The Purple and Gold

Many of you know that I'm retired from LSU after 30 years service.  What you probably don't know is that the head of Human Resourses, my boss, Forrest Benedict made the final 5 lyears of my service an absolute hell.  He constantly undermined me and kept me from getting any raises during that time making my retirement much lower than it should have been.  I have never stepped foot on LSU ground since January, 1999 and any previous "friends" at LSU I have either had contact with them at their home or FB which has really helped me work through my negative feelings.  I loved LSU with everything in me until Leona Catalon entered my life at LSU Facility Services. As President of the Staff Senate I saw many wrongs done by our administration and had to keep my mouth shut since I was just one cog in the wheel.  Every many thanks letter I received from Chancellor Bud Davis brought bile to my throat.  Leona made me quit the Staff Senate after two years and there was nothing I could do about it.  It was the one thing that kept me happily connected to LSU and now it was gone.  Joan Thompson in the main personnel office offered me a chance to get away from Leona and return to the main office in Thomas Boyd Hall.  Everything was fine until she met her future husband, married and moved to Nevada.  Then Forrest and Marion (Caillet) became my bosses.  Forrest did not want to follow Civil Service guidelines and felt that I was constantly thwarting his recommendations when I was trying to keep LSU out of Civil Service appeals hearings.

That's a quick summary of a long story.  Why do you ask am I putting this in my "Garden Blog"?  The reason is I resented everything LSU when I retired and this festered and grew until I found it even to hard to see the purple and gold or support LSU whether it was the Universit or their teams.  That is not a good feeling and it was not good for me.  My garden has always been my escape and I found comfort working in the dirt and planting my "babies" and watching them grow.  Believe it or not I just realized something the other day...my garden has a lot of purple and gold and I think this is the beginning of my reconciliation of that part of my life.   Maybe this year I'll be able to join my family and friends wearing the purple and gold.  Hopefully, I'm ready to remove this hurt and negative feelings of LSU from my mind and learn to love LSU again as I once did.

Here are a few pics showing my purple and gold from my garden all the way down to my orchids.