Post #53

Ah, the old BJ's Subs days.  From '96 to '07, I was the driver for Donnie, the gentleman you see in the picture, who owned the business.  With him is his successor, Carla, who basically was Donnie's understudy and took over the business when Donnie left a few years later after this.  Don was exceptionally generous with his workers, and always gave credit where it was due.  In fact, he heaped the credit where it was due.  Really, he was a father figure to all of us.  He was my boss for a great deal of my working life, hiring me at Green Gables in '84, where I stayed until '90, then went back to Green Gables with Janice in '91.  Don always looked after those who looked out for him. Anyway, this was a Christmas party that Donnie put on for us, and I think the staff from Chubby's Variety, whose owners were his sister and her husband.
In this one we have Donnie on the far right, on the left we have Don's bro-in-law Steve, and of course one of my sweetest and longest lasting friends, Cindy.  She was a big Mr. Bean fan, and she was teased that the present she was about to get was a poster of her heartthrob, or something like that.  As you can see from her smile, she was pretty delighted to finally have a poster of her crush.
And this is Carla, the woman who would take over BJ's when Don eventually left.  I loved working for her, too.  She was personable and patient (she needed to be, with me!) and always nice to be around.  And like all the girls that worked at BJ's, not too hard on the eyes.  It was tough being the lone male worker there!  Sometimes there were guy workers, but the women dominated.  Steve is there in the background... he and his wife, Terri, have both since passed, sadly.  Both wonderful people.
And here's a solo shot of the very lovely Cindy.  I find I connected to her maybe more than most for some reason.  We're quite similar in things we like, so we had lots to talk about all the time.  We still stay in touch to this day.
And here we have yours truly, probably handy to 33 years old or so at the time of this pic.  We were all called up to the front to receive gifts Donnie had brought for us, and he was always so tremendously generous.  You can see Steve and Terri in the background.  Janice and me were actually having a bit of hard luck around this time, with Mom passing away not long before this, I think.  I couldn't afford a new winter jacket, so Donnie had a 'door prize' kind of thing where he'd put names in a hat and draw the winner, and that happened to be me.  The prize was a brand new Philadelphia Eagles winter jacket, which kept me warm during those winter months driving around doing deliveries.  I don't think it was a door prize at all, in retrospect.  Donnie had every intention of making sure I got a coat for the winter.  I'd have worked for Don till the day I dropped if I could.  Things turned out a bit differently though.


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