Steve Gibbs Autobiography

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?” ...

For Sunday, May 12, 2024 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 1,276 words Abio22 – Guest Editorial: Janet writes about us Janet, my first California girlfriend, has been proofreading my autobiography. I asked her to detail some of the things we did together. It reads so well, I’m running it as she wrote it, with her permission. It’s fun to recall these things. You were the first boyfriend with whom I had a normal, happy relationship. You were my introduction to fun. My first two boyfriends proposed to me; I was happy in this relationship where we loved each other but didn’t want to get married. I don’t know if I told you this or not, but I was first attracted to your postings on the bulletin board at work. “New errors and irregularities: Failing to specify AM or PM to a blind person requesting the time. Referring to a male customer as ‘ma’am’ or a female customer as ‘buddy’ or ‘mac’....” I was delighted and relieved that someone funny worked there, but I didn’t know w...

For Sunday, May 5 2024 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 1,338 Abio 21: Hello, Operator There I stood on California soil engulfed in the departing exhaust of the Greyhound bus, my only home for the last six days. “Modesto Water Wealth Contentment Health.” I crashed with Cheryl my ex and my best friend Alan her husband, Alan until I got my own studio apartment. I became an O operator for AT&T. I know, college grad, I should have done better, but I thought being O was cool and I had fun with it. With 60 women and three guys, one with a lisp, the phone company needed my special skills on the midnight shift, 10-6, to act as the baritone intercepting voice when drunks and perverts called the female operators at 3 a.m. with vulgar requests and salacious profanities. In my lowest register I would say, “Hello, this is the operator. What can I do for you.” I thought I sounded like Batman. I horsed around. I hooked the Godfather Bar to Dial a Prayer. “He...

For Sunday April 28, 2024 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 1,354 words College and Pennsylvania were behind me. I graduated on Saturday, caught a bus on Wednesday, and moved to California. Today’s episode marks the crossover – the end of Pennsylvania memoirs, and the beginning of California memoirs. Expect a more mature me now, because, of course, I’m all grown up, and I’ve learned all my lessons, and I have an English diploma. Stories need hooks to live, just like fishermen. The hooks for my PA Survival Years were these questions, “What kept an intelligent rural hick disinterested in college? What turned him around in those three years after high school? The hooks for the California memoirs will be these: “Who do I think I am now? What influenced me to get here? Did I ever get published with my Berkeley return address? My last day on Penn State campus, I was feeling so happy, I cut into my counselor’s office and said, “I might want to stick around and get my...

For Sunday, April 21, 2024 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 1,313 words For my final summer job, I decided to become an oil-field roughneck in Oklahoma. My Uncle Bill had been taunting me to come out and make some real money. He’d find me a job in no time. I caught a bus to Blanchard, Oklahoma. Uncle Bill was a big-shot tool pusher – in other words he was highly skilled at unsticking the giant Hughes drill bits when they got stuck in rock two miles underground. He could wriggle them free. Aunt Maxine set me up in a bedroom, but I seldom saw my Uncle Bill. He was always too busy to find me a job. Something urgent. He had early-morning helicopter-in-the-yard kind of urgencies. I wandered around Blanchard and met a guy, Rick, my age. I explained how I was seeking summer oilfield work, but my uncle was too busy to help. Rick was bored. He said, “Hell, I’ll take you out to the rigs. Get in.” We hopped into his dusty, dented Ford Capri and drove to the first rig, a...

Sunday, April 14, 2024 1,284 words Abio 18 - Two stories for the price of one Dorm adjustment. Year three, University Park, student dorms, me trying to adjust, my roommate is studying for the ministry. Always noise in the halls. Water fights. Three large connecting buildings that house over a thousand students, most of them three years younger than me. Three cafeteria meals a day. No Gino cooking. Slowly, I got used to the kookiness and busy pace. I was resigning myself for the mere year. Made a few friends. Then the unspeakable happened. Please don’t be too angry with me, but I got a call from Suzie Sunshine, the California artist I met in Ridgway over the summer. We’d hooked up briefly. I’d shown her my log cabin. She was calling me from her home in Rancho Palas Verdes, Southern California. Daddy was a navy admiral. “I’m pregnant,” she said, “and I don’t know what to do.” I couldn’t handle another abortion. I said, “Drive back to State College and we wi...

For Sunday, April 14, 2024 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 1,284 words Dorm adjustment. Year three, University Park, student dorms, me trying to adjust, my roommate is studying for the ministry. Always noise in the halls. Water fights. Three large connecting buildings that house over a thousand students, most of them three years younger than me. Three cafeteria meals a day. No Gino cooking. Slowly, I got used to the kookiness and busy pace. I was resigning myself for the mere year. Made a few friends. Then the unspeakable happened. Please don’t be too angry with me, but I got a call from Suzie Sunshine, the California artist I met in Ridgway over the summer. We’d hooked up briefly. I’d shown her my log cabin. She was calling me from her home in Rancho Palas Verdes, Southern California. Daddy was a navy admiral. “I’m pregnant,” she said, “and I don’t know what to do.” I couldn’t handle another abortion. I said, “Drive back to State College and we will share an a...