Syl's Memories
Dear Marc,
I’ve shared some of my remembrances of your mom with you already, but wanted to post a portion of it here too.
Although Barb and I went to school together from kindergarten through 12th grade, our closest time was when we were roommates in Washington, D. C. I think back now to how young and naïve we were, arriving there just 2 weeks after high school graduation. The closest that most of us had ever been to a big city was a day in Pittsburgh. In fact, the cafeteria at work served many more people in a day than lived in our small town of Fayette City.
But with the confidence of the young, we forged ahead and embraced the city and all it had to offer. We loved the close proximity of the department stores; particularly Woody’s and could be found there shortly after cashing each pay check. In those first months, none of us knew much about cooking and we didn’t want to "waste" our money on groceries when we could shop, so we often made the cheapest dinners we could. I remember having mashed potatoes and onion rings often! With all those carbs, I soon got pretty chubby, but Barb never put on a pound.
On one of our clothes shopping expeditions we were walking past Garfield’s, the upscale department store that was way beyond our budget, when one of the girls spied a beautiful dress in the window. A lot of the other items had a price tag below them, but not this dress—just a card showing where it could be located. When he got to that department, there were no clothes racks and a woman had to bring the dress from the back to show us. The price was $500 plus. Although still a lot of money for a dress, In 1962 or 1963, that was an astronomical amount of money (almost 2 months’ pay) and I can’t believe the saleswoman was kind enough to bring it out to show us when obviously we didn’t look like we had that amount of money. We giggled for a long time over that. It all added to the learning experience though.
When our group of five became just the two of us, Barb and I became even closer. We worked together at the ICC, so we rode the bus together, shopped and cooked together and spent our free time talking about everything. It was at that point that Barb decided she wanted to try modeling and she certainly had the trim figure for it.
Your mom got her first car at that time. I really don’t recall if it was a car that was in her family that she acquired. It was green, perhaps a Ford and somewhere (that I can’t locate at the moment) I have a picture of her leaning against it. We still didn’t drive to work in it—we were part of a car pool with a man and his wife in the same department as your mom. In fact, I have a photo of Tony and Maria with Mrs. Benyak and my mom at our apartment. The mothers would come to visit occasionally and we loved that.
It was an exciting time in our lives and one that I cherish. I’m so sorry that Barb had to endure so much pain during her battles with cancer but was glad that we got to connect a bit through the years and particularly glad that she was able to visit us a couple of times here in the Bahamas.
Marc, you commented on not getting the clippings, but I noticed her loss when the almost daily emails from her ended when your mom went into the hospital. I always wondered where she got all of those jokes and forwards. She seemed to have an endless supply.
I am saddened that her life ended so early but am grateful that she is no longer suffering.
Syl Rodgers