| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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worked from 3:30 to midnight at christmas time. when she comes home late at night after a 12-hour shift, a lit christmas tree was something calming. mother would pick her her up from work at midnight. grandfathter worked at westronics at westronics on mccart st. |
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it's a story my mother told me that i was trying to remember. when she was a little girl, both parents worked. my grandfather was a machinist and worked till the kids got home from school, then my grandmother went to work at the post office till late into the night. my grandmother was a mail sorter before the days of zip codes. mail routes were broken up into "zoning schemes" and a sorter had to memorize every street in every zone so they could sort mail accurately. to practice, she had a "scheme box" - two boxes with small compartments in them that are hinged together so it opens like a book. you got a stack of 3 by 5 cards with street names on them, and you practiced throwing them into these little slots with the zones written on them. you're tested every year, and if you're too slow you loose your job. christmas time was particularly brutal, and my grandmother would often work 12 hour shifts into the am hours. she used to say that coming home and just sitting in front of the christmas tree helped calm her down after work. for some reason i wanted to remember that story. |
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