Let's Move To The Dominican Republic

 Let’s Move To The Dominican Republic

 

One Sunday in the winter of 1978, I was getting ready to go to work as the manager of a Kellwood outlet store.  Kellwood was the lead store in the new outlet mall on Highway 65 in Murfreesboro, TN outside Nashville.  This was almost the very beginning of the concept of outlet stores and malls.  Previously, I had managed and stocked the company stores owned by the company my husband worked for, Colonial Corporation, a clothing manufacturer based in Woodbury, TN with sewing facilities across the south, cutting operations in the Dominican Republic and fabric sourcing and testing in Taipei, Taiwan.  He had worked his way up while attending college at the University of Miami, from office assistant at the Miami shipping office to employee in one of the departments at the Woodbury, TN office, to head of several departments.  We were married in 1973.  The 6-8 company stores I managed for Colonial were the “real deal”.  They were located in the sewing plants, open only to employees and their families, and carrying merchandise from not only Colonial’s operations (which were primarily clothing made for Sears, Penney, K-Mart and Target) but I could also get merchandise from other Gulf and Western subsidiaries (Vanity Fair and Catalina are the two I remember).  If you ever owned a flannel shirt from one of those stores or bought any of the Cheryl Teigs clothing line, Colonial was the manufacturer.

 

Eventually, Colonial sold their store inventory to a new Gulf and Western retail subsidiary, Rolane.  But, being a woman – perhaps – I wasn’t offered the job of manager of the new Murfreesboro store, but assistant manager.  My degree in secondary education as a high school history teacher turned out to be a bust as I was one of bazillions of those Baby Boomers who chose that career.  So, I’d been a secretary at City Finance, and a cafeteria manager at Middle Tennessee State University (until they changed food service companies and once again, women weren’t welcome in management).  When I was approached by Kellwood to be the manager of the large anchor store, I jumped at the opportunity.

 

But back to that snowy Sunday.  As I was getting ready to go, Jan (my husband) said, “I think we’ve had enough of working this much”.  We have my parent’s double-wide in Wildwood, Florida (they’d passed away), we both have educations.  You can be a check out girl at Publix and I’ll work at a gas station.  Obviously, he was kidding, but the point was . . . we won’t starve.  I agreed and left to open the store.

 

Jan’s next task was to inform the Vice-President, Bill Little, that it was time for us to move on to warmer pastures.  Bill’s response was to get up, open the door to the President, Howard Stringers’ office and be the bearer of the news.  Howard’s response was to enter Bill’s office, do a hand to forehead swoon on the black leather couch, while Jan was sitting in surprise in the chair, and say he can’t believe Jan would want to leave.  “But if you want warmer, how about taking over the facilities in the Dominican Republic” or words to that effect.  So, instead of becoming a Publix check out girl, I found myself driving a U-Haul truck to Wildwood where I distinctly remember moving my spinet piano inside.  Did you know there’s a tool specifically made for that?  Now you know.

 

Our first trip to the Dominican before we actually moved, was to see the “company apartment”.  Oh dear.  This was fine for a single man, but this dark and dreary place did not spark joy – I can assure you!  I still see myself, behind Jan, whispering negatively in his ear.  “Johnny”, the Dominican man who was the local in charge, noticed my distress and mentioned that he knew of a little house under construction in the area that might be available.  We got to see it, I loved it, and I have no idea how much later, we moved in to the little, white plaster walls, red tile roof, 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house with windows that were wooden louvred with screens but no glass except in one bedroom.  It had rusty red Mexican style tile floors, which was great because if the wind was blowing from the south and it was raining, those wooden louvres let in a lot of rain.  There was a rather noisy generator outside that came on when the power failed, which was very frequently.  I remember buying the used, green refrigerator in Miami.  Shipping was no problem as there was a Miami shipping office.  The sewing operation was in the “free zone” in La Romana, which is a small town located on the southeastern coast about an hour and half away from the capital, Santo Domingo.  The house was located in a neighborhood close by and turned out to be the area where the majority of expat families lived.  There was and still is a lovely resort just a few minutes down the coast, Casa de Campo (or country house) designed by the famous Dominican Oscar de la Renta.  It had riding stables and an artist colony built at the top of a nearby hill, Altos de Chavon.  This place had been built as a replica of a 16^th century Mediterranean village.  It was open to locals at no cost if they wanted to learn pottery (as a possible career) and to me.  I don’t remember if I paid anything, but I did learn how to clean the clay that was dug, prepare it for throwing and to actually make pots on the wheels that were operated by foot power, no electricity.  It also had an artist in residence program.  While I was there, I met and bought art from two of them, Mr. Prats-Ventos who sculpted in wood and from whom I have one of his Las Maninas pieces, and a Mr. Moro whose portraits of Bahamian children in chalk, and pen and ink hang in a bedroom.  For transportation I had a little blue and white Honda scooter with a basket on the front. 

 

The strangest ongoing chapter at that house is something we called “frog alert”.  One night in bed, just after we’d turned off the lights, something cool and damp landed on my forehead and then on the blanket.  I shrieked and Jan turned on the light.  It was a little green tree frog.  My reaction was to go to the kitchen, get an empty plastic margarine container and a thin piece of cardboard.  We corralled the frog and were able to escort him outside where he could live his best life.  And we were done, we thought.  I think possibly a frogless evening or two went by until several night later when we were getting ready for bed there was another frog on the wall.  We repeated the catch and release exercise, but when another frog was spotted later on, we realized we had to make this a nightly thing.  If we found one, we called out “frog alert” and the spotter would stay and watch the frog, while the other got the catching apparatus.  Of course we searched and searched for the source of the frogs to no avail, until one morning while I was bending over making the bed, I happened to look underneath the window mounted air conditioner.  There they were, clustered under the little water outlet opening, three little frogs with six blinking eyes looking so innocently up at me.  So that particular source of nightly “amusement” ended. 

 

At some point after frog alert, I became pregnant, which was something we’d hoped for but thought wasn’t going to happen.   Casa de Campo became a place that Jan visited several times a week because while I’d become sick enough to be hospitalized for a night because of all day morning sickness, when that got better I got a food craving for candy bars.  American candy bars.  Only available at the Casa de Campo gift shop.  I don’t even like chocolate.  I sure did then.  Fifty pounds worth.

 

Another place we visited at that time was the country adjoining the Dominican Republic, Haiti.  It wasn’t as terrifying and destroyed a place then.  It was poor, of course, and the disparity of rich and poor was blatantly obvious, but the markets were functioning.  My most distinct memory is when we went to a casino in Port Au Prince.  It must have been my first time ever as I was amazed.  Adding to that amazement was the man standing next to me at the roulette wheel.  Roulette was totally my speed.  Red or black.  Small risk, small reward.  Not this very black skinned gentleman who stood next to me.  He was dressed all in white or cream with heavy gold jewelry and his bets were hundred dollar bills.  I tried to be nonchalant, but I was shocked.  I don’t think he won, because I’m sure I’d remember.  All I remember is that he left.

 

And at a little over 8 months pregnant I left too.  By myself.  The people who were renting our townhouse in Davie had ample notice to move out so I moved back in.  This must have been late June or early July 1982 because our son Jordan was born in August.  Happily, Jan was able to get a flight out the day I called.  I remember him walking into the room.  I’d already had an epidural so was in no pain and said, “Hi honey, we’re having a baby”. 

 

Jan stayed with me for about a week but returned to the Dominican for a month to oversee the transfer of operations.  When he returned, he was in charge of the Miami warehouse and shipping operation.  And so ended our life in the Caribbean.