1. Philly
2. Dingman’s Ferry, Pa.
3. Iowa City
4. (rural) Bucks County, Pa.
5. Philly
6. Indiana

1. X-tra spicy pork rinds dipped in guacamole

1. Hire a better typist for my blog who didn’t have a day job that got in the way of her work for ME!

2. Purchase a vast collection of Oriental rugs just for me to tinkle on.

3. Have water bowls that would be automatically refilled installed on every floor of our house. Oh, what the heck, I’m a billionaire — in every ROOM of our house.

4. Hire someone to chase squirrels around the yard. I’m old, tired, and filthy rich — Let some other dog have its day.

5. Get that damn Dog Whisperer sent to Gitmo where he belongs. Who the hell does he think he is, trying to control my species?

5 jobs my typist has had:

1. corn de-tassler (she really did grow up in Indiana)
2. fry cook
3. housewares salesperson
4. cub reporter
5. English prof/LGBT Studies director/professional queer

The worst of these was stamping dates on insurance policies. It was a three week temp job, and when I didn’t stamp dates, I looked up policy numbers to see when they had been date stamped. That is a job which has almost certainly been eliminated by computers, thank goodness. On the other hand, working in a title insurance company convinced me that it is a total racket. We excluded any possible claim, so it was only useful if something came completely out of the blue. The company belonged to 4 lawyers, but there was one person on staff, and while in grad school I went in from time to time to help when there was a back-up. Oh, and we typed carbons and had to correct the carbons. Office work has been changed (probably largely for the better) by PCs.

1. Restaurant dishwasher. (The absolute worst–I put in one 13-hour day and left forever.)

2. Warehouse worker. (Eh.)

3. Page at the U. of Penn. law library. (Dull job but I arrived as a union organizing drive was starting and jumped in enthusiastically; when I quit a year later we had a contract and a 15% across the board pay raise. Solidarity forever, ‘s what I say.)

4. Circulation manager at the Communist (CPUSA) newspaper, the Daily World, for six harrowing months in 1968; I got out just in time to avoid developing a really serious problem with the booze.

5. Freight brakeman, then locomotive engineer, on a variety of railroads, mostly the (now defunct) Southern Pacific in Northern California. Some lousy conditions (night shifts, outdoors in foul weather, terrible food and “hotels” on the road etc.) but good pay and occasionally some solid job satisfaction. My “real” trade–I did it for 25 years, those other gigs were strictly hit and run. Those who want to know more should immediately read Linda Niemann’s brilliant book On the Rails. She and I worked many of the same districts, though she started later (when the industry finally started hiring women in the operating crafts) and thus faced tougher conditions, in a declining industry, than I did.

I was in sixth grade in Minneapolis. I wrote a book report about Canada that year. It wasn’t very good.

5) Three of my bad habits:

Visiting historiann’s blog instead of writing my research paper. Which hopefully will be good.

Drinking large quantities of Diet Pepsi.

Drinking large quantities of caffeine in general.