Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day was always such a fun day, but I started dragging my kids around with me as soon as they were born. In 1984 when Jack was just 2 years old I was overseeing an art gallery in Tucson. I remember stuffing all of Jack’s toys and tons of snacks into a huge tote and off we would go to spend a couple hours checking on the gallery. Brace yourself; I am going to use a word that is quite archaic. Don’t let it frighten you. I am quite sure that many of you may have never seen or used one of these before – others will chuckle as the mere word brings back so many memories – the word is typewriter. No matter what I schlepped to the gallery, Jack’s favorite pastime for those two solid hours was to bang on the typewriter. Amazing how resilient those things were. BTW where did all those typewriters go? I wished I had saved mine.
Everyone in the office was thrilled when Jack traded in the banging keys (kind of got old after an hour!) for a notebook and colored pens. He proudly sat at the desk next to me pretending that he was writing. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm – perhaps this was a foreshadowing of things to come. Twenty four years later we wrote a book about perimenopause and menopause (PM&M) together and my son is my business partner in Shmirshky Universal.
We worked tirelessly on the book together – with crazy long hours juggling between Jack’s recording studio hours (check out his music at http://www.jackdolgen.com/) and my PM&M. One day during the fact checking stage, Jack’s dining room table was covered with menopause books. A friend came by for a recording session and glanced at his menopause book laden table, and said, “Jack, are you in menopause?” When he told them he was writing a book with his Mom about menopause their faces went from perplexed to shock.
During this journey with Jack, there was a point at which I realized that although I am 30 years Jack’s senior, I am in awe of his overriding strengths, creativity, vision, people skills, calm energy and celebratory passion.
Who is taking who to work now?? Jack, thanks for allowing me to go to work with YOU!!!
