Chapter 15: Junior College Days

Chapter 15: Junior College Days

Jobs 32 – 36

1983

Around this time I decided to really take a stab at a college education. As far as financing school went, I probably could have gotten by on a combination of work and financial aid in the form of grants. You know, the kind of money you don't have to pay back. It's odd that public colleges cost money, but the government will give you money to afford college. Why not just make college free in the first place?

Unfortunately, I found the lure of receiving a large sum of extra cash in the form of a loan irresistible. I really think that they were a little too quick to hand out those student loans. Of course, no one was twisting my arm, and true to form, I didn't properly consider the likelihood of being able to repay that debt, or the consequences of not paying. Now I'm one of the several million Americans in default on their student loans.

Of course, I started at the local Butt Community College, because it's a cheap way to get your lower division units out of the way. It's also a great way to explore various disciplines if you were like me and didn't yet know what you wanted to pursue at a university. So, yeah, I really didn't need student loans just to do general education at a junior college. It makes me wonder why they agreed to loan me any money in the first place, let alone why they even make it available at that level of education.

Back then, the junior colleges were on the quarter system, but the state colleges were on the semester system. I couldn't see the point, since the length of a quarter wasn't all that much shorter than a semester, and it's not like they were actually a quarter of a year long, anyway. You could knock out three quarters in one academic year, and if you were really serious, you could subject yourself to a tough, short “quarter” during the summer vacation. At university, you could do two normal semesters in one year, plus a brutal summer session if you wanted. And for real masochists, there was even a super-mega-brutal winter break session. No thank you.

Since quarter units counted for less than semester units, there was a complicated unit conversion process if you transferred to a state college. Eventually the junior colleges switched to the semester system, so their units counted the same as the universities', which simplified the transfer process.

I did really well for my first two quarters, but mid-way through my third quarter, I had some sort of breakdown. I think the act of doing well at something actually sabotaged me. I had become used to thinking that I wasn't really academic material, and earning straight A's those first two quarters was more than my self-image could process. There was one teacher in particular who factored largely in my troubles. Mr. Oxstrangler was a history teacher and a self-made millionaire. He owned hundreds of rental properties in the College Town area. He didn't really need the salary of a community college professor, but I guess he did if for his love of history. Right-wing, Repulican history.

Oxstrangler was an ultra-conservative. The effusive way he would talk about the old system of debtors' prison gave me the impression that he probably thought we should reinstate that venerable institution. In his office he had a picture of himself meeting then-President Reagan. In the picture, Oxstrangler was talking to the president, who I was alarmed to note looked like he was listening intently to what Oxstrangler was saying. I wondered what Oxstrangler was telling the leader of the free world.

Politics aside, Oxstrangler was also very critical, so I'm sure he reminded me of my dad. Before long, I just couldn't do any of the work in that class, and the rest of my courses fell like dominoes, and I dropped out of junior college.

While I had been in school, I experienced a relatively stable period in my work life. I “only” had four jobs (depending on how you count them) that year, three of which were short-term gigs – so in comparison to other periods in my life, I was a model of responsibility. I don't recall the exact order in which I got and lost these few jobs, so let's just start with...

Job #32: Stationary Store Janitor

...which was working as a janitor at an office furniture and stationery store in College Town. I got the job through the school's student employment office. A couple of nights a week I would come in and dust and vacuum and such. It was a great part-time job. I got to work alone, which I had discovered I preferred. They trusted me with a key to the place. However, they shouldn't have trusted me with the “honor snacks” box. If you've never seen one of those, it's a simple, open cardboard rack thing with candies and chips and the like. There was a slot in the front of the box into which you were expected to put the stated cost of the item. They're designed for the employees of small businesses.

It does say it's "MY" snack box

I was always hungry, and usually always short on pocket change. Before you jump to conclusions, I didn't dishonor the snacks to the point of actually stealing them. I took seriously the threat of loss of snackage, so I would write little IOUs with my name and the amount and slip them into the slot.

After a while, during one of the rare times I was in the store during business hours, the owner told me that the honor snacks guy had recently serviced the box and found about 20 dollars worth of IOUs from me (and only me). Even I was a little surprised that I had managed to scarf down that much junk food. I made good on my debt, but I wasn't allowed to put any more IOUs in the box.

I had that job right up until I after I quit school. Once I was no long in school, I began petitioning my employers for more hours, and eventually they agreed to let me work with their delivery guy. I blew that chance, however, by getting drunk and not showing up for the first day of my new position. Bye bye, Job #31.

Jobs #33 & 34: Work Study

Either concurrent with or just prior to #32, were two jobs which probably could be counted as one, but you know how I like to go for those numbers. They were definitely individual positions, but they could conceivably be viewed as one “job” because they were both through the work-study program at the junior college.

#33 was working at the recycling center at the college, which has a long history of being very environmentally conscious. My job was to drive around to all the combination trash/recycling receptacles on the campus and collect the cans and bottles. This seemed right up my alley, because I had long been an avid advocate for recycling, but the receptacles were always surrounded by clouds of bees attracted by the sugary residue in the drink containers, and I have an irrational fear of bees. I wasn't so concerned about the environment that if left to my own devices, I wouldn't have simply sprayed them with some insecticide and been about my business. I couldn't do that, however, because the college had bee hives as part of its agriculture program. Goodbye, Job #32.

#34 was a temporary work-study gig helping to line some gullies around the campus with river rocks to control erosion. It was pretty arduous work, with a bunch of cretins who didn't seem like they belonged in college, even at the community level. I was glad when that job concluded.

Job #35: Personal Care

#35 was another example of subbing for Charlie on one of his jobs. For some time while he was at the university he worked for a wheelchair-bound man who had one of those dreaded degenerative diseases – Multiple Sclerosis, I believe. Once when Charlie had to go out of town for a few days, I filled in for him.

1984

Job #36: Dishwasher

After I left school and my office supply store job, I got job #36 as a dishwasher at a popular downtown restaurant and bar. Much like old Hobbie Auto, this place also recently closed up after I started writing this memoir. It seems that I'm out-living some of the places I've worked, which at the time had already been around a long time and which seemed like they'd continue forever. I wonder how many other legacies I can destroy before I finish this?

The job was pretty good for what it was. I got some free food and all the fountain soda from the bar I could quaff. What got my goat, though, was the fact that various people employed there kept popping up to inform me of yet another chore that was my hitherto unknown responsibility. I think they just saw the new dishwasher as an opportunity to foist some chore of theirs off onto someone else. When someone I had never seen before showed up and told me that one of my many tasks was to water the trees in the sidewalk out front, I nearly stomped off the job. None of these various chores was insurmountable, even taken all together. I was just irritated about finding out in such a slip-shod manner. I had never previously heard of the concept of asking for a job description, but this job taught me the importance of such a thing.

After a rough week of ever-increasing responsibilities, I was looking forward to my first official day off. My much-anticipated morning sleeping-in was ruined by a phone call from work asking me to come and fill in for somebody who hadn't shown up. I went in, but it wasn't long before I walked away from that job.

I only had one other job in 1984, which was a personal best for me at that time. But since Job #37 is closely aligned with current job #85, it will take more explaining than I have time for today. So, until next time!

The end.

Chapter 14: Rimpy: Agent for G.U.N.S (Ground Up Nut Shells)

Chapter 14: Rimpy: Agent for G.U.N.S (Ground Up Nut Shells)

Jobs 23 - 31

After I got the cast off my leg, there was nothing to prevent me from returning to the work force. Nothing, that is, except my own idiocy. I got a fairly substantial settlement (a little under $10, 000) from the insurance company of the nice church organist who had struck me on my moped. I wasn't trying to be greedy or vindictive, but I felt like I was owed something for my pain and suffering.

With money in hand, I returned to College Town. Charlie was by now attending university there, and I went in thirds with him and another guy named Eddie on a three-bedroom house. To my stubbornly immature mind 10,000 dollars seemed like a lordly sum, and I saw no reason to rush out and get a job.

I bought myself a cute little 1967 VW Karmann Ghia. I didn't really need something quite so fancy, but I had this deluded idea that the car would be some sort of investment that would increase in value. I didn't factor in such things as whether or not I would be able to afford the upkeep on a classic car in order to protect my investment. The whole “investment” idea quickly became moot when I lost control one night on a curve and went backwards through a barbed wire fence, scratching up my pretty blue paint job something fierce.

It didn't take me long to burn through the rest of the money, and with it went my ability to pay my rent. It was time once again to get a job. God bless him, Charlie very patiently covered my portion of the rent quite often until I could pay him back as I bounced from job to job. Charlie was the “good” one in our friendship. I, for my part, wasn't necessarily a bad friend, but looking back on it, I wasn't a particularly good one, either. People probably shook their heads and wondered why he put up with me.

1981

Job #23: Kiwi Farm

I got job #23 at a kiwi farm on the south of College Town. Most of the work consisted of pulling tiny young kiwi plants out of the ground and preparing them for shipping in pairs to nurseries. The work wasn't bad or particularly hard, but it was winter and a lot of the work was spent outdoors or in unheated greenhouses.

I forget how long I was with the kiwi farm, but it seems like it was a fair bit (for me). A new problem I was starting to have vis a vis work was alcohol. There used to be bar and music venue called Cabo's that had a popular tradition known as “Tipsy Tuesday”. At the start of the evening drinks were incredibly cheap, and would go up in increments as the night wore on. It was a clever marketing ploy on their part, and a cheap way to get wasted. One Tuesday night a bunch of us from work went there together. Probably not a great idea on a work night, but maybe my co-workers had more self-control than me (gee, you think?).

The next day I was badly hungover, but I tried to work anyway. I was useless, however, so they sent me home, but thankfully didn't fire me. I forget the circumstances under which I left that job, but given my history, I'm sure I quit for no particularly good reason. I'm pretty sure I wasn't fired.

The next few jobs aren't necessarily in strict chronological order. Such are the ravages of time upon the mind of a flake.

Job #24: Yard Maintenance

Job #24 was at a yard maintenance company whose name I can't recall, which is just as well since I would be unlikely to use it. I do seem to recall that this was the job in which I was asked in the interview if I liked to “hussle” - which I've always interpreted as “work really fast for no good reason”. Of course, I lied and said I did, but it soon became apparent to them that I didn't. Most of the work involved crawling about on my hands and knees pulling weeds out of people's lawns. It was quite similar to job #2, pulling weeds at Hobbie Auto. I tried to perform to their expectations, but like my dismissal from job #6 (Yancey Derringer's), the warning signs were there, but I didn't heed them. A supervisor came by once or twice and told me to hurry up. I thought I was doing a good job of pretending to “hussle”, but next thing I knew the supe came back and said something to the effect of, “That's it, Rimpy. You're fired.”

On my previous experience with being fired, I got to just walk away. I forget how the matter of my final pay had been handled at Yancey Derringer's. I don't know if the law existed in 1978 that says employees are to be handed their last check at the time of their involuntary termination. If it did, it's more likely that the bellicose management of Yancey's weren't very concerned with such niceties as “laws” and “fair labor practices”. I probably had to go back on their regular payday to get my last check, but I didn't know better at the time, anyway.

This time, however, we were in some remote part of College Town, so I had to ride in a pickup with that supervisor back to their office so they could give me my final check. It was an awkward ride – I didn't know what to talk about with somebody who had just fired me.

It didn't occur to me until years later that any job involving pulling weeds was probably one I should have avoided. That was one of those chores that my dad seemed to delight in torturing me with when there weren't any tubs of shit that needed dragging. I remember once, when I was only about 7 or 8, I had gained permission from my parents to try to stay up all night one weekend. I can't recall if I managed to stay awake the whole night, but even though my dad knew I was sleep deprived, he had me out early the following morning pulling weeds along the side of the garage. As he went about his weekend projects, he kept passing by and yelling at me to work harder. I was watering those weeds with my tears by the time my mom finally spoke up and reminded him that I had not had any sleep, and I got to crawl into bed. I'm sure that my dad didn't need reminded of that fact. I think he thought that my wanting to stay up all night was indicative of some kind of character flaw that needed corrected with some good, hard work.

Job #25: Personal Care

Job #25 was a very temporary gig helping to care for a elderly man who had suffered a stroke. He was home with his wife, but she wasn't in great shape herself, and needed the extra help with cooking and personal care.

Job #26: Delivering Coupon Books

For job #26 I got to make my dubious investment in the Karmann Ghia work for me. A lady sold coupon books by telephone out of her apartment, and it was my job to deliver the books to the customers. I remember very little about that job, or the circumstances of my leaving, but take a wild guess.

Job #27: Nut Company

I tried very hard to get job #27, which was at the nut company. It's not really a factory, because it's not like they make nuts there, but it's not really a cannery, either, so “company” will have to do. College Town is famous for almonds (which the locals insist on pronouncing with a short “a” and no “l”) and other tree nuts, and the old nut company has been a large presence on the north side of the neighborhood known as “The Avenues” for many years. It has diminished a bit in eminence in the last couple of decades, but it used to be one of the largest single employers in town, and a well-paying one. Of course, most of the work was seasonal. Only a handful of people worked there year-round. I had applied well before the season, and had been tentatively selected. Then it was just a matter of checking in regularly to let them know that I was still interested. I came to be on a first-name basis with the nice ladies in the personnel office. Finally the blessed day came when they told me to come on in and work on the swing shift. I felt as though I had “arrived”. I didn't entertain any notions of working with nuts for the rest of my life. I just wanted a good paycheck for awhile.

My usual position was at the ass-end of a machine which ground nutshells. The shells would flow through a pipe from the grinder into the top of a huge contrivance which would shake them through a series of screens and spit them out in uniform granules into burlap sacks. My partner and I would sew up the ends of the bags and stack them on pallets. I was never clear of what were the uses of ground nut shells. I heard the Japanese liked to use them for pillow stuffing. They must have had some fatal pillow fights with those.

Sometimes we had to change the size of the screens in the machine, depending upon what size of granule was needed. We climbed up on a catwalk near the top of the machine. The screens were held inside the machine by large segmented metal bands. We had to loosen the bolts holding the screens tight against the machine, swap out the screens, and then bolt them back together. The screens came in designations like 20-20, 20-30, 30-30, etc. I don't know what those numbers meant, but the problem I had was that my partner had a heavy Mexican accent, and every screen size he said sounded like “tooty tooty” to me.

The first time I changed some screens on my own, I thought I had done a good job of securing the bands. I climbed back down and we fired up the machine. Moments later, my partner tapped me on the arm and pointed overhead. I looked up and was horrified to see the bands spinning merrily around the circumference of the machine while unfiltered granules poured out of its sides. We spent the rest of the night fixing my mistake and cleaning up the horrendous mess.

Work at the nut company involved other duties as needed, such as loading trucks, or helping out in other sections of the plant. Sometimes a few of us would pile into private vehicles and drive out to one of the nut receiving stations in the vast orchard lands surrounding College Town. Most nuts are harvested by shaking the trees with special Suessian-looking machines. Then everything that falls down is scooped up, along with anything else which was already on the ground. At the receiving stations, they had huge machines which would separate the nuts from the leaves, twigs, rocks, and other trash, like live rats and mysterious large animal bones. My job on those nights was to walk back and forth next to the machine and keep the screens clear with a hoe on the end of a long metal pole. Those were not my favorite nights.

Working at the main plant was much more preferable, in part because there was a small market across the street, where some of us would buy a beer to go with our lunches. My job didn't involve driving, per se, unless of course, you count forklifts and the little Bobcat loader I sometimes used to shove the un-ground nut shells into the hopper for the grinding machine, and you probably should. So, yeah, it was pretty irresponsible to be drinking at work. After all, we were working around dangerous machinery. I wouldn't dream of doing something like that now, but then it just seemed like an acceptable thing to do. Back then, companies didn't have all the drug and alcohol testing they do now. Sometimes the modern policies can be a pain in the ass – such as when you've been randomly selected to drug test, and you've been good a good boy – but it's probably a good thing we have them now.

I can't recall how long I was with the nut company before I quit, but I suspect it was less time than I had spent actually trying to get the damned job. I recall Charlie commenting on this irony. One night, I went out drinking after my shift with a bunch of co-workers. I had a good time, but I fell into an alcohol-induced low blood sugar funk and decided I didn't want to go in the next day. I probably would have stayed with several of my jobs longer if I hadn't mixed them with booze. When sober, I could deal with the drudgery of the working week, but when I would drink I would start to imagine some sort of better life beyond the confines of my current position. Perhaps one where an imaginative and creative mind could make a living from his talents. I didn't have the fortitude to try to make my dreams come true, so the only control I had was to quit whatever job seemed so restrictive at the time.

Job #28: Gorilla

(Updated Jan. 1st, 2016)

Happy new year, everybody. Observant readers may have noticed that the title of the blog has changed (slightly) yet again. That's right - yesterday I suddenly recalled a job which, though I think of it often, I  - for some reason - forgot to include in my list. This brings the total to 85. I guess I may not have thought of it as a "job", per se, because although I was definitely "hired", I'm not sure I was actually paid for any of the small amount of time I spent being where I was expected to be. I'll explain in a moment.

I remember where I was living at the time, and what car I was driving. Given the nature of the job, it puts it around September into October, so I'm going to say it was in late 1981. As for the job itself, I was hired to be a gorilla in a haunted house. No, really. In the weeks prior to Halloween, a married couple was advertising for workers for a new haunted house they planned on opening up. This wasn't going to be just one of the many run-of-the-mill, short-lived haunted houses which pop up at that time of year. It seems like those are usually run by some fun-loving volunteers who either just really love scaring people and want to make a quick buck, or by charitable organizations who are trying to raise funds for a worthy cause. My new employers actually planned on trying to make their haunted house a year-round attraction. That was something of a warning sign right there.

I don't know if they bought or rented, but they had acquired the use of an abandoned motel on the far north end of the Promenade in College Town. That area has always had a lonely and forlorn feeling to me. At the time it was mainly a mix of orchards and light industry. It has grown up some since then, mostly with somewhat expensive housing developments, but the rest of the area still has the dodgy look that unplanned development tends to bring.

For the past several months, most days of the week I drive my bus right through this neighborhood. I'm pretty sure that the site of the old motel has been replaced by one of the new housing developments, but there is one weird old pair of buildings which looks approximately like the place I remember. I'm pretty sure they're not, though; they don't really look like a motel. I don't know what they are, to tell you the truth. I was looking at them as I drove past yesterday when I suddenly thought, "Oh my god - I forgot to put that job on the list!"

The couple hired several young people, and we met a few times at the old motel to discuss the plans. I think there was an understanding that we weren't getting paid for those early meetings. That may have been legal back in the early '80s, but I'm pretty sure it's not now. If you expect people to report for duty, they need to be paid for their time. Another warning sign ignored.

For some reason I was chosen to be the gorilla. I don't know why a gorilla would be in a "haunted" house with ghosts and ghouls and such. That should have been another warning sign. I never ended up even trying on a gorilla suit before I left.

There was one interesting thing that happened during one of those planning meetings. There was an intense blond fellow in our party.I think he was slated to be a vampire. He was standing in the middle of one of the motel rooms explaining an idea he had for a spooky effect.  He said he could slowly raise his hand (which he did), and then the light in the room could dim. Which it did. But no one was near the light switch, which wasn't the dimmer kind anyway. The rest of us exchanged nervous glances, but blondie acted like it was the most natural thing in world. I kept my distance from him after that.

One morning, I was having stomach pains, They became quite severe, so I asked to leave early. When I got back to the house I shared with Good Time Charlie and our roommate Eddie, I couldn't get in because everyone was gone and I had forgotten my key. It was a cold day, so I curled up in the old easy chair on the front porch and covered myself up as best I could with a foam rubber mat I found in the backyard. Eventually one of my roommates came home and let me in, and I crawled into bed. I ended up having a bout of intestinal illness that lasted several days and left me weak and drained and even skinnier than I already was. Needless to say, I gave up on the gorilla job as a lost cause. It was too flaky, anyway - even for me.

The couple did open their haunted house before Halloween, and I heard it did a pretty good business during the season, although I never went to see it. There was a segment on the local news about it, and they paid for radio advertising. They tried to keep it open after Halloween, but it wasn't long before they had to admit the folly of this and closed up shop. So much for "job" number 28 - a total non-starter from beginning to end.

1982

Job #29: Cleaning a Warehouse

So, onto another series of short-term jobs. #28 was helping a man clean a warehouse he was leasing, in a row of old warehouses next to the railroad tracks just south of the university. Those buildings are long gone now, razed to make room for the never-ending expansion of the college, which seems to be the only growth industry left around here.

I can't recall exactly what business this fellow was in (if I ever knew), but he was a nice guy, and seemed to be doing well in whatever it was. He was restoring a 1930s era Rolls-Royce in the loft portion of the warehouse, which was accessible by a ramp of massive wooden beams built into one corner of the building.

Job #30: Yard Clean Up

Job #29 was doing some yard clean up and stacking firewood at a small daycare center that a lady operated out of her home. There were about six little girls and a toddler boy running around. The job only took a couple of days, which is good because the little brats were driving me crazy. At one point, all the girls popped their heads up over a low wall and the ringleader shouted, “Hey, mister. Do you want to see our bottoms?” and then they fled in gales of shrieking giggles. Thankfully, I'm not a pervert, so I had no interest in seeing their bottoms, but I was eager to get away from there before a neighbor could overhear a similar bizarre question and get the wrong idea.

Job #31: Dormitory Janitor

Job #30 was actually a pretty cool job. I was part of a large crew of janitors at a huge complex of privately-operated dormitories for the college. Each “apartment” had four bedrooms and a bathroom. My main task was to clean the bathrooms of the apartments. We worked in pairs, and the schedule was designed so that each bathroom got cleaned once a week, so they didn't get too gross.

Cleaning up after college kids wasn't tons of fun, but the job had lots of perks, not the least of which was being surrounded by hundreds of young women. There was even an all-female wing, which was informally known as “The Nunnery”, but I very much doubt that any of the girls there were as chaste as a Bride of Christ.

Sadly, I was too shy to take proper advantage of the proximity of all these single females. Most of them didn't pay much mind to we lowly janitors. I did work up the courage to ask out one friendly young woman, but it turned out she was going out with a young man from another wing. It was kind of funny because I had become friendly with both of them without realizing they were seeing each other. They were both really nice people, so I was happy for them, despite my broken heart.

Another great perk of this job was almost-free food. The complex had an on-site cafeteria, and we workers were allowed to have one meal a day for a mere dollar. I've always been a big fan of breakfast, and I took full advantage of this boon. Also, our boss, Chip, was really mellow. As long as we got our jobs done on schedule, he didn't care how about making sure we were busy all the time. He gave us two thirty-minute paid breaks a day, instead of the lawful minimum of ten minutes. We also got an hour-long unpaid meal break rather than the usual half-hour. A very civilized place, all in all. It seems silly 33 years later to say that I should have stayed there forever, but I probably should have stayed longer than I did. As it was, I was there for at least a few months, which was quite long for me back in those days.

I can't remember the particulars behind my decision to leave the dormitory job, but at least I know I wasn't fired. My decision may have had something to do with my resolution to finally attempt to attend college, which we will explore in the next chapter.

The end.

Chapter 13: Broken Bones and Dreams

Chapter 13: Broken Bones and Dreams

Jobs 18, 19, 20, 21 & 22

Well, there have been some changes here at the blog. For one thing, just this morning I suddenly remembered yet another job. It was only a one-night affair (I broke it off – it just wasn't working out), so it's not surprising that I had forgotten about it. However, I cannot ignore it, so I've had to add it to the list, which means I've also had to change the name of the blog.

Now you've probably noticed that the name has been changed to “82 Jobs in 35 Years”, and you must be thinking, “But Rimpy, shouldn't it be 81 jobs?” Well, that would be true, but since I've had to let go of the nice, round “80”, I've decided to go ahead and count the substitute paper boy gig as a whole number, instead of a cheaty decimal.

Fortunately, Blogger allows you to change the URL of the blog, so it can remain consistent with the list of jobs. This will no doubt cause problems if people click on older links in Facebook, but hopefully I can fix that later.

Now! Back to those jobs! We've barely scratched the surface. At some point, I ended up living in College Town. Despite my already spotty employment history, somehow I had managed to save enough money to get a room in a house with three other young men. It was my first multiple roommate living arrangement. I got along quite well with my roomies, and it was mostly a lot of fun, having other young people to hang out with, and a room to go to when I wanted to be alone. After all, some hobbies aren't for public viewing.

I can't recall the exact order of the next three jobs, but let's just go for it.

Job #18: Dishwasher

I got job #18 as a dishwasher at a place called Joe's Barbecue (no longer extant). It wasn't a bad job, especially since I wasn't above eating some of the untouched food which came back from the tables. Unfortunately I developed an allergic reaction to the combination of steam and dish cleaning liquids I was using, and I got a terrible rash on my arms. It was probably for this reason that I left that job.

Job #19: Car Wash

Job #19 was at a car wash and gas station which no longer exists. Usually I worked where car owners would pull in, then we would fuel the cars, and drive them around to the entrance of the cable-driven car wash. I seemed to have a problem not running the left front wheels up unto the side rail of the mechanism that pulled the cars. Finally my boss said that if I didn't stop doing that, I would be fired. I didn't do it again. I guess I just needed the proper motivation.

One time, a man came in with a very expensive looking Jaguar. After I drove it to the car wash, I was having trouble finding the door handle so I could get out. It was very dark inside that car, and I had never been in a Jaguar before. Everything was dark leather with polished wooden accessories. Finally I found a pretty wooden handle on the door and pulled up it. To my surprise, it came out in my hand, because it was actually a .357 Magnum revolver that had been tucked into the map pocket. I quickly jammed it back where I'd found it and managed to find the real handle. After that I was more careful about what I grabbed in unfamiliar cars.

One day it was one of the summer holidays like Memorial Day or Labor Day. Rather than asking, I just assumed the car wash would be closed that day. I should have known better, but I was probably already cruisin' to be losin' that job. I was sleeping when my boss called to find out why I wasn't at work and I told him why I. When he straightened me out on that point and told me to get in there, I said, “Well, I guess I quit, then.” I've never been at my best when awakened before I was ready.

I didn't really have a good reason to leave that job. I was just well on my way to being a total wanker when it came to work. I knew people had to do something to make money in order to survive, but sometimes in my darker moments I wondered what the point of it all was. I had already given up on my young dreams of doing anything creative, and just slaving away at some dead-end job in order to eke out an existence until you became too old to work seemed like a life sentence. Besides, constantly quitting jobs was a subconscious way to get back at my dad for those interminable lectures about the necessity of work, work, work.

Job #20: Rice Cake Factory

Job #20 is the one which I had forgotten about until this morning. I don't know what made me remember it, but I think the reason I hadn't is because it wasn't even a job I had tried to get. It just happened to me, so I had even less invested in it than in many of the jobs before or after.

One of my roommates worked a night shift at a place which made rice cakes, which many believe was the first of its kind in the country. He would come home from work smelling like popcorn, which embarrassed him a bit when people would notice it. One night he was either sick or just didn't feel like going in. He knew I was between jobs at the moment, so with my acquiescence, he called his bosses and told them he couldn't come in, but his roommate needed work. They must have been desperate, because they agreed to take me sight unseen, so I filled in for him. My roomy said if I liked it and they liked me, I might be able to find regular employment there. I was happy about that prospect, at least until I got there.

It was actually pretty awful – packing boxes and stacking pallets at a high rate of speed in a hot, noisy, dusty environment. I only worked there that one night, and didn't feel bad about not trying to pursue it.

Now, somehow I ended up back in O-Town. I'm really not sure what prompted this move. I do know that my parents' relationship was going through some turmoil. My dad had retired from the trucking company in West Sacramento with a decent union pension. Now he was around the house all the time, bored and driving my mom crazy. I was living away from home, so she only had her husband's dubious company.

Finally she couldn't take it any more, and ran away from home at the tender age of 60. She didn't tell my dad she was leaving, let alone where she had gone. Eventually she contacted him. She had lit out to San Francisco, and was living in a dumpy residential hotel where the communal bathrooms were at the end of the floor halls. She was looking for work, which must not have been easy for a woman on the back side of middle-age who hadn't worked for some years, but it's not like she wasn't without skills or a work history. My mom had often worked while I was growing up, but always while I was at school so that she was home when I was. Being a kid, I didn't think about it at the time, but now I am eternally grateful to her for that.

My mom always put her all into everything she undertook, and she had great organizational and leadership skills. She had spearheaded many public art projects through the O-Town Art League which helped to dress up our drab little town. She would have been a plum employee for any boss. I think she did get some kind of clerking job in an office during her escape to San Francisco.

I was a little flabbergasted by this unexpected turn of events in my parents' lives. Mostly I was full of respect for her for summoning up the courage to leave my dad. I also respected the fact that she was brave enough to tackle a big, strange city like SF. I've always been fascinated by that city, but never had the courage to try to live there.

There was, however, a small part of me that wished she had left my dad sooner, and taken me with her. I recalled a horrible Christmas (one of many), when my mom had partaken of a little too much holiday spirit and told my dad some of things she really thought about him. A huge row had ensued, which ended with my dad slapping my mom.

Afterwards, pubescent me was trying to comfort my distraught mother. She was talking about how she wished she could have left her husband much earlier, but she felt like it wouldn't have been a good life for me. She painted a rather bleak picture of the prospects for a woman her age trying to raise a boy alone, because she was sure my dad wouldn't have contributed any support. At the time I couldn't help but agree that this scenario sounded pretty grim. But still, maybe we would have both been better off, despite privations.

After I left home, my mom must have felt that she had nothing to lose, so she just went for it. My dad was pretty shaken up, and I'll admit to a certain cruel satisfaction at seeing him so upset. In the end, he managed to talked her into returning home, with promises to seek marriage counseling. I don't know if they ever followed through with that or not. Probably not.

I don't know if it was part of the agreement for reunification, but my parents also decided to sell their home in O-Town and move back to the central coast region of California. They first settled in Grover Beach, where they opened a strange hybrid business in their home called Solar Arts Studio. This “home” was actually a rented commercial property, but my parents managed to live there as well with the help of the good old motor home parked in the back. My mom tried to sell her artwork, and my dad tried to sell solar energy equipment. It's hard to imagine my dad as a salesperson. His bombastic, opinionated, and judgmental personality probably rubbed potential customers the wrong way.

Not surprisingly, this business venture didn't last long, so they bought a small house in Cambria, a trendy sea-side artists' community featuring small lots at high prices. Some of you have probably seen Cambria without realizing it: it starred as the fictitious town “Canaima” in the 1990 Steven Spielberg-produced film “Arachnophobia”.

Despite my mixed feelings about the last house I had shared with my parents, it was a strange feeling to have that removed from me. Now my parents were off on adventures and a future of uncertainties (but considerably better resources), and I was alone in a familiar town. No back up, no safety net, no more second chances. My dad still continued to offer to let me leave with them rent-free if I went to college and brought home good grades. I continued to decline.

Job #21: Mucking Out the Underside of a House

I lived for awhile with my old high school friend Lurleen and her boyfriend (later husband) Scoop (not their real names). While there I got temporary job #21, which was cleaning out the crawlspace under a house. Basically I had to make sure that there were no large pieces of wood or other trash under the house, making especially sure that there was no organic material connecting the frame of the house to the earth. The house was being put up for sale, and this was apparently one of the many strange things one must do before a house can be sold.

I had actually done this chore once before, when Sandy sold her house in O-Town before moving to Berkeley, so I was familiar with the process. But that had been summer, and the worst thing I encountered was a desiccated cat corpse. This time it was a rainy fall day, and I was slogging through cold mud and standing water. My clothes were absolutely sodden and heavy with brown muck. Not a job I would have wanted to do on a regular basis.

Job #22: Church Janitor

My 22^nd job was as a part-time janitor at Liz and Sandy's church, the First Congregational, which was a beautiful old building built in 1913 (and which tragically burned to the ground in an arson fire in 1982). I really liked that job, despite my suspicions that the place was haunted, though I never saw anything definite.

A part-time job was sufficient for my means at the time, because when my parents left O-Town, they had lent me the use of the old travel trailer (you know, the one that produced all those tubs of shit). I rented a space in a residential trailer park on the south side of O-Town. My dad moved the trailer in there, and I had cheap digs.

It was certainly an eye-opening experience living in “South Side”. During the whole of my comfortable middle-class upbringing, I had never ventured south of O-Town's main drag. I had once driven Al in there to see an old friend of his, but that had been at night, and I didn't see much. What a different world it was on the wrong side of O-Town Dam Boulevard. It had a well-deserved reputation for poverty and roughness. It hadn't always been that way. When the railroad yard and its roundhouse (which also burned down mysteriously) had been a major enterprise, many of the people who worked there lived nearby. There were many successful black-owned businesses, including grocery stores, bars and a taxi company, and lots and lots of churches.

With the diminishing of the railroad, poverty and decay began to creep into the neighborhood, even before methamphetamine and crack became such scourges. My trailer home was right next to the sidewalk, so I had a front row seat for some of the goings on in the ghetto. One night I was trying to get to sleep, but I was prevented from doing so by a man with a loud, gruff voice who kept badgering someone he called “fat boy”. He kept yelling, “Get over here, fat boy! I'm going to kick your ass, fat boy!”

I was concerned for this poor, unknown corpulent man who was on the verge of a savage beating, but I didn't know what I could do. Eventually the bellowing man's voice faded into the distance, presumably in pursuit of his silent, tubby intended victim, and I drifted off to sleep. Then next day, I was outside my trailer when I saw a big, burly biker type walking his pit bull (no leash, of course). In the same voice I'd heard the previous night, the biker kept trying to get the dog to mind by yelling, “Get over here, Fat Boy! I'm going to kick your ass, Fat Boy!” Fat Boy paid his bellicose owner no mind.

I borrowed some money from my brother Dick to buy a moped, because I was still seeking more gainful employment, and doing so on a bicycle wasn't efficient. One day I was exploring South Side on my new ride. Ahead I saw a crowd of people in the parking lot of a defunct drive-in eatery. They were standing around a man lying on the ground. I figured there must have been some kind of accident. As I got nearer, a man was running across a field across the street with something in his hands, followed by a woman. I thought that he was bringing some object to help the fallen man. I crossed in front of the running man just as he got to the street. He paused, probably not for me, but because of the crowd of people. As I passed him, I saw that the object in his hands was a sawed-off shotgun! Meahwhile, the woman had caught up with him. She was screaming, “NO! Don't do it!”. The maniac, who was huge, was breathing heavily, with this wild look in his eyes. The best I can figure is that he had injured the man on the ground, and had run back to his hovel to fetch the weapon to finish the job, but was stymied by the people who had gathered. I just kept going and didn't look back. I never did hear what became of that incident.

Other than these brushes with the seamier side of society, though, my life on South Side was a mellow time for me. I had cheap accommodations and transportation, and a pleasant job which provided for both. I could probably have continued on like that for some time, but fate intervened.

It was two days before my 21^st birthday, which I was looking forward to greatly. It was also approaching the national election, which was to be my first presidential election since becoming an adult, so I was looking forward to that, as well.

That night of October 23^rd, I was riding my moped home after visiting my dear friend, J (the future Mrs. Rimpington). A car suddenly turned left in front of me at an intersection. I tried to brake, but struck its right fender and flew over its hood. I remember watching in fascination as the nearby Safeway sign described a lazy somersault in the dark sky. Then I struck the pavement face-first, bounced into a half-flip and landed on my back, with a badly broken left leg. Luckily I had been wearing a helmet.

I was in hospital for a few days, including my birthday - so no partying for me. My brother Dick and sister Buff came to visit me, which was nice. I don't know if this counts as irony, but the driver of the car was the organist for the church where I worked. She was a very dear lady, and she felt terrible for what had happened.

After being released from the hospital, I convalesced for a bit at J's apartment. I struggled out on my crutches on a very rainy election night, so determined was I to vote against that bastard Reagan. I wish votes that are difficult to cast counted for more, but the election was a fait accompli anyway.

My brother came up again to help me close down the trailer, which my dad ended up selling. I spent the rest of my time in my cast at Dick's house in Sacramento. At least it wasn't my fault that I lost the job at the church.

Eventually I healed, and was ready to re-enter the workforce, but not before demonstrating just what a nitwit I could be when handed a sum of money. But that's a story for another chapter.

The End