I grew up in the Bronx, New York, in what I consider the best area ever. I went to Theodore Roosevelt High School, but left at the age of sixteen against my mother’s wishes, to start working for AT&T on Canal Street in the city. I had worked summers and after school since I was fourteen. It was at the telephone company that I made a friend that introduced me into the waitressing field. At once, I became infatuated with the business. I had small dabbles with it in the summer at an uncle’s coffee shop and at Woolworth’s 5 & 10 soda fountain. My story is really more about the people I had the pleasure of working with and for than the business itself plus the many unusual situations I was confronted with.