Chapter Six: Part One, From Theatre Gigs to Welfare and Back - - to Life Insurance 101

Circumstances were such that it was necessary that Ed be completely out of the picture. I wanted to be totally independent of him and not have to rely on anyone for the responsibility of my or my children’s life. I had to get a job. I applied at the Emporium and other stores; I answered ads for assembly-line work and for just about every job I felt I could do. You had to show your age on applications back then. And I, at 26, was “too old.” “They” wanted girls right out of high school; besides, I hadn’t worked full-time in seven years, and had children. “Kids,” they said, “get sick so you'll have to take time off.” Having three - - ages seven, five, and three - - simply multiplied the "problem." To tide us over, my father - -recently retired and living on Social Security - - opened a small savings account for me. Desperate, my only hope was Welfare.

We lived on the slopes of John McLaren Park in Visitacion Valley, a south-eastern part of the City, not far from the Cow Palace. One morning, the four of us trekked on dirt foot-paths through empty lots to catch the San Bruno Ave bus to the Welfare office, housed in a dismal, grey monster of a building (now a shopping mall), abutting the entrance to the Stockton Tunnel, on the edge of Union Square. The looks we got as we walked in, from welfare seekers and case-workers alike, said, “What are you doing here?” I picked up my fifteen (at least) page application from the counter and sat next to an older woman. She said that if I expected to get benefits, I had to look like I needed them. “Next time you come in here, try not to look like you’re goin’ shoppin’ at I Magnin’s.” I had no money except for the little my father gave me. We had nice clothes - - some I'd made but most were second-hand. Did we have to look destitute to qualify? I wore a skirt and blouse, heels, and a full-length black coat, earrings, and my hair up in a French knot. I dressed the boys in white shirts, pants, and jackets. The majority of applicants seemed beat down, weary, sickly. In shabby clothes, most slumped or leaned in folding chairs, eyes closed, or staring into space with vacant eyes at nothing. Children ran around playing, or hanging onto their mothers, screaming, or crying. Women of all ages (some grandmothers?) grabbed at and held them, speaking either soothingly or sharply. My boys watched, wide-eyed.




I lit a cigarette and concentrated on completing the form on both sides, then put it on top of a stack piled in a box marked “Applications” sitting on another counter. Behind a partition, under a cloud of cigarette smoke, caseworkers - -men in suits, or sportcoats, and ties and women in skirts, blouses, or dresses - - shuffled papers and stubbed out cigarettes in overflowing ashtrays. Every so often, a case worker would look up and call out a name over a din of typewriters and ringing phones. They'd hustle back and forth carrying thick files, guiding people into small rooms along the walls. I’d brought along Little Golden Books for the boys; I read the Chronicle while we waited. Finally, I heard my name and followed a round-shouldered, tired-looking man in an ill-fitting tweed sport-coat and shiny gabardine slacks. Holding both a lit cigarette and my forms in one hand, he opened the glass door of a room barely large enough for a desk and two chairs, ushered us in and shut the door. He sized me up, looked at the kids and said something like, “You don’t look like our typical welfare recipient.” He read my application, stared at me, sighed, and signed it; shoved it across the desk for me to sign. He handed me a form to take to yet another counter where I was given a book of food-stamps equaling about eighteen dollars for a month’s food, and a Welfare check - - I don’t remember for how much.



After a couple of months of reapplying in person every month and picking up my check and stamps at that dismal office, and having people cast the evil eye at us. I made another stab at getting a job. Again, with no success. I’d been writing to my sister and her husband in Springfield, Mass about my travails. Seems Springfield Life Insurance where my brother-in law worked was opening a branch in San Francisco. He knew the company president and the office manager out here. He wrote a letter of recommendation for me. I went to their new office on Montgomery Street for an interview, and, based on his letter and my previous experience at Met Life, was hired to work in the billing department.


I enrolled my boys in a state-run, pre-school program attached to Commodore Stockton Grammar School, in Chinatown. My oldest was in the second grade, my five-year old had just started Kindergarten, and the youngest, three, stayed in day-care all day. The fees for the program, which got its start during WWII to help mothers who went to work for the "war effort" while their men were overseas, were based on one’s salary. We got up at six in the morning, dressed, ate breakfast, and trekked over the trails to the bus for an hour's ride downtown, where we transferred to a bus to Chinatown. I'd drop my kids at the school, then walk down the hills to my new job.




My boss, white-haired and gruff, took me to a desk where a blond German woman about my age was punching away at a manual calculator as she scrutinized a yards-long tape the machine churned out while she flipped over stacks of checks. She barely looked up when he introduced me and told her she was to train me. Reaching out a hand, she grabbed an empty chair, wheeled it next to hers, and gestured for me to sit down, never taking her eyes off the tape or the checks. I threw my coat over the back of the chair, shoved my purse underneath and sat. Her acrid body odor made my eyes water. She talked me through the process of balancing check totals; she showed me tally sheets of hand written premium amounts and payouts I was to enter into the Ten-Key Add. She had written them in the European manner - - the commas where, in the US, the decimal points go and decimal points, commas - - e.g. for $1,295.00 she wrote $1.295,00. When I pointed this out, she spoke harshly to me in heavily accented English which I could barely understand. So I shut up. Of the many job training courses offered in high school, one was Office Machines (calculators, adding machines, Xerox machines, everything but typewriters - - a whole separate course), which I'd avoided like the plague and now was almost sorry I had.



I’d been on the job a week when I told my boss I had to have a couple hours off to take one of my boys to the doctor. He said, “I hope this doesn’t happen often or we’ll have to let you go. There’s too much work around here for you to be taking time off for your sick kids.” An older woman who sat behind me confided that she’d been working in offices for twenty years. “It was easy for women to get jobs back then. All the men got drafted. But lots of us got fired when they came back. I was lucky. I wasn’t married and I didn’t have kids.”



About a week later, one Sunday, Mom, my step-dad, Carl, and my father came by to see how we were doing. Synchronistically, presciently, my brother, Russ, his wife, Gayle, and some friends with a pickup truck and a camper, just happened to show up on their way home to Los Angeles from a trip to Canada. Though my parents and step-dad knew I'd separated from Ed, I hadn't said anything to Russ until then. His reaction was to take over our lives. Russ is one of these guys who can sell the proverbial refrigerator to an “Eskimo.” When he was seven, he traded a friend an Argyle shoelace - - one shoelace - - for an expensive pocket-knife (Mom made him give it back). He not only convinced me to move to Los Angeles, leave with him right then and there; he also convinced me and Mom that she and Carl, who lived in Sunnyvale, near San Jose, should take my boys until I got a job and a place to live in LA. It was a plan that I would not have ever, suddenly, decided on my own. My father reassured me that he and a neighborhood friend would take care of my household things. Mom and Carl packed their car with the kids' stuff and some small necessary items. We hugged each other, my boys and I cried. I promised I’d come back for them soon. We got in our separate vehicles and took off. I called my boss from LA to tell him I quit.



Next up: I land yet another insurance gig; my co-workers hate me; I rent a cottage near Echo Park, take Greyhound to San Jose to retrieve my boys. My boss Ruth is an amplified version of Rhonda at Met Life; I jeopordize my job when I call her "Medusa, of the Snakes."

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.