My first REAL job was working at a convalescent Hospital in the laundry room. Our friend Lynn Bench worked there and told me about the job. Lynn Bench was an unusual person in herself. She was an only child. Apparently had some kind of a health issue and her parents decided she should not attend public school. She was going to school by correspondence course. Back then there was no such thing as Home Schooling. So...Lynn didn't have any friends. She was a Seventh Day Adventist so we got to know her. The Bench's lived in a mobile home next to a railroad track and her best friends were the guys on the train that she waved to each evening. So... we started going to the Bench's house on Saturdays AFTER SUNSET to watch TV. Later on Lynn moved to Petaluma and had a baby --- all by herself. Nobody at her job knew that she was pregnant. No prenatal care, no doctor present. She was half Indian and proud of it, so she just figured she could squat and have the kid...she did!! Judy and I visited her in Petaluma once...she was doing OK.
Anyway, I got this job at the laundry. It was a good job for a first job. I washed, dried and folded laundry for 8 hours each afternoon/evening. Mind you... the laundry was from old people that peed and pooped their beds!! But...I didn't mind..it was a job and I got $1.25 an hour!! Way better than the $.50 an hour I got babysitting.
Talk about babysitting...I hated babysitting!! Judy started babysitting and I just fell into it. I started on New Years Eve one year... ALL the Palmer's needed a sitter...so they used me as well as Judy and JoAnn. I always wore a leather belt when I babysat. I would spank those bratty kids if they stepped out of line with no remorse at all. Heck...they had it coming to them!! When I told them to do something...they should do it. Some people are just naturally loving to children...not me. In my early teen years I said I'd never have children--why would anyone want any??? Thank goodness I matured as life moved on. And once I had my own kids...I found that maternal feeling and have loved them ever since!! (even though I kept a yardstick handy all the years my own kids were growing up).
So... back to the laundry job. I had this boss that thought he was pretty important. When he came to the hospital everyone was on their best behavior. So...shortly after I started the job he came into the laundry one evening and told me he needed help getting something from the storage room. Once in the room he started to put his arms around me and pull me close...NOT HAPPENING--- not with me it wasn't!!! I flat out told him NO WAY, get your darn hands off of me!!! He never tried that again.
So... I worked with Lynn Bench and David and Daniel Mortensen. David and Daniel were twins, and they were LDS. Both boys were working to earn money to go on missions. I had no idea what that was all about, but it sounded cool. Daniel and I hit it off right away and went out a few times. We even went to Pt Reyes to shoot a pistol he bought. Back then you could just walk into a sporting goods store and walk out with a gun. So.. both guys started telling me a bit about their church, but I wasn't much interested. Finally they went on their missions and I never heard from them again.
Sometime while I was working at the laundry I remember my parents telling me they were going to Oakland to tour the new LDS Temple there. My sisters wanted to go so I told them I'd babysit Tommy Joe. I just wasn't interested in seeing the Temple at that time. I had no idea what THAT Temple would mean to me years later. David and I were sealed in that Temple...and it will always be "my" Temple!!! Anyway, my parents and sisters had a nice visit, thought the Temple was beautiful but didn't understand why the LDS church needed it.
I didn't hear anymore about the LDS church until David told me about it years later...
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