Chapter Five: Part 2, Theatre Gigs

Maria Schell: Photo from Flickr

I did not know what to tell people who called when I worked the box office to ask if they could bring their kids. When I was about nine or ten, my mom worked as an usher at the Orpheum Theatre (which now stages live musicals). If she couldn’t get my aunt or a neighbor to baby-sit or my dad had to work, she’d take me, my 12 year old sister and 7 year old brother with her and plunk us down in the loges (a costly prestigious raised area behind the last row of “orchestra” seats) where she could keep an eye on us. The movies were either sexy film noir (“Mildred Pierce”) or war (“For Whom the Bell Tolls”). We saw everything (“Bambi”). So I hemmed and hawed on the phone, trying to make change and getting it wrong, and irritating people standing in line. Then I remembered what Norman from the toy store told me: the most important people were the customers in the store, not the ones on the phone. So I’d apologize and hang up.

I hated doing the box office: “Gervaise” was a popular film for the avant garde, foreign film buffs lined up in front of me, impatiently waiting while I took money and struggled with counting back change. I was relieved when Linda came back from break, but that meant I had to replace Ella in concessions, which, like I said, also involved money. People grabbed up boxes of JuJubes, Milk Duds, Hershey bars, Black Crows, peanuts, and Big Hunks - - sometimes all at once and all with different prices. Fifteen minutes were like an eternity and sometimes Ella would be late coming back. I didn’t mind ushering, for obvious reasons. One night, Ed got a baby-sitter and came to the show. I'd told Rita he was coming, expecting that he wouldn't have to pay; like an angry crow, she fluffed up her black fringed bolero, glared at me, and warned, “Just this once!”

On Sunday, at the end of my first week, everyone was seated and there was no one in the lobby; Tom was at his post inside; Ella was in the bathroom; Linda was in the glass box, counting out the money; and Rita was in her office (I thought). The strains of the waltz over the opening credits filtered through the doors into the lobby; I took the carpet sweeper from its alcove, began pushing it around on the burgundy carpet. Back and forth, round and round the lobby, I waltzed - - swept away as it were - -with the sweeper. Head thrown back, dizzy, I caught something out of the corner of my eye, something black flitting past me, rippling the air, like the witch from “The Wizard of Oz.” I stopped in mid twirl. Rita flew into her office, giving me the look of death, and closed her door. I put the carpet sweeper back in its nook and started for the box office to relieve Linda and set it up for the next show. Rita stopped me before I got out the door. “Come into my office, please.” I followed her. She sat down at her desk, scribbled on a rectangular piece of paper, picked it up and handed it to me. "It's a week’s pay. I cannot tolerate your outrageous behavior in this theatre. I have to think of our patrons!" I was dumbfounded. What on earth was wrong with waltzing? Maybe she objected to my partner. Later, there were days I’d see her walking up the street to her car as I was taking the kids to the playground. I’d turn around and walk the other way. “Mommy, Mommy," my oldest would protest, "I thought we were going to the playground!"

Determined to try working in a movie theatre again - -I mean, how hard can it be? - - I brazenly walked into the Bridge Theatre, asked the dude at the ticket/concessions counter for the manager and was directed up a short flight of carpeted stairs. I knocked on a door marked "Manager" heard a gruff voice say, "Come in." I opened the door on a harried looking man behind a desk. I started selling myself as an experienced theatre worker, crossing my fingers, figuratively, telling him of my stint at the Presidio hoping he wouldn’t check. I started that night. Seems my new boss was not only harried but desperate because the counter dude had just quit.

Said dude gave me a brief overview of the job: you ran the concessions while you sold tickets, and you had to keep the money separate. If you need change for the concessions, you can take it from the ticket sales, but you have to put it back, and, oh, the phone, see all these buttons? Well, they're linked to the company that runs all the other theatres the Bridge is a part of. So, someone might call and ask to speak to someone at one of the other theatres, so you press this button here, and then press this one and say, "Blah blah blah . . ." then press this button - - my head was spinning. And he was gone. I tried. I didn’t even know what movie was playing.

Patrons were lining up by the thousands; I jumped like the proverbial flea on a hot griddle from concessions, to the ticket counter, to the phone, my hands full of bills I’d shove in the concessions drawer that probably should have been for tickets. The phone rang and rang. I did okay for a while on the phone, until I cut off a honcho from one of the other theatres who wanted to speak to the Bridge manager. He phoned back and called me a dumb bitch. I left my post, abandoned the line of patrons, walked up the stairs to Mr. What’ssisname’s office, opened the door and said, “I quit.” Turned around, grabbed my coat and purse, and pushed my way through the crowd of confused, complaining people and heard the manager behind me apologizing, calmly saying, “It’s all right folks, we’ll have this all straightened out in no time . . .” Passing the window, I caught a glimpse of him behind the counter, moving deftly from tickets to concessions, and picking up the phone. Whattaguy! What did me in this time was not the waltz, but these newfangled phones with all those buttons! Oh, and keeping the money straight. Truly, I do admire people who can do this kind of work.

The Bridge Theatre on Geary and Blake, at night, still open with first run films and midnight specials.

After these short-lived gigs and three kids, Ed and I separate. We - - the kids and I - - move to Los Angeles where my brother lived and I begin my rocky "career" in the insurance business.



Next up: Chapter Six: A Brief Intro into Insurance and the Move to Echo Park in Smoggy Los Angeles.

Chapter Five: Part 1, Life After Met Life

My last day at Met Life, I said goodbye to Katie, Rhonda, Shirley, and others, including Grace, whose husband was a “garbage man” (not a scavenger or refuse engineer). Grace didn’t have to work, she said, he made enough money, but she wanted to be out of the house before he came home at eight from his shift because he brought the smell of garbage with him which took all day to get rid of. They lived in a house in the Sunset which had an area outside the utility room where he changed and showered. Then he’d wash his clothes immediately and open all the windows to let in the fresh ocean air to blow away the smell before she came home at six.

(Garbage trucks were like scows back then - - huge open gondolas about 15 feet deep, with metal foot rests on the sides. “Garbage men” wore a leather cape over their shoulders. On their routes, they’d wheel huge round containers into side allies, garages, and basements, lift and dump full metal garbage cans into them; the men had to be strong. Then, with a horrific clanging and banging, they’d literally toss the empty cans and lids aside, making enough noise to wake up entire neighborhoods. When the containers were full they’d roll them to the open truck parked in the middle of the street, sling them on their back - - why the leather cape - - then climb up the side of the open gondola and dump the contents into it.

They would sing operatic areas con brio as they worked, which almost compensated for the clanging and banging. Once the behemoth trucks were filled, the men would throw a huge tarp over the top and tie it down. Sometimes they’d get in and stomp on the piles of garbage to make room for more. When I first moved back to the City, I’d stayed with an aunt for a while who lived in Navy housing on Hunter’s Point. On my way home from school, I’d see these juggernauts hauling ass down Third Street to Bayshore Blvd - - men hanging off the sides - - tarps flapping and pieces of garbage flying off behind them, with strains of a Radamés aria from “Aida” wafting in the air, mingled with smells of garbage. They'd unload at the county dump off the Bay near Brisbane. It was rumored that the Mafia ran the scavenger companies. According to Grace, you had to be Italian to get a job and the money was great. Still, the newer “green” closed trucks make more noise with their pneumatic lifts, the shaking and thumping of heavy duty plastic containers. And they’re on the street two or three times a week: to collect from the recycling bins, then the composting bins, and last landfill. The saddest part: the collectors no longer sing.)

I also said goodbye to self-proclaimed spinster, Lillian, an Italian-American Catholic who had called me a pagan because of my non-denominational stance, though she insisted I could at least say I was a Protestant, which, of course, I refused to do. She had written me off, but did manage a weak smile; and hyperactive Florence who popped aspirin like M&Ms.

Thus began a transition period where I divested myself of Harry through a marriage annulment arranged by his folks with their family attorney, married Ed, a teamster whom I’d met one summer on a visit to my Mom and stepfather’s place in Portland, and started a family. After my third child was born, Ed agreed to let me get a part-time job in the evenings after the kids were in bed so I could have my own “pocket” money. I scanned the want ads and found an opening at the Presidio Theatre in the Marina. At that time, it featured foreign films, which I was and am really into (The Presidio later became an “adult” movie house; then shut down because of the complaints from well-to-do families in the Marina District. Decades later, it re-opened as a mainstream movie house and remains so today). I got all dressed up and was interviewed in a tiny cubby-hole office off the lobby by Rita, the manager, a tiny woman dressed completely in black with her black hair in a chignon. She had tiny, mean-looking, dark-brown eyes and a sharp nose - - features which should have warned me what was to come - - but she seemed nice and needed someone to start immediately. I was hired to fill in - - fill in for what, I asked. “Oh, you’ll do the box office when Linda’s on break, and usher when Tom’s on break, and the concession stand, when Ella’s on break.” Ushering I could do. Box office, concessions - - uh-oh, those required handling money. Oh, well, I thought, it would be just fifteen minutes; I can handle it. Rita added that when I wasn’t spelling the others and the audience was seated, I was to carpet sweep the lobby.

Ironically, it turned out that Rita lived on my block and offered to drive me to work. I thanked her, but declined. I have this thing about getting too close to one’s boss. It meant we’d have to talk and I didn’t want to.

The film “Gervaise” was playing during the week I was there. It starred Maria Schell, sister of Maximilian, a good actor who now does Stella Artois commercials. “Gervaise” was one of the most depressing films I have ever seen, but it opened with a most beautiful soaring waltz over the credits. I did sort of okay jumping from ushering, to concessions, to the box office, which was the worst. You’re in this glass box in front of the theatre and you take money and press levers, and the tickets pop out of a slot in a metal counter you sit in front of. And the telephone at your elbow rang constantly. People would call while I was taking money for tickets, making change, and pressing levers, and handing tickets to people. Not like today where when you call (or go on-line), you get a menu to choose from, giving you all the information about the theatre and the movies that are playing. Even the ratings. This was way before ratings. People called to ask me what the film was about. Or worse - - if they could take their children. I was not the one to ask.

Coming up: Part 2. Early exposure to films; Ed pays a visit and I get a feel for Rita's wrath; fired for waltzing with an inanimate partner; I try again at the Bridge Theatre and am undone by the phone. I come to admire people who work in small theatres. A separation, I take the kids and move to LA.

Chapter Four, Part 3. Betrayed by a Plagiarist.

(c.) Shirley, Ann, and me, Christmas 1954 . (top.) "I know my rights." (bottom) "Who are all those others?" From "The Lonely Ones" © William Steig, 1942




One day a year was designated “Meet Henry North Day.” He was the President of Met Life. Each department was allotted a quarter of an hour to say "hello" and shake hands with the big guy. At nine-forty five, Katie gathered us together. All I could think of was I’d miss coffee break and a smoke. We trooped on to the elevators and rode down to Mr. North’s suite. A slender man in the requisite dark, three-piece suit officiously ushered us into Mr. North's thickly carpeted office, furnished in heavy mahogany, upholstered chairs, and drapes. Katie lined us up in a curve, just inside the door.


Henry North, in a blue-black, pin-striped suit, maroon and navy striped tie, and white shirt, heaved himself up from behind a desk the size of the deck of an aircraft carrier, and shuffled towards us in shiny, black wing-tips. He resembled all the caricatures I had ever seen depicting corporate “fat cats": literally fat, and bald, with white hair, a pink face, rimless glasses on a little pug nose. Starting at the door, he moved along the line, exuding an aura of the incredibly rich; he shook everyone’s hand with a big, pink, fleshy one. Speaking softly, almost shyly, he surprised me by greeting me and the rest of us by name. (Since then, I have been aware that a company's topmost men and women have the ability to know the names of every employee from file clerk on up - - an ability not shared by middle-management.) As we filed out the door, on the way back to our department, another group waited outside. This would go on all day. Though it meant doubling up with another department, Katie let us have our break anyway, which put the cafeteria workers in a tiff.


Katie palled around with Anita, a fluffy-haired brunette, about the same height as she, but thinner. Anita looked like Ida Lupino, though not as worldly. She wore form-fitting suits with peplum jackets. Her husband drove a bread truck. She was very upset when the teamsters went on strike. We were too because stores ran out of bread and other kinds of food. We liked Anita, she was friendly and seemed to sympathize with us about our jobs where Katie came off as remote. Or, maybe we liked Anita because she wasn't our boss. One lunch break, Katie deigned to eat with us. Somehow the conversation turned to opera. I mentioned that my Dad could sing all the tenor arias. “My mother and father’s favorite singers,” I bragged, “are Jan Peerce (I pronounced “Jan” with the “J” like jam) and Lili Pons.” She threw back her bleached-blond head , looked up at the ceiling, and said, “Oh, yes, Jan Peerce.” She pronounced “Jan” like “yawn.” Everyone at the table shot me side-ways looks. “Oh,” I said, “that’s how you pronounce it. I didn’t know. My parents always pronounced it ‘Jan’.” Then she launched into the story of how she met her husband: She was coming off a boat from Sweden, knew no English. He was standing on the dock, waiting for an arrival from the same ship. Their eyes met and that was that. Two weeks later they eloped. “How romantic,” one of us said. We all lapsed into silence and bent to our veal paprika. Katie dabbed her lips, excused herself, pushed back her chair, and left. I swore I saw tears behind her glasses.


To increase my job skills (and prove to myself I could better my high school score of -6wpm), I signed up for a typing class at night and, to create a balance, one on still-life drawing. Harry started complaining that I wasn't paying him enough attention when I was doing art homework in the evenings and weekends, so he began an affair with a woman from his office. I left him and went to live temporarily with Shirley who shared an apartment on Pine Street with her friend Ann, until Harry and I could sort things out. A few months later, Harry’s paramour dumped him and we got back together. We moved to a small, studio apartment on Fulton near 24th Avenue, across from Golden Gate Park (a made-over garage, really, with blue windows; you can still see it from the bus). Then he volunteered for the army. He wanted to join, he said, to avoid being drafted in case there was another war. While he was at boot camp, I discovered two things: One - - that a hand-written paragraph in a notebook that he said was his - - which I thought was incredible - - he had plagiarized from a Ray Bradbury short story. Two - -I didn’t love him anymore, I pitied him; when love turns to pity, it’s over. On a visit to my Mom's in Portland, I met another man, Ed, who was from the Bay area, too. We met up when we returned and I left Met Life. Seven years would pass before I would work a full-time job, except for that of wife and mother.



Chapter Five: Harry’s parents arrange to have our marriage annulled. As a mother of two - an infant and a toddler - - with Ed, I work evenings at movie theatres. At one, my boss - -a dead ringer for the bad witch in “The Wizard of Oz” - - fires me for waltzing in the lobby with the carpet sweeper to a film score.

Chapter Four, Part 2: Still Bored . . . Still Compensating. . . .

Shirley's boyfriend, Dan, me and Harry. Christmas 1954 at our Castro Street apartment.



To psych ourselves up before coming to work, Donna, who lived on Russian Hill, and I, in my Castro Street apartment, would listen to Red Blanchard, an out-there, early-morning DJ. As part of his shtick, he sang this song about a worm who made a sound, “the weirdest sound around. . .” and he’d imitate the noise: a nasal, guttural “Ree raaa,” which sounded to us like “green rec (green requisition).” So whenever we wanted a file drawer that was missing, or cards from file drawers, we’d ask Rhonda in the voice of Red Blanchard’s worm, for a “ree raaa,” look at each other and laugh. Was Rhonda rolling her eyes? We couldn’t tell - - their being so tiny behind her thick lenses.

At Met, we were not allowed out of the building (except on payday). Something having to do with our Workmens (now “Workers ”) Compensation classification. To make up for it, the company ran a subsidized cafeteria with a choice of entrée, desserts, soups, and salads (the dot-commers think they’re the ones who started this?) Our cost - - a dollar and change - - was deducted from our paychecks. Blacks- - Negroes, or colored people, as they were called back then - - made up the staff. They also ran the elevators. Eddie Alley, brother of the San Francisco jazz bassist, Vernon Alley, was one. Eddie played several instruments and often joined his brother on gigs.

Eisenhower in the White House affected our bi-weekly paycheck. Mine went up from something like $28.50 to $35.00. We got paid on Fridays, so the company extended our half-hour lunch period by fifteen minutes so we could tromp down California Street to the Bank of America on Kearney to deposit or cash our checks. Afterwards, a few girls in my department would head directly to the company store, which sold notions, stationary, Kleenex, lighter fluid, cigarettes, bath and beauty supplies, snacks, magazines, etc., and also gave credit. Some owed it an entire pay check.

In 1954, following Eisenhower's desegregation of schools as a result of the Supreme Court's decision on Brown vs. the Board of Education, Met Life integrated its personnel. Blacks who worked in the cafeteria were encouraged to apply for office positions. Several did, but many stayed behind the steam tables. I asked Katie if any of us could apply for cafeteria jobs when blacks were hired as clerks. She looked at me as though I were speaking a foreign language. I didn't press the issue. An older, black women Ella, was hired for our department. She was tall, taller than Katie, and graceful. She had graying brown hair - - straightened and curled at the ends - - and wore tailored shirt-dresses and low heels. She sat across the aisle from me. We became friends and I socialized with her and her husband, Willie, and some of their friends. Her daughter and I landed tickets to “Pajama Game” which were extremely hard to get, but we went on a Tuesday night when some popular TV show was on. I didn’t have a TV, so . . . . One Monday, Ella came to work with a sunburned nose. When I asked her about it, she laughed and said, “Hey, honey, we get sunburned, too. Didn’t you know that?” She explained that they had gone to a barbeque up near Sacramento over the weekend. Whenever I started to talk about things we did together outside of work, she hushed me up, fearing we both could lose our jobs.

Laura got married and left the company. Donna, who was single and about my age, just up and left. She was sort of like Barbara at the toy store in that you never knew if she was just getting to work after being out all night. She’d show up in a black cocktail dress - - a floral-print, silk sheath. She hung out with jazz musicians and dropped names: “Dizzy and me . . .,” and, “Oh, John - - you know, Coltrane? - - he told me what inspired him to sneak a riff from ‘Petrushka’ into his sax solo on ‘Roun’ Midnight’. ” I would lose track of her over the years, but somehow she always came back into my life. Laura, who now lives in Colorado, and I stayed friends.

After they left, I got to know Shirley, a tall (everyone seems tall to me; I'm 5'2"), gangly, mysterious girl. She was twenty - - older than me; the only person I knew who went weekly to a shrink for analysis on her "meaningless life." Her problem, she confessed, was that her father had wanted a boy and had the name "Stanley" picked out. When she was born, he insisted she be named "Stanley," anyway. Her mother wouldn’t go along; they fought and soon divorced. Shirley hated her name; it was so common, she said. “Not if you’re a man,” I countered (a male Met elevator operator was named Shirley). She felt responsible for her parents' breakup. She had tried to commit suicide once and said she’d try again if she didn’t make something of her life by her up-coming 21st birthday, mainly have a poem published in the New Yorker. When the day came, I wondered if she'd show up for work or had gone ahead and killed herself. Her desk was a few rows ahead of mine. The next morning, I was happy to see her there; her shrink had talked her out of it.

We loved New Yorker cartoonist William Steig’s depressing black humor; a very dark precursor to Schultz’s “Charlie Brown.” A favorite was a line-drawing of a figure crouching sadly in a box. The caption read: “Mother loved me, but she died.” We bought his book “The Lonely Ones” and read it during breaks. Steig created the character “Shrek of movie and Broadway musical fame. Another was the humorist Roger Price's self-illustrated books spoofing philosophy; he also legitimized the art of doodling. I once demonstrated his philosophy of “avoidance” by reclining on the floor outside the company store as co-workers stepped carefully around me. A department manager happened by, looked down, and actually smiled. I felt he knew I was acting out Roger Price. One of Shirley's friends told me that I reminded her of the comic Phyllis Diller, a headliner at the Hungry I and Purple Onion. I had not seen her perform, so didn’t know if it was a compliment. Later, when I did, I got that the resemblance had nothing to do with my wit, but the way we laughed. We discussed Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" and the works of Carl Jung (who had just been published in English). Deep.

Shirley started dating Dan, a big, healthy-looking Navy man. We became a foursome - - me, Harry, Shirley and Dan. Unfortunately, Dan was diagnosed with cancer and given five years. Shirely would go to the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital* in the Oakland Hills to visit him during his radiation treatments.

Next up: Chapter Four, Part 3: Henry North Day. Katie's sympathetic friend. A social faux pas. Katie reveals her soft side. Betrayed by a plagiarist. Harry joins the Army. I meet another man and say goodbye to Harry, Met Life, and boredom.

*Oak Knoll opened in 1942, serving wounded WWII, Korean, and Vietnam sailors, until it closed in 1996 with a military ceremony (L. Ron Hubbard had been a patient.) Lehman Brothers bought the property for $100 million, intending to develop it with Sun Cal. But after starting demolition in 2008, their plans were quashed when Lehman went under that fall. They abandoned the project, leaving the multi-acre site and its buildings in a mess of debris. Vandals, drug addicts, and homeless squatters took over, further decimating the property. Plans are afoot to clean it up and resume work.

Chapter Four, Part One: Bored to Death at Met Life

Harry and I goofing off in our apartment on Castro, 1955


As instructed, I reported to Personnel promptly at eight. The Rosalind Russell look-alike phoned Laura to come get me. I had been assigned to her department, but in a different section. Laura was tall, with short, dark, curly hair and a beautiful Roman nose. We rode the elevator to the eighth floor. When we got off, I told her I thought the elevator operator was eyeing me. “He does that to all the new girls, but don’t worry, he’s not like the guy at the toy store.” She led the way to a row of desks divided from other rows by floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets. As we approached Katie, our supervisor, she put down her compact and lipstick and stood up behind her desk. A sinking, lead-ball feeling, like on my first day of kindergarten, weighed down my stomach.

Katie was tall, stately, with bleached blond hair. She wore a bright Kelly-green suit with a colorful flowered blouse. Her face was matted with pancake makeup; her lips, heavily lipsticked a shiny red. “So you’re Laura’s friend. She told me you went to school together. I’m sure you’ll like it here." Katie smiled, "Come, dear, I’ll show you where you’ll sit.” Laura went off to her section and I followed Katie to an empty desk near an aisle. “Here’s where you’ll be. Lizzie, here,” she said, indicating a girl at the next desk, “will train you.”

Lizzie! I knew her vaguely from high school! The lead ball in my gut seemed to get heavier. Lizzie was shy, quiet, and sweet. She wore glasses, had limp, straight brown hair with bangs, and large teeth. Why didn’t Laura tell me she worked here, too? Suddenly, I wanted to bolt. Lizzie had run around with a group of similar friends. She had been in a few of my classes, so I used to say “hi” to her in the hallways. I felt deflated. I had been in drama class, had parts in school plays; I’d been a cheerleader, a student body officer, and a teen model. I didn’t belong here with these women and girls whose heads were bent over their desks, poring over file drawers. This is a big mistake. Lizzie gave me a toothy smile, “Oh, you’re coming to work here! How wonderful!” she said, eyes sparkling. I took a deep breath and decided to stay.

My job, Lizzie explained, like everyone else’s in the department, was to work with a section of the alphabet, assigned by Rhonda, Katie’s assistant. I took one look at Rhonda and thought - - if she can be Katie’s assistant, I can do anything. Rhonda’s hair sat on top of her head like a ball of steel wool that had been pulled apart in all directions. Her features were scrunched together and her mouth twisted upwards. She wore very thick-lensed, clear plastic-rimmed glasses, which made her tiny, close-together brown eyes even tinier. I could deal with her face because she could do little about it, short of undergoing extensive plastic surgery. What bothered me, besides her hair, were her clothes. I mean, she could have done something about her clothes. It didn’t matter that she wore a simple skirt and cotton blouse, but for as long as I worked there, she showed up every day in the same outfit. And, from day one, her blouse and skirt looked as though she had dredged them up from the bottom of her ironing basket. Didn’t this woman have an iron? I happened to say something about this to Lizzie, who confided that Rhonda was married and had three kids. So, I guessed, with a full-time job, a husband, and three kids, Rhonda plain didn’t have time to iron.

I came to think it was kind of hip (the word for "cool" back in the day) not to give a damn about what you wore, what you looked like and never comb your hair. Lizzie also told me Rhonda had an IQ of 160, way beyond Mensa! Rhonda basically ran the department. Katie seemed to just sit at her desk, call her hubby on the phone, and apply more makeup and fresh lipstick at the same time. She’d been married for several years, Lizzie said, but was sad because for whatever reason they couldn't have kids.

Lizzie took me to the file cabinets whose drawers were filled with cards bearing an insured's policy information, and explained my duties from beginning to end:
Rhonda would assign me a section; I would go to the file cabinets and pull out long drawers, like library catalogue drawers, and fill out a slip, signing my name. I would then put the slip in the space left by the drawer, and take the drawer back to my desk. Then with rubber “fingers” slipped over my fingers, I would flip through the cards, looking for policies whose renewal premiums were due in a couple of months, and turn them on their sides, by expiration date, so they’d stick up out of the drawer. When I finished, I would fill out a green rec (request) card for every expiration card, remove the card from its drawer, and slip the rec card in its place. I would then carry the stacks of file cards to a designated area and someone from the billing department would pick them up and give them to the typing pool to type invoices. The billing people would then return the cards to us along with stacks of invoices.

The next to the last thing I had to do was to check the invoices against the cards for misspelled names, wrong premiums, or dates. Invoices with mistakes, along with the card, had to be returned to the billing department for correction. File cards, Lizzie warned, were often overlooked during the “flipping” stage and invoice mistakes were frequently missed. Rhonda, the ultimate bean counter, kept track of all our errors (missed cards and mistakes on invoices) and a note was made to our personnel file; Katie would be notified and would reprimanded us. Three reprimands and you were put on six months probation. Three more and you were fired. The last thing I did was refile the cards back in the drawers. Automation couldn’t come soon enough.

Needless to say, it was very boring work. We found ways to amuse ourselves. Laura and I jotted down insureds’ weird names and read them to each other on breaks: Scott Free, Colin Puffy, Arman Elbo, Julian Hunkapillar, Shaliksta Rakestraw, Rollo Beany, Ima Horney, and so on. We were desperate. Donna, a pouty (and potty-mouth), co-worker with long, shiny, black hair, and large brown eyes that sometimes looked sad, would bring in the Examiner every morning and we’d read Herb Caen’s column (Caen wrote for the Examiner from 1950-’58, then went back to the Chronicle). One morning, she read this to me:

A Cable Car had stopped in the middle of California Street near St. Mary’s Park and Chinatown. The conductor was kneeling in the street next to it, peering into the slot that ran the cable between the tracks. An ancient Chinese man hobbled over, bent down beside the conductor, and, heads together, they peered into the slot. The Chinese man said, “Wassa mala, s’ling bloke?”*

We fell out of our chairs, laughing. Katie pulled her lipstick tube away from her mouth and glared. Rhonda came around from her desk and sparks seemed to fly out of her hair. We froze. For the rest of the day, whenever we looked at each other, we’d rush to the bathroom, repeat what the Chinese man said, and crack up. I quashed boredom also by sketching caricatures of everyone in the department, which I hung over my desk on a string tied between my in-and-out baskets. My co-workers loved them and people from other departments clamored to have their caricatures done. I didn't dare touch Katie, and Rhonda was a walking caricature. Why mess up a good thing? Katie put the kibosh on my sketches saying they made the department look "unprofessional."


Coming up: Chapter Four, Part 2:

We are imprisoned due to Work Comp rules. Great subsidized lunches! Donna and I and Red Blanchard and the worm song; I improve my office skills at night and lose a husband. Met Life integrates its black cafeteria workers into its office staff. It's Meet Mr. North Day at the Met!(Company president.)


*I'm thankful Caen died before the stringent PC climate kicked in. I doubt he could've gotten away with this today.

Chapter Three, Part 3: The End of Toy Story.

Harry and I at the 1953
Mission High prom.

During my stint at the toy store, Harry and I got engaged. He had red hair and freckles, a type of guy I tended to avoid, but he was charismatic and it didn’t hurt that he looked a little like Robert Redford. Still, I vowed I’d never have his kids. What if they had red hair and freckles - - and looked like me? He had graduated the year before and was going to City College. His plans were to transfer to Hastings Law. I had this noble idea to work and put him through school till I decided what I wanted to do; then when he became an attorney, it would be his turn. So, I'd keep the toy store job for a while.

One day, I had to take the freight elevator because Patty was puffing her way up the stairs. Dan had just loaded some boxes on it.
“Hi, kid,” he said, “Ya got a boyfriend?”
“Yes, we’re getting married.” We were between floors.
“Are you a virgin?
“None of your business.”
He pushed the red stop button. The elevator jerked to a halt, making a grinding, metallic noise; I fell against him. Before I regained my balance, he’d reached under my skirt. I jumped away,pressed the green button, quickly moved behind some boxes, and when the elevator stopped on the landing, I leaped out. He snickered as he drew shut the heavy iron gate. Josephine saw my face,
“What happened?”
"Dan. . . "
“Oh, that guy," she said, "Up to his old tricks again. Every new girl gets it.”
“I’m going to tell Norman.”
“Honey, men stick together,” Barbara chimed in, “It’s always our fault, you know.” She did a kind of Gypsy Rose Lee move, batting her eyes, “The way we look, the way we dress, the way we smell . . . .”
“Avoid him like the plague,” Jody said, lowering her Coke, “or he’ll try it again.” Nevermore, I swore, so I suffered Patty’s labored ascent up the stairs rather than get on the elevator with that old lech.

Over a weekend, Harry and I went to Reno and got married. Dad had moved to an apartment on Oak, so we stayed at the Grove Street walk-up. One Friday night, he took me to a City College dance. Former high school girl friends greeted me enthusiastically and asked me if I’d gone to Berkeley. I told them I was married had a sales job at a toy store; their eyes went blank; their faces froze, and when they moved away, it felt as though they walked right through me. I told Harry about it when we got home.
"That that’s the way it is in college, hon," he said, " - - very cliquey, and girls that get married are just out, period."
"My reasons for not wanting to go in the first place." He shrugged.

One day, I really had to pee; Patty was lumbering up the stairs. I couldn’t wait. I had to use the freight elevator. Dan let me on. I held a stack of cartons between us. He slid the door closed and glanced at my left hand. “Is your back sore?” he said. He must have guessed by my blank expression that I had no idea what he was talking about. A corner of his upper lip curled. “From all that--y’know.” He pushed his fist through the air rapidly and laughed as the elevator stopped on the mezzanine. I got off; bile rose in my throat. I ran to the bathroom and slammed the door. Not only did I haveto find work in a healthier environment but also a job that paid more so I could start saving money. Laura, a school friend, was a file clerk at Metropolitan Life. We'd sit over a pot of coffee and crack up over my toy store anecdotes, but when I mentioned the elevator incident, she insisted I quit and apply at Met Life.

I called the toy store the morning after payday and told Patty to tell Robert and Norman I quit, and hung up before she could transfer me to them. I rode a trolley bus down Market, got off, walked up Stockton, and climbed the stairs built into the Stockton Tunnel, which runs underneath Bush and California, up to Met Life. The building takes up an entire city block and is now the site of the ritzy, Ritz-Carlton Hotel. I found the Personnel Department, filled out an application, was interviewed by a pompadoured, wanna-be Rosalind Russell, who hired me on the spot.
“You won’t leave us and go to college will you?” she said, “Or get married and start having babies? We lose a lot of girls that way.”
“Well, I am married,” I said, pointing to the “x” I’d scribbled in the box next to “Married,” “but my husband’s going to college. One of us has to work.”
“Oh, so you’re putting him through school? Then when he’s through it’s your turn. So we’ll have you for at least four years, won’t we? Report to me tomorrow at eight, dear."

Months later, Harry and I moved into a three-room apartment on Castro and 14th Street. He had dropped out of City and was now an underwriter at Home Insurance, a property and casualty company. After dinner, while I did the dishes, he sat at the kitchen table and read aloud from a liability code manual, cracking himself up. Yes, I would work hard, save my money and go to college. The last place I wanted to end up was at an insurance company where employees thought the text in a manual was as hilarious as a Phyllis Diller rant - - but would life insurance be any different?

Next: Chapter 4, Part One, Met Life:
The Good: I meet another school friend, make new friends; cheap, excellent, subsidized lunches; boring work leads to play; the company store; Met Life integrates; coffee breaks; Eisenhower lowers taxes, my paycheck increases; Harry joins the Army. I meet another man and quit. The Bad: Another horny elevator operator; our heavily made up boss chats on the phone, applies more makeup, and chews us out; her perennially rumpled, frizzy-haired, nearsighted Mensa-material girl does it all; we can’t leave the building; the boeedom; some friends quit or are fired. The Ugly: Depressing, worse-than-school, work environment; rows of desks, aisles of file cabinets; the noise; the perennially rumpled, frizzy-haired, nearsighted Mensa-material girl; Harry has an affair.

Chapter Three, Part 2, TOY STORY

I made very little money at this job and often, close to payday, I didn’t have carfare, so I sometimes walked to work from Grove and Divisadero to New Montgomery and Market and back, at the end of the day, passing the elegant Palace Hotel on the corner, a jewel in the middle of trashy lower Market. Sometimes on a break, I’d meander through its lobby, use the marble bathroom with its individual louvered-door stalls; stop at the entrance to the dreamlike Garden Court restaurant and imagine myself having lunch there. One late afternoon, a couple of days before we got our checks, a woman came rushing in to the store. She and I were in the back while the others were busy with customers in the front. Robert and Norman were out. I wished she were a fairy godmother who’d say, “Oh, would you like to go to the Garden Court for lunch?” Dream on. She pulled a doll, still in its box, from the shelf, slapped a ten in my hand, “This ought to take care of it.” She turned and made for the back door. “Don’t bother with the change,” she said, over her shoulder, slipping away before I could stop her. What change? The doll was nine-ninety-five. The ten wouldn’t cover it; I’d have to make up the tax out of my own pocket. I crumpled the bill in my hand, hurried up the stairs to the bathroom, took off my shoe, and slipped the ten inside till I could sneak it into my purse on break. That night, I couldn’t sleep; I called in sick the next day. I felt so sure Norman or Robert would find out. I waited for the phone to ring or the police to show up. An opportunity like that never came up again, yet I questioned whether I would have taken it if it did.

At lunch break, we tried not to let Patty get ahead of us on the two flights of narrow, worn, wooden stairs that hugged the wall. There was no banister. One misstep and you could crash-land on the stocked shelves below, probably breaking lots of toys you’d have to pay for, not to mention a few bones, unless you were well-cushioned Patty. The time it took her to ascend cut into our forty-five minutes. Our break room was a windowless, fart-smelling rabbit hole that the men wouldn’t be caught dead in. It was painted a dirty apple green, a cheap and abundant war surplus paint that landlords slapped on the walls of their low-rent apartments or rooms, hence its name: Landlord Green. There was a refrigerator in the room that Patty was supposed to clean out weekly, which she did until Barbara found her box of Blum’s pastries missing. She railed at Patty, made her cry. Patty swore her innocence, saying that if she wasn’t trusted, she’d no longer clean it out; it went unused; no one dared open it. A lumpy, soiled, beige upholstered couch sat against the wall next to a sink; mismatched chairs stood in the middle at various angles around a chipped Formica table, strewn with crime, and movie magazines, and overflowing ashtrays. A tiny cubicle on the mezzanine landing, halfway up the stairs, festered the acrid-smelling “unisex” toilet. The first time I used it, I came out choking. “Next time, light up before you go in there,” Barbara suggested.

Balding, gnarled Ol’ (probably forty) Dan, the stock man’s horn-rimmed glasses perched on his hook-nose. Dan wore striped work shirts made of ticking fabric, and black Big Bens. He filled the wholesale orders and ran the freight elevator to haul down big items for customers from the floors above, where the stock was stored. Sometimes, if Patty was on the stairs and one of us had to use the bathroom, Dan would take us up. Otherwise, the elevator was off limits. We tried to convince him to let Patty ride. He said he’d have to clear it with Robert. I wasn’t there long enough to find out if he ever did.

Glenn, the outside/inside salesman, seemed an affable guy with wavy, grayish-brown hair; he looked like an accountant in his rimless glasses, white shirts, dark slacks, and striped ties. But Josephine told me that she had heard he’d served time for armed robbery and was a cousin of the bosses. In the lunch room, Patty let slip that Glenn was having an affair with Barbara.
“One morning, I saw them drive to work in the same car,” she said, picking egg salad from the corners of her mouth, “but they came in at different times. When I stay late, I see them leave together and soon’s they’re outside, I seen him put his arm around her waist.” Josephine refuted her, saying,
"No, it’s Norman. Glenn isn’t sexy. Barbara wouldn’t be turned on by Glenn.”
“But he has history,” Patty insisted, “Now, that’s sexy!”

Norman and Robert took care of business in an office on the mezzanine. We never went there unless asked; then you knew you were in trouble. I stayed out of Robert’s way and did my job. Sometimes, when business was slow on the floor, I watched Glenn write alphabetical code - - a certain combination of letters - - along with the numerical retail prices on the tags attached to items. The code was kept in a little black book. It was a mystery to me so one day I asked Norman what the letters meant. He explained that they represented wholesale prices. This system, he said, made it easier to enter wholesale orders that made up a large percentage of sales, into the books. Only Glenn and the bosses knew what it was. I thought I had figured it out. Early one morning,a new shipment came in, so - - enterprising me - - I stocked the shelves and wrote the wholesale code and the retail prices on tags. I felt pleased that I was helping Glenn and that Norman and Robert would be impressed and I’d get a raise. An hour into the day, Glenn huffed over to me,
“What the hell did you do?” he yelled, “Me, Norman, and Robert are the only ones who know the code. We change it all the time so naïve, smarty-pants little girls like you can’t figure it out!”
Later, Robert leaned over the mezzanine railing and hollered for me to come up to the office. This was it. I was going to get canned. He waited till I got inside the door then stood an inch away. He’d been drinking.
“Leave the fucking wholesale codes up to Glenn, goddammit!” he fumed, spitting in my face, “One more trick like that and you are out!” Norman calmed him down,
“Hey, Bob, the kid’s got a lot of gumption. She wants to learn the business. Leave her alone.” He opened the office door, smiled, ushered me out, closed it after me. I heard a muffled argument as I made my way down the stairs, heart pounding with every step. From then on, whenever I saw Robert coming, I’d high-tail it to the lunch room or hide in an aisle till I was sure he’d left the store. Jody, Josephine, and Barbara were amazed at what I’d done.
“I never had the guts to try figure out codes, let alone mark up stuff,” Jody said, “What made you do it?”
“No one told me not to, I didn’t know it was against the rules,” I told her, “I thought I was helping Glenn.” The only one who appreciated what I did was Norman.
“Look, doll,” he said, looking into my eyes with a fatherly gaze, “next time, you should clear it with me first before you take it upon yourself to do something you’re not sure of.” He smiled and clapped his hand on my shoulder a couple of times. “Now, go find someone to wait on.”

Chapter 3, TOY STORY, Part 3, continues:
I get married. Ol’ Dan, the stock man, makes a pass. I quit by phone and get a job at Met Life. So begins my so-called career in the insurance industry, about which I once shocked a co-worker: I told her I thought insurance was a business for men who couldn’t make it in organized crime.