When time came for me to report for duty at the new Woodlawn Headquarters for the Social Security Administration, we had gotten a little acclimated to our new surroundings. One night, our landlords suggested that we treat ourselves to the world famous Hausner's Restaurant. This was a place where every wall and nook (and cranny) was filled with paintings and Roman busts. There even was one Rembrandt, if I remember right. It was an amazing place and became our restaurant of choice whenever we wanted to celebrate a special occasion. We did not even mind the mile-long lines that had to managed. Mrs. Hausner liked Elaine right away and I think that she saved a larger than normal strawberry cream pie for her to take home.
However, our first set of driving instructions were: "Go to Eastern Avenue and follow it to Hollandtown. You can't miss it." Well, we did. Because "Hollandtown" was Baltimorese for "Highland Town," a mini city within a city. Hausner's was THE place to take your out-of-town visitors and remained a fascinating place to eat until a few years ago, when the City of Baltimore allowed it to be closed and auctioned off.
Bye the way, H.L. Mencken, who was known as the "Sage of Baltimore" spent most evenings in Hausner's "men only" bar, gazing at big-bosomed bare-bodied beauties, posed in provocative paintings enhanced by gigantic gilt frames.
Not long after we arrived, I did a trial run of the trolley-car system, which rolled downtown through black neighborhoods. Even then there was the famous Baltimore "white flight." I had spent a lot of time in Biloxi, Mississippi, and was not shocked at seeing "segregation," I did think it strange that some corners had water fountains labeled: "white" and "colored." I would have thought that Maryland was more "Northern" than that. And, of course, I was disgusted to see the shiny chrome faucets for "whites" contrasted with the rusty spouts for "colored."
I was glad to find out that the Social Security Administration was not segregated in any way. In the thirty five years that I worked there, I worked with people of all races and religions. We got along real well. However, black people who worked at (SSA) and who lived in the Woodlawn neighborhood, could not participate in the segregated Gwynn Oak Amusement Park. Not long after I went to work for SSA, the park was washed away in a storm and never reopened.
My first day of work at the Woodlawn office was exciting. We first did a tour of this massive building where 5,000 or more people where busy trying to keep track of every American's earnings, because the amount of money you earned governed how much money you would receive as a pension.
We next began an orientation class. We were each given an aspect of Social Insurance philosophy and how it governed our system. My assignment was to study and report on the German history of Social Security. I agonized about how I was going to give a ten minute report to a group of people who I had just met. Yes. Since I was slugged by a teacher when I was in the third grade, I had lived with an enormous degree of stage fright. By many inventive methods, I had managed to make it through High School, the US. Air Force and Boston University without having to quake and shake before teachers and my peers. However, this was my career goal and I had to overcome my fear a bit. And guess what? I did. And I didn't die. Still, it wasn't until my Toastmasters Club experiences that I felt comfortable speaking in public.
It amazed me to find out that one of my instructors also had very bad stage fright. He would talk to us, but it was an effort. He would stammer and stutter and turn bright red. But he did it. Incidentally, his first name was "Pink," and he was rather high up in SSA's hierarchy. If he could do it, I definitely could too.
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