March 21, 2009

What an honor to be “Flower of the Month.” Herein is more than you ever wanted to know about Barbara Lawson aka Bartley Barrington.

I was born in Columbus, Ohio over 26 years ago but I usually lie about my age and continue to celebrate 26 every year. I grew up here and graduated at an early age from East High School - started first grade at 5 rather than 6 and skipped the second half of the first grade. When I had accumulated more credits than needed to graduate, they placed me in a senior class scheduled to graduate in January. I complained that I was too young, wanted to be in the operetta, and graduate later with my June classmates. I was Katisha in “The Mikado” and have always loved “dressing up” and playing a part - child, old, ugly, man, even woman. I started immediately to Ohio State that summer and went straight through 5 quarters. I intended to be a combination of comic strip heroines Brenda Starr and Jane Arden, as an ace reporter who designed beautiful clothing on fashion paper dolls. Jane Arden turned into Jane Ardent; fell in love and got married. That’s what girls did back then.

Four years later we welcomed little Robin on the first day of spring and I “retired” from my advertising copywriting job at Lazarus. I had already written a bylined Sunday Magazine page at the Columbus Dispatch and written advertising at the old Morehouse-Fashion. When Robin was a year old, I went back to Lazarus for the summer to cover vacations and had to buy roomier new clothes on my lunch hour - cause was Stacey who came along a few months later.

I l-o-v-e-d being a wife and mom but always felt the need to supplement my husband’s income. Plus, with 2 small babies, he quit his job, returned to OSU to graduate, and I opened a daycare in my home rather than go back to work at Lazarus. Six children every day, sometimes 8 and occasionally 10. What an adventure for them and for me. Once I took all 10 on a train ride. After a couple of years, I created promotional tabloids for shopping centers. Then I was a summer playground director for several years for City of Reynoldsburg. Some summers I worked 2nd shift at My Weekly Reader typing labels, then learning keypunch, and finally computer programming.

When Robin and Stacey approached teenage, I returned fulltime to Lazarus and wrote advertising for nearly every department plus opening the first Capri Shop in Town & Country shopping center and full-service stores in Mansfield and Indianapolis. After 9 years, a headhunter suggested I join Macy’s at Lasalle’s in Toledo. I took the bait plus finished up an undergraduate degree while working fulltime. That stint lasted 5 years and Macy’s combined its Ohio stores with Missouri-Kansas stores. So I was job hunting again. After only a year of unemployment I started a new career - franchising.

Four days into that new job in Toledo all employees were flown to Dallas for a convention and my assignment was to court the media. Two months later the corporate headquarters and I were relocated to Los Angeles. What a fast track! Loved it! Flying around the country with 5 men doing weekend dog-and-pony shows for the franchisees. And creating corporate promotional programs and what I call corporate fiction (public relations). In California I enrolled in a master’s program and got an MBA - while working fulltime again. True to my “five year plan” I was lured away by another franchise. I planned and implemented the promotion to open the 1000th franchise complete with a sweepstakes and balloon release around the world. Gave away 2 new cars, a trip to Paris, and a week in Cancun all donated by sponsors and hustled by me. Here comes that 5 year deadline again...

During that downtime I taught writing at Santa Monica College and had a cable TV interview show.

Next I went to work in a famous medical center in Los Angeles - the hospital to the stars. After 3 years as a “temp” I was fortunate to get a “real job” there - Administrative Liaison for the President on down. Simultaneously I wore 2 additional hats - Mgr. of Customer Service, and Finance Mgr. I was the “goto gal” if you were a celeb or just wanted free healthcare because you couldn’t pay the bill. That time my 5 year service record went to 3 years when a downsize eliminated my job and I was retired early and was provided lifetime outplacement services. I was unemployed again and 2 months later was homeless due to the Northridge Earthquake. Plus the temp pool had been shut down so that wasn’t an option. I remembered and recited my mantra, “I’m a good person and God loves me.”

I survived for 6+ months, the temp pool reopened, and I was working again immediately in any and every department of the hospital. With only 6 months to real retirement age, I applied on the first day of a job to be hired. I was asked to promise that I would stay 5 years. I stayed 7 and retired last year and moved back to Ohio to help my 94 year-old mother who had a stroke.

In my next life I plan to sit on my pedestal and watch soaps and eat bon bons. I’m sure that God didn’t intend for me to work so long. My first job was actually when I was 14 and I worked the summer at Buckeye Lake in a little shack preparing and selling cotton candy and French fries with malt vinegar. It’s hard to believe that I am still working past 26. I’m now a mystery shopper.