A required part of accepting the Versatile Blogger Award is to reveal some interesting tidbits about myself that you don’t already know. So here goes, but remember, interesting is relative:
1. Many years ago, I seemed to have been on a lucky streak when it came to found cash. It wasn’t unusual for me to come upon a stray $20 in a store parking lot every week or so, for example, and since it was cash, there was no way I was going to find the rightful owner. One time was particularly fruitful: when I went outside my courtyard door in Savannah one early morning, I found $350 in small bills, rolled up loosely, lying beside a tree. There was no one on the street, so I scooped it up and called a policeman friend of mine to ask him what to do. He told me to keep it and spend it wisely as it was most likely the dropped cash from a druggie. At the time, we lived in downtown Savannah where druggies hung out regularly. I shared it with my kids. These days, one is lucky to find a stray penny lying around, unclaimed.
2. When I was a preteen, I had a very full bottom lip which I thought to be abnormal, never having heard of Angelina Jole. Since I was just getting interested in boys, and I thought part of my face was unbearable to others, I started pulling up my lower lip with my teeth so that, at a distance, I would look “normal.” One weekend, my very beautiful 16 year old cousin and I were strolling down the street while she scanned the neighborhood boys her own age. I began biting my lip and, answering her question of “why”, she told me that my lip was very sexy to boys and don’t ever do that again. God, was I glad to know that what I thought of as an abnormal condition was actually an asset!
3. I’ve never ridden on a train even though my dad worked for Seaboard Railroad for several years and rides along the eastern seaboard would have been free. I thought I was to take my first train ride on The Orient Express when I lived in Cairo, but somehow, it never got scheduled. I’ll always regret that because that, my friend, would have been a huge first!
4. Just weeks after being hired as the Executive Director of the Georgia Lung Association, SE Branch, I discovered I was pregnant. Since this was my first job in management, I agonized over telling my Board of Directors for weeks before finally making my announcement at a board meeting. At first there was silence… then my president said: “Well Jane, since you’re the youngest Director we’ve ever had, this comes as a little bit of a shock… but a very pleasant one. We’ll be getting two for the price of one!” Boy, what a sigh of relief that brought… and I stayed with them for almost 9 years.
5. Speaking of the Georgia Lung Association, I won the National Public Relations award from the National Lung Association in the late 70s. This was for a project I spearheaded in preventing the Savannah Electric Company from firing up coal burners without first installing precipitators. You can’t imagine how proud I was when accepting that award in New York as I had competed with every GLA branch, no matter the size of the city they were located in, including New York City’s branch. As a result, I also won a similar award that same year from the Sierra Club for the project.