Day 7...City Slicker!!

1968….I decided living in Coupeville was BORING!!! I thought I’d go to Seattle and look for work. I stayed at a friend’s apartment and she helped me find a job at the Vernell’s candy factory. Now that was hard work!!! I would station myself at the end of the conveyor belt and inspect the mounds of chocolate that would come down the belt and into the boxes. When the boxes got full I would pick them up and put them in a pile and go back to the next box. If the mounds came out with no chocolate, I was to push the emergency stop button to cancel the conveyor belt and refill the chocolate. Have you ever seen the segment on the “I Love Lucy Show”? Lucy and Ethyl working at the candy factory and eating the candy and stuffing them everywhere when the belt started going faster? Yep. That was me!! I lasted two days at that job!! I could hardly make it out of bed the next day, and crawled to work and just couldn’t make it the full day! I moved back home and was working in the beet fields and was pushed off the tractor by a big dirt clod!! I tried Seattle again and found a job at the “Fred Astaire Dance Studio” as a dance “instructor. I was 19 years old and they told me I would travel around and possibly go to Vegas and the clubs. I told them I was under age, and they said no problem, they would get me a fake ID card. I told my dad (the cop), and he put a halt to that right away!! It was a Call Girl ring!! Now that would’ve been exciting!! I was so naïve in those days. I had “Country Bumpkin” written all over me!!
I stayed at the YWCA in Seattle for a few days while looking for work again and took a test for the Bell Telephone Company. While waiting for the test results, I went across the street on First Avenue to a café for some coffee. The owner came up to me and offered me a job if I didn’t get the job at the Telephone Company. I was really excited for that!! He asked me to come back that evening to look at an apartment he would let me live in if I worked for him. Luckily I got the job at the Telephone Company. I was told later that he was a pimp!!! (Country Bumpkin again!!). To celebrate the job at the Phone Company, I went out with a gal I met at the YWCA to a dance. I was dancing and met a neat guy. We went walking the City after the Dance then he walked me back to the YWCA. The doors were locked. I didn’t know the rules there were so strict that they locked the doors at a certain hour. He said I could stay at his place and he snuck me into the YMCA. I got scared so we left there and ended up at the Space Needle area, and found a shack to go rest in. We fell asleep and a guard woke us up in the morning. I felt really cheap then!! We didn’t do the no-no, but I still felt cheap!! My make-up was smeared all over my face, my dress was all wrinkled, and I really looked BAD!! I got back to the YWCA and got cleaned up then went home.
I found an Apartment in Seattle two blocks away from the Greyhound Bus station. The Telephone Company was on Third Avenue 11 blocks away. I could take a bus home. The gals there would teach me how to apply make-up, and put on false eyelashes. I remember once I was on the bus and it was HOT!! I smiled at everyone and they smiled back and looked away. My eyes felt sticky from the eyelash glue and the heat. When I got to work I looked in the mirror and noticed the eyelashes stuck to the upper lid of my eyes instead of down by my eyelashes where I glued them!! HAHAHAHA. No wonder everyone was looking away smiling! I thought they were just thinking “what a nice gal”!! HAHAHAHA!!
I went to a party at a girl’s house that I worked with one night. We had beer and wine and then we all sat on the floor in a circle and they brought out a pipe. They lit it and passed it around. I thought that was pretty weird!! I smoked Marlboro’s. City people do strange things. They told me to take a puff when it came around so I did then blew it out. They said NO!! Ya gotta keep it in your lungs for as long as you can!! So I did, and it made me dizzy. I got the giggles and couldn’t stop laughing. I was told I now smoked pot!! OH MY GOD!!! I got really scared!! I had no idea what that was in 1968!! It just wasn’t in the town I was from. I walked home that night alone in downtown Seattle. Walking through the city was weird. The nightlife was all over the streets. I stopped at a place for coffee and watched the action on the street. 5th and Pike Street was the place for prostitution!! I was fascinated!! I somehow got home safe and sound.
Another night I was walking home and noticed a man behind me. This was a dark street one block from my apartment, so I started walking faster. He started walking faster. I slowed down, he slowed down. I got scared and started walking faster then ended up running to my apartment building. I got to my door and looked down the hall. He was coming at me pulling his penis out of his pants!!! I got in my apartment just in time and slammed the door. I didn’t have a phone, so I pounded on the wall for the neighbors and yelled to them to call the cops!! The Police showed up and I let them in. My apartment was a studio with a fold down bed, and long narrow kitchen with the refrigerator at the end of the kitchen, and a small bathroom. The one cop came out of the kitchen and asked if I knew there was a kitchen door. I said NO!! Behind the refrigerator was another door that opened up to the hall. It was wide open!! Thankfully the Police were quick to respond and must’ve startled the guy as he was getting my kitchen door open!! I described him and they showed me a picture of him!! I said YES that was him!! He had raped and murdered a woman the week before, and raped another one. Bud Buttendahl (one of the cops with beautiful blue eyes) met me after work every night to give me a ride home. I started dating him. He was a real sweetheart!! After two months of working at the Phone Company I came down with strep throat. I tried to call in sick but I did not have the time in the books, so I went to work. They sent me to the doctor and he said I wasn’t allowed to go to work because I was contagious. I went to work to tell them, and they said well I guess you don’t work here any more!! So that was the end of my career at the telephone company and my life in the big city!! I was actually happy to get back home to my comfy little safe town!!
Tomorrow….Back to Parties!!!!!