"The Mayonnaise Lady" started as a short documentary about Doris Judd, a former University of California, Davis cafeteria worker who was fired in the early 1970's for not spreading mayonnaise correctly on sandwiches. The piece came about when I discovered some old news footage about Doris and her two year fight to get her job back. Curious to learn more about the bizarre story, I began to research.
I quickly realized it wasn't going to be easy finding Mrs.Judd, let alone anyone who knew her. Memories of her story had faded. What's more, the University no longer had record of her employment, the county courthouse didn't have accurate records of where the case files where, and the California Superior Court of Appeals never published their opinion on the case. Because of time constraints, the piece quickly morphed into a commentary about the forms our individual and collective social memories take. Who's to say what did and didn't happen? Are the gray areas of a story filled with partial truths or stories the mind has made up? And are these stories any less important to remembering the past?
Maybe someday I'll pick up where the story ended and find the Mayonnaise Lady.
