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| Madame (Helene) Blavatsky |
For some time, I’d been intrigued by the practice of astrology,
metaphysics and psychic healing so read books by and about Madame Blavatsky, Tibetan Yogis, Indian gurus,
Dane Rudhyar, and Carl Jung. Wherever
I was working, when I’d gotten all my work done, and during slow times, I did horoscopes
for co-workers and friends, hiding my charts and books in a bottom drawer of
my desk, behind a box of tampons.
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| Carl Jung |
I liked the metaphysical
notion that one’s mind creates one’s physical reality. I had been practicing Tibetan meditation for
a few years and got to where I could see colored auras around people- auras that
were created not by staring at a color then seeing its compliment by looking obliquely
from the subject. The first time this
happened, I was washing my hands in a white-tiled bathroom at work. An
older Russian woman, who had been a child when she and her parents suffered
through the revolution that ousted Nicolas and Alexandra, was talking to
someone and waving her hands. I glanced at
her and was stunned and excited to see yellow and electric- blue flares leaping
from the tips of her fingers. As soon as I was aware of what was happening, the
flares disappeared. From then on, I
witnessed this phenomenon only occasionally, often when I least expected. And I
would see colored rectangles shoot out of people's heads or ovals hovering directly above them, which always shocked me. What interested me the most, though, was the
belief that if you meditated on becoming invisible, you could attain that state. I meditated during my lunch hour, lying on
the grass in St. Mary’s Square Park.
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| Aura surrounding the body. |
One day, when I was working at the gluing instructor's agency, a friend called to invite me for lunch in North
Beach. I told him that it would take
much longer than our allotted forty-five minutes. He assured me that he’d get me back in time,
which I didn’t think possible. So I closed
my eyes and saw myself becoming invisible, then walked away from my desk. A couple of hours later, I was back. The office hummed along, people went to and
fro carrying files, making and answering calls.
K-, who sat behind me, said, “Hey! You haven’t gone
to lunch yet, it’s after 2.” “It’s
okay,” I said, “I’m not hungry. I’ll get something at coffee break.” Not sure how often I could pull invisibility
off, I never tried it again at work.
AND THE WAR DRAGS ON:
"In retaliation for the Laos decision" to back thousands of South Vietnamese troops into Laos with U. S. air support, the Weather Undrground exploded a bomb in the Capital men's room. On November 11, 1971, Nixon begins his "Vietnamization" withdrawal program and 188,300 US soldiers leave the country.
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| War protesters in DC |
"In retaliation for the Laos decision" to back thousands of South Vietnamese troops into Laos with U. S. air support, the Weather Undrground exploded a bomb in the Capital men's room. On November 11, 1971, Nixon begins his "Vietnamization" withdrawal program and 188,300 US soldiers leave the country.
 |
| Soldiers in Vietnam 1971 |
SHORT-SHORTS or HOT PANTS
A new fashion attributed to Mary Quant of London, and other
London fashionistas was evolving: hot
pants or short-shorts. We showed up in corporate offices in hot pants over tights, with boots, a blouse or sweater, and wore them everywhere. I felt they were not that far removed from mini-skirts
which were also seen on women in the workplace.
I made myself a pair from beige, wide-wale corduroy and
wore them with black tights, flats, and a black turtleneck. They made bike riding really
comfortable. In the office, I was relieved
when no one said a word or looked at me weird.
“Dina” said that I was brave to wear such an outfit in the office. She muttered, “I wish I could get away with
it.” I knew what she meant and my heart
went out to her. And I realized that I couldn’t possibly show up at an insurance company in them. Agencies, I discovered,
were a lot more liberal with their dress code.
Still, I preferred insurance companies over small agencies. At an agency, as an
account rep, you worked through the agency’s special agent with clients and
insurance companies, trying to give both what they wanted. One of my clients’ was an elderly woman who
had taken over her dead husband’s winery.
In personal-lines, I took care of her home and auto coverages. I looked through the file,
which, along with policies, also contained correspondence between her husband,
herself, and the special agent who had brought us the business. He had been servicing the account for
decades. Their correspondence was
friendly and chatty; he’d sent her heartfelt condolences when her husband died. Then the special agent retired; he was replaced by a young, inexperienced guy. From then on, the communication was cold, all
business, and demanding. I could tell
from reading the widow's responses that his attitude confused her. I felt bad and tried to commiserate
with her as much as I could in my capacity.
I thought : Why didn’t the new guy read the file and get a feel for his
client? Evidently he wasn’t the type. There were plenty of men (and later, women, I was to discover) who, to cover
their inadequacies, adapted a brusque, know-it-all attitude, bluffing their way
along.
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| Airline "stewardess" uniforms 1970s |
A former co-worker sent me an ad for an experienced property underwriter at Yosemite Insurance; I applied and was hired. I gave my “gluing” instructor and his sidekick my two weeks’ notice.
Yosemite Insurance, as I noted
earlier, was a small company on the second floor of a building near 4th
and Market, ironically, where the San
Francisco Bicycle Coalition now has its office.
(Research prompted me to correct the location published in the previous
chapter.) The office manager gave me a
desk right outside R- Parker’s, my new boss’s, office. Behind me was a window that overlooked busy Market
Street where I could keep an eye on my bike, locked to a metal pole.
Parker was a big, handsome, strawberry blonde guy in his forties. My first day, a tall, beefy man with a mop of wavy
brown hair, graying at the temples, showed up at my desk with a cart full of supplies. “Hi, I’m Verne,” he said, “You’ll need this stuff to get started. Let me know if you need anything else.” Turns out, I would run into him decades later, after experiences at a few more agencies and companies, at Marsh & McLennan, Inc., where I was hired as a junior account rep until being laid off for early retirement about 25 years later. Verne ended up manager of their supply department.
I tried to check on my bike only when Parker wasn’t in his office, which was almost impossible. Seems he was always there on the phone, chain smoking. One day, standing at the window looking at my bike and watching people stream down Market Street, I sensed someone come up beside me. It was Parker.
“Watcha looking at, down there, hon?” he asked. So I told him. “Oh,” he said, “if that’s it, just bring it up to the office and park it in the supply room.” I was going to like it here.
I tried to check on my bike only when Parker wasn’t in his office, which was almost impossible. Seems he was always there on the phone, chain smoking. One day, standing at the window looking at my bike and watching people stream down Market Street, I sensed someone come up beside me. It was Parker.
“Watcha looking at, down there, hon?” he asked. So I told him. “Oh,” he said, “if that’s it, just bring it up to the office and park it in the supply room.” I was going to like it here.
Next up: Chapter 9,
Part Four. My Own “Office;” Ruth Gordon and the Yellow Dress; Supply Room: Bikes okay;; Hallways: not; And, The Pyramid.
