Given her current office job, you might be surprised to learn that Jefferson County YMCA operations manager Juliet DiPietro was once heavily involved in show business.

 DiPietro appeared regularly on ABC’s “All My Children” (alongside Kelly Ripa and Susan Lucci) and NBC’s “Another World,” both taped in New York City.

 DiPietro didn’t get many speaking lines — 10 or  fewer per episode because of union restrictions —  but relied on her punctuality to get steady soap work. “We did blocking and makeup at 5 a.m.,” she recalls, adding, “I was reliable.” And reliability — showing up on time in early morning — has always been a big plus in show business. “And I never had to take my clothes off to get work,” she laughs. DiPietro also did commercials.

 She was steadily working in New York and Brooklyn, where the soaps were shot, from 1992 to 2005. She appeared in 10-12 soap episodes a month, mostly as an extra. “Sometimes I played a nurse,” she recalls. “Soaps are constantly being shot, and they’re well-oiled machines down to the smallest detail.”

 She also worked on the staff of the Ziegfeld Theatre in Gotham as a production coordinator, escorting such actors as Denzel Washington and Halle Berry around the theatre during movie premieres.

 She then worked as an exec at the New York Y, and when a gig at the Y here opened up, she grabbed it. And in Port Townsend, she doesn’t have to be made up and work at 5 a.m.

   —Leaf peepin’: Want to see some lovely fall foliage? Simple. Just take Pershing Avenue along the south side of Fort Worden’s parade ground.

 —Not too swift: The city finally took my — or someone’s — suggestion — to install a “Your Speed Is” robo-sign on Hastings near Sheridan. One problem: The sign is 100 yards too far east. Most traffic and speeders blast in from the west on Hastings, turn right on Sheridan and never see the speed sign down the road. Move it west, please, city of PT.

—I originally joined Rotary years ago because of its worthy worldwide campaign to fight polio. I had surgeries for polio as a kid. Today, I’m impressed to see how proactive Port Hadlock’s East Jefferson Rotary Club is this month, gearing up its fundraising efforts to fight polio. At the club’s meeting recently — I sat across from fellow Leader columnist Ned Luce — past club president Peter Leenhouts made an impressive, brief presentation about the status of Rotary’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative efforts around the world. (Polio still is plaguing a few countries.) John Erickson, the club’s Foundation Committee Chair, (360-301-2970) can tell you how to become a Rotary Benefactor.

 —Viva Italia: I get a kick out of the Italian names attached to the doomed poplar trees coming into town: Vito, Riccardio, Fabio and Venus DeMilo among them. Ciao!

—Having once done a radio show in Canada (on a French station in Montreal), I find PT an unusually good location to tune in Canadian radio, out of Vancouver and Victoria. I listen daily to Vancouver’s fine all-news station (1130 AM); the Quebecois-accented 97.7 (French CBC) and also, English CBC, at 690 AM. Canadian radio offers a different perspective.

—Quick, a fast fast-food joke: I’ve found the secret of McDonald’s success: Nothing on its menu requires the use of teeth.

(PT humorist Bill Mann has been a columnist at the San Francisco Examiner, Oakland Tribune, and Montreal Gazette, among other dailies.  Newsmann9@ gmail.com)