The Cyberspace Dawdler

In 1988 my company had sent me to Montgomery, Alabama to work on a General Electric Lexan Plant which was undergoing upgrades and modifications and was located in a nearby small town. Shortly thereafter our section at the office had hired a new clerk named Natalie who happened to be a young eighteen year old girl barely out of high school. She was terribly naive and for a bunch of old construction hands, she was a pure delight. Admittedly at times it was unmerciful the way we use to kid that little girl. But she had a great sense of humor!

Case and Point…..
There was a particular day where, after informing the guys as to what I was about to do, I went to an adjacent office and called her on her desk phone. When she answered I told her that I was with the telephone company and that we were doing our annual maintenance at the job site. I told her that in about half an hour we were going to be blowing all the dust out of the office telephone lines and that she needed to cover all the phones in the office so that dust would not be blown all over the place inside the office. Well, the poor little thing bought it hook, line and sinker. But it didn’t take long for a couple of the guys to just fall out of the chairs laughing after watching her desperately searching for rags to cover the phones and she immediately knew she had been had. But I do deserve some credit! After all, do you know how hard it is to pull off something like that and not laugh?

It was during that time that we learned she loved Christmas music and listened to it all year long. Now, being somewhat of a collector of music myself, I had tons of that type music. She often had done clerical work for me and with her approaching birthday I really wanted help make it a special day for her there in the office. It occurred to me that I could make her a cassette tape of Christmas music (this was twenty years ago and cassettes were still popular). And so it was to that end that I charged into my birthday project. But given her young age I really wanted to try and do something a little extra special and so it was that the legend of Mike, Ike and Clarence began (loosely based perhaps on Alvin and the chipmunks I suppose).

So I created a tape based on the premise that I had three mice that lived with me. Their names were Mike and Ike, who were twins along with their sidekick buddy named Clarence who was a bit of a scoundrel. I solicited their help early one Saturday morning to help me put together a tape for Natalie of Christmas music for her birthday. And if you so choose to play it, below you will hear the recording capturing the entire event….

done

Wow, that little eighteen year old is knocking at forty now. My how time flies. She really liked her tape and music which pleased us all and I hope she is continuing to do well.