#VerseLove Day 8. When Clint Smith Provides a Prompt About First Jobs and What We Should Probably Tell One Another

Very thankful for the 8th day of VerseLove, where I wasn't quite sure where I would go, but ended up meandering to my days of selling women's shoes at Sibley's, eventually Kaufman's, at Great Northern Mall. From my junior year and all throughout college, I have shoes to thank for my education (even though while in college I cleaned floors, bathrooms, and emptied trucks. Whatever it took, I was willing as long as I made cash. Funny, my first job was $3.35 an hour at Kay Bee Toy & Hobby, but the new mall paid $4.25 (that, and I got 10% on every pair of shoes I sold. It is not a normal story, as I was able to save and pay for most of my undergraduate degrees.

Of course, many years later with tremendous fascination for CNY culture, my life has been blessed with a teach career and all the joys it brings, including my work with young adult authors. I think about this, as she had the most incredible writing studio north of the Mall, and I wonder if I met her back during my pubescent years & twenties. I was always there, and took pride sharing my pay stubs with CNS Northstars who didn't work on such commission. It was a fortunate time in history and I am thankful. 

Happy Easter. This is the poem from yesterday's challenge.

Great Northern Mall

~b.r.crandall

I should probably tell you how,

in my teens, I was Al Bundy,

already with a crush on gated apples,

christened by Central New York sun.

(a witness to phoenixes rising from Mexico 

& female Lafays) (Homer-sexuals)

sometimes landing in food courts. 

Al Roker would know this.

(Oswego again with these childhood poems)

It was just me and this pie festival 

for Brannock (his own device)

under northern lights & snow squalls,

where size-8, 9-Wests went first

& women were malled by  

the possibilities of shoes they didn’t need…

(who wouldn’t want another 

cinnamon roll from Cindy 

or cassette recording of Sinead?)

All the flowers that you planted Mama

in the backyard, all died & went away.

I should tell you, probably, that in my teens 

I hid cash in a cookie-tin under my bed,

to pay for prom dresses, property taxes,

& an undergraduate degree. 

Not quite a foot fetish, I suppose, 

but a boy who kept sn eye 

on human nature,

the tea leaves,

a power of words.

I wonder if I ever spoke with Laurie,

sold her knee-high boots 

while Melinda was just a draft

and not the straight lined winds 

she’d one day become.