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| A Bicentennial Parade |
I was still with C, the boat-builder in 1976 when the US celebrated its Bicentennial. The previous years saw Nixon resign due to Watergate, Saigon fall, and Gates founds Microsoft. And the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project is a success. While two women- Sara Jane Moore and Lynnette "Squeaky" Fromme- tried to assassinate Ford within a 17 day time period. Fromme had been a member of the Manson Family. We got a new president: Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer from Georgia.
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| Levar Burton as Kunta Kinte |
“Is it on TV, because I don’t watch TV.”
“Oh, you should. This show is the greatest.” I got to know everything about it just from overhearing conversations- Kunta Kinte and all that. Seemed everyone in the office was talking about it, except me.
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During Helen’s absence, Norma stepped up her surveillance. She would call us up to her desk and ask: " Where were you between 2:22 and 3:05? She threatened to dock us for the times we weren't at our desks. I had a way of disappearing under her radar when I had to go to another floor to check some detail on an account. It was none of her business where we went, especially when we had to use the bathroom, as long as we got our work done and were at our desk by the end of the day. Since the underwriters were across the room, she could see us. One day, I had to go to the claims department on another floor to get a name spelled correctly on a claims slip. When I got back, I walked behind Norma’s desk and happened to glance down at her calendar to see my name written on it in pencil and the time: 1:40 – 2:18 when I’d been down in claims. I expected her to call me to her desk and berate me, so I stood in front of everyone, in the middle of the floor, and said,
“Norma”- She looked up, perplexed. I went on- “I know you keep track of everyone’s time." She glared at me. "I saw my name and some times written on your calendar, so I’ll tell you where I was. I was in the bathroom, but I had to go number 2 which takes longer than number 1. So by the time I finished, washed and dried my hands and came back, I was probably gone at least fifteen minutes.”
Absolute silence. Some gasps. I looked at no one, just returned to my desk and continued with the account with the claim. Of course I hadn’t gone to the bathroom. I just wanted to make a point. Norma did nothing, said nothing for the rest of the day. The next morning, she caught my eye and gave me a half-smile. A few days passed and I noticed that she no longer detailed our times away from our desks and never bothered me again, in fact, she would snicker whenever our paths crossed. Good sport, I thought. Wes spoke of my “bravery. “ Some co-workers looked at me with big eyes and open mouths, but said nothing. Others thanked me. Verna said, “Huh! I never expected you to do something like that!” She didn’t know me like she thought she did.
Helen returned on crutches in a lemon-yellow outfit: top and slacks. She actually looked better than she had before the accident-- well-rested and glowing. Norma went back to being her lackey. Helen instituted changes; one being that we were to move to where the property department was; they were relocating to another floor. Goodbye Verna. A slightly built, timid woman in her forties all but panicked about the move. She ended up sitting right behind me and kept complaining about it, saying that she hated change. It made her feel insecure. She then recounted to me in a whispery, weak, trembling voice all the moves she’s made in her life. I asked her how she coped.
“Well, I had to get used to it,” she said.
“You’ll get used to this, too,” I said, “There’ll be many more changes for you.”
“Don’t say that!”
“It’s true, you’ll just have to accept it.” She started to cry, then went off to the bathroom. Eventually, she recovered and took the move in stride- until the next one.
Since Helen came back, Fireman’s Fund had an American Red Cross mobile clinic come to immunize its employees against Legionnaires’ disease. In Philadelphia, 221 people got the illness and 34 died. I didn’t want a shot because of the people back East who did, got really sick, and almost died. Then, a few months later, it was swine flu. President Ford told EVERYONE to get shots, but again, a few people died from the shots, so, again, I opted out. I have never gotten a flu shot, but I actually signed up last year at the local Walgreen’s but when I showed up, they’d run out. I never went back.
About this time, women’s “elephant” pants (slacks with extra wide legs) were the rage. I made myself a pair of blue and white, windowpane plaid pants that I wore with a calf-length, red cardigan over Mickey Mouse T-shirt, and boots. The T-shirt was my not so subtle statement about the company's "Micky Mouse" procedures and unnecessary regulations. Why can’t “they” just leave us alone and let us do our work? Lots of co-workers complimented me on my pants, but none said "Boo" about my shirt.
Linda, a petite, curvy, curly-haired,blonde secretary worked on our floor, sashaying around with her hands on her hips in tight skirts, 6-inch heels, and low necked angora sweaters. One day she complained that her 18 inch waist had gained a quarter inch! A good-looking Latino dude- I'll call him "Rodrigo" who had great hair- was the assistant to the dorky guy who ran the supply department. Soon it became apparent that Rodrigo and Linda were seeing each other despite that she was married. They flaunted their relationship, walking around holding hands at lunch break. She was let go and rumor had it that she was pregnant with his baby. He quit. Less than a year later Linda came in to show off her baby. Helen, Norma, and the older women co-worker were appalled at her audacity. Others gathered around oohing and ahhhing over the beautiful olive-skinned infant with curly, light brown hair. Turns out, she’d gotten a divorce; she and Rodrigo were making marriage plains. And, despite her pregnancy, Linda bragged that after the baby was born her waist had gone back to eighteen inches in just a week.
As for me, after my year without a man and music, living in the A-frame cottage up the hill from my previous digs, I decided to focus on exactly who I wanted in my life so made a list of attributes. One really hot day, wearing a tank top and shorts, I rode my bike to an art festival in Civic Center Plaza. After locking it up, I walked around, checking out the booths. As I passed one, I heard a deep voice sprech-singing, “Little girl, you’re so small, ain’t you got no clothes at all?” I stopped, turned and saw a muscular older guy in a black leather vest, selling wrot-iron candelabras, wall sconces, sculptures, and other gee-gaws. A sign on the table indicated that he was the craftsman. He told me his name. “Is that ‘Bo’,” I asked, “as in Bo Diddley, or Beauregard.” Turned out the latter. I got to know him and found that he fit everything on my list. But I’d left off one really important attribute (for me, anyway): dance. I wanted someone who could dance. He didn’t, couldn’t and wasn’t happy when I signed us up for a ballroom class. He housed his horses in a makeshift stable in an industrial park on the San Mateo county border. Beau performed horse-shows, and believed himself to be Buffalo Bill’s reincarnation. He auditioned women for his assistant and wanted me to be his Rodeo clown. I said thanks, but no.
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| Beau Hickory and Temmigen |
On my vacation, I went on a week-long mime seminar taught by Maximillien Decroux, in Boulder, CO. I had packed my bike on Amtrak to Denver where I got off, and pedaled on to Boulder, camping out in the foothills and riding each morning to class in town. Before I left, Beau had helped me and my sons move to a flat in Glen Park where I ended up living for twenty-five years. We were evicted in 2003 under an owner-move-in law. Then he left me for his newly-hired assistant. No one had ever dumped me. I was always the dumper. Took me a while to recover.
One morning Helen called a meeting- her idea of a meeting. She stood in front of our desks and asked for our undivided attention. “We,” she began, “are relocating to a new building on Front Street, on the Embarcadero over the weekend. So, on Friday, pack up all the things in and on your desk. You can pick up boxes in the supply room. Mark your name on them with black Magic Markers, which will be available in the supply department. These must be returned. You will report to 700 Front Street (Now the KGO TV building) on Monday by 8, so you can unpack and be ready to work by 8:30. We are fortunate," she added, "because we will have access to the cafeteria off the atrium which opens at 6 for breakfast.”
“How cool is that!” someone said. The timid woman who panicked at the idea of moves quit.
Around that same time, November 28, 1978, San Francisco Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot to death by disgruntled ex-supervisor Dan White in their City Hall offices. The City was in chaos. Supervisor Diane Feinstein made the tearful announcement. She took over as mayor. No one had a very happy holiday season that year. Dan White was convicted, sentenced, served a few months, then committed suicide in his garage.
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| Assassin Dan White |
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| Headline from The San Francisco Chronicle. |
Chapter 12, Part Three: 700 Front Street, proximity to North Beach. I'm appointed assistant supervisor to a woman who made Helen and Norma look like sweetie-pies, until an alcoholic Lauren Bacall look-alike signed on.. Air-conditioning hell. I make a career change to systems analyst with the Fund and I'm back on Laurel Heights.
