Job One

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go. No summer vacation this year. One day I’m a carefree high school student, the next day I’m one of the mass of laborers working for minimum wage.
I was hired by the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. to start as a “cable splicers helper”, the name says it all. The cable splicer was the big cheese and the helper did all the dirty work while attempting to some day BE the big cheese.
I drove my ’35 Plymouth coupe to the assigned location ready for action in my dungarees and engineer boots and went into the boss’s office for assignment.
BUT WAIT – Kid, he says, you’re big enough and ugly enough but you ain’t old enough to be out on the streets of our fair city. City ordinance requires street workers to be at least 18, and you ain’t. (Oh, God, am I fired already?)
So…he says “get your butt on over to 1801 East Fayette St. and report to the ‘mail room.’” I did and I was now a mail clerk. “1801” as it was called by the employees was about a block off Broadway and fairly close to Johns Hopkins Hospital. It was a six story building that housed a big part of C & P’s accounting department.
The mail room was on the fourth floor and we (three or four clerks) were responsible for delivering the mail to all floors, maintaining supplies for the building and, most importantly, sending out telephone bills. This was no mean feat. We operated an “inserting machine,” of which Rube Goldberg would be proud, that put the bills and whatever advertising or informative inserts were used this month into envelopes. This contraption had little belts, chains, wheels, suction cups, blowers and god knows what all to do its magic. We would load separate hoppers with a couple dozen or so of the aforementioned items and press the “go” button and watch the action begin. The first insert would be grabbed and put on the conveyor belt, travel several inches and then be topped by the next insert, until all inserts were together, and then finally they were topped with the bill. Waiting for this was the envelope, which had been opened by a little thrust of air from a blower. The envelope, now filled, swings around in a semi-circle and into the gadget that licks the glue and seals the flap. Lastly, it goes through the Pitney-Bowes stamping machine (postage 5 cents 1st class) and drops into a large mail bag. Whew, tires me out. As you might imagine, this gadget required a lot of maintenance. We clerks could make minor repairs and adjustments, but for the serious stuff we had to call our frequent visitor, the Pitney-Bowes man, known to us as Challie.
Mail was delivered to us twice a day and we in turn sorted and delivered mail to all the offices in the building, picking up the outgoing mail and supply requisitions as we went. There were a lot of young (early 20’s) secretaries on our rounds who thought we were cute, being so young, and they would tease us unmercifully. I suppose today we could sue for “sexual harassment” but we just blushed and moved on.
The supply room was windowless, about 15 by 15 in the basement. We had mostly stationery stuff there. There was a small desk and chair for us to keep our records. “Going to the stock room to fill a requisition” was one of those “primo” jobs that took about ten minutes but you stretched into a half hour or so. Take the elevator to “B”, go into the stock room, shut the door, lock from the inside and sit back in that chair with you feet up on the table, smoke one if you wished, and luxuriate. When you feel you’ve squeezed all the available believable minutes out of the project, you grab the box of #2 pencils and hurriedly take the elevator to the sixth floor, make your delivery and high-tail it back to home base.
Most of the mail clerks stayed less than a year before they were released to the “Plant Department” which was responsible for all the physical operations of the Company. So, I was looking at June of ’57 as the outside date of my mail duties. However, I enlisted in the Air Force Reserves, where I had a choice to be trained as an auto mechanic, cook, or policeman. In keeping with my philosophy of life, I picked the one that seemed it would require the least actual work, policeman. February ’57 I was granted a leave of absence by the phone company so I could spend six months on active duty with the Air force.
Stay tuned.

Fait Accompli

Fall of fifty-five. The last year of my formal education. It seemed like it would be a waste of time, since I knew everything there was to know already. The senior boys regaled each other with stories of fantastic dates they had where they overwhelmed their girlfriends with their skills in international lovemaking, French kissing, Roman hands and Russian fingers. Most of the senior girls thought they were out of our league as they had their sights set on “college men.” I was “going steady” with the girl who would become my wife. My “wild oats” had been tamed.
After a school dance, most of us went to a hamburger joint on Liberty road called Randy-Rock, so called because it was at the dividing line of two suburbs, Randallstown and Rockdale. There were no McDonalds, Burger Kings and Jack’s lid was still on his box. For the more adventurous teens, and those who thought they had a “cool” car, there was a drive-in restaurant on route 40 called the Varsity. You could slowly circumnavigate the whole place looking for chicks, showing off your hotrod or looking for a challenge to drag race. On route 40, beginning at the Varsity and heading west there was a steep decline in the road known as “hundred mile hill”, where insane drivers (me included) would try to see if, with the help of gravity, they could hit 100 mph.
The Milford Mill “class of ‘56” is having their 50th year reunion this fall. We were a pretty tame group of a little over 200 as I recall. We, at least I, had never heard of marijuana, heroin or cocaine. The “bad kids” would sometimes get there hands on some beer. I did hear that one of the boys was hooked on cough syrup, which made no sense to me since it was yucky stuff. Later, of course, the authorities decided that over-the–counter products should not have codeine. What does our government have against us wanting to feel good?
The highlight of the school year, aside from graduation, was the Senior Prom. This lavish event was held, not, as usual, in the gussied up gym, but in a DOWNTOWN Hotel ballroom. Man, were we hot stuff! The band was the much sought after “Rivers Chambers Orchestra”, a black band that had become a tradition with the Milford graduating classes. We were not disappointed.
Graduation was filled with tears of the memories of all the good times that would be no more and joy at the thoughts of the good life ahead. Most headed off to college while I was in paradise engaged (sort of) to my future wife and a job with Ma Bell paying almost $1 an hour.
How many of us snickered at our parents when they told us “These are the best years of your life?” Smart-asses.

Critic

In the 19th Century, one of the greatest minds ever to grace this spinning ball of dust, Robert G. Ingersoll, who never heard the term “Intelligent Designer,” had this to say about her efforts:

“If, with all the time at my disposal, with all the wealth of the resources of this vast universe, to do with as I will, I could not produce a better scheme of life than now prevails, I would be ashamed of my efforts and consider my work a humiliating failure.”

Poor Bobby could not imagine all the improvements that were to come in the 20th Century. WE have the Atom bomb, fly in the air with conveyances that can take down tall buildings, cows that are mad and birds with flu. The list is endless and buoyed by the I.D.s random “natural” disasters.

Let us pray

Relatives

2nd cousin, twice removed

Remember Aunt Jemima? I was surprised she was still around and had not been retired due to issues relating to black stereotypes. By golly, I think I saw Uncle Ben on a box of rice! Anyway, Aunt Jemima’s smiling face graces the cover of an assortment of products at your grocers.After considerable testing at the main fast food joints (McD., BK, etc.) I decided the most tasty breakfast sandwich was the sausage, egg and cheese, usually served on a biscuit. Eventually, this combo in different brand names made it to your grocer’s frozen food section with several choices of bread type: biscuit, bagel, English muffin or croissant. It turns out the croissant is my favorite. Several months ago I saw the Aunt Jemima brand on sale and bought a few packages. When I went to heat one I found that the piece of cheese, which, to sort of cover the sausage and egg, should have been about 2 inches square. Instead, it was about 1 by 2 inches. As you know by now, the Reverend does not take being ripped off lightly so I sent a mildly sarcastic e mail to the address I found on the internet suggesting their quality control had obviously broken down and that I would check after a while to be sure it had been corrected. I got no response.
A few months pass, and I spy a good sale on Auntie’s sandwiches. I was not about to pay full price, just in case they were still flawed. Nothing had changed so I went back to the address on the “net.” I noticed on the page that apparently Aunt Jemima was really Quaker Oats in disguise, itself a division of Pepsico. When e mailing they asked you to select which product you wanted to discuss. I couldn’t find the exact one but I forged ahead with the following:

The product, breakfast sandwiches is not listed. You continue to put a half a piece of cheese on your sandwiches, therefore I only buy them when they're on special sale so that I can add another half a piece of cheese. What is the problem with you people?

The response:

RE: an Aunt Jemima product , REF.# 025611065A

Rev, Whenever a consumer takes the time to get in touch with us, we are always eager to respond as helpfully as possible. Unfortunately, the Aunt Jemima product you mention in your correspondence is not connected with our company. Please contact Pinnacle Foods, the company that manufactures the frozen Aunt Jemima products.

So, not only is Aunt Jemima not Aunt Jemima, but she is not Quaker Oats either but some distant relative whose name sort of lacks that “down home” feeling, Pinnacle Foods – yuck! Where does the buck stop?

Oh well, I guess its back to Sara Lee, I know she’s real- right?

The Last Summer

Summer of ‘55

My beloved ’41 Packard bites the dust. As teenagers are wont to be, foolishly I decided I could spin wheels on a wooden bridge that crossed over some railroad tracks. They spun, as did the whole car, right into the railing of the bridge. Score: bridge railing 1; left fender 0, along with its imbedded headlight. Shortly after, a local gendarme informed me that if he ever caught me driving at night I would be thrown in jail. So, as soon as I saved enough money to buy my next car, a ’36 Plymouth, I said a sad farewell to the Packard as I sold it for $15 to the auto graveyard.
Having spent the last two summers working at the Federal Tin Co. loading boxcars, this summer brought a real cushy job as a soda jerk (today’s term I guess would be “liquid refreshment dispenser junior manager assistant”) at the Castleon Dairy on the main highway. The only time business was brisk was when an occasional busload of customers would stop for relief, so I spent most of my tip money by playing the one pinball machine we had.
I learned to play chess that summer but it never held the fascination for me that card games had. The weekend pinochle games continued but were interrupted by my absence for “dating”, which I discovered could be quite entertaining.
We finally got a window “air conditioner”, which was installed in the kitchen window, right where it could cool us during the card games. Other relief from the heat was swimming at the “quarry”, a natural hole that was filled with fresh water. It was one of the Intelligent Designers gifts to us but then the people who claimed to “own” the place threw down some sand and called it a beach, put up a refreshment stand, and can you guess, started charging to enter. Bah, humbug.
As the days grew longer, it was the only time I can remember looking forward to the start of school. This would be “it”, and I would be among the masters of the school universe, a “Senior” - ha cha cha!