Abio 23: O What a Beautiful Day for Benicia Herald May 19 2024

For Sunday, May 19, 2024 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 1,355

Abio 23 – O what a beautiful day

The story of O operators has changed considerably. It looks like the 911 Operators are today’s new O operators, pulling double duty. They don’t just get calls about robberies and murders and other evil, but they also field calls like, “My fried chicken is on fire. What do I do?” and “My neighbor keeps playing the same stupid song over and over, do something.” I’ve already written of the antics and bomb threats that lightened my day as an O operator, but I couldn’t fit them all in; like the time I called 411 in Jamaica and 411 in Anchorage, Alaska simultaneously, and covered my mic.

“411. How may I help you?

“411. How may I help you?

“This is 411. What can I do for you.”

“No. I am 411. Who are you?

“I am 411 in Anchorage, Alaska.

“Anchorage, Alaska! I am from Jamaica.”

“Jamaica. How did you get on my line? And what’s the weather like down there?”

“The weather is splendid. I don’t know how you got on my line, but nice to meet you.”

Then I pulled the plug. I created an eternal mystery for two strangers. I was lucky to be an O operator in the good old days of AT&T and Lily-Tomlin cord boards, before the specter of divestiture busted us up. I used to call my mother for free. Credit card calls made me a teacher.

Credit-card calls back in those days were done by calling O and giving the operator your card number plus the number you wished to call. I would write the number down on a punch card that tracked the length of the call.

Sometimes customers needed to make multiple calls, and that’s when card calling was entertaining. I got to chat with my customers after each call.

I got frequent batch calls from Alice, owner and clerk at the Capri Motel. She would make a string of credit-card calls for her renters and keep me on the line. She had a raspy cigarette voice that would break out laughing at the hint of a joke. She and I became good friends. We laughed so hard every time she called, I promised that one day I would visit.

And we did, many years later. I took my Benicia wife Susan, and Kristi and Adam to Modesto to spend Easter at the Capri Motel. My raspy friend Alice was gone, but they all remembered her. And, yes, the Easter Bunny found us, which was worrying the kids.

If automation had come through any quicker, my whole life, career, family, future could have been different. Fraternizing with customers made me a teacher and put my English Degree to use.

Every morning, just before my shift ended, I got this same customer who would say, “Credit card calls, and stay on the line, Operator. I intend to make several.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said day after day, until my curiosity got the best of me, and I asked her if she minded telling me her business. She said, “I work for the Modesto Schools. I’m looking for substitute teachers. It is so hard.”

I asked, “What does it take?”

She said, “Ninety college credits in anything.”

“That’s only three years of college. I have a bachelor’s degree.”

“Oh, my goodness. And I’ve been talking to you all these months. When do you get off work?”

“Six a.m.”

“My goodness. You can start today. I’m Charlotte in the main office. I will give you an emergency credential. We need a physical education teacher now to teach swimming.” I told her I had my lifeguard certificate. “Oh, my goodness. Get over here. We need you.”

I didn’t ask the pay, but it was quite a bit more than I was earning.

Thus, I had my first day of teaching thanks to a serendipitous job and a coincidental conversation.

Two shifts a day and no more baked potatoes. Teaching was so much fun, “I can’t believe they are paying me to do this.”

By the way, the P.E. teacher didn’t leave a lesson plan so it was Cannonball Week, and someone loaned me a swim suit.

I discovered that a lot of absent teachers left behind no lesson plans, so I started inventing my own vocabulary quizzes and bringing in short stories that used those words. I taught how to shake hands, and shared a few stories of my childhood.

With this extra income, it was time to upgrade from my Murphy Bed Hotel to an apartment complex with a swimming pool. Living the dream! What came as a harsh realization to me as I moved up the socioeconomic ladder to better living is that I had no furniture. My spacious two bedroom, dining room, living room, kitchen were all empty. No couch. No chair. No table. I had pots and pans and a few towels, but no Murphy Bed. I made clothing piles. I ate fried potatoes. I slept on floor blankets.

My next line of thinking was this: there is no way in hell I’m going to spend money furnishing this apartment. It is temporary, and I will tolerate it. I continued to sit on the floor, the toilet, the tub, and the pool chairs. I swam and sat around the pool a lot. None of the other tenants – about five apartments – used the pool or the rusty barbecue. Sometimes a few kids would come and swim unsupervised. I kept my eye on them.

In the works was a formal request for me to transfer to Oakland Headquarters and work as a salesman in the Phone Center Stores. I’d be moving out as soon as AT&T accepted my transfer.

Janet and I were tight by then. We loved each other deeply. We spent all our free time together and we worked side by side. I loved the nape of her neck. We did not speak of marriage. We spoke of travel and books. When I told Janet I was transferring to Oakland, she put in a transfer to Berkeley. We both got our transfers around the same time and got to stay together. I became a salesman in downtown Oakland. I took classes in persuasion and learned to tie a tie.

Janet became a Service Representative – after a stint as an installer because she is a staunch feminist who hates male and female role modeling and only gave up crawling under spider-infested houses pulling wire when the work proved too dreary.

I lived a mere ten blocks away from Janet and our romantic adventures continued.

One day I read in a local article claiming a person could live their whole life on San Pablo Boulevard and never want for anything. I had to see that for myself.

I drove my motorcycle to the start of San Pablo in Oakland and drove all the way to Port Costa without taking any turns. I met Juanita the owner who cussed and swore at me as a form of greeting. She cussed and swore at everybody. People loved it.

I took Janet to Port Costa and we spent the night in the Burlington Hotel, which recently closed. At that time, Juanita had chicken coops in the front office making eggs. The rooms were named after prostitutes and in the closets were men’s and women’s clothing from turn of the century. I dressed in a stiff white cotton shirt, black suspenders, and a hat. Janet wore a corset and fishnet stockings. I brought a Minolta camera and we shot a whole roll of Kodak Panatomic-X black and white film.

Janet and I had our own way of giving to the needy. We couldn’t give money to everybody. Instead, we each adopted two homeless people. Each time we saw them, we gave them a dollar, to ease our conscience.

One day one of my adoptees, a young man who had one leg shorter than the other, which gave him a chronic limp, and wore the same jacket for four years, held up his palm one time when I tried to hand him a dollar.

“Not today. Don’t need it,” he said.