This is the history of me. Or at least the outline. I’ve been at this meandering blog for a year now, and it crossed my mind that someone (anyone? hellooo, is anybody out there?) might want to know the person behind the madness. If you have a low tolerance for boredom, you may want to skip this post. I’ll write something more fun soon, I promise.
I was born and lived in Springfield, Ohio until mid-way through first grade (March, I think, 1960). 1430 Malden Avenue. The white clapboard house was within walking distance of the grade school I attended (Snow Hill), had only two bedrooms, one bathroom, an enormous weeping willow tree in the back yard, a detached one car garage. I remember sitting at the kitchen table (that awful plastic laminate with metal legs) on Saturdays, eating white bread grilled cheese sandwiches and Campbell’s tomato soup for lunch. I watched my parents, sitting across from each other, not speaking, resigned, tired faces, and it was that early that I realized my family was not a happy one. The neighborhood was safe enough that all of us kids, even at that young age, could run up and down the sidewalks from house to house, playing until dark, catching fireflies, and our parents never worried (though, in retrospect, I’m sure they were all watching). I loved horses. I got in trouble for peeing in a bucket in a tent in the backyard (hey, I was pretending I was camping, isn’t that how you do it when you camp?). I saw The Wizard of Oz for the first time, on a black and white TV set, and it scared the shit out of me.
My father took a job in Anderson, Indiana without telling my mother, and bought the house there without her seeing it. It took me most of second grade to adjust to my new school, but after that, I excelled. A’s nearly all the time. A natural curiosity for every subject taught. I received the American Legion award in 6th grade, which was a big deal back then. Class President…again, if you care about that in sixth grade.
My father was an electrical engineer at Delco, my mother a housewife, until she went to Ball State (accompanied by derision and resistance from my father) to take classes in library science, then got a job with the school system. We had an average three bedroom red brick ranch in a middle class neighborhood. I think nearly everyone there worked for General Motors in some capacity. Most of my friends belonged to Edgewood Country Club, but my father would have nothing of it, so instead of hanging out at the club swimming pool in the summers, I stayed around the house, went to the library once a week, read a book a day, played school. I got dolls for Christmas, just like any girl, but I liked the chemistry set I got better. I learned how to solder. I was fascinated by the nascent space program and wanted to be the first female astronaut. I started taking piano lessons at a relatively late age, about 12, I think. I started taking drawing and painting lessons before that.
My maternal grandparents were farmers in southeastern Ohio. I credit that grandmother for my cooking skills. I watched her cook everything from scratch, from memory, improvising with what she had on hand. My paternal grandparents lived in Marysville, Ohio. Actually, I never met my paternal grandmother; she died in childbirth, and my grandfather’s second wife was dead, too. He had a magnificent Italianate (?) house complete with a tennis court. He fought in both World Wars; I have a copy of his diary from the first, and the bible that his mother gave him before going. The ceilings of that house had to be 14’ high or more. I can still draw out the first floor plan, and part of the second. Parlors. No closets. It was that house that sparked my interest in architecture. I hear that it’s in a state of disrepair now.
Junior High was another adjustment. I still made honor roll consistently, but felt lost for several years. I got my first “C,” in history, and thought sure my parents would kill me when I came home with my report card.
High school was better, or maybe it was just that I had adjusted to the crowd by then. I was in honor society. I received a National Merit Letter of Commendation. There’s a photo of me in the senior yearbook with two other eggheads. I was too smart for many of the “cool” guys to work up the nerve to ask me out. I worked on the yearbook, was a member of student council, painted backdrops for the Thespians, and did all the paintings for the Junior/Senior prom, back in the days when proms were held in the school’s gym, and decorations hand-made. The paintings were on huge tarps and took months.
The guidance counselor told me that my SAT scores were high enough that I could go to any Ivy League school,
any college, in the country. Any hopes of that were dashed when my father moved to California January 1, 1971. I graduated 18th out of a class of 402. There was no guidance, really, from either counselor or parents, only that I was going to college. Field of study was never discussed.
So I qualified for a state merit scholarship. Though I was accepted to Purdue, it was Ball State that offered four full years of tuition…so there I went. I still had no idea what I wanted to study. Too many things interested me. I tested out of all the English requirements, as well as 2 ½ years’ worth of French. Because of that, I have a BA rather than a BS. I started with a major in French, then changed to art the end of my freshman year. During the last quarter of my senior year, I took an accounting class pass/fail, my thought process being I’d need to know bookkeeping if I started my own interior design business. Taking that class was an ‘oh shit’ moment, when I found out how easy it was for me, realizing I should have majored in accounting or business, but had no options…the scholarship money was gone, and I now had a student loan, too.
I married the Jimmy Connors lookalike I met my senior year in college, the year after graduation. He worked to party; I worked because I loved to work. He thought he was getting a party girl and was disappointed. That marriage only lasted three years. (1)
My jobs went from AFNB (the muni bond department) to the State of Indiana’s tax compliance department, to a furniture store in Pendleton, to Kittles, to an architectural firm (where I gained my photo skills) (2), to a second architectural firm (where I learned the darkroom business), and it was then, that summer of 1984, that I determined I’d go back to school, originally intending to get an MBA. I met with a counselor at IUPUI, but, half an hour later, found myself downstairs, signing up for non-degree graduate courses in accounting instead. (3)
At the time, I was the reprographics manager at the second architectural firm. That meant I was in charge of producing all the bid documents for any job the architects put out for bid. I was the one who, once the documents were written and drawn, stayed up all night to print and bind hundreds of copies of books and blueprints to be distributed the next day. And of course, I was the only person responsible for the darkroom division of the business.
Late that year, the economy was bad, the company was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and I was laid off. I took my only credit card, charged all the darkroom equipment I needed, took all the darkroom clients, and started that business….all while going to night school. I never told my mother that I’d lost my job. I didn’t want to worry her. She found out when she called my former employer to talk to me (which was rare for her) and they told her I no longer worked there. I got B’s in a couple of classes because I was too tired to study.
About then, I met The Future Second Husband for the first time. The guy I was dating was not happy about my changing careers (flaky artist being much less threatening than CPA), and he arranged a meeting with his accountant (who turned out to be The Second) to dissuade me of the idea. We kept in contact maybe once a year; I ignored his admonition that accounting was a bad idea, and forged ahead.
The beginning of 1985, I applied for two positions with the accounting firm right across the street from my apartment. I am to this day grateful that Bob had the guts to hire an artist turned accounting student. I did tax returns during the busy season, and audits during the summer.
At some point, I think early 1986, I found out that the State Board of Accountancy had an exemption to the requirement for sitting for the CPA exam. That exemption read that if you had a bachelor’s degree in
anything – not just accounting – you could take a pre-test, and if you passed that, you could sit for the “real” test. Back then the CPA exam was only given twice a year, and this pre-test was administered on the first day of that. It was only a half day test. I took that in the spring of 1986, at the State Fairgrounds. When I was notified of my passing grade, I signed up for the Becker review course, and spent the summer of 1986 at night classes again on the campus of Marion College….all while working a full time job and my darkroom job.
The CPA exam I took was November 5th – 7th, 1986, at the convention center. No adding machines, no computers, only pencils and paper, two and a half days in a row. Essay questions. No instant scoring. It was spring of 1987 when I found out I’d passed all four parts. I was working for a second accounting firm when I got the news.
Late in the ‘80’s or early in the ‘90’s (I really can’t remember for sure, and I know I should), the relationship with The Second turned from mentor to something else. I was by then working for a third CPA firm. I’d hoped that, as so often happened back then, one of their clients would hire me as their controller. But though I loved the clients I had responsibility for there, I did not see eye to eye with one of the partners (I called him The Peacock), and it was not a female friendly firm. The Second offered a financial safety net, and I quit January 1991, took a batch of clients, worked more than I ever had, and loved it more. I had tax situations I’d never had before, but I taught myself how to do it. Even now, when I talk to CPA’s with practices typical of what I had, none of them know how to do a multistate consolidation, none of them are familiar with all the estate tax returns…
The very year I married (1995), I started getting pressure and not-so-veiled threats from The Second to stop or slow down the working. I tried to be a good wife, but I didn’t understand why he would marry a career-minded woman, only to turn around and try to change her into a very dependent housewife. I ended up giving up most of the clients, save for his four companies and about four others. Nothing I did made him happy. He took a whore in Las Vegas. He had dalliances here. He threatened to have me killed three times. Somehow, I managed to wait it out until he realized that this was no way to live, and he moved out the week before Christmas, 2005. He managed to arrange that I would have to sign the final paperwork on Valentine’s Day of the next year. Visualize a lobby full of women receiving their roses (I was working by then – see below) while I’m signing my divorce papers, delivered by courier.
I was optimistic enough (or just foolish) to take yet another chance, and fell into a relationship. Didn’t intend to, really, it just happened. What felt like bliss/the right guy/my second soulmate turned out to be catastrophic; I found out he was not who he portrayed. I think about it a lot, and am cutting myself some slack. After living the way I had for so long, my bullshit detector was probably broken all to hell. I was missing hearing nice things, missing a friend, missing the companionship we all wish for in our marriages/significant relationships, and I thought I’d found that….but he was an accomplished liar. The loss of the friendship I thought I had I find especially distressing.
About a year before before The Second and I parted ways, I took a job at ATA Airlines. I knew I needed income quickly, more quickly than I could build my client base again. Of course, everyone knows what happened there. Aside from one temporary gig as a controller, a writing assignment (yup, I’m now an “official” author), and a few stray financial projects, I’ve had no luck finding full time work (see "Statistics,", October 20, 2010) since ATA folded.
So here I am…which is to say in a great big huge mess! Both personal life and career in the crapper. Talk about overachieving!
I look back on it all, and I see mistakes and wrong turns, and I wish I could find one alternative, one magic path I could follow right now that would undo it all and take me to another place other than where I am…but that sort of wishing is just a waste of time.
Nevertheless, if Anyone upstairs is listening….can I get a couple of do-overs?
***
Footnotes and addendums, November 9, 2010...
(1) It was during this period, I began to run, and have been a runner ever since.
(2) While working at the first architectural firm, February 1980, I met my soul mate. He drowned June 1981, four months before we were to marry.
(3) Before that, though, sometime in 1982 or 1983, I took the LSAT and applied to law school. Test scores? No problem. GPA? No problem. Admitted? Not so fast. I called the nice man in admissions, and he told me that, while my grades and test scores were great, I hadn’t taken enough ‘real’ courses during my Ball State days. Take 20 or so hours in something like history or political science, he advised, then re-apply. Right.
Of course a flaky artist can’t be an attorney! Somehow, I forgot to go back and reapply. There are still days I wish I had.
Mandatory sitting gives me time to reflect on the meaning of Thanksgiving, not to mention a debilitating backache. Because nothing has changed since last Thanksgiving, I decided I needed a different approach this year. Taking my cue from George Bailey, who looked beyond his personal bleakness to see the good, I managed to come up with a list of things that are positive about being on this unwelcome, interminably long sabbatical….
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