Whenever I hear clichés about equal opportunity — that it’s available to all, that anyone who works hard can ” make it” thanks to equal opportunity — I wince because I know better.
My knowledge comes from a hot September afternoon in 1964, the day I started my senior year in high school. I attended a church-sponsored boarding school. That first day back was filled with registering for classes, buying textbooks, getting unpacked, and other necessary tasks.
While the larger-world was concerned with Viet Nam, Civil Rights, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle for equal economic opportunity, here on campus I was totally focused on getting settled and seeing my friends again after our long summer break.
At 17 my concerns were far smaller than the simmering sociological issues of the day. Last school year I’d written a play for the girl’s club and an end-of-time story that my classmates enjoyed. Over the summer, a local news magazine published an article I wrote. So I was hoping to find a way to join the school newspaper staff.
My school required students to work a certain number of hours each week to help pay for tuition. The theory was that work develops valuable skills and attitudes beyond classroom book learning. It was also believed that solid work experience would give students a “leg up” after graduation should they choose to enter the work force rather than further their formal education.
When I’d registered for classes last year (my first year here), I learned that most boys worked in the wood shop or on the grounds crew. Most girls worked in the laundry or the kitchen.
I didn’t want to work in a laundry, couldn’t imagine any pleasure in wet clothes or hot irons. So I applied for kitchen work and was hired to make salads.
I liked the busy kitchen environment — fresh fragrant bread coming from the bakery ovens, Auntie Bee (kitchen cook and manager) stirring up casseroles, other workers running dish and pan washers.
I’d stand at my station and with an ice cream scoop fill little beige bowls with perfectly round mounds of cottage cheese. My finishing touch was a red cherry in the top of each white mound.
Or I’d cut up potatoes, and radishes and green onions and mix them with mayonnaise and lemon juice into a delicious potato salad. Again, filling little bowls with perfectly round mounds, topping each off with a slice of hard-boiled egg.
I spent so much time in the kitchen last year, that one day after work, I returned and painted an outline of my shoes on the cement floor to memorialize where I stood working hour after hour. “It’s kind of like the stars on the Hollywood walk of fame,” I explained to Auntie Bee. She seemed amused.
On this first day back, after stacking my new textbooks on my dorm room desk, I headed out across campus to find Auntie Bee and ask her to hire me for another year.
Entering the cafeteria, I turned toward the kitchen when a hand on my shoulder stopped me and a woman’s voice asked, “Where are you going?”
Turning, I saw Mrs. Myers, the music director. Why would she care where I was going?
“To see if Auntie Bee will hire me to make salads again this year,” I replied, hoping Mrs. Myers was not going to urge me to join the glee club.
“Oh, no!” she said. “You shouldn’t be making salads. Mr. Novello, the new English teacher, is in the library interviewing for student assistants. You should go and see him.”
I hesitated. Was I qualified to be an English teacher’s assistant? What does a teacher’s assistant do?
“C’mon,” she said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me after her. “I’ll introduce you.”
So Mrs. Myers tugged me through the student-crowded hallway, into the library and over to a desk, where a man in a brown suit and tie was sitting.
“Mr. Novello, this is Merikay McLeod,” she said, pushing me forward. “She’d be a perfect assistant for you. Perhaps you’ve read some of her writing.”
Mr. Novello stood up, smiled, and shook my hand. And Mrs. Myers disappeared.
I don’t remember anything else about that encounter. Don’t remember a single interview question. I only know that that interview changed my life.
I became one of his assistants helping grade papers, organize files and research interesting topics for him. It turned out that Mr. Novello was the sponsor of the school newspaper, so I was automatically on the staff.
And as the school year progressed, he not only assigned me interesting work and paid me well for it, he also supported my writing. He gave me a copy of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis to show me how engaging Christian fiction could be written. He encouraged me to enter writing contests, and cheered me on when I won awards. He gave me research assignments far exceeding student assistant level. It was a whole new, thrilling world for me. And I loved it.
Because of my work as his assistant, I had no qualms about applying for a job in the P.R. Department of the university I attended after high school graduation. And following college graduation, I didn’t hesitate to apply for an editorial position on a well-respected newspaper.
And so on.
Through the years I’ve edited magazines and newspapers, managed college and university publications, published articles in national, regional and local magazines and newspapers. I’ve written books that have been published by both religious and secular publishing houses. Once, I even produced a series of local TV shows entitled “Women Working.” My work world had grown large, challenging, and fascinating.
It took decades before I fully realized the life changing gift Mrs. Myers gave me that day when she led me from the kitchen to the library.
Although I was not intellectually involved in social class struggles, upward mobility or the American Dream, my experience that day in 1964 taught me more than text book theory ever could. While my work life had been limited to salad making, it likewise limited my awareness of what was possible. Without Mrs. Myers, it’s unlikely I would have ever thought to apply for a student assistant job. But she knew that was where I belonged and opened the door for me.
Through my work for Mr. Novello, I developed the confidence and know how to seek jobs I wanted and work I loved.
Whenever I hear the self-righteous proclamation that equal opportunity exists for everyone in America and it’s the individual’s fault if they don’t pursue it, I think of Mrs. Myers and Mr. Novello and the fact that I would never have even known about the opportunity available to me if it had not been for them.