in her clothes was that she could no longer wear her tailored slacks. The only thing that I noticed was that she was using the toilet even more than usual. The first time I asked about it she denied it… but that was typical of her. She finally admitted it when, at church, she didn’t make it down the stairs to the rest room during the service. When she left the pew and didn’t return after about fifteen minutes I pretty much knew the story. I’d noticed that she’d taken to wearing her ‘dribble’ panties all the time and had even seen her take the unusual step of wearing two pairs while at home. So, after we got home after the ’accident’ I pinned her down. What had been happening was that she no longer had a window of 2 to 2 1/2 hours between toilet visits. It was more like an hour and a half. Because she was still a little ‘up-tight’ about the ramifications of her pregnancy I’d been giving her the benefit of the doubt. On the occasions where she’d let me ‘play’ when she was wet it didn’t last for long. I made it clear to her that it was something I felt we could work on ourselves… if she’d let me. I won’t say she enthusiastically endorsed the idea but allowed she would listen to my thoughts.

To be continued…