Marie, Science Teacher, Wilson High School

           I was interviewing three Wilson freshmen when their teacher, Ms. Gibson, walked by. "Interveiw our teacher!" one of them urged me. "She's actually good! She doesn't suck!" Ms. Gibson was happy to talk, and the freshman skated away.

Ms. Gibson was adamant that her picture be "a side shot."

         
        “I’m Marie Gibson and I’m a teacher at Wilson. I teach science- biology, earth science, environmental science, a bunch of things. I’ve been teaching quite a while, I’ll just say that. I like my job. I always wanted to be a teacher.

            When I was a teenager, I kind of saw myself as a teacher, and it actually did happen. As a student in high school I was more along the lines of… a nerd. As opposed to being one that was in with everybody as far as a crowd and doing what everybody wanted to do. I was kind of a study person. And I’m still about the same today. I’m pretty happy with that.

            My advice to kids in high school is to be true to yourself. Listen to those who are your parents, adults and so forth. They’re going to give you advice, and see where it fits in your life. You’re going to use something, but definitely know that your strongest background is probably going to come from those who have been closest to you and have really had an impression on you. Your teachers from elementary school, kindergarten, your parents, your aunts, your uncles, your grandparents and all. That’s that backing that’s going to follow you and steady you and add a level of sturdiness.

             You’re gonna go though things- I usually tell students, “trust me, you’re going to go off to college, and you’re going to do some crazy things. Just make sure you do something you can bounce back from.”

            I ask her if she’s had the chance to be one of those stable forces in her students’ lives.

            “Ohh yeah. Oh yeah. And they tend to call back. A lot. And I give ‘em advice and help ‘em as best I can.

            I really like what I do as a teacher. Teaching is fun. It’s almost like… a lot of times you have to put yourself in children’s places and figure out ‘well, why did this happen?’ or ‘why would they respond like this? How would I have responded?’ And that keeps you focused on what’s really important and what you need to do.

            Children today are very different than ones I’ve taught earlier, and definitely from me. But children are children, they’re gonna be kids. They’re gonna make mistakes, and they’re gonna learn. It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. You gotta sulk for a little bit. Sulk for a little bit, but don’t stay there. You gotta get up and get going.

        I’m really, this year, pushing my kids to not wimp out before the end. The end is the day I give you the final exam. You’ve got all the projects you need to do. Do ‘em. Get started! And they’re living up to it, I must admit. I gave a project to ecology where they had to go and research information on a plant and an animal in a certain biome or acquatic environment. And out of 120 projects, all on powerpoints- I got 106 back. And this is towards the end of the year! 106 back! I’m joyful. That’s really good. If only machines worked that good!" She laughs.

Ralph and Billy, Pepco, Wisconsin and Upton

        I poked my head into the open sides of a Pepco truck parked near 7-11. When I asked if either of the men inside wanted to be interviewed, one of them, seated on the floor, immediately said “Yeah! Billy loves to talk!” Sitting shotgun in the Pepco truck while Billy and Ralph ate Z Burger, I chatted with them amid loud drilling and sawing. Billy obliged for a picture, but Ralph didn't want to be photographed.

“Alright, um, I’m William Mitchell, I work for Pepco. I’m from Calvert County.”

Billy

I ask him what brought him to work at Pepco

“Um. Money. Honestly, when I was like five- don’t laugh- I wanted to be a professional soccer player.”

Ralph laughs. I ask him what job he wanted when he was younger. “I had a passion for cars so it had something to do with cars. An auto mechanic or a car salesman, something along those lines. I never got into the auto mechanic, but I was a car salesman. But you can’t make a living off that.

 I ask them what they were like when they were eighteen.

Billy: “I dunno, I guess I just played video games.”

Ralph: “I was a knucklehead. Somebody who’s always getting into trouble. Who don’t listen to nobody. You know, people try to give you good advice and it goes in one ear and right out the other. I think having kids changed me. You know, once I had a kid I had to be responsible for my son. I think that’s what changed me. The oldest one is six and the youngest one is two.

I ask him to introduce himself

"I’m Ralph, I’ve been working here, what, six months?”

“Three months” Billy corrects him.

“Four months”

“Four months and five days.”

“But who’s counting, right?” They laugh.

Ralph continues what he was saying. "Having kids made me calm down, take responsibility. Cause I was just whatever, doing whatever I wanted to do. Wasn’t taking it down a path I needed to go. I guess I was just living every day like it was my last, wasn’t really thinking about it. And having kids was kind of like a wakeup call. My first son was my wakeup call. Cause, you know, I went to work but I just blew my money because, you know, if I couldn’t pay rent and I got kicked out I could just go live at my mom’s house. But you can’t go live there with your baby moms and your kids, you can’t do stuff like that.”

I ask Billy if he wants to have kids.

“Eventually. Someday. Honestly, I’da though I’d have had kids by now. I just haven’t found the right person.”

I ask them if they have any advice for kids about to graduate high school.

“Fail, stay in.” Billy laughs at his own joke.

 Ralph laughs, then says “My advice would be to make sure you’re doing something that you wanna do and not just doing it because it makes money or you’ve got things to take care of. It makes it easier when you’re doing something you like doing.”

Billy adds “I guess one thing I see a lot of is people going to college and they just pick a major or whatever and they end up changing it because they’re not sure what they want. I would say make sure you know what you want so you’re not wasting time.”

Ralph nods. “Right, that’s what I’m saying. Make sure you know what you want to do. I went to school, college for automotive. I’ve been working on cars, doing things with my hands since I was five years old. And I think I’d still be doing but there’s not a lot of money in it.”

Billy says “For me it was sort of like from experience, cause I’ve been working since I was like fifteen. When I started high school I started working. And for me it took all that experience to figure out I wanted to do something where I wasn’t behind a desk all day long. I needed to be out on the street. To figure it out, maybe just sit down and try to figure out what a passion of yours is. And then do it. But I guess that could come back and backfire because you like it and you end up doing it as a profession and hating it.”

I ask them if they mind all the bad press Pepco has gotten recently.

Ralph laughs. “I don’t take it personally, because we work really, really hard.”

Billy adds soberly “One thing I see about Pepco is that we gotta work safe. It doesn’t matter how long it takes as long as it’s safe, cause we don’t want anybody to die."

Umina, Robeks, Wisconsin Avenue

        When I asked if any of the smoothie-makers wanted to do an interview, Umina quickly volunteered. Seated at one of the small tables at Robeks, she drummed on the table and gestured with her hands. Her speech, punctuated with many "like"s and "yunno"s, was easy to listen to and hard to transcribe. Unlike most of the older people I had interviewed, our talk was a more equilateral conversation.

         

          “My name is Umina Bentrera and I am a shift leader at Robeks. I also work at Dominoes. I prefer working at Robeks. I’ve been working here almost two years.

      
         I ask her if there are regulars she knows. Yes. All the time. That’s why I love Robeks! When you see them, like, by the window, or the doors or whatever, you already know what they want and make it. But there’s always that one time where one customer might change it, which is really fun.

            I recently went to Los Angeles to take a class for special effects and I loved it so much I was like ‘I gotta get out of here!’ She laughs. I mean I love DC and I’m pretty sure if I move I’ll miss it, but I mean I’ve been here all my life and it gets kind of repetitive.

            I got out of school and I was like ‘what am I going to do?” I realized I really liked makeup. But in order to do special effects, I gotta get down the makeup part and I’m kind of like, I don’t know, in between right now. I took a class- there’s a makeup school here in DC. They’re really cool, but I feel like I would learn a lot more and be within my own comfort zone… Los Angeles is for people who wanna, like, do things like be behind the scenes or be, like, yunno actors or musicians or whatever. I feel like DC is definitely not the place to be unless I want to do like the governor’s makeup or whatever.

            I went to Wilson, I also went to Janney, I went to Deal, I went to Stoddert. I used to want to do something in the artistic field. I wanted to be a dancer, a belly dancer. I was supposed to do CityYear for a year and I didn’t end up moving to Philly. I ended up going to Mongomery College for a semester and I really didn’t like it because my parents were like ‘go to school! Go to school! Go to school!’ and I was like ‘eugh.’ But yeah.

            I basically stayed within the artistic field. I’m saving my money right now to go to Los Angeles. I’m here, working. On the weekends, I open the store here, take a two-hour break, and then go to Dominoes, work three or four hours, and go back to sleep. I’m supposed to be a makeup artist, and I do stuff on the side. But I really want to work for MAC. But MAC is very strict. I talked to one of the regional directors, and she was really straightforward, and I was just like ‘noooo!’

            I feel like it’s kind of weird working at a smoothie shop. Like I understand customer service all the way, which is what every retail job is. But I’m like… so done with Tenleytown. Tenleytown is cool but I’m just so done with it!

            I figure that with the makeup job I’ll be travelling a lot anywhere. Hopefully I’ll be so famous that celebrities will fly me across the country to do their makeup… that would be so cool. My goal is to win an Oscar.

            Just follow your instinct. Like, obviously listen to everybody else’s insight. Like if your parents want you to do something, listen to them, but do what you want to do. I wasted a semester at Montgomery College. Definitely.”

"Just follow your instinct."

Joseph, Z Burger, Wisconsin Avenue

Joseph and I talked across the counter at Z Burger. He seemed sort of confused as to what he was supposed to be doing, and at first insisted he had nothing to say and tried to convince one of the cooks to do the interview instead. But she, smiling broadly, told him he would do great and pushed him back to counter. With a constantly furrowed brown and Eastern European sounding accent, Joseph ended every sentence with a tentative look, as though waiting for approval that he had said the right thing.

“Thank you for come to the Z Burger. My name is Joseph. I work here almost four and a half years. Business is going very well. We also have lots of activities including the biggest event for us was the President Obama birthday. Our store give all day donation included free meal: burger, shake, fries. One very big cake, the size of 11x11. Probably $10,000 only the cake. Z Burger have a traditional every Fourth of July we make a burger competition and it’s very exciting. People come from every part of US including winner from Canada. 

             And now we have extend from one location on Wisconsin we have here before to have this in Tenleytown, also one in Glover Park, Georgetown, another one in White Marsh Baltimore, and we open a couple more in Southwest. Very soon, just a couple of days, we open one in Columbia Heights 14^th and Park. That location very good. And this business normally is fast food, but we pay more attention for fresh ingredients, fresh products, fresh meats. Also we have 75 types old fashioned shakes.

In our belief for the teenager to have to graduate from the high school include you. Future and more important is looking ahead forward for the good education for the best university for the kid’s future and the better for the country. ‘Cause education brings the future.

Z Burger's Legendary Shake List

Since I mentioned before in the interview, our store have 75 old-fashioned shakes. Very rich, very high quality ice cream. Most of the sale here is the chocolate category: chocolate, chocolate peanut butter, mud pie, which is the chocolate with coffee and oreo, rocky road, heath bar. And with the vanilla we have more s’mores, strawberry, strawberry cheesecake, strawberry banana, fruity, which is more healthy, especially for the teenagers or the kids.

I ask him what flavor is his favorite. Before he can answer, his coworker, a young lady stacking burgers who has been listening curiously to our interview, says with a smile “S’mores. His favorite is s’mores.”

“S’mores. As Melina just mentioned. He smiles. Also peach mango. President Clinton, when he was here a couple years before, he chose apple pie. Because it’s very old-fashioned, and it’s very tasty. We have a chance here to, our store to serve President Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, and others.

"Education brings the future."

Emily, Christian Science Reading Room, Wisconsin Avenue

            I had no idea what to expect when I walked into the Christain Science Reading Room, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Emily was sitting placidly behind a desk and, after we introduced ourselves, told me to pull up one of the comfortable airchairs in the front room. The small room, with an office in front and a tiny library complete with carrols, was cool, quiet, and inviting. Checking her BlackBerry occasionally and absentmindedly, Emily talked happily with me, listening attentively whenever I spoke.

“Hi, my name is Emily Kendrick and this is the Christian Science Reading Room on Wisconsin Avenue. I volunteer here a couple times a month. It is a place that people can come and ask about our religion, Christian Science, and can talk about their religion, can talk about world issues, how we see them and how we can help. It’s an interesting place to be, lots of people your age come in, working people come in during their lunch times and just chat.      

       
         So for lots of people, they see a Reading Room and they think only Christian Scientists can walk in here. We also do work in prisons, and I didn’t feel quite ready to go there, so I serve in here.  It’s an open space for anybody to come to, but people don’t come to do emails or do homework or stuff like that. It’s a place to talk about religion and world issues and how I as a Christian Scientist view it and how somebody maybe from another religion views it. So it’s supposed to be an inspirational place to come. Also a place to come for peace and quiet.

We’re not really well understood. We’re a Christian religion. So it gives us a good opportunity to reach out without proselytizing, without going out onto the street, without coming and tapping people on the shoulder. We’re just here if they wanna know about it.

      
            I was born a Christian Scientist, but you have to make it your own.  You have to really decide, as in all religions, ‘this is what I believe, this is what works for me, I get it.’ And to work here in the Reading Room or in the prison you have to understand it well enough to explain it to others and not be offended if they don’t like it.

     
          [When I was in high school,] I was very athletic. I was a member of both soccer and hockey varsity teams. I was just into my sports and I had some good friends. So we all sort of buddied up and went to football games and stuff. College I probably came out more as being an artist. All my life I kind of vacillated between art and being an educator. So maybe I should have been an art teacher.

         So anyway I got married and had a couple kids. And then I got to trail around after them while they did their sports and went on their varsity teams. It’ll probably be a few years till I turn the corner. I might go back and do a combination of educating and art stuff. I threw pottery for a while, then I switched to hand building for a while, I did photography for  a while.  I worked as a photographer for a park, went out to California and met Ansel Adams, the famous black-and-white photographer, took a summer course there.

I went to college, I was an artist and an educator. I got a degree to teach elementary children. I taught for years and volunteered in schools. So my skill is children and people and talking and teaching- I consider myself an educator. So I kind of fit here.

       
         It’s always been really clear to me that I’m a good educator. So I think kids and educating and art and then just being naturally athletic, it was just who I was. It gets lost for a little bit when you parent because it’s about them, and you have to step aside. And sometimes you step aside so much that for a while you forget who you are and you have to rediscover it. At least that’s what happened to me. But my passions have remained the same. They just were there.

            Having faith really has guided my life. Having kids, having a marriage. For me I’ve needed it. It’s taught me reliance on God, reliance on something bigger than me as a self-person to solve it. Humility, to step aside, to compromise, to bend. Without it, I think I would be a mess. I need a bigger picture. For me, I need to know, ‘ok God, what do I do here?’

         I don’t think of God as a person, I think of God as a principle. God is love, God is life. So for me to just step aside and listen and think about the Bible, think about people that got thrown into lion’s dens and got mistreated. And they just listened to God’s will. So I’ve been glad to be a Christian Scientist, I’ve been glad to be a Christian. That doesn’t mean that I’m any better than anybody else, though. The multitude of different religions, races, kinds of people, colors, variety of who people are- I can accept it all. It’s just what works for me.

     
        I think you must pursue your inside most passion. Cause now I’ve read articles about- and there’s a quote and I can’t quote it perfectly and I don’t know the author- ‘Where your glad heart meets is where the world needs you most.’ You must give, you must go, you must travel the world, you must try new things, you must see things, but you must compromise. You must meet, you must be ready to help the world because things are broken all over the place. The world needs freshness, it needs new views, it needs what youth has to offer. It needs you guys going to college, or not going to college, and pursuing your passions. Because the world needs what’s inside you. It doesn’t need you looking and analyzing, ‘oh, in the future, we’re gonna need this many of this and this many of that.’ What it needs is that innermost love that you have, because that’s your gift. That’s your gift, what you have to give to the world. "

"You must give, you must go, you must travel the world, you must try new things, you must see things, but you must compromise"

Missy, Cafeteria, Sidwell Friends School

           I talked to Missy while she chopped red and yellow peppers  for the next day's lunch. She was happy to talk and seemed intrigued by my project. She told me after our interview that she had known I was "kind of off-beat" because of my changing hair color, which she liked. She said she was just the same, always talking to people and listening to their stories.

          
           “Hi, my name is Melissa Dillard and I’m a prep cook. And I do your veggies, your bread, and your garlic bread, and all your good stuff that looks like it has roots on it. I do the veggies and I do the prep, all the little chopping and stuff. I love ‘em all, I love broccoli, bok choy, I love eggplant, a little bit of everything. I’m mainly a veggie eater, so I eat all- zucchini, yellow squash- all the vegetables we serve here. I’ve been doing this for like 27 years. I’ve been with this company for six years. I came from Virginia, from my home corporate office, and I was transferred up here, and I’m liking it. Working here at Sidwell with you guys.

            I’m originally from Virginia but I came here when I was maybe like seven or eight, I started school up here. Then I got married and went back to Virginia and raised my kids there so I was in Virginia like 25 years. So I guess that’s why you hear that funny accent. People ask me where I’m from when they hear my accent. I got that southern drawl and that DC slang. People don’t really know where it come from, people say ‘where you from?’ I say ‘Virginia,’ they say ‘you sound like you’re from the city!’ But if I say ‘the city,’ they say ‘you sound like you’re from the south!’

            I was what you’d call a late bloomer in school… I was wild. You know, fun girl. I kind of marched to my own beat when I was younger, so that’s really bad, you know, ‘cause you’re young. Kind of like a rebel. And I slowly matured and grew into myself, you know, like we most do. I feel like you are who you are. You get a little more mature, you learn some of life’s lessons, but you’re still the same person. Take mother Hazel, you just finished interviewing? If you closed your eyes, you’d think she’s 16. Right, ‘cause you are who you are. Who you are right now is who you’re gonna be. You get more mature and learn more things and add that to your life’s lessons, and it just grow. You never stop.

          I was trying to see age in a different light, cause I’m getting older, I’m 45, but when I met mother Hazel and Ms. Bobby, they made me think totally different about growing old, you know, ‘cause there’s no such thing. You just add to it and you mature but you’re basically the same person. If you was evil when you was younger you’re gonna be evil when you get old. She laughs. Basically.

       I mean think about it in this sense. When you’re a little girl you see your mother, you don’t quite figure out but you know she’s somebody and you kinda see who she is. And when you get older, like you are now, you think about ‘hey, you the same darn person.’ It’s like she never- you grew more to see who she was, but she’s basically the remained the same, you just got to see her a little  better as you got older. And so that’s what it’s like. Your little young nieces or whatever you have, your little sister or whoever, they see you but they don’t really see you. But as they get older, they start seeing you for who you really are. You’re the same person you’re gonna be the rest of your life. That’s the way I look at it.

          I came from a good family so I had no- sometimes kid have an impact that makes them grow up fast- I had a chance to-. I said I was a late bloomer. When I was supposed to be studying I was out partying or something, ‘cause I had a kinda laid-back family. I didn’t have to push it. You know, some families, ‘you gotta get a job and help out around here!’ I didn’t have that. So I continued to party late-until 25 or something- so I advise kids to just stay in school and get their education. And don’t stray from it. If you’re gonna go be something, just go ahead on through with it. Don’t take breaks. Like let’s say you wanna be a doctor. Say, ‘oh, I’ll go back to school next year, I wanna take a year’s break.’ Don’t do it. Keep going. Just keep going until you finish, ‘cause if you stop, life again, something around that time is gonna change your mind. It could be a husband or anything, a fiancé, anything.

             So my advice to kids is whenver they try to go after something just keep going for it. Visualize it and claim it and it’s going to be yours. You know, just set the motion. If you wanna be a doctor, apply to medical school. It’ll never happen if you don’t apply. So just set everything in motion, and visualize it, and claim it."

"You’re the same person you’re gonna be the rest of your life."

Hazel, Cafeteria, Sidwell Friends School

          I talked with Hazel in the school kitchen while she rinsed couscous in a collander in a giant sink. Short and smiling, she chatted happily with me, gesturing with her gloved hand.

            “I’m Hazel Mines and I’m salad person. I’ve been working here three years this May. I like [this job] ‘cause I’ve been working in food service so long. They accept me here, and I like being around kids, so this is a great job. The first job I ever had was babysitting, live-in with a family. Then from there I left and worked in a hotel for, I don’t know how long. But I’ve been in food service for 35 years. ‘Cause before I came here I worked at Episcopal High School for 31 years, that’s a private high school out in Virginia. And you know, I just love being around kids, they make you stay young. I like getting up in the morning and coming to work. Most people don’t like coming to work, but I like being around young people. Young people make you stay on your toes. They make you feel like you’re their age.

            Before, I was so quiet you wouldn’t even believe it. I’m the oldest of seven kids, so I was just laid-back quiet. But then I got hooked up in food service, starting working with two service men, and they taught me that if you gonna survive, you have to stand up for yourself. So I’ve been standing up for myself. I used to be so quiet and people used to walk all over me, just like an old shoe, you know, you push it aside and it will just stay there. But after I started working with them and they told me ‘you have to, if you plan on staying in this business.’  So when they left the high school, I moved up to head chef.

            I’m originally from North Carolina. I got married, and that didn’t work out, and I had an uncle living up here, and he said I could stay with him, so I came up here, and I’ve been here ever since. I love it, but I live out in Maryland, out by Andrew’s Airforce Base. But I love it. I’ve been here-let’s see… my daughter is 50… I’ve been here maybe about 55 years. I’ve seen a lot change since I’ve been in this town. Martin Luther King, March on Washington, I was living here. I’ve been here a long time. I’ve seen this city change a lot.

            I get along with everybody. And I love kids. Y’all make me feel young. I may look it, but I’m not young. She laughs. I’ll tell you this: whatever your mom and dad taught you, you go by your mom and dad’s rules. You go by your mom and dad’s rules, you won’t go wrong. ‘Cause that’s what I did. I did. My dad always taught me, you gotta learn how to work and do it on your own. You can’t sit around and beg people fro everything, so that’s all I’m telling you. Whatever your mom and dad taught you, you live by their rules. I don’t care how old you get, you live by their rules.”

"if you're gonna survive, you have to stand up for yourself."