She's Sherrie

Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka Sadly, we have lost another star from our galaxy by the name of Gene Wilder.  Depending on which biography you read about him, he was either 82 or 83 years old.  The younger generation may not recognize his name, but if you were a "moviegoer"  in the '70s, 80's or 90's, you know his name. He was an actor, and he also sang and danced very well.  I took my kids to see a movie called The Little Prince, in which he did both.  He played the part of a snake and danced throughout the film, a children's movie.  He was quite nimble and graceful, much to my surprise. He also played Willie Wonka in the movie  Willie Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. Another children's film.  As you may recall, Johnny Depp also played the part of Willie Wonka years later.  As much as I love Johnny, Gene Wilder's version wins the Best Willie Wonka Award. If you have kids or grandkids, they will enjoy both versions. Gene seemed to be at his best

Bowling Duck Pins I don't want anyone to think that the training we were going through was all fun and games.  Because it wasn't.  It was tough.  Every aspect of the training was shared with the entire class.  If you were a dummy, everyone in the room would know it.  It  wasn't like just reading procedures and then plopping us down at a desk with a phone on it and saying, "go to it, you've been trained."  It was detailed, in-depth, precise teaching and learning.  It was the most thorough and efficient training of any company by any company. I never experienced any training that could come anywhere close to it throughout my working career.  Ma Bell knew her stuff, and she made sure that we knew it too. I mentioned that we would read the material, and then we would practice what we learned, not just in the classroom but very quickly in training. We were sent up to the business office and took calls from real customers.  We only handled what we were being

Running late? We returned to the classroom to find that Jim was still there, and there was no meat missing from his bobo.  But he knew that we knew that we had to be at our best, no not our best, our most excellent behavior for the rest of the day.  We walked back into the classroom with halos and wings in place.  We liked Jim; we were going to make him proud.   And we did. We took our seats silently.  We dared not even look at each other.  Normally we were all sprawled all over the seats looking backward towards Jim, waiting on him to call the shots.  Not now, we dared not look at him, at anybody, we just kept our eyes glued to the front of the room or on the floor.  You could have heard a feather drop in the room.  The silence was overwhelming. We finished our role-playing and critique session.  It was hard to recognize ourselves as the same people that came into the same room every day acting the same, as fools.  We were acting like responsible young adults.  And it wasn&

Allergies? Normally, being stuck in a small classroom for a minimum of 8 weeks would drive me crazy.  Just being stuck in a small room with the door shut would bring out my claustrophobic side.  But this room and these people I was sharing the space with weren't bothering me.  I think I know why.  We were all crazy in our own way; we entertained each other, we had a good blend of different personality types to make it interesting. Lenny was the class clown.  No doubt, he had experience in this area. He was the Arnold Horshack of the training classes.  He was the disrupter, the guy with the one-liners,  He was the guy with the biting tongue of Ratso Rizzo and the Italian Stallion of the entire office. It was hard to keep a straight face around him.  He kept us from being bored. Jim, the instructor, the buzzed-haired, conservative with the pretty eyes, was the deceiver.  He gave the impression that he was a no-nonsense guy, that he didn't tolerate any kind of disruption

Monday, Monday.  Back at work.  First official day of training.  I was looking forward to it.  Something new.  Let's get this party started. The official training rooms were downstairs in the basement of the building.  There were 2 of them.  Our class occupied one and the other one would have a new class starting in  the other room in a week or two.  There would be a total of 8 newly trained reps in the near future. Our instructor's name was Jim.  By all appearances, he was a straight laced, no nonsense kind of guy.  He had a crew cut, he was a short haired guy in a long haired world.  Nobody wore their hair like that unless they were in the military and he wasn't.  He was a youngish guy, but it was hard to tell how old he was because the lack of hair made him look older.  In reality, he was just a few years older than any of us. He was very conservative, he dressed like a Ross Perot clone.  He wore white shirts, a suit and tie and black lace-up shoes.  Everyday.  He

Friday.  It was Friday.  Our last full day and night in San Antonio.  We had to make the most of it.  We slept until about 10 AM.  Then we had "the ritual" to go through.  Shower, shampoo hair, dry and style hair, and put on makeup.  And then our clothes, of course.  Now, we were ready to roll. We were going to the zoo, which was in Brackenridge Park.  We were in no hurry; we would just take our time and enjoy it.  It's been a few years since I was there, but I remember it as a nice zoo.  Nice meaning, clean, safe, and the animals were not all sleeping, and they looked well taken care of.  Over the years, I have changed my opinion about circuses and animal shows where animals are forced to perform for the public.  Knowing the cruelty imposed on animals that are forced to perform, I no longer support them or their cause.  A zoo is a little different, it can protect animals on the extinction list, and for the most part, the inhabitants are not poked, prodded, or beaten in