Here's a character: Old gray haired woman with the antique-looking brown leather fanny pack on her front, beneath a loose blue jean collared shirt. This is at the gourmet catered lunch on the third floor, Hillel, during the Lavy colloquium, where I was working, shmoozing, but mainly stealing food.
Anyways she says, “Needless to say, I received the first rejection letter... because I had a BS in BS- and I'm not shitting you!” By the way she was (is?) a civil engineer for Baltimore city, waste water stuff. Hardly a BS in BS if you ask me (but maybe in shit). From College Park. The rejection was about being on the space shuttle some time back and I admired her attempt at nailing fantasy because she dreamed hopeless astronaut dreams but wasn't hopeless, tried at least. She's a self-proclaimed science fiction enthusiast.
She talked about working for the city municipality, good hours 8:30 to 4:30, good for having kids. She talked about the division of the workplace- half white men and half women/minorities because one boss thought hiring women and minorities would ensure loyalty and the other guy took whoever applied (White men, presumably). This woman, reminiscing – old people do like to talk about the past, don't they? Or just to youngsters, did I awaken some part of her brain that was a little dusty?- there were “more characters in those days”. The German-Irishman who would paint his beard green for St. Patty's every year, and (was this the same guy?) the one who smoked cigars constantly at his desk (“you can't smoke in the office nowadays”) then threw them in the trash, lighting it on fire. “Of course the Jew at the desk next to him kept a fire extinguisher!”
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