Probably More Than You Wanted to Know

Catherine tagged me to post seven things no one knows about me on my blog. I am flattered. I've never been tagged for anything before. So here goes:

1. When I was in college, my dad was commanding officer of the Coast Guard base in Southwest Harbor, Maine. The first summer that I went home to Maine, I worked at the local fish factory, packing sardines. The tools of my trade were sharp scissors for cutting off the heads and tails, and adhesive tape for wrapping around the fingers of my left hand – so I wouldn’t accidentally chop them off along with the heads and tails. There was a factory bus. When a boat came in with a load of fish, the factory whistle would blow. It could be heard for a couple of miles. The whistle was the signal to get ready for the bus to pick you up. The bus was a good thing, since after packing for a few hours, you generally smelled rather strongly of fish and wouldn’t want to stink up your own car. Most of the packers were older ladies who had done it for years. The second summer, I worked as a waitress at a lobster restaurant in Bar Harbor.

2. Since I started my job with the DISD in August, I have kept a log of what I wear every day. It is a Word document titled “What I Wore”. You see I work at three different schools, and I was afraid I would wear the same thing every Friday. Since I only see the people at that school once a week, that would be weird. Of course, they’d probably think I was weird for keeping the log if they knew.

3. Our family has hosted 5 foreign exchange students. Our first was Shinya Fukumori from Osaka, Japan. He played the drums and went to the Arts Magnet with Stephen and Emma in the 01/02 school year. I actually ran into Shinya a few months ago, playing with a small jazz ensemble at Northpark Mall! The second was Barbara Klonk from Hofheim, Germany. She played the trombone at Arts and was with us for the 02/03 school year. We skipped a year and then hosted Laerke Buch from Odense, Denmark. That was Emma’s senior year at Arts – 04/05. She played the bassoon! We skipped another year during which I had a bad case of empty nest syndrome, so last year, 06/07, we hosted 2 boys who went to North Dallas HS. They were SeWon Ha from Seoul, Korea and Rene Galuba from Gera, Germany. They were all great kids! And all of their pictures, except Shinya’s are posted on this blog somewhere.

4. I once worked for Northeast Airlines in Boston. It was my first “real” job after graduating from college. What?? Never heard of them. Maybe that’s because they were bought out by Delta in 1972. In the fall of 1971, I interviewed for a stewardess job (that’s what they called it then). I didn’t get it but was called back and hired as a reservationist. An interesting aside to this story is that I really tried to dress the part for the first interview. I thought I looked pretty good – and so did a guy from my student Ward in Cambridge. I was walking toward him in Harvard Square and could see him looking me over appreciatively. When he got to my face, he became flustered and said – “Oh hi Mary, I didn’t realize it was you!”

5. Bill and I have had season tickets to the Dallas Opera for many years. We took a 2-year sabbatical while I was in nursing school, but have re-subscribed this year.

6. Rebecca Nurse is my eighth great grandmother. She was hanged for witchcraft in 1692 in Salem. I discovered this at BYU when I was simultaneously reading “The Crucible” for a class and working on my genealogy. When I read that Arthur Miller had used the real names of the people involved in the witchcraft hysteria for his play, I remembered that I had recently traced some ancestors back to Salem in the 1600’s. So I checked, and there they were – Francis Nurse married to Rebecca Towne!

7 When I was laid off from Sabre, I was walked out of the building. This was almost exactly 4 years ago. I was a programmer and my job probably went to India.

Seven other things you may already know: 1) I am a school nurse, 2) I am a lot older than my seven or so readers, 3) I served a mission in England from October of '75 to April of '77, 4) I was born in Massachusetts, 5) Bill and I are temple workers, 6) I rarely wear makeup, 7) I have 1 cat and 2 tortoises.