Strolling down First Street has not been a thing for a few weeks due to surgery on my leg. Considering what to write, I thought I’d revisit a few of the many jobs I had prior to finding my long-time profession. As Lois Requist said in her last column, this is all about me. So if you’re not interested you can stop right here. What were the job options for a female graduate with a B.A. in art history from Cal in the late 1960s and early 1970s— in short nothing in art history and just about everything else.
My very first real job out of college was working for the architect William Pereira in his offices on the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles. Pereira has designed the master plan for the city of Irvine and the L.A. International Airport and had ties to Hollywood He had been on the cover of Time magazine and was on the cutting edge in his field. Pereira was a handsome bloke, dressing all in black, with heavily starched white shirts, and a head of wavy silver hair. His arrival at the office in a chauffeured driven Rolls Royce Silver Cloud was observed with great fanfare. The secretaries were all gorgeous and received fresh flowers for their desks every few days. I was hired to research airports around the world and pass my findings on to the designers. Later, they moved me to Publications as an assistant to the woman who designed elaborate reports for the clients. We took many trips to the Irvine Ranch office — Urbana — after Pereira’s alma mater. We’d finish our work early and then head out to South Coast Plaza for shopping, at that time the last word in fashion. Later, Pereira would design the Transamerica pyramid in San Francisco, hugely controversial at the time.
One of my earliest jobs was as one of three house models for I Magnin in San Francisco, located on the rarified Third Floor where the designer clothes lived. The Third Floor looked like a room out of an early Fred Astaire movie — no clothes. Society women clients sat on little couches and had the clothes brought to them by women of a certain age who had worked there forever. Mr. John’s hat shop was off the main room and the fur department (real fur!!!) was in the back. My job was to dress in a series of designer outfits — Halston, Bill Blass, Norman Norell and others —walk around the store and occasionally do fashion shows. I was involved in demonstrations in Berkeley at the time – People’s Park, Third World Strike, Cambodian invasion; I can’t remember. Would show up to work in a ratty car coat, eyes red from tear gas and sneak into the dressing room to transform myself —hair in a tight bun, full make-up, and I’d slip into a couture creation. The clothes were way too sophisticated for me and even would be now. The initial thrill lasted about a week until boredom set in and I found distraction in the fur department where two witty salesmen spent their time judging, in a dry and hilarious way, what customers wore. Joan Rivers and her daughter Melissa did this years later on the Red Carpet, and it became a hit show.
In Oakland, got a job as assistant to a one-man ad agency. The work was easy, doing layouts and paste-ups for newspaper ads and answering the phone. The down side was that he liked to yell which made me anxious. He also would lunge at me and then laugh uproariously. Today it would be called sexual harassment; then it was something to put up with or lose your job. His behavior was unpredictable. A toxic work environment, for sure. I remember having to pick something up at his house where his family was watching the moon landing on TV. How I wished I could be on the moon. One small step for woman kind.
I was hired to run the Alameda County office for the Tunney for Senate Campaign. Our office was an abandoned, fast food chicken eatery with a big chicken on the roof. (Not a real chicken.) My job was to put the volunteers to work, addressing and stuffing envelopes, phones, precinct walking, etc. The big event was the major fundraising dinner with Senator Edmond Muskie of Maine as special guest. Looking for the perfect outfit, I went to Union Street, the height of hip shops at the time, and chose an all white jumpsuit, a bohemian look with ties across a bare midriff — a nod to Cher. My job was to escort Senator Muskie in to dinner. When the time came, he took one look at me, quickly backed away, and hurried in on his own. I had failed to consider that my idea of dinner wear in Berkeley may not have been de rigeur in Maine. Tunney, on the other hand, commented in his Kennedyesque accent, “My, you’re looking well.”
Sarah Beserra is an artist, writer, Dharma practitioner and former lobbyist.
Letters From Benicia 