Mrs. Teabody Says Goodbye to the First Golden Era
I
Perspective alters everything. Stand far enough away from a building and many of its imperfections vanish. Stand far enough away from your own personal history and those years between ages 18 and 29, when all the world was new, seem almost the stuff of dreams, especially when filtered through the sieve of nostalgia. Such is the case this morning as I look back over the years in order to capture the essence of a friendship.
“What do you say about a beautiful girl who died . . .” is the phrase which begins the 1970 novel by Erich Segal called LOVE STORY. That question kept insinuating itself into my waking hours following the fateful call from a voice from the past. "Hello? Is this H? Maybe you don't remember me, but this is Laren. . ." I only ever knew one girl named Laren and I said as much and my body went rigid when I heard her news. She told me our friend was dying, that she was in a coma as the result of a stroke whose damage could not be reversed. No one wants to hear news of this kind: irrevocable, final, inevitable--that group of words that tap right into your heart telling you life will never again be the same because, once again, some wonderful fellow actor from our hour upon the stage has made a final exit. I struggled with the news, spent the succeeding hours and days pulling together my memories of my beloved friend and wondering how to say the words that would best capture her spirit and my love for her even though time and distance have separated us for four decades.
As expected, my friend passed quietly, never regaining an awareness of the world where in spite of all the crap life flung her way, she lived, loved and left a legacy of smiles.
I moved back to Carlisle from State College taking a tiny apartment on South West Street. I was already working two jobs as a waitress and receptionist when I saw an ad for ward clerks at Carlisle Hospital. I passed my interview and soon enough was in orientation where one of my mentors was to be Linda Widener. I took in the gal standing before me, ashy blonde hair piled on top of her head, perfect make up on her pretty and smiling face, meticulously clean uniform and clutching a cigarette pouch and lighter in her hand.
“You’ll be with Miss Widener for your orientation,” said the uber-strict Director of Nursing and I distinctly heard the subtext in her voice, “Heaven help you!”
No sooner had my new boss -- all crisp white from the top of her head to the soles of her shoes - - turned the corner of the nursing unit leaving me in the hands of my new mentor than I heard my first instructions on how to become a good ward clerk: “Let’s go have a smoke.” Who was I to say no?
In less time than it takes to smoke a Winston together, we learned that we shared a first name which we both hated, that she was almost exactly six months older than I, that we were single women in our twenties living independently and that we were both woefully underpaid for the lives to which we aspired. From that very first conversation—she called it a “convo” (which I hated)-- I saw the world through her funny bone.
Following our smoke, the next few hours were far more legitimately spent as I learned EXACTLY how to be a GREAT ward clerk. Beneath that blonde hair beat the brain of a perfectionist and the job of a ward clerk was to be as meticulous in your work as possible: putting together patients’ charts, making sure all the paperwork matched and, most importantly, taking off physicians’ orders for lab work, for x-rays, for PT, for respiratory therapy, and for diet. Ours was a surgical unit—a big one -- and it was not uncommon to do 15 to 20 admissions during a single shift. Exhausting, intense, gratifying.
Four hours later: “You girls go to lunch,” said Bev, a nurse we would rank among our top five during our tenure and off to the hospital cafeteria we went. Widener led me through the line telling me what to put on my tray while engaging in some clever repartee with the cafeteria staff all of whom answered as good as they got with big smiles and even some laughter. We joined a table occupied by all the other ward clerks, all of us wearing blue uniforms and white nursing shoes.
That said, there was only one Queen Bee at the table and the pecking order would never alter during my two year stint as a fellow employee.
At the end of our work day, I learned that she did not own a car and from that day forward when we worked a shift together, we would climb into my ancient VW bug, fire up our “smokes” and I would drop her at her apartment about 8 blocks away from mine. It was on one of these rides that she chose to extend our friendship beyond the workplace by inviting me to pick her up so the two of us could go to the “Blessed Oliver Plunkett”, a pub located conveniently between our two apartments. And there we would nurse our drinks, smoke too many cigarettes and listen to a series of troubadors performing a couple nights a week at the “Plunkett”. The Plunkett, along with the Gingerbread Man, - - a much posher pub/restaurant, became our haunts. These were the places for meeting and keeping friends, for listening to music, for intense and/or silly conversations and for some of the most sensational story telling of my life.
Widener could turn a night out for drinks into a Mel Brooks film. I was an appreciative audience along for the ride and what a ride it was!
Of all this time together at and after work was a friendship born and fostered. Carlisle had a huge, young, social population that cut across ethnicity and geography. On any given evening at the pub there was always, always the chance to hear the most delicious gossip, to speculate about the evenings' pairings up. Facebook is but a shadow of what socializing was then when folks gathered to swap tales and take the edge off the day. Besides the bar scene, I can recollect the foolhardy practice of dropping OTC Dexatrim into a caffeine-laden Pepsi, of venturing out on icy roads to share a Thanksgiving meal because we had to work that day and missed going home to our families, of uncooperative boyfriends and hand holding through heartbreak. Not everything worked like clockwork and we invented the concept of epic failure and learned to laugh it off.
I will never, ever be back in Carlisle that I do not drive past her apartment and/or her little house on Valley or look at the Plunkett without remembering all the fun and laughter we shared inside.
The year before I started my teaching career sixty miles west of Carlisle, I celebrated my birthday at the Plunkett with Widener and three other friends and they placed a beautifully-wrapped box in front of me. I will never forget opening it and finding a gray velvet blazer, one I'd told her I loved but one that was far too expensive. She’d convinced three other friends to put their money with hers to give me a gift I’d never forget. I have spoken of that experience often because I know it meant a sacrifice to give me such a gift. We treated each other well, always making birthdays a celebration.
All this hilarity took place 40 years ago and I am sorry to say that once I moved sixty miles west, our friendship dwindled to yearly phone conversations on our respective birthdays. These chats always followed a pattern: catching up on what was new in our lives before meandering back into the sphere of yesteryear and the way we were. An extraordinarily bright spot, however, happened just last August when the planets aligned and I met up with Widener and with a tableful of friends including her handsome and successful son along with two young friends of mine in their twenties, about the age when Widener and I became friends. We enjoyed dinner and music while the two of us strolled memory lane and became through our memories those women of our youth, that stuff of dreams. As you can tell from the photograph at the top, laughter came just as easily that evening as ever. I am glad we shared this happy time. I will savor it. We had one last phone conversation when she told me about her doctors wanting to fit her with a pacemaker. She also told me about the death of a mutual friend. A long silence left her angel pass. We said Goodbye, pledged to get together in January same place, same band and ended the conversation with love. Nostalgia ruled.
I hope you have a funny friend. I hope you have a yarn spinner. She could turn a trip to the laundromat into a comedy sketch, the workplace into a circus. No one did it better. If wrinkles are, indeed, the granddaughters of mirth, she has much of my face to answer for. Rest in peace Widener. I loved you well. God bless.
 |
| Our last happy time together, August 2016 |
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move. - Tennyson
“What do you say about a beautiful girl who died . . .” is the phrase which begins the 1970 novel by Erich Segal called LOVE STORY. That question kept insinuating itself into my waking hours following the fateful call from a voice from the past. "Hello? Is this H? Maybe you don't remember me, but this is Laren. . ." I only ever knew one girl named Laren and I said as much and my body went rigid when I heard her news. She told me our friend was dying, that she was in a coma as the result of a stroke whose damage could not be reversed. No one wants to hear news of this kind: irrevocable, final, inevitable--that group of words that tap right into your heart telling you life will never again be the same because, once again, some wonderful fellow actor from our hour upon the stage has made a final exit. I struggled with the news, spent the succeeding hours and days pulling together my memories of my beloved friend and wondering how to say the words that would best capture her spirit and my love for her even though time and distance have separated us for four decades.
As expected, my friend passed quietly, never regaining an awareness of the world where in spite of all the crap life flung her way, she lived, loved and left a legacy of smiles.
I moved back to Carlisle from State College taking a tiny apartment on South West Street. I was already working two jobs as a waitress and receptionist when I saw an ad for ward clerks at Carlisle Hospital. I passed my interview and soon enough was in orientation where one of my mentors was to be Linda Widener. I took in the gal standing before me, ashy blonde hair piled on top of her head, perfect make up on her pretty and smiling face, meticulously clean uniform and clutching a cigarette pouch and lighter in her hand.
“You’ll be with Miss Widener for your orientation,” said the uber-strict Director of Nursing and I distinctly heard the subtext in her voice, “Heaven help you!”
No sooner had my new boss -- all crisp white from the top of her head to the soles of her shoes - - turned the corner of the nursing unit leaving me in the hands of my new mentor than I heard my first instructions on how to become a good ward clerk: “Let’s go have a smoke.” Who was I to say no?
In less time than it takes to smoke a Winston together, we learned that we shared a first name which we both hated, that she was almost exactly six months older than I, that we were single women in our twenties living independently and that we were both woefully underpaid for the lives to which we aspired. From that very first conversation—she called it a “convo” (which I hated)-- I saw the world through her funny bone.
Following our smoke, the next few hours were far more legitimately spent as I learned EXACTLY how to be a GREAT ward clerk. Beneath that blonde hair beat the brain of a perfectionist and the job of a ward clerk was to be as meticulous in your work as possible: putting together patients’ charts, making sure all the paperwork matched and, most importantly, taking off physicians’ orders for lab work, for x-rays, for PT, for respiratory therapy, and for diet. Ours was a surgical unit—a big one -- and it was not uncommon to do 15 to 20 admissions during a single shift. Exhausting, intense, gratifying.
Four hours later: “You girls go to lunch,” said Bev, a nurse we would rank among our top five during our tenure and off to the hospital cafeteria we went. Widener led me through the line telling me what to put on my tray while engaging in some clever repartee with the cafeteria staff all of whom answered as good as they got with big smiles and even some laughter. We joined a table occupied by all the other ward clerks, all of us wearing blue uniforms and white nursing shoes.
That said, there was only one Queen Bee at the table and the pecking order would never alter during my two year stint as a fellow employee.
At the end of our work day, I learned that she did not own a car and from that day forward when we worked a shift together, we would climb into my ancient VW bug, fire up our “smokes” and I would drop her at her apartment about 8 blocks away from mine. It was on one of these rides that she chose to extend our friendship beyond the workplace by inviting me to pick her up so the two of us could go to the “Blessed Oliver Plunkett”, a pub located conveniently between our two apartments. And there we would nurse our drinks, smoke too many cigarettes and listen to a series of troubadors performing a couple nights a week at the “Plunkett”. The Plunkett, along with the Gingerbread Man, - - a much posher pub/restaurant, became our haunts. These were the places for meeting and keeping friends, for listening to music, for intense and/or silly conversations and for some of the most sensational story telling of my life.
Widener could turn a night out for drinks into a Mel Brooks film. I was an appreciative audience along for the ride and what a ride it was!
Of all this time together at and after work was a friendship born and fostered. Carlisle had a huge, young, social population that cut across ethnicity and geography. On any given evening at the pub there was always, always the chance to hear the most delicious gossip, to speculate about the evenings' pairings up. Facebook is but a shadow of what socializing was then when folks gathered to swap tales and take the edge off the day. Besides the bar scene, I can recollect the foolhardy practice of dropping OTC Dexatrim into a caffeine-laden Pepsi, of venturing out on icy roads to share a Thanksgiving meal because we had to work that day and missed going home to our families, of uncooperative boyfriends and hand holding through heartbreak. Not everything worked like clockwork and we invented the concept of epic failure and learned to laugh it off.
I will never, ever be back in Carlisle that I do not drive past her apartment and/or her little house on Valley or look at the Plunkett without remembering all the fun and laughter we shared inside.
The year before I started my teaching career sixty miles west of Carlisle, I celebrated my birthday at the Plunkett with Widener and three other friends and they placed a beautifully-wrapped box in front of me. I will never forget opening it and finding a gray velvet blazer, one I'd told her I loved but one that was far too expensive. She’d convinced three other friends to put their money with hers to give me a gift I’d never forget. I have spoken of that experience often because I know it meant a sacrifice to give me such a gift. We treated each other well, always making birthdays a celebration.
All this hilarity took place 40 years ago and I am sorry to say that once I moved sixty miles west, our friendship dwindled to yearly phone conversations on our respective birthdays. These chats always followed a pattern: catching up on what was new in our lives before meandering back into the sphere of yesteryear and the way we were. An extraordinarily bright spot, however, happened just last August when the planets aligned and I met up with Widener and with a tableful of friends including her handsome and successful son along with two young friends of mine in their twenties, about the age when Widener and I became friends. We enjoyed dinner and music while the two of us strolled memory lane and became through our memories those women of our youth, that stuff of dreams. As you can tell from the photograph at the top, laughter came just as easily that evening as ever. I am glad we shared this happy time. I will savor it. We had one last phone conversation when she told me about her doctors wanting to fit her with a pacemaker. She also told me about the death of a mutual friend. A long silence left her angel pass. We said Goodbye, pledged to get together in January same place, same band and ended the conversation with love. Nostalgia ruled.
I hope you have a funny friend. I hope you have a yarn spinner. She could turn a trip to the laundromat into a comedy sketch, the workplace into a circus. No one did it better. If wrinkles are, indeed, the granddaughters of mirth, she has much of my face to answer for. Rest in peace Widener. I loved you well. God bless.
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