Jane HensgE
Author
Do Over In Pearl Center
Forty-something Jen returns to her Iowa hometown with a dream of reopening her parents' old grocery store. She spends her days organizing products, reconnecting with old friends, and rekindling her high school romance. Meanwhile, she faces sabotage aimed at her efforts to revive the store, as someone tries to push her out of town.
The small town I grew up in, Muscatine, IA, could be described as one of those towns that today many city dwellers would like to escape to.
My parents owned a mid sized grocery store and raised six children in the apartment above the store. I suspect our economic status was middle class, however nobody that I knew of cared about your dollars. We had everything we needed.
When each of the six children reached the age of twelve or thirteen, a job was waiting; checking out groceries if you were a girl or helping in the butcher shop if you were a boy. It was a ten to fifteen hour a week job. As far as I know all six were proud the day we got to work with our parents and of course the other employees.
In a family owned store the first thing you learn as an employee is customer care. My dad took care of all his customers. I recall multiple families who came upon hard times and my dad extended them credit. We had a pretty homogeneous population, but the color of their skin was irrelevant to him. If he trusted you, all was well. It was a good environment to grow up in.
The level of sexual information was so different from today. Not sure if that is good or bad. When I was fourteen of fifteen a boy put his tongue in my mouth when he kissed me. I ran up the steps to our apartment and called my friend and told her I might be pregnant. I told her the story and she explained, that is not how you get pregnant.
School was fun. I had lots of girl friends and boyfriends. I got good grades and I went to parties. Some of my friends drank beer at parties. I did not because that would have disappointed my folks.
It sounds like I was a boring goodie two shoes but that was far from the case.
I lived in Michigan and Chicago during my adult working life. I married young and had two sons. Like my protagonist in the Do Over In Pearl Center, I was divorced in my forties, but you just keep on keepin’ on.
My second husband of thirty years and I live in Door County Wisconsin on Lake Michigan. I have always liked to write and act and I still get to do both. Our community is a lot like the town I grew up in. We are so lucky.
