Keeper of all things Boop
Betty Mendez shows off the first Betty Boop item she received, which led to the many others her co-workers have given her over the years.
If visitors didn't know better, they'd think Betty Mendez's name was really Betty Boop.
That's because her fellow Transportation Department employees have been overloading her office space with Betty Boop memorabilia for eight years. It's become a community project, almost a competition, to add to her supply.
Mendez, an administrative assistant, recalled the first donation. Emma Lopez, a bus driver, gave her a saucy looking, stuffed doll outfitted in a strapless red dress. "I thought it was pretty and really nice," Mendez remembered. "Then people started bringing more stuff. Some said they had a doll like the one I had, so they brought it in from their homes. It just kept going."
She has a lot of stuff, agreed Rebecca Santa Cruz, a data control technician. "Everyone likes it, She's got a little of everything. When you go somewhere and see Betty Boop stuff, you buy it for Betty." Santa Cruz contributed a Betty Boop thermometer.
When space on Mendez's desk and countertops filled, Irma Morales, now a night dispatcher, and Carlos Franco, a daytime dispatcher, installed a wooden shelf high above the desk, running the width of Mendez's office. That went up as a surprise while she was off from work. Since then, she's added a smaller shelf, down lower, but that, too, is crammed.
"People are always stopping to see if I have certain items they've seen because they don't want to duplicate anything," Mendez said. But in spite of their best efforts, she does have some duplications, including three key rings. One of these she took home to use.
She estimated that she has about 100 items. That's based on the count by someone who substituted at her desk in the beginning of 2007 and counted 80 items.
Some of Betty Mendez's treasures adorn the shelf above her desk.
Seated on a Betty Boop pillow that bus driver Stephanie Baldwin gave her, Mendez pointed out highlights from her collection: stuffed dolls, figurines, license plates, handbags, lunch boxes, cologne, cups and mugs. Clocks came from former Transportation Department directors Bill Ball and Ron Stacy. One of her prized possessions is a gift from a bus driver now deceased—-a decal that Mendez preserved behind plastic on the front of a three-ring binder.
Tom Mulligan, the Acting Transportation Director , said he's too new to have given her anything, explaining that he also hasn't found any items she doesn't already have. He's considering getting her an item associated with Betty Boop's dog, Pudgy. That dog serves as the hood ornament on a miniature Betty Boop red Cadillac convertible that Betty has.
"People tell me I need to expand my space," Mendez said, looking around her office. An empty nearby desk outside her cubicle might work, she speculated.
"I'm the keeper of all things Boop," she said. "They enjoy it, but I do, too."