The Black Squirrel Ball

I was just about at my wits end. Another day in the corporate world, wondering what I was going to do in this misery—a gray cube about 3½ square feet in size, thirty feet away from the nearest dark-tinted window, at the end of the aisle where the water cooler conversations were only surpassed in interest by the many people’s butts I had a view of as they bent over to hit the cold water button.

And most of all, there was no opportunity for creativity in that land of mediocrity.

As I started to wallow in self-pity and sing “Take this Job and Shove It” silently in my head, Aunt Reggie called.

“How would you like to do something more rewarding than that highpaying soul-killing job that you have now?” she asked.

I had dinner with my aunt the previous week, and she said I “was showing.” Not that I was pregnant, but that I looked miserable and that it showed.

“The Black Squirrel Ball is going to flop if we don’t get organized and raise more money. And we need someone like you to get it done. The committee agrees that this year we need a professional. I know this is a shot in the dark, but I think you should quit your job and go back to fund-raising.”

I was a fund-raiser right out of college. The job had a tiny budget; it was a small organization, but there were some great opportunities. I got a little burned out after a few years and thought a corporate job might be the way to go. That job had better benefits, a big title, and the opportunity to travel—all the glamour. It turned out to be all a drag.

“Sure. I told my boss a few months ago that I would stick out this God forsaken project, and it will be done next week. I doubt if she would care if I only gave her one week’s notice,” I responded. I doubted if she cared if I got up from my desk and never came back. But that wasn’t right. You should always treat people the way you would want to be treated, not the way they may deserve to be treated, as my mom says.

“Don’t you want to know the pay and lack of benefits?” she asked. I knew the pay would be lousy, but she had been talking about the Black Squirrel Ball and how this event is going to be the talk of the town for the year. I could take this on, raise a bunch of money, get reacquainted with people outside of the corporate ivory tower I had been sequestered to, and then get another full-time job when it was finished. Just like that. I had a plan to escape this sentence.

My family members are all great cheerleaders and sources of encouragement for me. I know many people say that about their family, but this is for real.

My mom is always willing to do errands or shopping for me. My dad listens to the police scanner to tell me if there are traffic jams and gathers the local business scoop from the guys who stop by his work garage to hang out for hours on end, or as my brother calls them, the garage flies. And my Aunt Reggie is always there for good career advice.

After Aunt Reggie retired from Formula 333, she was just as busy with volunteer work. In addition to The Black Squirrel Ball committee, she was active with the Rosary Sodality and as a greeter at the elementary school near her house on the north side of town. She doesn’t have time to exercise, but based on her metabolism she doesn’t need to because she’s still the one hundred pounds she was forty years ago when she got married.

She said, “Great. Our first meeting is at seven o’clock tonight.”

“How about I stop by for dinner?”

“Golumki are already in the oven,” she said.

“My favorite!” I said.

When I exclaimed my excitement for golumki—the Polish people’s version of meatloaf-like comfort food—my co-workers looked up from their water cooler conversation like they never knew I was there before. In addition to not being interested in the water cooler butt contest, I tended to show a lack of interest in most things at work lately.

She continued, “I know they are your favorite. And like you always say, always have a backup plan. I didn’t know it was going to be that easy to get you to say yes so I had the golumki made as soon as I got approval for your salary this morning—which by the way is not much, but this will be a great opportunity.”

The Black Squirrel Ball is an annual event that celebrates the mascot of Peaceland Park in my hometown of Westfield, Massachusetts, about ninety miles west of Boston and a few miles north of the Connecticut line. The park is the jewel in this small city.

And the squirrels are well known throughout the western Mass area. Some say that the squirrels were purposely introduced to the park, but my family knows the real story because my family pretty much grew up in the park. Not just my siblings and me, but my cousins, and my Dad, Aunt Reggie—or Regina as she was baptized—and Uncle Joe.

Grandpa worked in Peaceland Park since the 1940s, and that meant everyone in the family worked in the park, too. Whether it was helping build the original flagstone walkways in the early days, taking care of the horses, or cooking in the pavilion kitchen for the summer picnics, everyone had a role.

The park was part of the family, and the family was part of the park. I loved going to Peaceland Park when I was little. I remember my grandmother picking me up from the school bus stop and bringing me to her house every day when I was in half day kindergarten. She would bake me a treat and tell me to go play “out back.” To some kids, playing “out back” may have been a quarter-acre square of grass, but for me it was a huge park with a pavilion, duck pond, rose garden, carillon tower, and a lily pond, soccer fields, wild flower gardens and wooded paths to the Enchanted Oak. “Out back” was a labyrinth of stories that could be played out from my imagination.

Aunt Reggie told me about the committee members at dinner the week before —after I verbally puked all over her about my work wretchedness and gave her the ammunition to go to the committee and convince them to pay me 20 percent of the $50,000 budget.

There was Frank O’Connor, the nearing retirement finance coordinator at Formula 333. Aunt Reggie said he wears the same clothes that were in fashion in the 1970s because she remembers him wearing the clothes when they worked together back then, and he has a buzz cut that he must do himself since it is always uneven. She said that he doesn’t want to spend any money on himself or the ball, and he thinks that everyone who has attended in the past will come this year just because it’s the fortieth anniversary. With his snow-white hair and very fair skin, she said he is quite the typical Irishman.

Doree Bowers, the newcomer to town, was in her mid-thirties and very energetic. Her husband Richard was recently recruited to Formula 333 as the VP of finance. Aunt Reggie said that Frank doesn’t care for her because she’s young, has new ideas, and, most importantly, her husband took the job he felt Frank deserved for the final few years before he retired. Doree is thin and fit with a great tan, has shoulder-length blond hair with sunglasses always on the top of her head to hold her thick locks back from her face, and wears clothing straight off the racks of Nordstrom’s. It sounded to me like she was the anti-Frank.

Aunt Reggie said, “He is jealous of successful people. He thinks since his father, George, was the CFO for years that he is entitled to live on the O’Connor legacy at the company and the park. Unfortunately for Frank, he doesn’t have nearly the amount of charm, character, or smarts as his father. He’s nothing like George.”