At 10 yrs old my father moved all 8 of us to Oregon. At 19 I moved to New York because I wanted to see the world and travel. Thats about when the “pilates” started in my lifel the journey of self discovery I which I was about to embark !
Here’s how it started…at 19 I was hired as a nanny by a Jewish family. I had applied through the college I was attending in Eugene Oregon for “Custom Overseas Maid Servce” .. I arrived and worked for this family for 3 weeks when I started feeling uncomfortable..I felt the ‘mother’ was somewhat insecure or something and became worse when she saw me enjoy my days off! That was the feeling I had anyway.. she became very cold and I started feeling uncomfortable. So there I was, in upstate NY., not wanting to leave, yet dreaded where I was commissioned for the next 3 months! I decided to take a walk one day and I ran across a 15 yr old girl Annie, who was posting signs that said “Nanny Job, Housekeeping.. etc”, I inquired about work, and she said SHE was looking for work. We spoke a bit more, one thing led to another and before I knew it, I quit the nanny job moved in with her and her mother just a few blocks away. Her mother was editor of The Village Voice magazine of Greenwich Village. I moved into their basement, Called my parents, asked them to send the ‘rest’ of my things, ski’s boots and poles, radio, the important things in life .. ya know! In the meantime, I was to work at the Village Voice the following day. I decided to go to a Temp agency on the way to the Village, and take a typing test. I did, and they sent me that day to work at a stock brokerage firm on Wall Street as a temp secretary for 8 high maintenance stockbrokers. I was to fill in for someone who was sick that day. One of the brokers, Pierre, was a frenchman that couldn’t get along with anyone except ME. Needless to say, the office manager offered me a job on the spot. I think its because being from a big family.. there were alot of different personalities I had learned to work with, so I adapted easily to anyone or anyplace. I never made it to the Village to work, but had rented my room in the basement of Annie and her mothewr. It was right along the Hudson River. I remember it clearly because I would get up at 5am to go running along the Hudson, rain, snow sleet.. whatever the weather, then back in time to catch the bus to the subway and then another subway to get downtown. Took me 2 hrs each way to commute to Wall Street.
There I was, a 19 yr old girl from Oregon, long brown hair that I would wear in braids most the time..walking down Wall Street to work smiling at all the passerbyers. Didn’t quite understand why no one would smile back at me.. hmm…perplexed, until I figured out that thats how people were raised in New York.! Oh well, as usual I quickly adapted as usual, and became more like ‘ them’!
For 9 months I worked on Wall Street, during the days of ‘liquid lunches’ and the ‘ticker tape’ parade when the ‘hostages’ returned home! This was 1980 or so! Time seems to have gotten away from me!
At that 9 month point, my girlfreind, Barbara, who was also a secretary, was fired, and she wanted to move to Florida~! Ok, that sounds good, I have always wanted to work at Disney World, OK !! So I gave my 2 weeks notice and we packed her car and drove south! I haven’t mentioned any of the ‘experiences’ I had in New York, except I grew up fast. From fast men, to fast living to long hours..a gal can grow up quite a bit in a short amount of time! Don’t let me forget to tell you my dinner with the office manager Bob who took me to dinner at a place called “A Little Quiet Table in the Corner” What does THAT tell ya! He had ulterior motives that I will not go into at this time, but will leave it to your imagination for now!
Florida! Working at Disney World because my sister was married at the time to a pro Baseball Player who had a fan that ran the custodial department at Disney World. AND, he and his wife let Barbara and I move in with them.. too good to be true I thought!
We arrived at their house and was quickly orientated to the ways of Disney. Picked out our white shirt and pants uniform. Picked up the broom and started cleaning the Magic Kingdom. Yes, that means following the horses during the parades and picking up after them! Barbara is a beautiful brunette and used to have issues wheeling the big garbage pail up Thunder Mountain. One time the can ran away from her and came crashing down the hill with garbage spilling out all over the place. We laughed and then both cried because we didn’t like custodial at all! We would come home at night and gorge ourselves on 1/2 gallon ice-cream bins smothered with peanut butter and Jelly! Stuffing our pain!! Which leads me to the ‘chocolate’ part of my story and started me on the crazy diet rollercoaster.! Although, I think my favorite was the protein diet! Now THAT was fun! Lots of bacon, steak, chicken, pork.. as much as possible, didn’t care about the fat content, in fact the more fat, the better it tasted!
I did try to make the best of it though. For instance at midnight, when the park closed, I would sweep Main Street at the Magic Kingdom all the way to Cinerellas Castle. It was there at that point that I would put my broom down, stand directly in front of the Castle, look out upon the empty street and start singing “Disney World…Disney World…” Just like I would watch the Kids of the Kingdom sing, during each parade. Yes, at that point, I was one of THEM, my dream.. to work in the ‘entertainment dept. Those jobs were tough to get, AND you had to have LOTS of experience. I made the best of my job anyway, by returning the next morning to sweep up Adventureland. My favorite was the Swiss Family Robinson Tree house. Now THAT was fun! I would be up in the tree early in the morning and pretend that I was Mrs. Robinson. Yelling out over the park calling her ‘boys’ to dinner. My supervisor would catch me periodically and yell, ” Kathleen ! Get out of that tree !” I would then giggle and finish my cleaning!
Until ONE DAY, something very magical happened! Barbara and I were sweeping in Adventureland and the Steel Drum Players (entertainment dept) said to us, ” you girls should not be sweeping! We will see what we can do to get you transferred to another department! WOW, our dreams came true! Entertainers had alot of clout at Disney World and we ended up becoming the very first tour guides at EPCOT Center that was about to open. We were so excited ! I kinda felt like I could relate to Carol Burnett, who started out cleaning and ended up having her own show !
Well, now this changed everything~! I would have to say, that was the best part of my life up until now. It was my favorite job of all time, up until now.
The story continues….
