Fun In Non-Profit

So I was just telling txrad this amazing story about the Eric Clapton song were's listening to right now. It was recorded around 1968 and it stoked a big-ass memory of me visiting my Grandmother in Dallas for the first time.

She managed an apartment complex and had a secretary, a sort of hippie-ish gal.

We went out one day, to the World's Fair in San Antonio or maybe some lamer-ass shit in Dallas. (10th Avenue Freeze-Out!) But I spent $5 on a fake plastic pot of fake plastic sunflowers which would dance to music. I shit you not.

And upon returning to the apartment complex, I was hanging out in the financial office where the hippie chick sat, and she said, "hey boy, I want to buy those."

I said, "they're not for sale."

She asked me what I paid for them and I told her, and that dumb black-haired hippie offered me double.

I said "no."

I told her I'd sell them to her, since by this time I was already bored with them, and wanted my $5 back, for $5.

I wanted her to learn a lesson. The not-for-profit motive resonates way beyond the body and soul. Rock on, hippie chicks!

Eric Clapton started it.

Getting There/ Being There

You Know Them

Some of you may have seen this before but I just ran across it this morning. And I'm fascinated by such bits of trivia.

They're Nick and Bobbi Ercoline of the northern Orange County hamlet of Pine Bush. She's a 59-year-old nurse at Pine Bush Elementary School who collects food and clothes for needy children. He's a 60-year-old retired business agent for a carpenter's union who does lead and farm worker housing inspections for Orange County. The parents of two sons — Matthew, 30, and Luke, 27 — live in a 10-room home on a wooded road dotted with old farms and new houses. An American flag, a statue of the Virgin Mary and a tongue-in-cheek "Hippies Use Back Door" sign greet visitors out front. The famous photo hangs on a wall in a kitchen with shiny wood floors and black granite countertops.

Here they were as you knew them in 1969.

Are Old Jewish Hippies All Crazy?

txrad and I just had an interesting conversation out on the Deck of Smokes.

I was talking about an account manager (ex-Jew, ex-Hippie, (well, sorta)) who is on vacation and I was thankful. She's crazy as shit.

And then I mentioned that this person reminded me of our boss at the jobbie last year. A Jew, maybe practicing, ex-Hippie (well, sorta) maybe practicing.

Then txrad proceeds to go on a rant about how she would send him confusing and convoluted email requests which ALWAYS resulted in the need to ask for clarification. And SHE'S crazy as shit.

Same here.

And I had a boss back several years ago with whom I am still friends. And she was Jewish (ex- sort of), and a Hippie, and cool as shit.

I left the position at that company five years ago to which I have now returned, and feeling a bit like an ex-non-Jew and a Hippie... not Ex-.

And I'M crazy as shit. It's all work-related.