1997 Buckbee Mears & Babies

I was finally ready to go back to work. Both my girls were doing great. We had been able to go on field trips to the zoo, to the natural history museum and planetarium in Rochester and to visit Nana in Florida. While my mother-in-law was able to see my girls on a regular basis, my mother had moved to Florida with husband who wasn’t able to travel much. The job available was at Buckbee Mears in Cortland just over an hour from home. They were working 6-10’s. I knew it was going rough on all of us. Every morning, I would be up by 5, feed the horses and kids, pack my lunch, gather all the kids stuff and head out the door by 530. He would drink his coffee and have breakfast, then load the kids into the car, and drop them off at his mother’s house. At night he would pick them up and be home two hours before me. I usually had dinner ready to go, so all he had to do was warm it up. I would get home, eat, bathe the kids, read a story and go to bed. On Saturdays he didn’t work but I think he preferred it when his mom watched the kids. One Saturday I called on my way home to see if I needed to pick anything up. Apparently Ken was going to let me get home, so I could make dinner. Instead we met at a local restaurant. I had been bragging how my little one was walking at 8 months. When Ken arrived, I said set her down and she came running across the room to her Mommy. Only then did I realize he hadn’t put her shoes on! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The job itself was interesting. Grant W was my foreman, very smart and easy going. It was a lot of process piping, so everyday was something knew. I was partnered with Joe F who had just had a major brain injury and was on massive doses of various drugs to keep him under control. He still was likely to blurt out something wildly inappropriate, but I took it with a grain of salt considering his history. It wasn't until I worked with him years later that I found out he is always like that! At one point they decided to put us on two shifts and asked for volunteers for nights. Grant took me aside and told me he knew I had a new baby and I was exempt from night shift. I thought that was really nice of him, but there was another guy on the crew who had a 6 week old. They asked him to go on nights. Rather than explain that he was in the same situation as me, he did it, but whined about unequal treatment. The job only lasted 7 weeks but it made a nice jumpstart to my finances!