Sugar Booger

My first job was at the public library. Well, I guess it was my first job, if you forget about that ill-planned week at KFC, where I almost sliced off the end of my finger. Yep, that was the end of my KFC career, and off to the library I went.

For a whopping $2 an hour. I'm not sure how they were able to get away without paying minimum wage (which was about $3.35 or so at the time, I think), but they did. Probably because it was so boring, reading shelves. Reading shelves means that you look at the books on the shelf, to see if they are out of order. And if they ARE out of order, you put them IN order.

Yep, exciting stuff, that library work.

Actually, I loved that job, cause I learned a lot, plus, I love to read, so it was like heaven for me. And I worked with a great group of people: My biology teacher's wife Sue, who taught me that teacher's are real people, outside of school. Emmy, the children's librarian, who evaluated the new head librarian's wife (sensible shoes=boring), and our head librarian, whose name was Bruce. He wore little gold spectacles, and looked very bookish.

And then there was Sugar Booger.

Sugar Booger was Ethel, an enormously tall woman who pointed breasts who seemed to know everyone in our little town. She didn't have a Master's in Library Science, but she worked hard and had a good heart. And her husband loved her.

One day, I answered the phone and heard a deep voice at the other end of the phone that said "sugarboogerthere." What in the world? "Excuse me?" said the sweet little preacher's kid/library employee. "Sugarboogerthere." I had no clue. Looking blankly Sue, I just handed her the phone. Didn't even answer it and said to me "is he looking for Sugar Booger?" I just nodded.

"Oh," says she, "that's Ethel. I have no idea why, but he calls her Sugar Booger." And that he did. And I wanted to know why, but when I met him in person, he was a stout pig farmer, half Sugar Booger's height, who obviously adored his woman, so I never found out where the name came from. It's going to have to be one of those mysteries of life, I guess.

And so, in honor of Sugar Booger the librarian, here's a
Sage Green Embroidered 50s outfit, offered by andvintage, on ebay. Pig farmer not included.