Re: send in jobs, last request
Guess I'll have to break down and take my turn.
As my parents and an aunt and two uncles (and later my sister) were all
teachers, it was assumed that I would be *thrilled* to go to college.
Not this little black sheep. I deliberately flunked out of my first
semester so I could go to business college. I went two years and loved
it enough to get good grades, and especially liked typing and dictaphone
work. It turned out that all my jobs have been dictaphone, not
shorthand, jobs. My first and most interesting job was for the State of
Illinois Department of Public Aid in Peoria from 1966-69, in the fall of
which I got married and moved to SW Wisconsin on a dairy farm. We were
there a year when Larry's folks sold the farm, and we moved all over
after that. I alternated working and raising three kids, and all my
other jobs from then on were in insurance. It was interesting to
progress from typing on Royal electrics and IBM Selectrics through IBM
memory typewriters and finally to computers. Of course I prefer
computers! My insurance employers in Phoenix couldn't figure out why I
liked to type so much, since no one else did! Guess they were glad to
have me; I stayed 11 years through two changes of ownership. And then we
moved to Springfield, MO and I worked a couple of places typing on
computers, but no more dictaphone work. Now I'm "semi-retired" but
still typing, I see! My present plans are to retype articles from local
iris bulletins and post them on the IRIS-L. We live with our sons who
own this house on 5 acres and work in town and let Larry and me keep the
house and grounds, shop, do the records, etc. for a *living*. Only in
the last few years have I become interested at all in plants, and we do
raise other things besides this first year of iris. My other interests
include genealogy, astrology, classical and country music (we never miss
Club Dance!) and READING! We have a huge library that we're just
starting to unpack after being here two years. I have all the gardening
books in my personal library space, among lots of others, including all
the ones from my childhood and my mother's diaries and gardening journal
(joy, joy!) We subscribe to probably 20 magazines and go to the library
sales. Guess we'll have to build another building for the library soon!
And that's my story!
Barb Johnson
ljohnson@cland.net
SW Missouri Ozarks, Zone 5b, 1/4 mile from the Big Sac River
