The Crab Chronicles

The Office of Long Ago

I started a new job recently, working from home at my own computer, and it has provoked me into a fascinating reminiscence about how much things have changed since I started my professional life after I finished paralegal school.

To People Now Under 35, Yo Dog: It's a different world now. So kids, if you make it past 50 years old, you will probably find yourself occasionally sitting outside your home, thinking back, into the past, before flying cars and virtual families and vegan hotels.

Looking back is a Rite of Passage -- Google that.

I was once young [really] and I well remember my mother telling me about what it was like to work at Sears here in Atlanta when she was young -- the ginormous old store on Ponce de Leon, back in the early 1950's. I couldn't believe she would have to wear high heels and either a skirt or dress just to work in a department store. She said by the end of her shift her feet would be killing her. No kidding. She also wore a girdle, and stockings, styled her hair and wore full makeup. Salesladies had to look proper and ladylike, y'all. (I thought the entire scenario sounded hideously stressful.) Then she had to wait until leaving the store before she could wear loafers and walk or ride the bus home.

When I finished my program at The National Center for Paralegal Training and had to start interviewing for jobs my mother had to buy me an interview suit. One always wore a suit, pantyhose, heels, and full hair and makeup. 

See the photo at left, here? This was made a few years after I started working but I could have worn that to a job interview. I was just out at lunch with the family though, so I felt free to push up the sleeves of my blazer which wouldn't have happened in a job interview.

Fashion wasn't the only thing that was different.

Right -- me in paralegal school, with a 1980's perm. All my roommates persuaded me to go to a fancy salon in Buckhead and pay a ridiculous price to get a perm, and sit outside sipping white wine while it made my already curly hair even more curly. I thought I was something else. When I got home to Knoxville and went with my mom to a hair appointment with the man who had been cutting my hair since I was a child I had to endure a scolding from my stylist, who was like a second father to me and made me cry.

BTW has anyone else ever thought it ironic that such a thing is called a "permanent" when it's so NOT actually permanent? You have to get another one every six months or so.

I started working at a very traditional law firm in Knoxville right after paralegal school. There was one other paralegal at the firm and she was afraid I had been hired to replace her so she refused to help me with anything. I found it very puzzling. I didn't find out about her fears until about a year after I started, when she was still employed and confessed to me as to why she had been so mean. Fortunately, the secretaries and young lawyers felt sorry for me and pretty much took me in hand and helped me learn.

Here's how it was back then:

I didn't get my own office right away. I got a desk in a corner of an ancient secretary's office.

I had no computer and not even a typewriter. I used a handheld dictaphone and the secretaries typed my work for me when they had time.

I had to get permission from the office manager to send a fax.

I had rarely ever used a copier and I remember standing at the massive copier making copies for hours. It didn't collate or staple.

Paralegals had to sometimes Bates stamp documents. Now it's done by computer. Then, it was done with a handheld machine that made one's hand hurt miserably after about an hour.

I was often asked to "run this down to the courthouse and file it" when the college kid who was the runner wasn't there. I kept tennis shoes at my desk so I could cover the four blocks to the courthouse swiftly. (Now everything is filed electronically, on the court's website.)

I was often asked to do a lot of things paralegals are not asked to do now, for instance: make coffee for the attorneys, go out and pick up lunch for everyone in a deposition, pick up my boss from the car dealership and take him to work, pick up the attorney's dry cleaning, clean up the conference room, answer the phone when the receptionist was out sick, drive to some far-off county to file something, etc.

I didn't mind doing anything that got me away from my desk, actually.

In my first few years as a paralegal I was referred to as "Kiddo," "Honey," "Deebaby," "Girl," "My gal," etc. It never bothered me. One attorney referred to me jokingly as "my parasexual" which actually did annoy me, but he was always teasing everyone so nobody paid any attention to him.

The office Christmas party, at the two firms I worked for in Knoxville, consisted of the secretaries and paralegals making a big feast and serving it to everyone in the biggest firm conference room. Attorneys paid for turkey and ham. When everyone was finished eating we could leave for the day, as long as the conference room was spotlessly clean. I was just happy to get the afternoon off to go home and sleep off the food coma.

 

After I had been a paralegal for about a year my father came by my office one day -- we worked in the same building and he knew all the attorneys I worked for -- and slapped a paper down. "That's your registration to take the LSAT," he said. [The LSAT is the entrance exam for law school.]

We had never discussed me going to law school. Ever.

"You want me to go to law school?" I said, startled.

"I know you can get into UT. I know people at the law school. I'll pay all your expenses, so you can concentrate on school," he said, smiling. I was an honors student in college. He knew I could ace law school if I made the effort.

"But Dad, I don't want to be a lawyer."

I had actually pondered the idea, but decided against it because 1) reading case law is really boring to me and 2) young lawyers work 50-80 hours a week, for years, and have no social life. I wanted to get married and have a baby I could actually raise instead of handing the child to a nanny or daycare. I should have explained all that to Dad, but I didn't, not then anyway.

I'll never forget the look of disappointment on his face, though.

I've never regretted that decision. Law school is very challenging and you really need to be committed to it in order to succeed. I had my mind on too many other things to make that kind of commitment in my 20's, and in my 30's I was too intent on finding a husband to be able to go back to school successfully.

I found out years later that my father had turned down a full scholarship to Emory Law School after he finished his master's in business. He chose to go into the Army instead. He wanted to be an officer and would have made a fine one except he failed the entrance exam to officer's candidate school. He swore my mother to secrecy about the law school scholarship. She kept her promise until he was dead.

In hindsight, I wish he had told me about it because it would have made it easier for me to understand why he was so intent on me being a lawyer.

I also found out just a few years before my mother died that when she was young she had wanted to be a lawyer, but her uncle (a lawyer in Macon) told her parents it would be a waste of time, since she would just quit being a lawyer as soon as she got married and had children. They persuaded her to give up the idea and be a teacher. She would have been an excellent lawyer. It was very rare then for a woman to go to law school, unfortunately.

Anyway, things work out as they should in my life. I firmly believe that.

I also appreciate the fact that I can do paralegal work at home, wearing pajamas 95% of the time. No more suits or pantyhose!

Hallelujah.

Sharing Family Lore

I spent a good bit of time this week putting together a Powerpoint about my father's parents and their descendants. I enjoyed doing it. I have a ton of old photos on my computer, and I know a lot of stories. Powerpoints are a great way to share stories and photos. Once they become really large Google converts them to a link, which makes sharing much easier.

What prompted me to do it was that I shared the handkerchief story with one of my first cousins and she had never heard the story.

That got me to thinking.

My parents told me lots of anecdotes and stories about Dad's parents because they died before I was born, and Mom and Dad wanted me to know about them. I loved hearing about them. To me, they were the grandparents in the paintings. My uncle Lewis Thompson did oil portraits of both of them, using photos, in the late 1950's. Those portraits hung in the living room of our home, for years. It was a revelation to me to realize that my cousins, the children of my father's two brothers, were not told all the stories that I was told. I got to thinking, how will future generations hold on to these stories?

I enjoy creating Powerpoints, so I spent hours putting together a Powerpoint about Thompson and Cordelia, and their three sons, and the subsequent generations.

A hundred years from now I hope one of the descendants of Thompson and Cordelia [pictured at left] will have access to this Powerpoint and be interested in learning about their ancestors who lived in the late 19th and 20th centuries. We are so blessed to have the ability to put together these Powerpoints and save them.

Right, a wonderful photo showing my parents and Dad's two brothers and their families. My parents are at the far left. Mom was pregnant with my older brother. Of the four small children pictured, they are all now in their 60's and only two of them have children, but that's fine. The children and grandchildren are hopefully the ones who will preserve the family photos and lore.

I also did Powerpoints about each of my parents, and about my maternal grandparents.

If I had a Powerpoint -- or even just a photo album -- about my ancestors I would treasure it. I know so little about the generations beyond my grandparents.

Do you have family photos and/or stories to share? Consider doing a Powerpoint. Someday, your descendants will thank you.

A Relic from World War I

In 1917 a young man from Georgia is far from home, getting ready to head to the battlefield in France and do his part. He stops in Paris and tries to find some small gift to send home to his mother. He wanders through shops filled with expensive perfumes and smaller items, but he doesn't have much money for luxury goods. Finally, he finds an inexpensive handkerchief in a small shop, and

he buys it, and pays to have it mailed home, to a small farm in Dooly County, and his weary widowed mother who is still raising children.

Above is that handkerchief.

I now have this modest little item and it's one of my most cherished possessions. I do not have anything else that was bought by my grandfather Algernon Thompson (who died before my birth) and I certainly don't have anything that was owned by his mother, my great grandmother Annie Lewis Thompson.

I treasure this little handkerchief.

It is falling apart. I gently lifted it out of the box and it split at every seam. However, the embroidery threads are still vivid, as you can see, and the lace is intact.

I left the photo large on purpose, so you can see the handkerchief and appreciate it.

I doubt anyone would offer me much money for it, even a museum of fabrics, but to me it is priceless.

When I touch it, I am linked to my grandfather, and linked to his mother. I am literally linked to them, through this modest piece of cloth.

I find that profoundly moving.

This is part of why I find History so fascinating.

I cannot imagine what it must have been like to live on a farm in South Georgia between 1888 and 1904. I cannot imagine a home without electricity or indoor plumbing. I cannot imagine having to quit school and go to work, so my mother and my 7 younger siblings can stay together, and keep the land. Yet, such was the life of my grandfather, Algernon Lewis Thompson. He spent many years working and sending money home to his mother, and many years as a professional soldier, delaying marriage until his mother and siblings were able to manage for themselves. 

Thompson is pictured at right, in the lower left-hand corner. My father looked a LOT like Thompson.

 

at left, Dad as a young man with me and my brother, about 1962

 

 

The lady who raised my grandfather was always referred to as "Annie Lou Lewis Thompson" but in doing some research I found that her name was actually Augustine Lougene Lewis. Her mother was Gabrielle Scarborough. So from her, I have French ancestry, undoubtedly. I know there are French ancestors on the Henderson side, too.

I loved learning French in high school. My ancestors in heaven must have been tickled.

Below, Annie Thompson, known to Dad and her grandchildren as "Little Granny."

I can touch the handkerchief her loving son sent to her more than a hundred years ago. We are connected through more than blood. I look forward to meeting her, and my grandfather, one day, in heaven.