Today, I became my mother.  Again.  It seems to happen a lot as I age.  I don’t look like her, nor sound like her, nor share in any of her political or religious beliefs.  I have my own path to follow. Still, every so often, something she would say creeps out of me and I am shocked, then thrilled, secretly, that she still rides around in me, and grateful to realize that again and again.

My mother was very conservative – in almost every way you can imagine. The worst word I ever heard her say was “…Bastards…,” something she usually reserved for watching Meet the Press or some other show with liberal-minded people on it.  I said that word today, several times, actually, but I wasn’t watching the tube or surfing the net to see what conservative jackass might piss me off.  I was buying cat food.

Stef and I live in a small Oregon town.  Walmart has a huge store here and does an equally huge business.  I try not to shop there, not because I think the people who run it or work at it are bad people – they’re not.  I object to how Walmart runs their business of paying their employees the minimum that they can get away with; so little, in fact, that those people must be on food stamps and the rest of America has to subsidize that huge gap which is – big surprise – money those people then spend at Walmart.  Certainly, I can’t be the only one getting pretty sick of this. Plenty of American companies have realized that paying their employees a living wage creates a happier, healthier, and more dedicated work force.  Why can’t Walmart step up to the plate and realize that this is not only the right thing to do, but a good business decision, as well?

I don’t doubt that there is lots the Walmart folks have done with some of their money which is good for the rest of society. In a trickle-down sort of way, I once was the recipient of a tiny portion of that largesse when I was first getting my TV show, BACK PAGE, off the ground, and again when the cowgirl musical I wrote, BUNKIN’ WITH YOU IN THE AFTERLIFE, was being produced, something I greatly appreciated.  It was small potatoes in their world, I’m sure, but huge in mine. By the same token, I know people who have worked for Walmart for years. They have done well by the company and the company by them.  All of that is good.  But, jeepers, we are talking billions and billions of dollars that could be used to help keep people who are working full-time from having to be on the dole, you know?  Why, as a nation, do we put up with this?  I know we have all heard the saying, “Freedom isn’t free,” but, really, the free market shouldn’t be entirely free, either, for companies making that kind of profit.

So, how does this relate to cat food?  I’ll tell you. There are a couple of stores here called Pet Mini-Mart, nice stores with just about anything you’d want for your pet.  I like shopping there.  The stores are clean, the people are friendly, the prices are competitive – plus, they give you this little punch card and when you spend enough that all of your little holes are punched out on that card, they scrape off a little gold circle and give you back, in cash, whatever it says on the card.  It’s not much, usually, and it takes a while, like a slow-motion lottery, but I always feel like I’ve won something huge whenever they do that. Makes me strut around all puffed out like I’ve just finished first in the decathlon or some giant, impressive thing like that.

Today, I walked into the Pet Mini-Mart and announced, loudly, “I decided I’d rather spend my money with you than Walmart!”  The staff all yelled, “Yay!” I grabbed some IAMs cat food for our mean cat, Bennie, and some pill pockets for Toby’s medicine.  I checked out.  The young lady punched my card.  I said, “I don’t like shopping at Walmart because I don’t like how little they pay their employees.”  Then, I muttered under my breath, “Bastards.”  I headed toward the door.  Suddenly, I remembered I needed cat litter for our mean cat, Bennie, so I went back and grabbed a jug of that stuff.  I checked out again. The young lady punched my card. “Not only that,” I said, “since most Walmart employees have to subsidize their income with food stamps, you and I wind up paying for it – did you know that?”  She said, “I did.”  I muttered under my breath, “Bastards.”  I headed toward the door when I remembered I needed some glucosamine chews for Toby’s knee, so I went back and grabbed a bottle of those.  I checked out once more.  The young lady punched my card. “Hey! she said, “Time to see what you’ve won!”  And she began scraping on my card. She punched the register open, came out with a dollar and slapped it on the counter in front of me.  “I bet Walmart won’t ever do that,” she said.  I agreed, saying, “No, I can’t imagine that they would.” Then, I heard her mutter under her breath, “Bastards.”

Last week sometime was National Boss’s Day, which set me to thinking about some of the people for whom I’ve worked in the past. Most were actually quite wonderful people; a couple of them were pricks, but most, whether good or bad, are memorable. When I was quite young, I worked for an import/export firm, quietly tapping away on a 10-key adding machine back in my own little office, pretty sure the guy who owned the place didn’t even know my name (he didn’t – or, if he did, he could never remember it.) Besides, his secretary’s name was also Jody, so, whenever he blasted into the showroom yelling, “GODDAMN IT, JODY!!!” I would instantly jump up, bashing my legs against my desk and, thus, kept a permanent bruise across my fat little thighs right above my knees. He was never yelling at me, but you wouldn’t have known it by watching me react.

When I worked for a Johnson & Johnson company in the early 1970’s, my boss was a great guy with terrific dimples and his name was Max Odom. He was kind and thoughtful, slow to anger and easy to make laugh, a gentleman and a gentle man, and that made going to work each day a delightful thing.

After that, rock ‘n roll radio got into my blood and I worked for 5 years at KZEW-FM in Dallas, I had a number of great bosses there. John Dew was the Station Manager when I arrived, a good guy with the know-how to get things done, those “things” being the brain-child of The Zoo’s own creative genius, Ira “Eye” Lipson. If Eye was the driver of the Merry Prankster’s Bus, John figured out how to get the bus financed. I loved working at that station where creative juices got to flow down the hallways, where nothing really seemed too insane to try, where I could cha-cha around the studio when Jon Dillon played Carly Simon’s YOU BELONG TO ME, or Mark Christopher and I could lock ourselves in the production room and create promos or crazy commercials that made all of Dallas and Ft. Worth sit up and take notice.

After John Dew left, Ivan Braiker came on board as the new Station Manager. Ivan loved us and we loved him. He understood business, but he also understood creativity and never made us sacrifice one for the sake of the other. We played killer music all day long but, more than that, we were all bonded by a singular notion, which was to do some good in the world and cleverly disguise it as work. That’s what we did at The Zoo. What a time. For those of us who worked there during that era, the 1970’s, it was our Camelot. And, for that, I give thanks to Ira Lipson, Ivan Braiker, John Dew, Kenny Rundel, Mark Christopher, Mark Addy, Gary Shaw, Jon Dillon, Mike Taylor, John Baker, Michael Brown, John LaBella, Diana Marquis, Syd Meredith, Charley Jones, Sally Francis, Sharla Taylor, Beetle, Rick Ferguson, John Rody, Wally Campbell, Jim Stansell, Chuck Moshontz, Dave Lee Austin, Bill Harrison, Mike Ceferatti, The Amazing Beesley Sisters, and anyone I’ve left out. All of you were my bosses – and my teachers – in one way or another, and I thank you for that.

I hold that time and place so dear, and I suppose there are not many jobs I could have had in my life where I could have gotten to listen to great music all day, write and produce as much crazy stuff as I wanted to – actually get a paycheck for it – and, still, at the end of each day feel like I’d done some good in the world. I am lucky. And, I have some wonderful bosses to thank for that.

I worked at SEARS when I was in college, back shortly after the earth cooled, and I had a terrific boss named Jeanne Barnes. I’ll tell you why. I worked in Ladies Ready to Wear but, on this one day, Mrs. Barnes had asked me to fill in at the Children’s Clothing Dept., which was right next to ours. There was a sale going on and, without realizing what I’d done (because I was too busy talking) I over-charged a woman for some little kid’s underpants she’d bought for her daughter. I failed to ring up the ON SALE price and had charged her the regular price and didn’t see what I’d done until after the woman had already left the department. Well. The rule was: IF YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE IN THE DEPARTMENT, DO NOT LEAVE THE DEPARTMENT UNTIL YOU HAVE SOMEONE THERE TO COVER FOR YOU. But, what could I do?? I didn’t want that lady to think I was a crook – or – that SEARS was a crooked store. I grabbed five bucks out of my wallet, stashed my purse, locked the register, and took off running. I ran across the store, vaulted down the escalator, screeched through the rest of the store and out the front door where I just happened to catch that lady in her car before she turned onto Jefferson Blvd. “I charged you too much,” I gasped, “I’m really sorry. I think this will cover it.” And I tossed my five dollar bill into her car. Then I chugged back up to the Children’s Clothing Dept., found my boss, and, between wheezing gasps for air, explained to her what had happened. Mrs. Barnes pulled out her wallet and handed me a five dollar bill. “Walk with me,” she said, draping her arm over my shoulder. We walked to the escalator, over which was an enormous sign that read: THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. It was our motto back then; I hope it still is. “See that sign?” she asked. I nodded, because, at that point, I still could not speak without sounding like a bagpipe. “That woman will never forget what you did,” Mrs. Barnes said, and she looked me right in the eye, touching my heart with her hand, “And, neither will you.” She was right. I don’t know about that customer but, as for me, clearly, I have never forgotten it.

I am a good worker, conscientious and thorough. But, I am a terrible boss, and I should know, because I’ve been my own boss for the past 35 years. I have difficulty delegating, compounded by the fact that, since I am in business by myself, for myself, there is actually nobody else to delegate TO. Oh well. The good part is that I don’t have to answer to anyone or explain just what I was doing in that part of town when the muffler fell off. The bad part is that it makes the Christmas parties almost achingly dull. And, giving myself a raise? That’s the hardest thing of all – like doing Gestalt Therapy.

I am easy to work for, I gotta say that, though, because nobody understands as well as my boss how it feels when there’s a story cranking in my head that needs to be told. She understands that sometimes the best thing to do is just sit down and write the thing. I’ll whimper and look pitiful like an old dog. She’ll roll her eyes, let out an almost-disgusted sigh and say, “Okay, okay, just take the day off.” And, so, I do. I love my boss.