Christmas Countdown 2023 …. Day 4
On the off chance you missed posts last week, we are counting down to Christmas with a walk down memory lane from some of the multiple part time jobs I have held over the years. We will be doing that Monday – Friday. Saturday will be a catch up day for our holidays this year and Sunday I am sharing an Advent devotion. You are up to speed so let’s go!
My very first paid job was raking leaves for C’Zelma Crosby at the start of my fifth grade year in school. You don’t know her but with a name like that you probably wish you had. She lived across the street from us on Meadow Lane in the lovely little Kentucky town my parents moved to in the summer before my fourth grade year.
After my dad retired from the Air Force, he had taken up tuning pianos and decided to give a shot at being the Director of Civil Defense for the city of Louisville, Kentucky. We had moved for what I hoped would be the last time to my parents’ hometown. My grandma and aunt lived a few miles from us and I had friends and a school and a neighborhood swimming pool that I got to enjoy for two summers before I came home one day and saw a “For Sale” sign in our yard.
Dad didn’t like the political side of his job and so he had researched and applied for the chance to start the Air Force Junior ROTC program at the high school in Danville. We moved towards the end of summer and there we remained until I graduated from high school. Our house was one of many built on old farm ground.
Dogwood Lane led to Meadow Lane and all the remaining streets indicated what part of the land had been cleared for houses. Dogwoods abounded, as you might guess, along with other mature trees and fall meant leaves in abundance carpeting the whole area.
C’Zelma’s house backed up to a veritable forest of trees. They were probably original to the property as they edged the old farm house that still remained near the entrance to the subdivision. She was at least eighty years old, if not one hundred and so she talked to my mom about hiring me to rake her leaves.
The wage was 50 cents a bag which sounded good to me since I knew that’s what teenage babysitters were getting per hour for all the kids under a roof plus any friends who showed up while the parents were out. So on crisp fall days after school, I would grab the rake and head over to Miss C’Zelma’s house.
She had big black bags handy and often as not would come out and help hold the bags as I scooped in leaves. I found the work harder than I had imagined. I had not counted on the blisters the rake handle would make on my hands nor the back breaking feel of the continuous swiping. I would work for quite a while filling bags and gazing up at the arsenal of foliage still clinging to the branches over my head.
My young eyes took hope as I counted the bags on leaving at the end of a session. Adding up the quarters helped lift my spirits, but invariably when I showed up for the next round C’Zelma would have squashed down those dried contents and I would have to add more to each one.
More hours given, no more bags to charge to my account. It was frustrating and I will have to say my first taste of not liking my job. It was also my first taste of getting caught by my employer having a bad attitude and having her speak to my mother. Sigh.
After she had a little heart to heart with my mom and my mom had a big heart to heart with me, I swallowed back my unpleasant service and finished out the season trying not to count the bags and just accepting my pay as it came. As I remember, I was a one and done on this particular assignment.
While I didn’t enjoy raking her leaves, I very much loved going to visit C’Zelma in her home for social reasons. A taskmaster of the lawn bag business, she was a different person in her home. I failed to mention she had suffered a stroke somewhere along the years, which made one side of her face droop.
One eye was pulled a bit down and the side of her mouth was pulled into an odd slant. C’Zelma carried a handkerchief to dab the inevitable seeping that occurred when she talked. But there was a beauty to her that a stroke and years of wear and tear wrinkling could not steal.
An accomplished musician, she had friends over to play “chamber music” quite frequently. On a few occasions, I was invited to sit in a stiff chair and listen to a concert of classical music. It was so foreign to the pop culture of The Archie’s and Jackson Five and most welcome to the old soul that was already beating inside of me.
Her house was an absolute treasure trove of antiques. It smelled kind of musty in a good way and she served tea in china cups. She would let me come and listen and sip tea on those fancy chairs and it was pretty special. Apparently she forgave me for my errant leaf-raking efforts.
The season of her presence in my life was just two years at most, but I smile to think she was my first employer.
And come on…with a name like C’Zelma Crosby, why wouldn’t she have etched a sweet spot in my work history memories. I think she would have smiled that half smile quite wide and there would have been a dance in those eyes if she had known I would grow up and give birth to a violinist who loves to make music with friends.