Finding Something I Was Good At ~ 1990/1991

I always liked getting in on the ground floor. When LaBelle's Department Store opened, all of us were new. It tends to even the playing field. Cliques have not yet formed; there's no, "Jenny never did it that way". Because there was no Jenny. US Healthcare was brand-spankin' new, at least in my city.

I knew nothing about health insurance, but I did possess a brain. I wasn't concerned about ranking at the bottom of the clump of thirty new employees. I didn't have to be the best, but I was not about to be the worst. If there existed a health insurance company in my town before US Healthcare, I plead ignorance. There may have been a two-room alcove somewhere above a furniture store that sold "health and life" to ranchers who couldn't legitimately form a group and therefore paid five thousand dollars a month for major medical. I therefore didn't know from whence the other twenty-nine girls were plucked ~ maybe they had a "semblance" of medical knowledge, like me.

Our new digs were a rented floor on the second story of a bank. We were granted parking passes, as long as we utilized the parking "arcade", which was a queasy sphere of lightheadedness I managed to maneuver each morning without passing out. In the office we were seated in sequential rows of five, in front of green-screened CRT's with impatiently-blinking cursors. Our trainers had been shipped in from Philadelphia and thus two wildly divergent cultures collided. East-coasters did not suffer fools or even semi-fools. Every raised hand was met with an attempt at a civil response, but disdain dripped like cheese steak from their lips. The travelers did not enjoy their sojourn to the hinterlands, as much as the idea had seemed like a fun lark when it was first presented to them. We were "rustic". Our local restaurants especially offended them. Amongst themselves, they pondered whether we had indoor bathroom facilities.

It had been determined that we would learn how to process eye exams. How bad could we fuck those up? If we managed to master that "skill", we might eventually advance to office visits. With three trainers and thirty trainees, one would have to hold her hand in the air for ten minutes before someone wended their way to the table, only to answer, "It's fine". Oh, okay. There goes my production, I guess.

Essentially, what we were learning was how to navigate US Healthcare's operating system. It makes sense in retrospect. But still, the scorn oozed.

On morning break, we all rode the elevator downstairs and streamed out to the concrete flower planters along Third Street. I gravitated to fellow smokers and found myself in a clutch of two much younger gals, Sherry and Marla. They may have told me where they'd worked before, but I have no recollection. After a couple of weeks, Sherry informed me one morning on break that I had only secured the position because someone dropped out. She didn't say it maliciously, but it still stung. At least I now understood why USHC had waited so long to call me. I don't know how Sherry knew and I didn't inquire. It might not have been true, but I think it was. Sherry was a nice person and she had no reason to jerk me around. Now that I knew I was an afterthought, I became more determined than ever to show 'em.

 Our local supervisors had been pre-selected ~ Kim, Barb, and Connie. They didn't do much during training; essentially hovered about trying to appear knowledgeable. When they ventured an answer to someone's raised hand, they were tentative, glancing up at the Philadelphia experts for validation. The rest of the day they huddled in a tiny back office and did...planning or something. There was also a manager; Marian, I believe her name was. She didn't stay long; I have no idea why. Maybe working with Connie was just too keen a punishment.

As the days dribbled on, I pondered who my supervisor would be. I liked Kim. He was an affable sort. Barb seemed a bit uptight, but harmless. Connie was a red flag. She didn't appear "real"; a person who went through the motions like she thought a normal human would, but couldn't quite pull it off convincingly.

Toward the end of our training, it was announced that three assistant supervisor positions were available. I applied. What the heck? Most everybody else did; I didn't want to seem unambitious. I didn't get it, of course. I didn't think I would. Girls named Carlene and (another) Shelly and somebody else who apparently was not memorable because I can't remember her, were granted the promotions. At least no one in my little three-person clique got it, so we could go on smoking and making small talk and anticipating our move to the new building on the north side of town that we'd all driven past a time or two and spied the formulating blue and white construction.

My supervisor would be Barb. When the building was completed, we moved into our respective units with their pre-ordained cubicles; Barb seated in her extra-special glass-enclosed case up front. Bye-bye sickening garage precipice.

And life went on.

As did country.

My man, Mark Chesnutt:

Pam Tillis:

And still there was Ronnie Milsap:

Some new guy:

Another new guy:

A new duo:

Yes, like me, all the way from '73, Tanya was still live 'n kickin':

Mary Chapin:

Some new group:

The all-time Dwight:

1990 Music...And A "Career"

By the spring of 1990 I was desperate to escape from Farm Credit Services. It felt like I'd been there forever, when in fact it had only been a little over a year. I'd made friends, one of whom in an attempt to "help", I'd inadvertently had to say goodbye to. Linda's husband was a ranch manager who was ready to move on. I found an ad in the classifieds that was just up his alley and pointed it out to my friend. Before I knew it, Kirk had accepted the job and Linda's whole family moved clear across the state. Aside from the stultifying cloud I worked under, fun came from unexpected sources. Our local United Way conducted a promotion in which people could have someone "arrested" and the person would have to call everyone he or she knew in order to raise "bail" and be released. Before Linda left town, we arranged to have our boss arrested. It was all for charity....

In the fall of each year Bismarck held its annual street fair, which consisted of arts and crafts shopping galore and various corny events, like a pageant that featured contestants from local establishments. We decided to get into the spirit and sponsor an entrant from FCS. We talked one of our co-workers, eventually, into allowing her name to be placed into contention. (Paula ultimately, despite her initial revulsion, found the whole experience exhilarating.) I think half the contender's score was based on the creativity of her sponsor's promotion, so I busied myself drawing up posters and concocting catchy slogans. I believe that was the only time Nancy, my boss, ever offered me a compliment (I knew my strengths). Alas, Paula didn't prevail, but it was a win-win experience for everyone involved.

As a result of quitting smoking, my weight had shot up...and up. I'd gained fifty pounds and was most likely viewed in the office as the FCS schlub. Ultimately, even I became disgusted with myself and plunked down money I couldn't afford to spend to enroll in a program called "Diet Center" (admittedly, not the most original, but at least the most honest, commercial program at the time). Who wouldn't lose weight on a regimen that basically consisted of baked fish, asparagus, and Melba toast? I think a lemon was considered a "free food". I'd done Weight Watchers in the past with my mom, but this was infinitely more restrictive. But once I committed myself to something, I was determined not to fail, and I succeeded wildly. I lost all fifty pounds and more and reduced to a size three before I stopped. I bought clothes at the local consignment shop because my frame continued to shrink. My Diet Center "counselor" tried to talk me into posing for an ad, but my aversion to attention put an absolute kibosh on that notion.

As a downside, I took up smoking again. Damn, I was starving!

(After I'd left FCS, I joined my former cohorts one evening for a get-together on a local bistro's patio, and one of the guys was perplexed when Paula pointed out that I was there. He searched the area for a time and shrugged. I was unrecognizable ~ no longer the schlub.)

In my zeal to get away from Nancy and her disapproving glances, I had been scouring the want-ads for a while. When I spied one that said, "National Insurance Company Seeks Claims Examiners For a New Local Branch", I became obsessed. I fixated on that ad and staked my existence on garnering one of those positions. I knew absolutely nothing about health insurance, but for some unknown reason I understood that this was my destiny, which sounds utterly dumb, but there it was. I applied and received an appointment for a group interview, and henceforth sat in my garage every day after work and smoked and practiced answering hypothetical questions and hyping myself.

The group interview was an assembly line. I'd move to the first queue and answer a question, then shuffle on to the next cluster of interrogators and respond to another. All my practice evaporated. The only thing I had going for me was my medical knowledge from St. Alexius ~ I knew nothing about insurance and they all grasped that.

I was informed I'd hear from them within the week.

I didn't get a callback.

One of the few things I'd ever strived so hard for and I'd utterly failed. My lot was working for FCS and Nancy until I either reached retirement age or chopped her up with an axe.

Out of the blue a couple of weeks later, US Healthcare called and offered me the job.

The pay was exactly the same salary I was making at FCS, but I leapt at the offer. I didn't stop to question why it took them a fortnight to call. The next Monday when I told Nancy I was leaving, she was perplexed and disappointed. When the time came to tell Nancy how inadequate she'd always made me feel, I deflated. What was the point? Why bother? I was gone. Would I feel good about myself unloading on her? I lied and told her I was offered twenty-five cents more per hour. She apologized that she was unable to match the offer, but budgets, you know...Funny how they never tell you they appreciate you until you quit.

It felt strange leaving FCS. It had been a filler job all along, but I'd formed relationships. Unlike the hospital, I was on an even par with most of the people I worked with. They didn't wave their degrees in my face, because like me, nobody had one. They were working class; trying to pay their mortgages and attempting to scratch out a moment of happiness in the midst of their eight-hour slog. I was moving on to a new group of thirty girls I didn't know and I'd have to start all over again. And I was thirty-five, twice most of their ages. I was a mom who bought her clothes at the consignment shop and who had to count her pennies to buy a new pair of pantyhose. I figured, however, at least we were all in this leaky boat together. And if it didn't work out, shoot, I'd become an expert at sussing out the one or two jobs in the newspaper that fit my meager skills.

Musically, I'd become torn. At Farm Credit Services, I mostly tuned my portable radio to the local rock station. Part of that may have been that I liked the morning DJ, Bob Beck; part of it was that I wasn't ready to let rock go. When I'd turned away from country in the mid-eighties because it reeked, I became the quintessential MTV fan, and my sons shared my enchantment with Huey Lewis and Dire Straits. We bonded over pop music and baseball cards.

Country music, however, was harkening me back. Changing one's essence is ultimately a hopeless quest. One can change for a while, but we always come back to the person we intrinsically are.

Luckily for me, Eddie Rabbitt was still around:

One of the best country groups of all time, Highway 101:

A pristine country voice, Patty Loveless:

Mark Chesnutt will forever reside in the top five of my favorite artists:

Tanya Tucker and T. Graham Brown:

Gotta love Steve Wariner:

My lord, Marty Stewart:

Like Eddie, Ronnie Milsap was still hangin' in there:

 Some dude named Garth appeared on the scene:

Ricky Van Shelton:

When someone says "ninety country" (although no one actually does), this will be the song on the tips of everyone's brain:

My new career in health insurance commenced, with country music as a backdrop.

Stay tuned...

1979 ~ Back To Real Life

I had no misconceptions regarding what work would be ~ a series of dead-end jobs; maybe I'd eventually land one with tenure and I could coast my way to retirement. I really didn't want a job. I wanted to be a mom, but President Jimmy saw things differently. Being poor wasn't all that bad, but I hated having to charge basic needs, plus the hospital let me know my five dollar-a-month payment for my new son's delivery just wasn't going to cut it. That telephone conversation convinced me I needed to find a job. Before I became a mom my work life was scattershot at best. I'd tried the real world and didn't like it. Being a clerk-typist for the state, I found, didn't mean sitting in a cubbyhole and typing all day. I had to interact with customers, which I guess was the "clerk" part. I didn't know what it was called then, but it turned out I had social phobia, which is in essence a fear of making an utter fool of oneself. Whenever I heard the front door of the State Health Department creak open, I had to steel myself for the inevitable person-to-person interaction. In retrospect, I am convinced I didn't instill confidence in my customer. I would toddle off and retrieve a copy of their birth certificate and mumble, "two dollars". I think I also said, "thank you", because while I was a near-mute, I was perpetually polite. After little more than a year I'd scurried back home to work for my parents. I quit working all together in November of 1976 and nested.

By the summer of '79, the fiscal writing was on the wall. As we pedaled down the expressway in our tin-can Chevy Malibu, I gazed at the building being erected, with a big sign out front that announced, "Future Home of LaBelle's". I said, I'm going to work there. I don't know why; maybe it was the close proximity to home, basically a zip up one street and one zip down another. Possibly it was because the one skill I was confident I possessed was ringing up a cash register. Plus I still retained the naive certainty that this place would be all my hopes and dreams tied up in an azure package; a retail nirvana. And it was part-time.

1979 began nine years of inhabiting second shift, forgoing toddler's bedtime baths, snuggling with little towheads, missing all my favorite TV shows, But life is a series of have-to's. I couldn't place Lego sets and Fisher-Price parking garages under the Christmas tree without the money to buy them and without my ten per-cent employee discount.

LaBelle's was a catalog store, which no longer exists in today's Amazon world. Customers would wander about with a stubby pencil and a pad and write down the number of the item they wanted to purchase; then hand their paper to an associate who'd punch it into a "computer" and the bored guys back in the warehouse would fetch the item from an eight-foot high wobbly shelf and dump it onto the conveyor belt. My job was to grab a hand mic and announce, "Johnny Jamsicle, your order is ready at Register Three. Johnny Jamsicle, Register Three." Johnny would step up to Register Three and I'd ring him up.

Some nights were excruciatingly quiet. Especially Tuesdays. Nobody ever seemed to shop on Tuesdays. So I'd stand behind the counter in my high heels and eye the one person in the store longingly, willing them to order something. Truthfully, LaBelle's was quiet most of the time, except during Christmas season. I would, of course, be scheduled to work Saturday days, and Christmas was the only time the hours whizzed by.

When I had my yearly review, my manager docked me for not coming up with a product display, which I didn't even know was a requirement! I subsequently visited a travel office and gave the girl behind the desk a line about a school project, and talked her out of a vacation poster, which I pasted in the luggage department, along with the words, "Flights of Fancy". Casey, my manager, didn't understand the saying and argued that my word choice was wrong. "It should be flights of fantasy," she proclaimed. I tried to explain to her what a flight of fancy meant. She finally gave up the ghost and let me keep my display. I didn't even get a five-cent raise for all my effort. I did, however, learn a valuable lesson about dealing with morons.

I frankly didn't have much free time to devote to music listening, but I couldn't escape the fact that Kenny Rogers was everywhere. This dude who'd had a minor career with The First Edition in the sixties had reinvented himself as a precursor to Lionel Richie.

The number one song of 1979:

Kenny had five, count 'em, top twenty hits in '79. And that wasn't even his best year. I'm not sure why, but I rolled with the flow. I even saw him in concert once, sitting in the nosebleed seats in Duluth, Minnesota. It was a spur-of-the-moment impulse on my mom's part. We were there; he was there ~ why not?

There were better country songs in 1979; for instance, Eddie Rabbitt:

The Dirt Band:

Don Williams:

Waylon:

T. G. Sheppard:

The Oaks:

I had my Bang and Olufson component stereo I'd bought on credit and a stack of country albums. Sometimes I'd come home from LaBelle's in the dark and slip the needle on one of those LP's, quietly, as to not awaken the kids snug in their beds, and relax with a cup of instant Sanka. 

And think about the pitiful state of my "career".

A Word About Roy Clark

I knew of Roy Clark, of course, since I was a teeny kid. I think I saw him perform on the Jimmy Dean Show (on ABC Television), which was, trust me, the only country music show on national TV in the early nineteen sixties. My mom liked the show, so we watched it. My dad was generally working in the fields until way past dark, so it was just me and my mom. This was long before Jimmy invented sausages. I learned from reading Roy's obituary that he had started out as a member of Jimmy Dean's band, but had been fired for tardiness. Nevertheless, Jimmy still brought him onto his network show as a guest. Who could shun such a natural entertainer?

Roy was a happy guy, or at least he seemed to be. He surely loved being onstage. He was a consummate musician; guitar, of course, but he also picked a mean banjo and strung a bow across the strings of a country fiddle.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your outlook) Roy's main claim to fame was starring on Hee Haw. I am amazed that Hee Haw only ran on CBS from 1969 to 1971. It seemed like it was always there. To be clear, there was no way to see country artists on TV in the late sixties except for Hee Haw. So I watched the show and fidgeted through the corn pone skits until the week's featured artist would finally appear. I once went somewhere on vacation with my family and holed up in the motel room to watch Faron Young perform on the show; that's how desperate I was to see some authentic country music.

Roy played his part and played it with gusto. I don't think he viewed the show with as jaundiced an eye as I did. It was entertainment. Sure, it was corny as hell, but he did get to pick a banjo and mug for the camera.

The weird thing about Roy Clark was that he never had many hits. Maybe making hit records wasn't his niche.

To me, his greatest hit will always be his version of a Bill Anderson song, The Tips Of My Fingers:

Here he is performing on the Porter Wagoner Show:

I'd forgotten about this one:

Roy had a novelty hit in 1970, which unfortunately will be remembered more than Tips Of My Fingers:

Roy Clark was a superb musician who buried his talent in eye rolls and an arched brow, probably because he knew how good he was, but thought it'd be bragging to show it.

I didn't even know I'd miss him, but I do.

1988 ~ A Year

1988 was a strange year as far as my "career" was concerned. Life outside of work was good ~ I had two pre-teens at home who were exceptionally good kids. I had an actual house with a foundation; not a tin can on four wheels. I'd settled into a routine. I worked second shift at the hospital, but I had a trusty VCR to record "St. Elsewhere" on Wednesday nights. I liked my job. Until I didn't.

I'd been at the hospital for eight years and I knew my stuff. I could juggle new admits with nary a second thought. That was essentially my job ~ slotting new patients into various rooms. The medical floor had three wings. One was a telemetry unit, but if we needed a bed for a medical patient, I had to put them there if no other accommodations were available. The central wing was staffed with two RN's and two LPN's. Telemetry was also fully staffed. Monitoring heart patients was fraught with potential emergencies. The west wing. while the nicest of the three, was the forlorn forgotten stepchild. Only one RN and one LPN were generally assigned to that unit. Monday evenings were the busiest. Seniors who had toughed it out through the interminable weekend finally went to see their doctor on Monday and were thus in a state of deterioration that required immediate hospitalization. I always endeavored to not overload the nurses with new patients, but sometimes it was unavoidable. If the downstairs admission office was ringing my number incessantly, I had to make judgment calls. At a certain point, all the spare beds rested in the west wing. An RN I liked a lot was manning that station, and she finally, after I'd given her four new admissions, expressed her frustration (in hindsight, understandably) sarcastically. I took it as a rebuke and was hurt.

After a sleepless night, I decided to post out to a different position. The only job in the hospital I was minimally qualified for was in the admissions office. I interviewed and secured the transfer. I hated it from the start. It was too, too quiet. And dark. Between new patients, who I would interview and ask what religion they were affiliated with, I filed three-by-five cards. I think I also trained as a substitute phone operator, which terrified me. I didn't want to have to call codes. I was afraid I'd mess it up and forget which buttons to push and someone would perish due to my incompetence. On the medical floor, I'd felt in command. If there was a Code Blue, I knew exactly what to do to summon the crash cart.

I lasted approximately two weeks in the admissions department before I quit.I couldn't understand how working for the same company I'd been with for eight years could feel so foreign, so like Azerbaijan. I had no fallback. I was in the wilderness. My small-town newspaper contained approximately two square inches of clerical classified ads. The most promising was a position as a medical transcriptionist, for which I had no qualifications other than the medical terminology I'd picked up at the hospital and an innate ability to type. I applied and got it. I was wary from the start. This was a five-person office; supposedly a franchise. They had two transcriptionists already and were awaiting their third "machine" to be delivered. In the meantime, I could sort mail and otherwise act busy. I've always hated pretending to be busy. Time ticks so slowly. The franchisee was the wife of the absolute worst doctor in town. I wonder if the company's only client was her husband. Hospitals, after all, employed their own transcriptionists. Nevertheless, the two gals ensconced in front of the two machines seemed to keep busy, so I was hopeful and anticipatory.

In between marking incoming mail with a red rubber stamp and neatening up the desk, I did get a half hour to drive through the McDonald's queue and feast on a hamburger and small fry in the front seat of my car. I hung on long enough to attend the company's annual pow-wow in Kansas City, although I had no earthly idea what I was doing there. Periodically I inquired when the "machine" would be delivered and received evasive answers. I began to think the whole thing was a scam. Did they actually intend to murder me and hide my body? Why? They barely knew me!

The two transcriptionists, I learned, absolutely hated the blue-haired owner. I bonded with the typists, because who else was I going to bond with? One of them had a plan to corner the corporate owner during our Kansas City convention and "spill the beans". She recruited me as her wing man and I had nothing to lose, plus I was tipsy on the free wine. Upon our return from Missouri, Mrs. Fortman called each of us into her office for a private conference. When it was my turn, she asked me if I really wanted to work there. I reiterated my inquiry as to when the "machine" would arrive. "I told you it's on its way!", she yelped defensively. I said that I guessed I really didn't want to work there, and I left.

I was once again adrift.

The only classified I could find was for a part-time receptionist at the State Teachers Retirement Fund. I had either learned how to interview really well or my 80-WPM typing scores bowled them over. Whatever the rationale, I was hired. Granted, the 8:00 to 12:00 schedule was awesome, but the requisite cut in pay hurt. And, once again, I had to find ways to fill the time. I typed "Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois" on endless business-size envelopes and delivered incoming mail to various offices. In between, I tried to master the workings of the correction-tape typewriter. I had, generously, one hour's worth of work and three hours of time-filling. Plus I was seated at a cold receptionist desk with no one to talk to. Rarely did anyone stop in to see one of the execs and the phone never rang. I could have not shown up for work and nobody would be the wiser. I needed to find something better or I would slit my wrists. When I finally gave my notice, the woman in charge said, "Oh, I was hoping to offer you a full-time position". What? They, in actuality, needed no one, yet they were willing to pay me to work eight hours a day? Now they told me!

I'd found a secretarial position at Farm Credit Services. On the plus side, it was full-time. But there were negatives. Firstly, my hourly wage had not risen. I was still making $5.75 an hour, plus the drive was massive in winter. The financial company was located on the far western outskirts of another town. The only scenery was I-94 whipping off toward tiny farm hamlets. The woman who hired me, Mrs. Park, would have had to pay a headhunter to find her a personality. Another minus was that I was a secretary. No offense to secretaries (or administrative assistants, as they are now called to hide the fact that they are glorified indentured servants), but the constraints inherent to the job are scratchily chafing. I don't like anyone hovering over me as if I am an imbecile. For the record, I'm not one. At least Mrs. Park didn't expect me to bring her coffee. The previous secretary had been promoted to a tax "specialist". That would never, ever be my lot. I don't like numbers and they don't like me. In her free time, the former secretary trained me, and she was impatient and brusque. I hated her. Funny thing, though, in the months to come she would become a cherished friend. First impressions are not always prescient. Generally they are, but not always.

I eventually settled into my new position. I did a lot of filing -- big burgundy binders of tax returns. I spent infinite hours in front of the Xerox machine. I answered the phone and I tried to decipher Mrs. Park's Oklahoma drawl on the dictaphone and type letters the way she intended. The tax office was in the basement (it had its own entry), so I rarely ventured to the first or second floors and struggled to get to know my fellow employees. The person I came to know best was the IT guy, Noel, because every conceivable office machine went on strike every other day. Breaks were expected to be taken in the tiny alcove off the basement entry. Mrs. Park, a couple of tax preparers, and me. Every single day. I'd recently quit smoking, but I fell back into the habit, I think simply to have an excuse to escape the stultifying discussion of which Stephen King book my boss was currently reading.

My one lifeline was the FM radio I kept on my desk. Bob Beck did the morning drive show on Y93. He was our town's one true celebrity, except few people actually knew what he looked like. Bob endlessly entertained me, stuck out in the hinterlands. Music was almost beside the point, but not completely.

The songs I remember most from 1988 and my life in purgatory:

Of course, the geekiest pop star with the most everlasting song:

I wonder whatever happened to Richard Marx. Ballads were a huge component of the eighties. We rather anticipated them. 

Eric Carmen is not a name one hears every day:

Jackson:

What have I, what have I, what have I:

I lasted almost two years at FCS. I rapidly became desperate to get out. When a health insurance company decided to open an auxiliary branch in my hometown, I was determined to be one of the forty hired. I sat in my garage and smoked and practiced my interview, day after day after day. I didn't even know what a "claim" was. I knew medical terminology; my only saving grace. I was crushed when I didn't get the phone call ~ my lot was to be a farm records secretary and report to a priggish schoolmarm until one or the other of us ultimately keeled over. 

Then, out of the blue, my phone rang. I learned later that someone had dropped out and I was first runner-up. I'd take that!

And thus, after all the piddly-assed desperation jobs, I, unbeknownst to me, began an actual career.

 

1974 ~ Music and Ineptitude

Hindsight is essentially useless, other than reminding us that we're (unfortunately) human, and therefore dumb.

In 1974 I was nineteen and ignorantly immature. In hindsight (see?) I realize just how green I really was. I, for instance, had no business pretending to be an adult. Society, however, deemed that a girl needed to be married by at least age nineteen or twenty. Every girl didn't do that, but most of us did. Our life's goal was to become betrothed. I remember when I told my parents that I was engaged, they were delighted. They almost clapped their hands together in glee, and muttered under their breath, "It's about time." I was still a few months shy of nineteen. My concept of marriage was having a sofa and a TV, and maybe a microwave oven. Life wouldn't change much, except that I could escape home. Truly, my primary motivation was escaping, as if that would make life better. Living a dysfunctional existence no doubt played a role. I had to get away from the craziness I'd lived with for the past seven or eight years. I was desperate. Additionally, my self-esteem was so minuscule that I couldn't pass up the only chance I'd ever have to snag a husband. (Happy ending: both of us have since found our true soulmates.)

I now think a good age to marry would be thirty ~ young enough to still have children; mature enough to know oneself.

I had a "starter" job ~ I could definitely type, so what better fit than a job as a clerk-typist? Living in the state capitol opened up a plethora of possibilities. There was never a dearth of job openings. One only needed to pass a test in order to qualify. The exam consisted of alphabetizing and vocabulary...and typing. All things that were well within in my wheelhouse. I didn't care or know how much I was getting paid for my position within the State Health Department. I did notice that my paycheck seemed to deduct a bunch of dollars for this and that; something called "Social Security" and other things I didn't understand, but that was neither here nor there. Shoot, I was still living at home, which was free, so all I needed was some clothes and new records.

All I knew about "credit" was my JC Penney charge card. Securing a place to live, in anticipation of my marriage, was contingent on what I liked; cost be damned. Payments? No problem. We perused the mobile homes on the sales lot. I was particularly enamored by the one with the black-and-white geometric kitchen linoleum and the harvest gold appliances. That's the one we got. Our mortgage, with zero down payment, figured out to be $149.00 a month. Everything else we came to own was secured through wedding gifts and hand-me-downs, including my console stereo. I did bring to the marriage a transistor radio.

I certainly didn't know how to cook, and was offended by the unreasonable expectation that I should. It was only after a fortnight of Kraft macaroni and cheese that I was informed a dinner of boxed dinners and toast would not suffice. I subsequently purchased the Betty Crocker cookbook, in a show of "cooperation". Thus began my too-brief immersion in cooking.

I soon quit my State job ~ I didn't even last there a full year. There was something (okay, someone) I didn't like. My pay was so low, one job was indistinguishable from another. Unfortunately, interviewing petrified me, so I nestled back in the bosom of my parents. They let me work for them again, not that I actually asked. I believe I just announced it. I panicked when faced with a new environment; I tended to not even give it a middling chance. Home was home. I knew the lay of the land, the arrangement of the furniture. I'd checked guests into our motel from the time I was far too young to be manning a cash register. Plus there was a lot of down time. I could read magazines, snatched from the rack. Mom had a fully-stocked refrigerator and I helped myself when I was hungry. And the motel office had a TV. It was like leisure time occasionally interrupted by work. I'd get up early, 5:30-ish, throw on some jeans, and scoot my blue '66 Chevy Impala across the Memorial Bridge, with nary another vehicle crossing my sight line. And back home by 2:30 in the afternoon, just in time for a nap.

Life, to me, at nineteen, still consisted of music. Music was number one, and if my new husband didn't get it, then that was unfortunate. I was more bonded to my little sister than I was to my husband, because she, at least, "got it".

I'd been a country music gal for so long, it was embedded in my bone marrow, but strangely, the songs I remember from 1974 are firmly Top Forty. One's exposure to music consisted of AM radio and television. There were still enough variety shows on TV that musical guests were de rigeur. I would sit through interminable comedy skits simply to see the hokey setup the show's producer had envisioned for the night's rock act, because he didn't trust that people would actually enjoy the music. Twenty-three minutes of torture simply to catch a two-and-a-half minute song. Truly, network television was awful. I guess people watched because they had no other choice but the Big Three, and the cathode rays hypnotized them.

There were tons of one-hit wonders in the seventies, and more power to them. Don't knock one-hit wonders. Do you think, I really enjoy the Dave Matthews catalog, or do you surreptitiously boogie out to the Hues Corporation?

I know what I do:

This was one of my little brother's favorites:

Grand Funk:

Some new girl singer, who'd, I guess, go on to make a movie, appeared on the scene in '74. She had a hyphenated name and was Australian, which was odd, because I only thought Americans made music:

 A song that will always scream "tornado!" to me (but that's a story for another time) was a hit in 1974:

Paper Lace had a big hit (and I didn't know there wasn't an east side of Chicago ~ geography was not my strong suit):

The biggest phenomenon of 1974 was ABBA; no question. '74 will always shout ABBA. 

'74 was a watershed year for me. Maybe it's because I was nineteen, embarking on adulthood. I'm not sure. I could include twenty more songs from that year. These will suffice. For now.

These tracks take me back to that black tile and to a time of utter obliviousness. 

We all have to grow up. I think it just took me longer than most.

Yay For Women Artists?

So CMT (which used to be a network), in a shameless publicity grab, decided to anoint all women as "artists of the year". First of all, if you've got about twenty of them, that kinda dilutes the artist of the year moniker. Secondly, who is CMT to decide anything? The only admirable thing CMT has done in the past thirty years is pick up the series Nashville after ABC canceled it.

I remember CMT when it was actually watchable. That's when the great Ralph Emery had a nightly talk show that featured real country artists, and when videos were broadcast that one could distinguish from crappy pop. Everything doesn't get better with age.

Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Maren Morris, Kelsea Ballerini, Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum, and Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman of Little Big Town were the honorees. I know what you're thinking ~ who now? I know Carrie Underwood from watching American Idol all those years ago, and I know Miranda from the tabloids. I didn't watch the telecast, but it seems that the gals honored those time-honored country artists Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight.

I understand that Carrie is a true country girl at heart, but she's a slave to radio and has to record the stuff that people (apparently) buy, but I don't really admire an artist who sells out. Doesn't she have enough cache now to record whatever the hell she wants? The gals paid lip service to Loretta Lynn and...apparently that's it....and sang a bunch of songs written by guys, which rather undermines the whole #women rule meme.

The problem I have with women who claim they're all powerful is that they seem desperate to prove it by whining a whole lot. That's not powerful; that's pitiful.

For those "artists of the year" who don't know country history (which seems to be all of them), here are some women who didn't whine:

The number one non-whiner was a broad who didn't give a damn that Roy Acuff and Faron Young were on the same bill. She knew she commanded the stage, and she didn't need a hashtag to tell the world she had arrived.

So, for all you Aretha and Gladys fans out there, here is some real country music:

But just keep thinking you're "all that". Those who don't know better will believe you. 

I am one who knows better.