Doors Opening And Castles Of Sunshine

Emily Dickinson wrote:

What fortitude the soul contain
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming foot the opening of a door.

The door opens in many ways to all of us. When I was applying for a job at age eighteen after graduating

from high school, we used no resumes in those days. Hardly anyone I knew even owned a typewriter, there were no computers, IPods, cellphones or not one of us even owned our own car yet. When I went for the interview at a printing place office, the boss Meyer asked me what junior high I had gone to, that seemed even more important to him than what high school I attended and graduated from. He asked me to spell some words and one was the word mayonnaise. It seemed silly but can you believe it, I spelled it right and attained the job. I asked him later on why was mayonnaise so important to him. I thought he might have liked lettuce, tomatoes and mayonnaise sandwiches which were popular in the days of 1952. Just plain old veggies with mayo on them. You hardly see them in the menus of today’s restaurants; they were simple and inexpensive items on two pieces of plain white bread, not even toasted in those days. He said he found when he hired people and they could spell, then they became good employees and also had brain power. It seems silly now days for an explanation like that because everyone has a resume taken right off of their computers. Everything you ever did or accomplish is added to it and then, you pray it was enough to get you hired. Meyer liked that my junior high school was the only accelerated one in Baltimore and if you graduated from there, you were among the elite of all soon to be high school students. He liked mayonnaise and the Robert E. Lee #49 accelerated high school and used that as a criteria for hiring me so fast that early fall day way back in 1952.

I got the job and remained there for eight years and rose to the position of assistant to the CEO of this large and independent company. Every time, I eat some mayonnaise on a sandwich, I think of that eighteen year old young girl spelling that word for the intimidating person hiring me. I had come there on the bus and walked two blocks to the building and saw the words Diamond Press written on the outside. Perhaps, that is why I am partial to diamonds still today because that wording and job made it possible for me to be who I am today, at age seventy-seven years of age.

I met my husband through working there which I wrote about in a former column because I was instrumental in hiring Irving to work there and through him met my husband through a friend of his. So spelling mayonnaise was an important thing in my young life and as Emily said “the opening of a door” opened for me in an unusual way. When my brother needed another job for income, when he decided at age thirty-nine to become a pharmacist, he was able to study five days a week and during the weekends, drive a truck to deliver printed merchandise from the printing presses of the Diamond Press.So the door opened for him there because I suggested him for the part time job at the press and he was able to help support his family while attending college for a second degree at that age.

The door opened for Irving because he obtained work there through me, a stranger then, finding him quite the person to be hired for the printing plant. I did not open the door for Bill who was hired by a management resource man. He hired Bill and checked him out so good that when the second pay day came around and we paid our employees in cash in a small manila envelope. Bill had not come in that day, because his was a later shift. One woman came in and said “I am Bills’ wife and she signed for and obtained the salary envelope. About an hour later, another young woman came and said the exact same words and then we realized that Bill had two ‘wives’ and each knew not the other. When Bill finally arrived for his shift; Mr. Huber who had hired him and checked him out, said “your days here are over.” So the door closed for Bill and Mr. Huber got called down by the owner for not checking Bill’s verbal resume.

So no printed resumes then and verbal or not, everything had to still be the truth.

There is an expression that I heard recently that said “things can be the tonic of life.” Anything we accomplish can be a tonic or stimulant in our life and something can happen that opens a door to something else and that can lead to a meeting, a marriage, a vacation, a hobby, a relationship or a job.

My young friend just got engaged and when she showed me her pretty engagement ring, she made the comment “it is pretty good for a college boy.” That was I assumed to say that she was satisfied with its size and after all he does not have a lot of money to spend because he went back to get a further college degree. So the size of the gem was not important, it was the meaning of the ring to her and that is the way it should be. I had a friend who when her daughter got engaged, the mother-in-law to be was dissatisfied with the size  of the stone and told her daughter to get it put in a larger setting to make it seem large. I told her, she should not interfere, the daughter loved the ring and the size of the diamond was not important. A door had opened up to her and she did not want her mom to close it by criticizing the width of the gem.

Verbal resumes, small rings, doors opening have one thing in common. The verbal resume of the 1951 era was all there was then and we either got the job or we did not. We did not have to wait for other than perhaps a phone call to insure we obtained the position. Small rings or large rings in the 1951 era were not important; what was memorable was that we met someone who we wanted to spend the rest of our life with. Doors opening for opportunities were more significant and momentous than spending hours and days writing down all our accomplishments. We could verbally tell the future employer who we were, how we wanted this particular position and ask how much the salary was going to be paid to us. There were no perks of health insurance, sick days, paid holidays or holiday bonuses. We were feeling lucky if we got a ten cent an hour increase after a year or two.

That is not to say now that perks are unimportant, they are and they have become a necessity of a good job. We were innocent in those days of these things and were just glad to obtain work whether we had a college degree or not. My brother was a college degree man and when he got a job and they promised him a year later he would be transferred to Springfield, Illinois and have a finer opportunity in their business there, he said yes. My dad warned him to get it all in writing and he did not. After moving his wife and baby daughter, there, they reneged on their promises and things did not go well and they moved back here to be closer to both families. My dad was right in asking him to get it written but in those days, it was not that way that Dad thought it should be. Of course, Dad was correct in his assessment of the verbal offer.

So doors open and doors close and even if you have a door costing ten thousand dollars like a former friend obtained many years ago for her new home after she won the lottery here; the doors do not always open for gladness.She found out that the ten thousand dollar door did not always open up to things she wanted and could not obtain with her new fortune. She wanted to have a grandchild and she never did get one.

We should all hope and pray for when the doors open as Emily said, they bring in warmth, happiness opportunity, love, jobs and good health. Emily did use this line in another poem “light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine.”

Perhaps, the door opening into a breeze of sunshine could be our new motto. We all open our doors and hope our castle will be full of sunshine, light, brightness and most of all happiness in any way we can have it.We also wish for good health, fine family, beautiful grandchildren and great opportunities looking our way.

May all your doors and entrances to your home, whether it be a condo, a house or an apartment, always be open for even more joy than you can imagine. Let our life laugh and smile every day in our castle of sunshine.