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Tribute: The Final Kay

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Photogenic Kay Well, here it is, 2020 already. I wrote this for Kay in 2017, hoping she might read it. She had been very ill for some time, but I could not confirm any details until recently. Unfortunately, Kay passed away last January from complications of diabetes. I had been searching for information about her without any luck. Last month, I had a temporary gig as an admin for a Facebook group for former Bell System employees.  I found her name on some information that had not been posted promptly.  One of my friends was kind enough to forward her obituary to me. When you read her obituary, you will see how artistic and talented and loved she was. She was a slow burner; it took Kay years to find true happiness and love, but on the way, she endeared herself to us by making us laugh, helping us if we needed it, and watching her grow. She loved and was loved. About our Kay. When I started working in the Business Office, I met and became friends with many great people.  
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Tribute: Sandy K. A Big Heart In A Little Package

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 Some of you will know part of my story, some will not. This remembrance is for a young lady I met in the summer of 1975.  But she will not get to read it, because she has passed from this life, on to somewhere that pain and sickness and sorrow are no longer present.  Sandy left our world on August 19, 2021, after a battle with cancer.   In 1975, I transferred to the North Business Office in Dallas, Tx., from the National Yellow Pages Office in Downtown Dallas.  I was going to be in a training class that would be about 8 or 9 weeks long but the other members of my class had not been released to the business office yet.  That meant that I had a designated job of doing everyone's junk work that they couldn't do because they were tied up on the phone with customers.  This is how I met Sandy. Now, Sandy was not in the group that I would be assigned to, she was in another group but we all worked for the same manager, Jerry Brantley.  I was passed around like a box of tissues during
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Our Nation's Capitol: Under Seige

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  January 6, 2021, The Day the Music Died for the USA. What the holy hell transpired today? Where were troops to protect our democracy and our elected legislatures? Why were Anarchists not arrested? Why are our symbols of democracy and freedom not protected adequately? Why did Marion Bowser not send in assistance until over three hours later? What is wrong with Trump supporters who think they can defile our government?  (We know the answer to that one. Trump) What are you going to do about it? Here is what you can and should do. ***********************************************************************************  Text Resist to 50409 for Resistbot.  You can write to your Senator and Congressperson regarding how you feel about the Anarchy at the Capitol today. You can tell them how you feel about Trump and his enablers in the Senate and House being co-inciters of the violence we witnessed today.  All communications are recorded by staff, counted, and acknowledged by the recipients to the
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A Very Covid Christmas, December 25th, 2020

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Ma Bell: The Panty Bandit

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Working in the Business Office back in the day could be strange at times. In the present day, this would be referred to as a Call Center. You would think that all of the calls coming in were run of the mill requests for some type of service, maybe a billing question, or a complaint.  However, we sometimes got bizarre calls, and sometimes from extraordinary people. You can reference A Call From Marnie on my blog to read an example of the strangeness.  And while we all did get some weird calls from customers, I personally never expected to get an x-rated complaint about an employee. But it happened. Our office was always hectic.  It was the growth area for the Dallas area.  New apartment complexes and homes were being built and spreading over the North Dallas suburbs at an incredible rate.  Most of the apartment dwellers were young, single people. Due to all of the growth in the area we served, we were horribly busy all of the time.  Looking back on it, it was kind of a nightmare.
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MA Bell: The United Nations

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Old School Dallas, Tx. I had only worked a few days before the end of 1973.  But I had seen enough to form my opinions on some of the people I was working with.  There seemed to be two different sets of rules in the office—one for the "elders" and one for the young people.  I don't think that I ever worked with so many judgmental people over 35 years of working.  Some of them were flat out rude and were never rebuffed for any of the things spewed out of their mouths.  There was a lot of tension in the office caused by that.  Most of the office employees had worked together for a long time, and that was the problem.  The office supervisor was part of that group and couldn't or wouldn't stand up to them, a little of both, really. Two of the young people in the office were African Americans, but back then, they were referred to as blacks, which was not a demeaning term.  One of the nastiest women in the office, Peggy, would refer to them as "colored g
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Tribute: A Visual Requiem For Jeff, Only The Good Die Young

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 On September 29, 2006, I said goodbye to my son for the last time.  He died shortly after 1:00 am after suffering horribly for 3 months from stage 4 colon cancer.  He was only 34.  From the time of his diagnosis to his death was only 3 and 1/2 months. It has been 13 years today since his death, and I still miss and mourn him every day.  I would like nothing better than to see him and talk to him at least one more time.  Unfortunately, that will never happen again. The only thing I can do now is keeping him alive in my thoughts, and I do that every day; not a single day goes by that I don't think about him. The picture to the left is one of my favorites of him.  He had just made Staf Sergeant, and he was the youngest one in the Marine Corps at that time.  I believe he was 23, almost 24.  This picture was taken at the Marine Corps Ball in Dallas, Texas.  He was healthy and happy and handsome. He had everything going for him. And he was happy.    This picture was taken i
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Radar Love

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Radar Gun The Grammies were great.  Keep in mind it was back when they were entertaining. There were no crazy Kanye West protest speeches, there were no disrespecting fellow artists, and thankfully, there was no Gangster Rap category.  But there was a lot of talent and a lot of great music.  The Eagles, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, Barry Manilow, just to name a few of the great ones. And there was Bali Hai. And a guy named Terry.  A cop with a gun, a radar gun, and another gun.  But he only brought one of those three with him.  You figure it out. His radar gun is what got my attention initially, sitting in his cop car running radar on people on the main road. And at the time, I thought, why is this cop sitting in this parking lot being a jerk?  Upon meeting him, I thought the very least I could do for my fellow citizens was to keep him distracted.  That's right, I threw myself on his radar gun to save John Q. Public.  And it w
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