Today I am sad. May Clarke is dead. I received a surprise Friend request from her daughter, Kim. After getting reacquainted I asked about her Mom. She said that May had died last year at age 89. Wow! Did time EVER get away from me.
Let me tell you a little bit about May. We met when I worked at WKMH the hometown hospital in Emmett. I am not sure why she picked Emmett to move to but she was leaving Florida to get as far away from her ex-husband as possible. Oh, I forgot her sister lived here. Which explains the destination.
She told me about when she and her sister lived in Hawaii near Pearl Harbor. They were there for Decembr 7, 1941. It was months before they were allowed to leave by ship to go back to the mainland.
She told some stories about her time in Florida. She worked at a famous steak house as a waitress. She explained how she used to load plates all the way up each arm to deliver to tables while chatting. She also taught me how to tip adequately for a good waitress and she told me how to tell who was a really good one. A good waitress brings you an extra plate without being asked. A good waitress will drool with you as you go over the menu. A good waitress will subtly guide you away from the not so good special. A good waitress promptly takes your order, efficiently gets your meal to you and handles the bill. So I learned to give a 15% tip, because it is a cruel, cruel poorly paying world out there. A good joke doesn't hurt either.
She told me that when they drove into the Emmett Valley at night she thought she was taking her family to their death, it was pitch black in the desert portion of the road from Boise to Emmett and very spooky.
They settled in and May purchased a double wide trailer in the Monte Vista Mobile Home Park. I eventually purchased a single wide trailer there and Mom and Dad lived there as well. My sister Gale and her husband and kids lived there and my brother Richard lived there for a few months. My other friend from work at WKMH, Barbara, lived there as well.
The park had a small pool, a building with the mail boxes and a goodish sized hall for other activities such as parties, bingo, celebrations, cub scout meetings etc. Busy place.
As a result of living in such a small "village" of about 300 folk, the old saying about familiarity breeding contempt was certainly true. My mother could not stand either Barbara or May so never the trio did meet much without a mutual grimace. This created a certain amount of social tension between Mom, me and the girls. Ugh. So I would ignore snide comments and cheerfully go about my bidness.
Occasionally we ladies took the bus to Jackpot, Nevada. It was for an over night. We booked rooms at any one of the four or five casino hotels. One morning as we assembled in the hotel hall room, one of the other parties on the bus, asked us, "Did you girls hear that terrible snoring last night? I never got any sleep at all!" We shook our heads no and exclaimed horrified that we too had not slept a wink and hustled outside before bursting into hysterical laughter. We were terrible sleepers who snored lustily. If there had been a decibel meter we would have broken it. I never believed that I snored until I woke up alone one time in my apartment because I heard snoring. It was ME!!
Shaddap and go to sleep.
So our casino visits usually meant a meal or two at Cactus Pete's. I always liked the chocolate milkshakes in the restaurant in the rear. My gambling consisted of nickle and quarter machines until I got tired or ran out of money. The machines paid out enough to keep me busy enough to have to stop to go wash my filthy dirty hands.
The drive back was restful and I enjoyed the ride. Well except one time we all agreed that the lady who clipped her toenails on the bus, letting clippings fly should have kept personal grooming at home. Erk.
May worked in the kitchen at the hospital, Barbara worked in the office and I managed the medical record department. Sounds grand but it was a two person department.
May didn't cook many of her dishes at work. She was limited to the goods present so it was pretty routine stuff. Plain but good food.
She also cleaned houses for people and she would also cook dishes for them. I remember she liked to make meatball subs for one house of young men who gobbled them up if she didn't hide them somewhere obvious like the oven.
One of her long term customers was a local dentist who smoked like crazy. I visited with her once while she was cleaning his house and I saw huge burns in sheets and furniture. It's a wonder he did not self immolate.
May, herself, smoked like a chimney. She never suffered a thing from it, no colds, no smokers cough, no emphysema, no COPD, no Lung cancer. It'd like to know which gene covers THAT.
I had played Pinochle as a kid and rapidly lost interest until I met May. Both she and Barbara played pinochle and it was not long before we began playing cards and I got pretty good at it. She always made tea with lemonade and it was delicious.
I will miss my friend, May, I hope there is a casino waiting for her.
Kim told me that this year on her 90th birthday they were driving to Jackpot, Nevada to spread her ashes. That is so May. God Bless her.
Let me tell you a little bit about May. We met when I worked at WKMH the hometown hospital in Emmett. I am not sure why she picked Emmett to move to but she was leaving Florida to get as far away from her ex-husband as possible. Oh, I forgot her sister lived here. Which explains the destination.
She told me about when she and her sister lived in Hawaii near Pearl Harbor. They were there for Decembr 7, 1941. It was months before they were allowed to leave by ship to go back to the mainland.
She told some stories about her time in Florida. She worked at a famous steak house as a waitress. She explained how she used to load plates all the way up each arm to deliver to tables while chatting. She also taught me how to tip adequately for a good waitress and she told me how to tell who was a really good one. A good waitress brings you an extra plate without being asked. A good waitress will drool with you as you go over the menu. A good waitress will subtly guide you away from the not so good special. A good waitress promptly takes your order, efficiently gets your meal to you and handles the bill. So I learned to give a 15% tip, because it is a cruel, cruel poorly paying world out there. A good joke doesn't hurt either.
She told me that when they drove into the Emmett Valley at night she thought she was taking her family to their death, it was pitch black in the desert portion of the road from Boise to Emmett and very spooky.
They settled in and May purchased a double wide trailer in the Monte Vista Mobile Home Park. I eventually purchased a single wide trailer there and Mom and Dad lived there as well. My sister Gale and her husband and kids lived there and my brother Richard lived there for a few months. My other friend from work at WKMH, Barbara, lived there as well.
The park had a small pool, a building with the mail boxes and a goodish sized hall for other activities such as parties, bingo, celebrations, cub scout meetings etc. Busy place.
As a result of living in such a small "village" of about 300 folk, the old saying about familiarity breeding contempt was certainly true. My mother could not stand either Barbara or May so never the trio did meet much without a mutual grimace. This created a certain amount of social tension between Mom, me and the girls. Ugh. So I would ignore snide comments and cheerfully go about my bidness.
Occasionally we ladies took the bus to Jackpot, Nevada. It was for an over night. We booked rooms at any one of the four or five casino hotels. One morning as we assembled in the hotel hall room, one of the other parties on the bus, asked us, "Did you girls hear that terrible snoring last night? I never got any sleep at all!" We shook our heads no and exclaimed horrified that we too had not slept a wink and hustled outside before bursting into hysterical laughter. We were terrible sleepers who snored lustily. If there had been a decibel meter we would have broken it. I never believed that I snored until I woke up alone one time in my apartment because I heard snoring. It was ME!!
Shaddap and go to sleep.
So our casino visits usually meant a meal or two at Cactus Pete's. I always liked the chocolate milkshakes in the restaurant in the rear. My gambling consisted of nickle and quarter machines until I got tired or ran out of money. The machines paid out enough to keep me busy enough to have to stop to go wash my filthy dirty hands.
The drive back was restful and I enjoyed the ride. Well except one time we all agreed that the lady who clipped her toenails on the bus, letting clippings fly should have kept personal grooming at home. Erk.
May worked in the kitchen at the hospital, Barbara worked in the office and I managed the medical record department. Sounds grand but it was a two person department.
May didn't cook many of her dishes at work. She was limited to the goods present so it was pretty routine stuff. Plain but good food.
She also cleaned houses for people and she would also cook dishes for them. I remember she liked to make meatball subs for one house of young men who gobbled them up if she didn't hide them somewhere obvious like the oven.
One of her long term customers was a local dentist who smoked like crazy. I visited with her once while she was cleaning his house and I saw huge burns in sheets and furniture. It's a wonder he did not self immolate.
May, herself, smoked like a chimney. She never suffered a thing from it, no colds, no smokers cough, no emphysema, no COPD, no Lung cancer. It'd like to know which gene covers THAT.
I had played Pinochle as a kid and rapidly lost interest until I met May. Both she and Barbara played pinochle and it was not long before we began playing cards and I got pretty good at it. She always made tea with lemonade and it was delicious.
I will miss my friend, May, I hope there is a casino waiting for her.
Kim told me that this year on her 90th birthday they were driving to Jackpot, Nevada to spread her ashes. That is so May. God Bless her.
No comments:
Post a Comment