The 3¢ Solution

Was it only yesterday I was lamenting my clothing dilemma? (Yes, it was.) Well, here's the bottom line: the problem is solved.

Yes, you read that right. The problem is solved.

My friend Cindy - my friend since infancy - read my post yesterday morning and immediately emailed that she loved the analogies. (Cindy is a horse person, so she would.) Then she emailed back a little later and said if I was thinking of going to the Marion Salvation Army in Marion, she was free and we could go together.

I jumped on that offer as soon as I could.

Warren and I then went out last night, looking for a pair of shoes for me, and the more we looked at the gigantic mall just south of here - you know - the one that starts with a "P," the more discouraged I grew. No shoes, no skirts, no service. I had earlier struck out at our local Goodwill, as well as another smaller one that Warren and I had stopped at together. I was already thinking ahead to next week and whether I could cobble together enough clothes to make it to Friday again. So when I pulled into Cindy's driveway at 10:00 this morning, my expectations were low.

But my spirits were high. They always are when I am with Cindy. This is the friend I have always had. This is the friend with whom I learned to swim, and to shoot a camera, and a whole bunch of other stuff. This is my wonderful friend of a thousand sleepovers and a million memories. Before we got out of her driveway, we were laughing and talking.

That mood carried into the Salvation Army store, where Cindy announced "we'll need a shopping cart! Here." She then steered us straight to the dresses and we started to cull jumpers from the racks. 

I soon learned Cindy's technique: flip through the rack quickly, pull any possibilities and toss them into the cart to try on. She worked one side; I worked the other. Sometimes she would hold up something: "What about this?" Sometimes I would hold up something for her nod. Twenty minutes later, I was headed to the dressing room with a cartful of clothes. Thirty minutes after that, I had three jumpers, one dress, and soaring expectations.

"Okay, shoes next," Cindy said, leading me in another direction. I protested mildly: shoes are hard to find for me, I can't wear anything more than a low heel, my feet are really touchy because of the neuropathy. No matter, let's look. Fifteen minutes later, I had a pair of dress shoes that I had tried on and then worn while walking up and down the shoe aisles. They felt fine. (I would have had a pair of casual office shoes as well, but they were just that much too big.)

"Now what?" Cindy said. Well, could I find some skirts? Anything was possible. We worked the skirts rack with the same efficiency we had applied to the dresses, then I went and pulled a few men's shirts (which I prefer to blouses) to try on as well. In the meantime, Cindy picked up some pieces of her own.

Another twenty minutes in the dressing room, and I was ready to go. Not because I had given up in despair, but because, thanks to Cindy's enthusiasm, my new wardrobe had come together.

Cindy checked out first and paid for her purchase. I then checked out: one dress, two skirts, three jumpers, three men's shirts, a pair of socks, and the dress shoes. Yellow tagged items were 50% off; pink tagged items were 99¢. I had several of each. (The dress shoes? 99¢.) Grand total? $34.51.

Cindy looked at me, her eyes big. "My gosh, I think that is what I just paid!" She rummaged for her receipt and started laughing. Her purchase was exactly three cents less.

It figured. That's what happens when two old friends go thrift shopping together. They come out within pennies of each other.

We drove away laughing. I called Warren to tell him of my success, which caused him to say, in mock sternness, "you spent how much on new clothes?" I gave Cindy a huge hug before driving on home, where I spread the new purchases out for Warren to view. Before this afternoon was over, I had scored a pair of casual office shoes at our local Kohl's. By using a $25 gift card I had received at Christmas, I paid an additional $3.81 for the shoes, which had been heavily discounted. (A note: I went to Kohl's twice in one hour. The first time to try on shoes, the second time with Warren in tow to give me a second opinion, as in "do you think these are okay?" When you suffer from a severe lack of fashion sense, it helps to be married to a man like Warren, who patiently looked, gave a thumbs up, and didn't once question why he was asked to go back to a store I had been in a half hour earlier.)

It is almost 6:00 p.m. on Saturday. The sky is brilliantly blue and clear, which bodes well for viewing tonight's supermoon. I am doing laundry; Warren is working in the shop. I am starting to think about supper. Today's purchases are spread out on the couch, except for the ones already in the wash. I already emailed Cindy about my shoe coup. She wrote back, "you are set for clothes for a year!"

A year? I'm thinking a couple of years at least. But when I am ready or need to go shopping again, I know what to do. Grab Cindy, laugh our way through the store, and come out with totals within mere cents of each other.

The 3¢ solution. It works for me.

The Secret is Out

All families have secrets. Some are deliberately kept out of embarrassment or shame. Some are kept because someone somewhere along the way decided to hoard the information because it gives them power over other family members still in the dark.

And some, like the one I'm about to divulge, are kept because the knowledge was assumed to be so widespread that there was no need to continue to tell the story.

My older brother Dale has hosted a Memorial Day cookout for the last several years. Our families - mom and dad, aunt Ginger, my other brothers and their spouses, me and Warren, miscellaneous children and grandchildren from very young to mid-20s - make up the core party. Friends - his, mine, ours - are added from year to year.

This year was no exception. I invited a colleague from the courts and his girlfriend to join us. She is from Kentucky, which is where my dad is from, so some time was spent with the two of them determining where each of them hailed from (not too far from one another, as it turns out). In a discussion about the water sources in the various hollers, the guest told how her family hired a dowser who found a natural spring 50 feet down when they moved to the farm.

"It was the best water," she said, and you told tell from her smile and the way her eyes lit up that she was remembering the sweet taste as she spoke.

The discussion turned briefly to dowsing and the art of it. Dowsing is one of those folklore items that I always attributed to the hills culture and had never seen demonstrated. No one has ever come up with any explanations of how and why it apparently works. Small wonder it is called "water witching" in some parts - there is a mystical, magical air to it.

So you can imagine my response when my mom, sitting in front of me, turned around and said "well, you know your dad can dowse for water."

If my mother had announced that she had a full-sized head of Elvis tattooed on her backside, I could have not been more stunned.

"Oh, didn't you know that?"

No, mom, I didn't know that.

I looked across the table at my brother Mark, who was sitting there with his mouth agape.

"Mark, did you know that?"

Mark shook his head. Nope, never heard it.

Mom prattled on. Dad dowsed with straightened coat hangers. If we had a pair, she'd have him demonstrate.

"Oh, and by the way, Dale also dowses."

Now Mark was looking as if mom had said she had Elvis in a rhinestone suit tattooed on her backside and was taking off her shirt to show everyone. He and I both had the "so who was the keeper of this information all these years?" look on our faces.

About that time, my brother Dale walked back in the house from an ice run that he and Warren had just made. We accosted him the moment he entered the kitchen.

"What do you mean, you know how to dowse for water? What's this all about?"

Dale, my most easygoing brother, laughed heartily. It was nothing to him, just something he could do. In short order, he had a pair of wire cutters and was cutting two coat hangers open to make them into dowsing rods (imagine two very tall Ls). Five minutes later, all of us were in the back yard.

Dad lead the demonstration. Hold the rods by the short base (with the long parts on top) in front of you, perpendicular to the ground and parallel to each other. Use an easy grip and don't put your thumbs over the tops of the rods.

He then proceeded to walk into the yard. Four or five steps and the rods started to move towards each other, then crossed. Dad stopped and Dale spoke up.

"Drainage ditch under the ground there."

Dale took the rods and walked in another direction. The rods soon crossed. Another underground drainage line ran near the property line.

Who wanted to try?

My nephew Matt took the rods and started walking towards one of the known sites. Sure enough, the rods starting crossing one another as he neared the unseen ditch. He laughed - a short "HA!" Matt was so delighted he walked away and started again in the same direction with the same result.

"HA!"

Several of us tried the rods. As it turned out, those of us who were related by blood - all the Nelsons - had the touch. My mom didn't. Neither did the guest who brought up dowsing in the first place.

Matt took the rods back and started towards the picnic tables. As he came up to the cooler, holding iced down sodas and beers, the rods started to swing and cross again.

"HA!"

When Sam arrived an hour later, we had him try it, without telling him what to expect or where the ditches were. When the rods started to swing towards one another and cross as he neared one, he reacted just like his cousin Matt did.

"HA!"

The afternoon eventually moved on to the stuff of cookouts - food, storytelling, long conversations, laughter. We flowed from house to yard and back again. Someone kept taking my chair in the ring in the yard, so I sat inside and caught up with another nephew. The mountain of deviled eggs disappeared one by one, as did the hamburgers. My colleague endeared himself to my mother by praising (and consuming) her brownies. My niece Lizzie played with her cousin's two children, ages three and five. Matt secured the dowsing rods in his family's car; we teased him about taking them to college this fall and using them as a pickup line with the coeds.

In short, it was a Memorial Day cookout a lot like any other Memorial Day cookout.

Except for the family secret that is now out in the open.

We're all a bunch of water witches.

On the Job Trail

My son Sam is looking for work. He has worked a bit - odd jobs, really - since moving back to Ohio in November and has brought in a few dollars, but he needs something fulltime so he can support himself and get back on his feet financially. He is "getting by," with the help of family and friends. He just qualified for food stamps, making him part of the 36 million Americans who receive them.

Sam had two job interviews today, one at a local McDonalds and the other at a call center in the southwestern corner of Columbus. Sam doesn't have a car, so must rely on friends and family to get him where he needs to go. Today, I drove the shuttle. That not only gave me time with Sam but also, in the case of the call center interview, gave me a ringside seat to what it is like to be unemployed in these times.

Sam was told to wear "business casual" to the call center interview. In his case, that meant asking me to wash his only slacks and only button-style shirt while he interviewed at McDonalds in the morning. (The dryer at Sam's apartment has been broken since Thanksgiving, so his laundry has been migrating to our house.) He somehow got a ride from the first interview back to his apartment. I met him there, waited while he changed into his business casual outfit, and then we drove south.

On the way, he told me about his first interview. The manager made him wait 45 minutes without explanation before talking to him for five. Sam said this angered him, but he held his tongue and his temper. He thinks his chances of getting hired are "pretty good," because he is immediately available for any shift, including third. It would start at $7 plus an hour.

The call center job was more attractive, because it started at $11 an hour. I told Sam he would have a hefty commute, and if you figured the commute time into his week, his hourly rate dropped. He nodded, half listening.

We found the place, buried near the outerbelt in an area that if I were still practicing zoning law I would predict is zoned for "light manufacturing." If you had a job in this area, you could not walk to it as there are no apartments or houses anywhere nearby. There may be bus service; I couldn't tell.

I parked and prepared to read while I waited. It was cold, about 17 degrees, but I figured I would stay warm enough in the car. Sam peeled off his outer layers of shirts that pass for a coat, checked his hair one more time, and got out of the car. As I watched him walk away, I resisted rolling down the window and calling out "mom comments" - "Tuck your shirt in. Shouldn't you wear a sweater with that?"

For the next hour, while I read, I also watched applicants walk in and out of the hiring center. "Business casual" meant lots of things, from khaki or black slacks to well washed jeans. A few applicants were dressed in clean but well worn clothing; a few came "as they were." One young woman wore a skirt despite the cold weather; everyone else was in pants. The applicants were predominantly but not universally young, appearing to be in their 20s. There were older faces, however, wearing a look I know only all too well from volunteering at our local legal clinic.

A young man in jeans and a white shirt came out with a toddler asleep in his arms. He carefully tucked the child into a car seat and drove off. A half hour later, I saw another applicant exit with a baby in his arms also.

Being unemployed in these times means you bring your baby to an interview because whatever babysitting arrangements you made fell through and the interview is too important to skip. Being unemployed in these times means you have a friend or your mom drive you to this remote location because you don't have a car, and the interview is too important to miss. Being unemployed in these times means you do anything you can to find work, knowing full well that there are thousands of others like you out there also doing whatever they can to find work. I counted over 30 hopeful applicants streaming in and out of the doors in the first 40 minutes I was there.

While I waited, I began reading Strength in What Remains, Tracy Kidder's newest book. By sheer serendipity, I had received the "on hold" notice from our library just yesterday and picked it up today knowing I would be waiting around while Sam interviewed.

I love reading Tracy Kidder. I have read most of his books; I have heard him speak. Kidder is considered one of the best writers of "non-fiction narrative." I like him because not only does he write cleanly and clearly, but also because he is inherently decent and thoughtful in his observations. As I read and watched applicants, I found myself wishing Kidder would turn his attention to the Great Recession and tell the story of one of these applicants.

He could write about Sam. For me, Sam is the face of the Great Recession.

As I mentioned, Sam is getting by. He has shelter, and food, and a support system, which puts him ahead of many. When on rare occasion he shops for clothes, it is usually at Goodwill. (As I finished folding his laundry this evening, I saw "new" clothes that I am pretty sure came from there.) I help him with his rent; his grandparents made sure he got money for Christmas. Now that he has food stamps, even if only for a month or two assuming he finds a job, he is eating regularly again.

Sam is a hard worker, given the chance. He wants that chance. He also is fiercely independent and doesn't like a handout, be it from the state or from his mother. At times this fall, it was easier for him to go hungry than to ask for help. Being unemployed for almost a year now has been a hard lesson.

But not always a grim one, apparently. After almost an hour inside, Sam reappeared, laughing. He jumped into the car, saying "well, I think they didn't like me very much," then told me how he started laughing during the psychological questions part of the interview. He stopped mid-response, laughing hard, and told the interviewer that he just couldn't answer "such bullshit questions" seriously. The interviewer looked at him, startled, then started laughing herself, before getting serious and completing the interview.

There is dignity in work, or at least there used to be. I'm not so sure this is a country in which we honor labor anymore. I give Sam credit for being willing to do almost anything, other than answer apparently ridiculous questions.

As parents, we spend so much of our time trying to make things easier for our children. We pick them up when they fall down, we bandage their scrapes, we soothe their bruised feelings. It's easy when they're five, harder when they are grown. It is harder still in this Great Recession. At times I feel helpless as I watch my sons struggle to find work.

I'm glad Sam came out of the bombed interview laughing. It told me he is resilient and that is a great trait to have in these times.

We laughed together as we headed towards home.