The Tallit

Among the many things I did not ask my grandfather about, I never asked him to tell me about the buttons.  It was enough just to play with them.  If I could talk to him now, say that it wasn’t too interesting – some designer ordered buttons from a button manufacturer.

I can, however, tell you the modern story of some of Grandpa Meyer’s buttons.  I know he would find this story interesting.

At our Temple, each Bar or Bat Mitzvah child gets to make his or her own personal tallit (prayer shawl).   Currently we (my son, Michael, my husband, and my father) are helping Michael design his tallit.

When my daughter, Rachel, designed her tallit, she wanted to incorporate things that were important to her into the design.  Her mitzvah (good deed) project involved helping the cats at Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Organization (where our cats our from).  We had our dear friend, Ginny, owner of Sandpiper Embroidery, Wildwood Crest, NJ, embroider replicas of our then five cats across the bottom of her tallit.  On the top of the tallit, she wrote the Hebrew words for “and God said, ‘fill the earth with animals.’” 

In the midst of planning Rachel’s tallit, the buttons called to me.  We could take some of the buttons and sew them on the corners of the tallit.  The buttons would no longer be waiting in the bottom of the sewing box.

Each corner of the tallit has a different design.  One corner has buttons to remind Rachel of her great Aunt Bobbie.  In the Aunt Bobbie corner, we sewed the butterfly button, a fish button, a flower button and a shell.  In two corners, Rachel selected her favorite Grandpa Meyer buttons. 

In addition to Grandpa Meyer’s buttons, the tallit also has one other very special piece – my father in law, Lester Shubin’s WWII army insignia from his uniform. 

The tallit keeps the memory of my grandfather, my aunt, and my father in law  alive.  The buttons, once a functional item and then a toy, now serve as a bridge from the past to the future. 

The button box

I want to tell you about my grandfather’s basement and the button box because these memories are my connection to the Helitzer Bros. blouse business.

I have such a vivid memory of going into my grandfather’s basement to look in the button box.  I can see it in my mind, almost like a movie. 

I’m sure that if I had an opportunity to look at my grandfather’s basement now, it would probably seem a lot smaller.  Memories of a space always seem to be bigger.

My sister and I spent a lot of time poking around in the basement.  Here’s what I remember.  Walk down the dark stairs and pass the picture of the horse my dad painted at camp (the same horse on the cigarette box in the living room).  At the bottom of the stairs, if you turn right, there was a room with lots of shelves filled with bolts of fabrics and boxes (I don’t think I was allowed to poke around in this room).  The main basement room had a really cool bar area (look behind the bar for the red apple cookie jar).  Toward the back of the room, there was a door with a red checked curtain leading to the washing machine and dryer and shelves of pantry goods.   

I loved going into the basement to look in the button box, waiting for me on the back shelf of the main room.  Open the box and find lots and lots of buttons.  Buttons with pearls, buttons with jewels, wood buttons, red buttons, big turquoise blue buttons.  Leather buttons, little tiny blouse buttons, plain old boring buttons.  Poke a little more and find glass buttons with horses underneath the glass (those now live in my sewing box waiting for me to find that special place for them).  One day, I found a button with a clock face.  Dig a little more and find a butterfly button or a flower.  Ouch, you might get stabbed by a pin, but ignore it so that you can search some more.  Years and years of entertainment, contained in one box. 

Oh no!  I spilled the contents of the button box on the floor.  I don’t remember my grandfather yelling or what he said – I just remember picking up so many buttons. 

You might want to know what became of those buttons.  A great number of them ended up in my sewing box.  I loved those buttons so much that my grandfather must have let me take them.  Funny, I don’t really remember leaving his house with those beloved buttons. 

I don’t sew, so the buttons remain in my sewing box, waiting and waiting.  If a button falls off a blouse or a coat, I’ll open my sewing box and the first thing I see is a remaining spool of thread from my grandfather’s house (thread on a real wooden spool).  When I’m done sewing, even if I’m really busy, I always open the bottom of the box and take out the buttons.  I sift through and find the clock, the jewels, the leather ones, and the big turquoise one.  I open the little box that holds the prized glass horse buttons.  And, I wish I could ask my grandfather to tell me the story of the buttons.    

From pink soccer cleats to pink cupcakes

As an adult, I've spent a lot of hours on soccer fields.  Both of my kids have played recreational soccer.  Much to my surprise, I've taken a soccer class and I've assisant coached my son's soccer team.  Little did I know that being on a soccer field would lead me to a great job!

Physics, Swimming Pools, Manholes, Contracts, Cats and Pink Cupcakes

My Personal Labor Journal   © 2011 Julie Shubin

George Mason University:  From the soccer field to the classroom, cats and pink cupcakes

While at a soccer field waiting for my daughter’s practice to end, my friend, Laura Poms, who teaches at GMU suggested that I look into teaching law classes for the School of Management.    For the last four years, I’ve taught numerous sections of Bule 302, The Legal Environment of Business, a survey class of legal topics impacting business – such as torts, criminal law, constitutional law, administrative law, and contracts.  For the past three semesters, I’ve also taught Bule 402, Commercial Law, an upper level elective class covering contract law, the Uniform Commercial Code, and other topics such as property law, ownership and risk, and securities law.

Bule 302 is really fun for me to teach because it gives students an introduction to the basic legal topics that all law students study, and it covers many areas of law that I’ve had the opportunity to practice during my legal career. 

When I was asked to teach Commercial Law, I remembered my Commercial Law professor asking, “Did you know that you could write a check on a napkin?”  I thought how much fun it would be to get to teach my students that checks actually have been written on items ranging from napkins to cows to underpants, and then explaining that while the law does not prohibit such acts, customer agreements with banks now preclude this “historic” practice. 

Bule 402 is a challenging class to teach because it involves the sometimes arcane and boring details of contract law, the Uniform Commercial Code, and some other dry topics.  That requires a lot of professorial effort to make it interesting.   I was very touched when one of my most recent students said “Law and the like may not be the most exciting of courses to teach so it is what it is in terms of material, but Professor Shubin didn't make it seem that way. I came to class always excited to learn, so I thank her for that.”  

I may be known on campus as the crazy cat professor.  During my first semester teaching, my cat, Henry, fell asleep on top of my textbook.  I snapped his picture and used in my PowerPoint slides on my first day of class as an icebreaker and a reminder to the students to “use” their textbooks.  Since then, I’ve continued to use a “cat of the day” slide to help students remember a legal topic.  For instance, to make the point that a contract is a promise, I use a slide showing a picture of one of the feral campus cats as an illustration of the Mason Cat Coalition’s “promise” or “contract” to take care of those cats.   My use of cats to help teach lessons at GMU was most recently noted in an article about Advocacy and Rescue, by Dusty Rainbolt, June 2011 Cat Fancy magazine.

In both of the Bule classes, I use a hypothetical business, The Pink Cupcake, to help students understand how laws and legal issues affect a business.  We cover topics from writing a contract for winter plowing services for The Pink Cupcake (a basic contract that a real local business would need) to ownership, insurance, and risk factors when The Pink Cupcake orders a shipment of cherries from an out-of-state farm. 

For now, part six of my personal labor journal is the last installment.  As I posted a few weeks ago, I'm not teaching this semester, but hope to get back in the queue.  What's next?  I don't know.  Many of my students have asked if I will open a pink cupcake bakery.  Well, I did bake a great banana bread this weekend that could easily be turned into cupcakes!

If you are late to work, don't use the excuse -- I didn't hear my alarm clock; it didn't work for the hearing impaired county employee.

Physics, Swimming Pools, Manholes, Contracts, Cats and Pink Cupcakes

My Personal Labor Journal   © 2011 Julie Shubin

Fairfax County Civil Service Commission:  Sometimes good employees make bad mistakes.

After my years at the Department of Justice, my public service continued in local government, as a hearing officer for the Fairfax County Civil Service Commission.   After years of being the “arguer” in court, I now had the chance to be the “judge,” and to rule on objections and motions.   

The cases involved county employees who had received some type of “employment action” – ranging from demotions and suspensions to termination of employment.  The cases exposed me to good and bad workers and good and bad managers.  Some of the cases involved bad workers who won cases because managers had not followed written procedures and other cases involved good employees who made mistakes that required discipline. 

There were cases involving offices where there was that feeling of discrimination, but not enough to make it illegal discrimination, as well as cases involving people who claimed discrimination where there was none.  Of course, we also heard cases where the grievant proved discrimination.

Other cases I heard involved pornography, drinking on the job, a runaway school bus, and a deaf employee who could not “hear” his alarm clock and get to work on time.  There was also a case involving a stellar day care worker who came to work, got sick with a stomach bug.  She told a co-worker that she urgently needed to use the restroom.  While she was in the rest room, a child got out of the day care center during “her watch.”  She ended up being disciplined.  Both sides were not happy with the case and I was able to help them reach a settlement agreement, the perfect way to resolve this case.

During my ten years at the Civil Service Commission, I spent many late nights at hearings, listening to the personal labor histories of County employees and their supervisors. 

FYI  -- LL Bean makes Moonbeam alarm clocks that flash light, instead of ringing.  Well, if you sleep through the flashing light for a certain amount of time, it does ring -- just ask Harry!  He knows from real life experience.  I want the pink version (we have the orignial color) .  http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/63179?qs=3006424_pmd_google

Next post:  Never thought soccer would lead me to my next job.   

You can climb down a manhole ladder wearing high heels

Physics, Swimming Pools, Manholes, Contracts, Cats and Pink Cupcakes

My Personal Labor Journal   © 2011 Julie Shubin

Department of Justice:  How I found myself climbing down a manhole in a coverall and black high heel shoes.

My work at WTKH gave me the “trial bug.”  I really wanted to do more independent litigation, so I applied for a trial attorney position at the United States Department of Justice, Commercial Litigation Branch (CLB). The CLB represents government entities in government contracts cases in the United States Court of Federal Claims and United State Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit).  The CLB also represents US agencies in appeals from the Merit System Protection Board and from the Department of Veterans’ affairs to the Federal Circuit. 

My first case involved the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the effect of a steam pipe explosion on a construction renovation contract at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks Alaska.  In addition to understanding the legal issues in the case, I had to understand the physics of the steam pipe explosion.  Why does physics keep on coming up in my life?   

During our visit to the site, my expert witness and I had to see the area where the steam pipe exploded.  I was a little concerned when the military engineers brought me a pair of coveralls to wear over my suit.  My concern greatly increased when we left the building, stopped in front of a manhole cover, and the engineer pried off the top of the manhole cover revealing a metal ladder we would all have to climb down.  I learned two things – first, that you can climb down a ladder in high heels, and second, that you can learn more from a site visit than you could ever learn from going through boxes of documents and drawings.

Working at the Department of Justice taught me that you have to work with the facts and issues that you are given.  As the attorney defending the government, you don’t get to choose your cases or even to make the choice to file a lawsuit in court.  The cases were already in litigation and we had to do our best to defend the government’s position, regardless of their strength or weakness.    

After months of hard work on a legal brief about the meaning of the words “as the result,” during the week of Veterans’ Day, I found myself appearing before a panel of judges of the Federal Circuit.  I was in the unfortunate position of defending the government’s denial of the veteran’s leg brace due to the regulatory interpretation of these words by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.  Even with the best argument I could write and the best argument I could make, we lost the case.  I hated to lose, but I was convinced that justice was done.   

To my displeasure, my superiors required me to file for a full court review, (an en banc review of the case by all the judges of the court of appeals). After we lost that motion, I had to write a petition for certiorari, which asks the United States Supreme Court to hear the case.   If the case made it to the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General’s office would take over.  The good news was that I would not have to appear before the Supreme Court and make these same arguments denying the veteran his benefits.  The bad news was that I would not be arguing a case before the Supreme Court!  An opportunity most lawyers dream about.

 I’ve used this case in my classes not only to teach the concept of agency law, but also to show students that as a lawyer, you don’t always get to represent the side you personally want to support.  Also, to explain to students that making your best argument for your client can be challenging.   

I'm not high tech enough to get the Jaws music to play. Here is the next installment of my personal labor journal.

It was a beautiful September day so my mom and dad went for a picnic at Jones Beach (Long Island, New York).  They talked about how great it was that both their daughters had jobs.  Then, that night, dad got the call, "hey, what do you think it means that the law firm is dissolving?"  Now, I can tell you that it ultimately meant an $8000 pay increase (job at a different law firm) and a great future lesson in partnership dissolution!

Physics, Swimming Pools, Manholes, Contracts, Cats and Pink Cupcakes

My Personal Labor Journal   © 2011 Julie Shubin

First Employment as a Lawyer: 

I had to make a tough choice between accepting a job offer from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in New York or from LMM.  In the spring of 1987, I decided to go the civil route and work at LMM.  On my first day of work in September 1987, the other first year law associates and I were informed that the night before our first day of work, the LMM partnership had voted to dissolve the law firm.  Little did I realize then that, 20 years later, I would be able to use that horrible day, to teach my business law and commercial law students about  dissolution of partnerships.

The partners at LMM helped us set up interviews at competing law firms, and I was hired by the Watt, Tieder, Killian and Hoffer (WTKH) law firm, where I practiced construction and government contract law for approximately 2 years. 

During my tenure at WTKH, I developed excellent professional research and writing skills, participated in written discovery, took and defended depositions, and assisted with a construction contract trial involving the construction of the Denton County Jail, Denton, Texas.  I also argued my first court motion as a lawyer, representing a client in a mechanic’s lien case in a Chesterfied Circuit Court, Virgina. 

Dissolution does not equal disaster.

Who was scarier -- the judge or the maximum security prisoner?

Here is part 3 of my personal labor journal.   I'm thinking that trying my first case in front of the judge probably scared me more than my maximum security client.  Maybe that is because the United States Park Police officer (motorcycle cop), a very tall man in tall black boots was also scared of the judge!

Physics, Swimming Pools, Manholes, Contracts, Cats and Pink Cupcakes

My Personal Labor Journal   © 2011 Julie Shubin

Law School:  Locked in a conference room with a maximum security prisoner.

I attended law school at Georgetown University Law Center.  After my first year of law school, I worked at a small general law practice, Cohen, Dunn, and Sinclair, in Alexandria, Virginia.  My work involved both civil and criminal litigation, including a divorce case and several criminal cases.  I did research, helped write briefs, met with clients, and assisted during court motions. 

During second year law school job interviews, I was offered a summer job at Lewis, Mitchell and Moore (LMM) in Tysons Corner, Virginia, a mid-size law firm specializing in government and construction contracts.     LMM had a very structured summer program for second year students.  Our work focused on learning how to effectively research cases and prepare legal memos to assist attorneys with court motions and briefs.  I had an excellent mentor and learned valuable skills.   This job exposed me to the civil side of legal work and contract law.

During my third year of law school, I participated in Georgetown’s renowned Criminal Justice Clinic, working as a prosecuting attorney at the United States Attorney Office for the Eastern District of Virginia for the first semester and then as a student defense attorney for cases in the DC Superior Court.  I tried my first case, prosecuting a misdemeanor speeding ticket in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, before Judge T.S. Ellis, III, who was known to be a very intimidating judge.  Both the United States Park Police Officer and I were “shaking in our boots” because of his reputation.  We then successfully prosecuted several more traffic violation cases and survived the day in Judge Ellis’s courtroom.

During my defense work, I represented a man accused of larceny for taking meat from a hotel freezer (he took the food so he could feed his family), a misdemeanor drug possession case requiring me to do investigations in high crime areas of DC, and representing clients in parole hearings at the DC Jail. 

To prepare for one of the parole hearings, I had to interview a client who was then serving time in solitary confinement at the Lorton Federal Prison.  I did not realize that I would have to be locked in a conference room with him, with a guard waiting outside.  

Whenever I get nervous about something, I think back to that experience and remember how I had to pretend not to be scared of my client.

Yes, I did work at a psychiatric hospital! And, Go Big Red (Cornell University)!

Here is the next installment of my personal labor journal:

Physics, Swimming Pools, Manholes, Contracts, Cats and Pink Cupcakes

My Personal Labor Journal   © 2011 Julie Shubin

College  work:  Swimming pools and counseling – Who knew that went together?

Just as I knew with certainty that I wanted to be a lawyer, I knew that the only college I wanted to attend was the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) at Cornell University.   Both my parents, Eugenie Alexander Helitzer and Jack Helitzer, attended Cornell, as did my maternal grandfather (Morris Alexander -- who attended until he was too sick to continue).  My older sister, Marjorie Helitzer Swirsky and my brother–in-law, Keith Swirsky, also attended Cornell.

Between my junior and senior years in high school, I attended the Cornell summer program.  I took my first ILR course with Professor Korman together with an art history class.  Both classes were fantastic.  The ILR School did not have early decision admissions, so I had to anxiously wait until spring for my Cornell letter.   Fortunately, I was accepted to the ILR School.  

The ILR’s school curriculum is very demanding, so I didn’t work during my college years.  However, during the summers, I worked as a mental health worker at a private psychiatric hospital in Westwood, MA.  Mental health workers assisted staff doctors and nurses by taking blood pressure, weighing patients, and updating charts.  The part of the job I loved the most was sitting with the patients, keeping them company, and listening to them – just trying to add a bit of comfort and normalcy to their days. 

The pool’s lifeguard was also a mental health worker, so during my junior year in college I became certified as a lifeguard so that I could work as a mental health worker for three days and as a lifeguard for two days.  I found that when working at the pool, the young patients, who were admitted mostly for drug and alcohol related issues, would feel even more comfortable talking to me in such a relaxed environment.  I liked making that connection to the patients and feeling that I made a difference during a difficult time in a patient’s life.

The Most Unthinkable Job

Today I was going to post the second installment of my Personal Labor Journal and answer the question – did you know that I worked at a psychiatric hospital?  Since this blog is about American labor – how can I not write about President Obama’s new job-creation plan?  Those posts will have to wait. 

Today, I want to dedicate my blog to the men and women of our military and to the passengers on United Flight 93. on September 11, 2001– the people with the most “unimaginable” job. 

This morning, with my cup of coffee on hand, I checked my email and saw an email from a boy scout in my son’s troop.  The email was titled “A Scout(master) is Brave” -- echoing the words in the boy scout pledge.  The scout posted an article that appears in the Style section of today’s Washington Post (click below to see the article).

here

Police, firefighters, military members, and many other American workers wake up every day knowing that on that day they might put their lives at risk due to the requirements of their jobs.  When they woke up on the morning of September 11, 2001, Major Heather “Lucky” Penney and Colonel Marc Sasseville (Michael’s scout leader) probably had not have imagined their days mission – to fly their fighter jets and take down a domestic passenger plane full of innocent people, by using their fighter planes as a weapon. 

The chilling words I read in the Washington Post this morning – “’We don’t train to bring down airliners,’ said Sasseville.”

Certainly, the passengers on flight 93 did not train to bring down an airliner.

Yet, those were their jobs that awful day.  The jobs of our military members and the job of those brave people on flight 93.  Jobs done to save others. 

Thank you Major Heather “Lucky” Penney, Colonel Marc Sasseville, and all the workers whose jobs it is to protect our country each day.

To the passengers on flight 93, as we say in the Jewish religion, may your memory be a blessing. 

Jobs Jobs Jobs

The President and the presidential candidates are all talking about jobs. I'm ready to share part one of my personal labor history.   Surprisingly, physics seems to be a continual theme -- how'd that happen?

Physics, Swimming Pools, Manholes, Contracts, Cats and Pink Cupcakes

My Personal Labor Journal   © 2011 Julie Shubin

I remember sitting in that hot (non-air-conditioned) classroom in the School of Industrial Labor Relations at Cornell, listening intently to Professor Gerd Korman lecturing about American labor history.  At that time, it did not occur to me that I had started my own personal labor history. 

From as early as kindergarten, when asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” my answer came easily.  With certainty and without hesitation, I answered, “I want to be a lawyer.”  How could a five year old be so certain?  I watched my lawyer dad go off to work every day, with a smile on his face.  He loved his job.  So naturally, I wanted to follow in his footsteps. 

During my first full-time high school summer job at the Nassau County Department of Tax Assessment, in Mineola, NY, I discovered that a great majority of people do not like their jobs. 

I’ve always worked and I have been fortunate to find work that I like.

Student work:  I can tutor physics!

During junior high and high school, I earned money by babysitting and tutoring, which are not unusual jobs for a motivated student.  However, during those early jobs, I took on challenges – for example, tutoring Hebrew for a boy who had dyslexia, and as a senior in high school, tutoring a junior in physics. 

I took a physics course during my junior year.  It was an individually paced class that was offered to high performing students (similar to today’s honors classes).  Unfortunately, it was taught by a low performing teacher.  With my friends in that class, and particularly with the help of one friend, who is now a tenured astrophysics professor at Harvard, we learned physics on our own. 

I had been tutoring a girl in French who also needed help in physics.  I suggested that she ask my friend – the astrophysics professor, but she said no.  She wanted me to teach her because she thought that I was so good at explaining things.  I tutored her in physics, and she did well. 

I know that I can’t teach physics at the college level, but it made me smile when I received this comment on my Spring 2011 course evaluations for Bule 402 Commercial Law -- “I would take her courses again in a heartbeat. It doesn't even have to be anything to do with Law. If she taught Physics I would still take her.”

Tomorrow's post -- did you know that I worked at a psychiatric hospital?

That's the way the cookie crumbles

I’ve worked the last 8 semesters at George Mason University as an adjunct professor.  I started off teaching business law (thanks Laura Poms for suggesting I apply) and then was asked to teach commercial law. 

I absolutely love teaching college age students.  Commercial law was challenging to teach.  The first thing I thought of when I looked at the course material, were words I heard my law school commercial law professor say – “did you know that you can write a check on a paper napkin.” 

That thought led to any interesting discussion of commercial paper and how our lives have changed with electronic banking.  Before electronic banking, people could actually write checks on things like napkins, watermelons, and even cows and underpants (although the guy who wrote his check on underpants was cited for contempt of court – note to all – don’t pay your speeding ticket on a check written on underpants). 

Over the course of three semesters, I worked hard at making some of the not so interesting topics in commercial law, interesting, drawing on my work experience from the Commercial law branch at Department of Justice, my years in private practice, and interesting articles in the news.  My hard work paid off when one of my student evaluations said, “Law and the like may not be the most exciting of courses to teach so it is what it is in terms of material, but Professor Shubin didn't make it seem that way. I came to class always excited to learn, so I thank her for that.”   And another said, “I would take her courses again in a heartbeat. It doesn't even have to be anything to do with Law. If she taught Physics I would still take her.”

This fall, the commercial law class is being taught by a new adjunct professor; mixing things up and trying out something new.  I’ve been lucky to have classes for 8 semesters.  I hope to get back in the queue for either commercial law or business law.  Or to have the opportunity to teach something new -- American Labor History and Law.   I hope that sometimes when the cookie crumbles, it will lead to a new cookie recipe!

 Over the summer, I wrote my personal labor journal, the story of my work history.  I’ll share that on my blog soon.  I’m hoping this blog will help me write the next chapter in my work journal

Labor Day Launch

Today starts my blog about American laborers.  You might be wondering where I got the name Helitzer Blouse Girl.  My maiden name is Julie Helitzer (married name, Julie Shubin).  My grandfather, Meyer Helitzer, co-owned a blouse manufacturing business with his brothers – Helitzer Bros.  So that’s how I got the idea to use Helitzer Blouse Girl.    

Currently, I’m at a career cross-road (more about that in a future blog).  So, to move forward, I looked back.   I’ve always been intrigued by my grandfather’s blouse business.  And, I’ve always loved American Labor History, which I studied at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.  While I’m looking for a job teaching American Labor History and Law, I thought I would write a modern American labor journal and blog about workers in America, businesses in America, and the labor issues that are so prevalent in the news today.     

Helitzer Bros. Blouse on my daughter Rachel's dress form.

Upcoming blog topics:  why I’m not teaching this semester; my personal labor diary; how we just bought a Helitzer Bros. blouse on Esty (now being displayed on my daughter Rachel’s dress form); more about Helitzer Bros. blouses, the Triangle Shirt Factory Fire (100^th year anniversary); New Balance sneakers (only US company that still has a US factory); and features on working Americans and American businesses.