Jackie from Philadelphia

Jackie from Philadelphia
Spring, 1987

My mother was very proud of me when I finished my doctoral program. And why wouldn’t she be proud.  She was after all a mother and it is a mother’s job to be proud of her children.  So a few days after I finished my program, she called my office, looking for me. One of the secretaries answered the phone.

“Good morning”, my mother says, “is Dr. Kelly available?

“I’m sorry; Bridget is out of the office right now. Can I take a message?” comes the reply to my mother.

Put off by this response, my mother continues.  “Oh, is that her first name?” she asks indignantly.

“Whose?”

“Dr. Kelly’s?”

“Oh, yea, yes.  Bridget is her name”, says the secretary, not getting my mother’s point.

“Oh, I only know her as Dr. Kelly”, fibs my mother, only three days after I defended my dissertation.  At this point, no one and I mean, no one, knows me as “Dr. Kelly”.

“Would you like to leave Bridget a message?” asks the secretary, rubbing salt in to my mother’s wound.

“Yes. Yes I would”, my mother responds.  But now she is backed in to a corner because she has identified me as someone she only knows as “Dr. Kelly.”

So when I return to the office, I get a written message: "Jackie from Philadelphia called you this morning.  She’ll call back.”