Social Security should have its rewards

I just applied online for Social Security benefits as I will turn 62 this summer. I still remember getting my little blue and white card and my father’s lecture about keeping it in a safe place. Little could I understand why.

I have acquired a wealth of knowledge about life from my work history. At age 16 I was paid to solicit households to subscribe to the Evening Star newspaper, which required working Saturday mornings. I woke people up to sell them a paper. They hung up on me.

Then I got a job as a salad girl at the Ponderosa Steakhouse on Rockville Pike. One day I went to the boss’s office and the cute cashier was sitting in his lap. I guess they knew I had the goods on them, because suddenly I was promoted to cashier and began making more money. I had no intentions of becoming another one of his admirers, so I soon quit.

At age 17, I became a bus girl at the restaurant in the retirement community of Leisure World. The head waitress Bonnie teased her black hair into a beehive, cracked gum and smoked Marlboros. She and her best friend, waitress Carol, found out that I was college bound and took an instant dislike to me.

But one night Carol needed a babysitter for her two children so she could see Elvis Presley in concert, and from then on she even brought me watermelons from her husband’s garden.

I got my big break when the only other waitress, Sandy, had an emotional breakdown during lunch hour (waitressing can do this), and as she drove her Chrysler out of the parking lot, she threw all of the diners’ checks out the window.

I went to each table and retook their orders, and the next day I was promoted! Every night I went home with cash in my pocket, and my father loved watching the quarters pile up in the mayonnaise jar on the kitchen table. After my freshman year of college, I returned to make money by working at banquets and bartending out by the golf course.

Fast forward to graduation from college in 1976, and the restaurant at Leisure World had become a second family to me. Even after I accepted a teaching position, I worked weekends as a hostess.

I took notice of the lifestyle of this community. There was a clubhouse, a library, painting classes, buses to the local theater, but mostly I loved the elder residents. I knew who wanted hot tea with lemon, who ordered tuna on rye, an old fashioned with a twist. I took pride in taking care of them.

I remember thinking that someday when I got old, I would look to live in a place with amenities, a place where old friends met old friends for dinner. Now I do. When I attend events like flower arranging and book clubs at my own clubhouse, it feels like home.

For so many years, my work experiences taught me how to get along with others, and how to act responsibly. Now that little blue-and-white card in my drawer feels like an opportunity card in my life. I’m feeling grateful in my retirement years.


Write to lgraff1979@gmail.com.