Characterization

So to continue...I've known some real characters in my life. After Pablo and I got hitched, we moved to Osage - in Northern Iowa. I kept working for Gamble Robinson, the grocery wholesaler, as a traveling office manager. I flew out of Mason City in small planes up to Minneapolis and over to Green Bay, WI. Then I visited various small grocery wholesalers the company owned - helping install IBM System 32 computers and code produce for input into the system. Those computers were about the size of a couch - with a place to sit under the keyboard and a screen not much larger than my current cell phone screen. I didn't imagine back then I would have my own computer in my home one day.

That's the screen - to the left of the paper spindle, left of the keyboard. Tiny!

The first site I visited when I started traveling was in Menominee, MI - it's on the upper peninsula, just past Wisconsin. The branch there was a tiny thing - run by a guy with his aunt who was the office manager. They were nice as pie. In fact they fed me some! Plus all the other great food good Germans know about - man they can cook up there.  

 

How do you get sheets for this?

Aunt Betty was quite the character. A long time widow, she was in her 60's. Somehow I learned she had a heart-shaped bed. With silk sheets. TMI, you're absolutely right. She and I worked together for a couple weeks so I got to observe her office behavior. It was strange. She had badly colored and permed reddish brown hair. About once every half hour she'd begin feeling her head - to pat down her curls. Then Betty would snatch a pair of shears from her desk drawer and snip off a piece of hair - tossing it in the trash. Haircut selfie!

I finished up working in Menominee just before Easter. Betty gave me a box of homemade caramels. What a sweetie! My next stop was Sheboygan, WI where I experienced my first Sheboygan steak sandwich. Bitchin'! Whenever I watch Diners, Drive-Inns and Dives I think of that town. We watched the chef cook the steaks with onions and butter on a hot griddle we sat at the counter. Delish!

I enjoyed my time traveling in Wisconsin. I was in Fond Du Lac one time in July 1984 when I got the call from my dad that my sister Susi had given birth to my niece Leslie. #fondmemories.

One week I couldn't get a motel (it was some big air show), so I stayed with Paul's brother Denny and sister-in-law Kelli in Port Washington - just down from Sheboygan. It's beautiful country up there. I stayed in their daughter Karen's room. I'm sure son Joe was around somewhere along with their little dog Moe. None of them are really overt characters. Just plain nice people.

After nearly a year of travel, I was ready to stay home and live with my husband again. Heck - we were still practically newlyweds. I saw an advertisement in Osage for a computer person needed at Fox River - the woolen mill right in Osage. I got the job - no more traveling for me. I still love wearing their socks today. After keying orders in for 2 years, it took me a long time to forget the color codes. You can purchase their socks several places in Iowa - good stuff.