December 11, 1964
Oh, how awful! Someone called this afternoon and wanted me to babysit. Mom said it was Mrs. O! Well, at 8:00 I was over there and there they were - putting up a Christmas tree in their old clothes. Mom was wrong! That person didn’t give their name. I played a hunch and called Mrs. B who lives next door. I was right and hurried right over. I got $2.00. Bob got me something for Christmas and my guess is a transistor radio. However, he wouldn’t spend that much on me, since he goes to college next year!
December 11, 2022
We moved to Sunny Valley Estates* when my parents were just turning forty. Most of our neighbors were much younger, which meant my brother and I had few playmates in the neighborhood. At first, that was a bit of a downer, but when I reached babysitting age, that turned around. By the time I was fifteen, I had a dozen steady customers, most within walking distance of my house. Weekends during the holidays were booked far in advance. This was my primary income until the summer after my senior year, when I finally got my driver’s license and also went to work at my dad’s newspaper as a proofreader.
Besides the money, the appeal of babysitting was exploring other people’s houses. I was quite a little snoop, going through their kitchen cupboards, looking at their photo albums and reading their books and magazines. I was particularly good at locating the daddies’ stashes of Playboy magazine. Racy jokes and the “Playboy Advisor” feature were important elements of my otherwise dismal sex education. Yep, Playboy, my mom’s obstetrics textbook from nursing school, and the Kotex pamphlets in health class. That was it.
*Is that a quintessential suburban subdivision name, or what?