What it was like back then:

For me, #me too began in a flower shop in about 1974. We didn't call it that back then, of course. In fact, we didn't talk about such things much at all. I started looking for work as a very shapely, older-looking 14 year old in a large urban area. I did so not because we were living in poverty. Quite the opposite: my dad owned a very successful business. But I was bright and independent. Perhaps too much so for my own good. School bored me to tears - I could maintain straight A's while going to every class high. And dad and I could not get along - at all. We would fight for hours - literally and very loudly - most days when he came home, and especially if he had been drinking, which was at least once a week. It brought my dear mother to tears and entertained my brothers and friends and neighbors as they sat outside under the windows. It wasn't that we didn't love each other. I was the eldest child and only daughter and the apple of dad's eye. I was just growing up too fast and he was trying to put the brakes on a runaway train. I needed to escape and there was only one honorable and allowable way to do so - get a job.

Seeing my determination while trying to keep me safe from what he saw as a dangerous world for such a child, dad helped by getting me an internship in a flower shop near his factory, one he went to often for flowers for mom, grandma and family events. My fingers were soon blistered from wrapping flower stems, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I was, though, the only employee. The owner soon began asking about my relationship with my boyfriend and whether I would go out with him. It started to feel "gross" but I hesitated to say anything. After all, he'd not really *done* anything and was an associate of dad's. Eventually, he became very insistent, and I started to like the idea of dating someone who not only had a job but owned a business - work ethic is highly valued in our family. Somehow, though, this just didn't seem like a good idea, and I brought it to dad. He was livid. I don't know what he said/did about the shop owner. He just told me I wasn't even going back for my pay - he would pay me what I was owed and I wasn't going back.

My next job was with a small remodeling company, "cold calling" to find them work. The owner was a good man and I learned a lot. But he was often out of the office, leaving me alone with a salesman in his 30's. He started asking me to go with him to dinner at the finest restaurants and to events and concerts that only a teen would really want to see. I asked mom about it - she always trusted us to do what was right and made sense. She advised against it, confirming my instincts. This guy then began taking every opportunity to rub up against me in such a way that I could feel his erection through his clothes. I came home, usually making the 2 mile walk to clear my head, feeling very oily and nasty. I soon left. I had hoped that, when I told the owner why, he would let the lech go and I would stay. He thanked me for telling him and said he wondered why every female he hired had left. And that was that. When my position was posted in the paper, a friend asked if I'd mind if she applied. I told her I would not but warned her about why I had left. She applied, was hired and stayed on for quite awhile. She wouldn't talk about what it was like working there, though.

Now old enough, I went to work as the sole waitress in a Greek restaurant. I was the only non-family working there. The wife and daughter came in for awhile everyday at the beginning of my shift. They were pleasant and fun to have there when things were quiet. But I came to dread slow afternoons when they left and the owner would start asking about my relationship with my boyfriend. The questions became more and more inappropriate, more and more graphic, as he insisted on knowing what kind of sex acts we engaged in, insisted there *had* to be sex involved, and to make sure I understood his poor English, demonstrated what the various acts would look like. Generally his son, about 9, was forced to work as busboy and dishwasher. It was summer - and hot in a place without air conditioning - no way for a small child to spend a summer. Finally, he complained one day, and began to cry about having to work while his sister, who was older, got to spend her days in leisure. The owner slapped him so hard that he fell, and laid on the floor, heartbroken and sobbing. The owner kicked him in the stomach, ordering him to his feet and back to work. And finally, I snapped. I stood between them and when he told me that this was how his people raised their kids in his country, I informed him that he was now in this country, that his behavior was considered not only unacceptable but illegal and that I would call the police if I ever saw it again. Mom (and my boyfriend) were finally brought up to speed about this place and were furious. But we agreed not to tell dad, as his reaction to all of it was likely to be problematic, on both my own account and that of the boy - my brothers, mom and I all helped out at his factory from time to time, but never under duress, and NEVER were we forced or beaten.

So I moved on to the place down the street. There I worked for a great man and his wife, and brought a few friends in over the next year or so. I worked nights, so often had to wait for my boyfriend to wake up and get me when we closed (eventually, he just let me take his truck to work). I had already been robbed once on my way home walking so wasn't inclined to walk again, and dad wouldn't let mom get me - if I wanted to work I had to figure these things out on my own as he still did not really want me working. My employer was a man in his 50's who understood people my age. Every Thursday was "b@#ch night" - he'd buy everyone working the shift a case of beer to share and we were allowed to sit and drink and air any grievances. Underage drinking and drinking and driving were not viewed as dimly then as now and it was an effective way to keep us in what was often a very busy place filled with the social circles of wealthy women, who could be very mean, in the afternoons and evenings and with ugly drunks later. But he always had our backs. I adored him and his wife, seeing him as a father figure I could really talk to. Rumors soon started about us having an affair while I was waiting for a ride. Not wanting to be responsible for starting problems in his marriage, I told him about it. He laughed and said they obviously didn't realize that "it'd be like a dog chasing a car who wouldn't know what to do with it if he caught it". We laughed and told both his wife and my boyfriend, who also laughed. When they sold the place to retire out west, I was heartbroken. The new owner was hindered by his lack of English and lack of ethics. When he began sexually harassing a friend I had brought in under the previous owner, she came to me in tears. I blasted him. I got fired and told I'd not be paid. Livid, I told my boyfriend when he came to get me. He insisted I tell my dad, as dad was particularly fond of this friend - she was very sweet and naive and had little real parenting. Dad snapped. He and my boyfriend went to "have a talk" with the owner, who saw them coming and ran for his car. My boyfriend cut him off with the truck and dad jumped in front of the car door. Long story short, I was offered my job back (I knew better than to take it) and my pay. They were assured my friend would not be harassed again - and she wasn't.

I took another job waiting tables closer to home. Now 17, I was finally allowed to stay home and work while the rest of the family went on vacation. When they got back, dad came to see me at work. Unknown to me a friend of his was one of the customers that night and was overly-friendly, to say the least. I didn't know who he was, nor did he know who I was. He made a rather obscene comment to dad about what he'd like to do with me. Dad snapped. He said that it was bad enough that a married man would say anything of the sort, especially about a teen, but particularly untoward to say something like that about HIS daughter. The guy very nearly got beaten and left quickly, never to return.

While such events were always dealt with privately in those days, I, at least, learned two very important lessons: I could always count on dad to have my back and such behavior on the part of men like this was *never* my fault and *never* something I had to be ashamed about - the shame and guilt were theirs along. For these lessons, I would always be grateful and would avoid the lifelong pain of peers whose fathers did not teach these lessons. Even now, at the age of "a dog chasing a car", I think of them often and of how fortunate I was.