Sorry Orwell, This was the Real 1984 just before the Revolution

My involvement soliciting funds for The United Way was somewhat paradoxical. For most of my life I had been resentful and critical of The United Way. This attitude went back to when I worked for ARCo in the 1960s. ARCo supported the United Way and every year they solicited funds from the employees. They were very heavy handed. You were expected to pledge “Your fair share” to the cause or else.  Now whether you actually pledged or gave anything was supposed to be a matter of free will. It was also supposedly confidential; no one would know if you gave or not, or how much so the company claimed. 

I didn’t give anything. I didn’t make a pledge of so much as a penny from my weekly paycheck nor did I even make a token one-time token donation. I had my own charities I gave to and considered this private business. I also resented being pressured to give to something that essentially gave the company a nice public image. ARCo wasn’t doing this because they cared about the agencies on the list. The company President or Chairman wanted to stand up at the campaign award banquet and be handed a plaque to hang on his trophy wall. They wanted comments about ARCo's generous contribution splashed about in the Philadelphia papers.

So rebellious I pledged nothing.

Then one day I came to work and I was approached by a guy I didn’t know and told to follow him to some conference room. I go in the room and there are these guys from the Atlantic Independent Union waiting for me. The guys surrounded me and they're yelling at me for not giving. They're telling me I better give my Fair Share. It was like a scene from some mob movie. They were big guys, too, probably worked down .at the refinery or maybe they were the same goons who showed up from the Teamsters in my office at Olson Brothers (see my post, “Job Roulette with Egg”). 
And how did they know I didn’t give anything; it was supposed to be confidential

I told them, “Fuhgeddaboudit!”  No I didn’t actually say that. I did tell them my charity giving was my business, then I got up and left the room. Sorry if I ruined the companies 100% participation.
For the next week or so I fully expected I might be jumped on the street somewhere after that, but nothing more ever happened. I also swore I would never give to The United Way. Now, here I was in 1984, more than 20 years later not only making a contribution, but standing up in front of groups of fellow employees making speeches asking for their money. I do have to say, Wilmington Trust never put any kind of undo pressure on their employees to give and the list of donors was strictly kept secret.

On January 23 of 1984 I was picking up Laurel from nursery school and my car brakes began to fail. I took the car directly to the mechanic I used and dropped it off. Laurel and I had to walk two-miles home. The next morning, I got my car back at 8:30 AM, which made me late for work. Laurel didn’t go to school. She was still tired out from the walk(remember she was only 5 years old).

On the 26^th I bought a new car, a Ford LTD Station wagon. We had truly arrived at that dreaded point of non-coolness, the suburban family in their suburban wagon.

On Saturday the 28^th I left a fidget Philadelphia for New Orleans. It was the annual BAI P.A.T.H Conference, now called the BAI Productivity Conference and this year there was a huge difference. No, not the name change.
I was one of the speakers.

Over the course of my first years at Wilmington Trust my name gradually became known. Originally my fame, if you want to call it that, seeped through the bank. My position had started as an experiment really, which no one quite knew how it would work. I was designing my own job descriptions and creating just what Project Management in Banking looked like. I had started working at The Bank (as we referred to ourselves within Wilmington Trust) on September 3, 1980. By the end of 1983 I had overseen 18 major projects and not only brought every single one in before the scheduled completion dates, but also brought them in under budget. A few of these weren’t overly complex, but many required gaining confidence and cooperation beyond our own Division.

People within our bank were actually talking about me at meetings and conferences in the industry beyond Wilmington Trust. This was not just because of my ability to accomplish the goals set forth, but because I sometimes brought a new way of doing them to the table, for example, the Bulk Filing Conversion. I was an aggressive project manager, as well. I was always suggesting projects, which quite often were rejected because no one else was ready to see the possibilities. Still, I was being talked about. At the same time, Project Management was becoming a buzz word around the banking industry, although it remained a mystery to a lot of old-line managers. Thus in the last quarter of 1983 I was asked by the BAI to put together a presentation (what they called A Breakout Session) for the 1984 Productivity Conference on project management in banking. I choose the title, “Project Management Works!” and sent my synopsis to the BAI content committee.

How did a country boy with Social Anxiety Disorder ever pull this off. I had my bad moments dealing with others certainly, but overall I seemed to have been born for this job. My fears of social situations were offset by my gift of organization and my preparation. These were very much gifts from God.

New Orleans was fun, even though I was all on my own. I flew in on Saturday. On Sunday I took both a bus tour of the city and a steamboat cruise down the Mississippi.
I loved the city, but was disappointed by the Mississippi. The Mississippi just didn’t seem all that large where I was. I realize it is the longest U.S. water and a major course of transportation through many a state. But I was used to living near the Delaware River and somehow the Delaware looked wider than the Mississippi in New Orleans. Actually, this is true. The Delaware River where I am from is almost 3 miles across. The Mississippi in New Orleans is 2 miles.

Anyway, I rank New Orleans as one of my favorite cities because it is a great walker’s city. My favorite cities are all walker cities: Philadelphia, New York and New Orleans. You can walk about these places even at night and feel safe because there are so many people about. I would put Washington DC on my list, except there is something about it that isn’t comfortable after dark. And once more I was hitting the marathon circuit.

I stayed at the New Orleans Sheraton, just a short walk from the heart of the French Quarter, and I was in the French Quarter about every evening.

Every morning I would get up early and saunter down to Decatur Street to the Café Du Monde and get a couple Beignets and some café au laits. Ah, it was a little bit of Heaven. I have missed those Beignets all these years I have been home.

My session was late morning on the first day of the conference. I had designed my presentation to involve the audience. Unfortunately, the lighting in the room was terrible and I struggled reading my own script, which I think confused some of the people.

The BAI treated all the speakers to dinner at Arnaud’s Restaurant (left). This establishment has an extensive Mardi Gras Museum inside (right) and we were given a personal tour. The food was excellent. They served Shrimp as an appetizer. It was a huge tray of shrimp in a Creole Remoulade Sauce. This was the only time I ate shrimp and enjoyed it. I am not a big fan of seafood. I had Filet Mignon au Poivre. Why not, the BAI was paying for it. Several of the other speakers near me told me they had attended my session and really enjoyed it. I was surprised since I didn’t think it went well due to the lighting.

The next night I was alone for dinner and ate in the Hotel restaurant. I still wasn’t paying, the Bank was paying for this meal. I had a table sort of toward the middle of the room, unusual since I had found restaurants usually sat lone diner a bit out of the way. As I enjoyed my drink, a woman approached and asked if she could join me. She was young, trim and pretty. She explained she was attending from Pittsburgh National and hated eating alone. We talked about Information technology, of all things. As we neared the end of our meals it became obvious she did not want to go back to her hotel room along. As we got up, she invited me to join her. I turned her down. I had opportunities, but I never had and never would cheat on my wife. There was one time I came close, but we’ll get to that later.

I had been propositioned before her during my stay at the Sheraton. The second night I was there two prostitutes entered the elevator with me. They got turned down as well.

The conference ended on February 1. I came home on the 2^nd, a Thursday.

That weekend Lois and I went away while my parents took the kids.

We had a celebration for Laurel's birthday on Sunday the 26^th.
That Monday my wife went back to working. She has been home quite a while after the children were born, but money was getting tight and she decided to return to the ranks of the employed.

She was able to get a position in the Data Preparation Division of Wilmington Trust as an encoder. She ran into a couple obstacles. First was a company policy rule, wives were not supposed to work in the same area as their husbands. Walt went to bat for us on this one and Personnel decided there was enough separation between my position and hers and allowed the hire. However, the Supervisor of the Encoding Unit was dubious whether Lois could do the job or not. Lois is left-handed and all the encoders were made for right-handers. My wife got the job and proved to be one of the best encoders they had.

The big draw back for us was I worked the day shift and she worked the evening. We would literally pass going between. But she got to be there for the kids all day and I took over at night, so they never needed day care. It also tended to wear her out going in and working so late. Her hours were from 6:00 PM to Finish. She never knew what time she would get home. Some days it was early, but some days she was there until dawn. Other then this shift difference, life got back to being fairly normal. In April Lois met my mom and grandmother at Granite Run Mall and had the children’s photographs taken.

On April 14 I attended training called “Counselor Relations”. Sometime around this time of that year I also attended The Writers Group Workshop. I think I had more interest in that than the Counselor stuff.

And then came April 1984 and the whole world was about to change.             

             

Wad Slunging, Bubble Gum Welding and Mini Skirt Watching

CHAPTER 110

I had told no one, outside of ARCo management of course, that I had quit my job. I didn’t tell my parents until May 5, which was long after the fact. I had resigned back in March, about a month after the ski trip to Big Vanilla. I offered to remain until the end of May, but once I gave my notice they saw no reason for me to stay around past March 31. So all during April when my folks thought I was going in to Philadelphia to my job, I was really going into Drexel Hill.

 I still had my key to 1030 Cobbs. Lois was working at the Title Company in Bryn Mawr, so she wouldn’t be there. Neither would her dad. He left very early in the morning for work since he had to drive to North Wales every day, which took him a good hour each way and he started around 8:00. He worked for Leeds & Northrup assembling electronic testing equipment. Lois’ grandmother was ailing and staying with her aunt. At any rate, the house was empty between 8:00 AM and 4:00 in the afternoon.

I would enter the house around 8:30 and set up my typewriter on the living room coffee table. I spent much of the day there working on a novel and my stories, but sometimes I would go into Philadelphia and make the rounds looking for places needing a writer or maybe just taking in the sighs downtown. There were a number of beautiful sights, too, all caused by Mary Quant’s short skirt. Named the mini skirt in 1962, it had grown shorter by an inch or two every year since. By 1969 women were wearing what they called the micro-mini. There was now a better show on the streets of Philly than in those girlie magazines I use to lift from Charles’ Newsstand. Even Lois was in to them; although in reality, most of her was out of them. (See photo of Lois on the right.)

Speaking of Lois, she was the one thing I couldn’t get over. I liked both Mary Ann and Janice as persons and we had some fun times together, but I didn’t have any deep down feelings for either one. There was no physical stuff going on between us, other than some kissing and hand holding. I never had sex with those women, and I can say that without trying to twist my syntax in the Bill Clinton manner. In March I started to court Lois like I just met her, asking her on dates. I couldn’t get her out of my mind and I couldn’t stay away from her.

When I left ARCo I was forced to sell my stock in their credit plan. I had more than $10,000 worth by then, which would be enough to fund me for a whole, but hardly forever. In todays money that would have been worth almost $66,000. I decided I needed some sort of supplemental income. I took a part time job, four hours a night, five days a week, at Philadelphia Chewing Gum Corporation in Havertown.

Philadelphia Gum had been founded in 1948 by a man named Edward Fenimore, a former University of Pennsylvania professor and a vice-president of Bowman Gum Company.  During the 1950s Bowman was the leading purveyor of Baseball Card Bubble Gum, competing for the rights to player's photos with Topps. In 1956 Topps purchased Bowman for $200,000.
Philadelphia Gum started producing single bite bubble gum product called “Swell”, which sold for a penny each piece. It soon added to its line “El Bubble”, a brown candy cigar that sold for five cents.By the time I arrived on the scene they were quite successful and putting out a number of bubble gum packets containing trading cards. In 1967 they acquire the license to produce trading cards of National Football League players. This put them in direct competition with Topps, who had the contract for the American Football League. They also put out Dark Shadows Trading cards and Marvel Comic Super Hero Stickers. The company was acquired by Tootsie Roll Industries in 2004 and the Havertown Building was torn down and replaced with the Havrtown YMCA.

My first job there was as a sugar sifter and wad slinger.

I described my work to Joe Rubio in a letter on April 24.  “There is a big barrel of sugar and a sack of corn starch, and a large empty barrel between them. I put two scopes of sugar to one scoop of corn starch in a sifter and I sift this into the large barrel. I have blisters on both hands already from doing that. It is a very big sifter. Then I load a large bin with this mix and put it on top of a machine for the woman operator to load. I then take a full bin from under the machine, where part of the unused mix comes out, re-sift this into the mix with some more corn starch. I have to get the sugar from a storeroom and the corn starch from a warehouse section when I run out. The sugar is in barrels weighting a ton each and I walk them off a skid and into place…”

I would come home every night looking like a haunt, a ghost, covered with the sifted sugar head to toe. There was more to the job. Every so often a bell would ring. When it did I dropped the sifter and hurried to a opening, about the size of a half door, in the far wall. A conveyer belt came up to the opening from the kitchen on the lower floor. Spaced out on the belt were wads of just cooked bubble gum. They looked like chewed wads from the Jolly Green Giant. My job now became Wad Slinger.

I would grab the end of the first huge wad and I would sling it up and onto the top of the bazooka gum maker. The machine was quite large. An operator actually sat atop it so it reminded you of a piece of farm equipment, such as a combine. The difference was this machine didn’t move anywhere. It was quite stationary and consisted of this long, twisting tubing, like some immense metal intestine that grew narrower and narrower as it coiled about the machine. Atop the beast, the operator would use an enormous paddle to press the newly made wad into this hopper, force it to be ingested then digested through the winding metal tube. It would eventually come out the other end as three inch, paper-wrapped sticks of bubble gum.

My job was to sling those wads from the conveyer to the machine top where the operator could then ram them down the beast’s throat.
At the end of the night I also got a broom and swept up all the spilled and scattered sugar and corn starch.

I did this for a couple weeks and then I got promoted to Bubble Gum Welder.

This job didn’t require a big mask and protective clothing. None of these jobs required special outfits. I see more recent pictures of gum workers and they are wearing white  pants and shirts, latex gloves and paper hats over their hair. Back them we didn't do this. We just wore what we showed up in. Usually I wore a pair of black jeans and a T-shirt. I still was dressed in white by the end of my shift, covered in powdered sugar.

I was back on a machine. My station looked like a worktable, something like an Addressograph to tell the truth. I stood to one side and these eight foot high cards would be rolled up at one end. There were several heavy boards going up and down each side of these carts upon which were long rounded ropes of bubble gum.  I would grab the first of these ropes and pull it across the top of my table and then feed it down through a tube at the other end. Something inside there would begin pulled the rope along and a blade would snip off about an inch of the end. This would fall into a bunch of metal fingers that wrapped the piece and then drop it on to a conveyor belt that carried the bite-sized gums through openings in the wall into the inspection and packing room.

My job was simple, keep the ropes moving. In the middle of the table were two blades and a hot plate. As the first end of rope reached the table center I would already be pulling a second rope down. Snip-snip, I hit a foot pedal, the blades cut the ends off both ropes. I then pressed both ends into the hot plate, got them warm and squeezed the two ends together, thus welding them into one continuous rope. When the cart became empty it was quickly replaced by another and I welded on to the end of my shift. at 11:00 PM.

This was surprisingly tiring work, but I was free to write all day and I got to binge on bubble gum. What a mess I was going home afterwards, though, just a big cloud of white powder floating through the night.

After he left, Joe Rubio and I continued a regular correspondence, much as I had nine years  earlier with Ronald Tipton. Joe’s two main concerns were how the bowling team was doing and whether Lois and I were making progress on getting back together. We were both busy, but in much different ways. On April 17 he wrote he was stuck in Infantry and sent to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for additional training. He told about everywhere they went included wearing the full field backpack. He then wrote:

“To make matters worse the barracks we’re in must be the oldest they could find, they don’t look like they’ve been used for years.”

These were gripes Ronald had when he did his basic at Fort Dix.

I wrote back to Joe on April 23, telling him Frank McBride, one of the men we both had worked with at ARCo told John his being sent to Fort Dix probably meant Joe wouldn’t go to Vietnam. “Fort Dix isn’t set up to train for Vietnam fighting," he said
Frank was wrong and Joe did go to Vietnam.

I also took the opportunity of the April 23 letter to fill Joe n on my own activities:

"I have been writing daily for once. Very hurriedly, too. I have a manuscript of poems, 115 pages, ready to send to Yale for their Younger Poets Series.  It really consisted of two books, Days of Despondency and A Walking Tour.
"I also sent a play to a contest of the New England Play Committee. It is one act and called

 Honor of It. It is about a wounded President and the feelings about him. I want to enter as many contests as I can. I also have to get "Dream" rewritten for MOH (Magazine of Horror). Robert, the editor, promised to take it if I resolved a certain problem in motivation, and I think I have the solution.
"I sent a story to Argosy, which I only wrote last week. It is called, "Hitchhiker" and I'm hopeful.

"I am trying to write a novel by June 1st. Whew! It's for the Franklin K. Mathews Awards.  $10,000! Could that help? Half from Boy's Life for publication and half as advanced royalties from G. P. Putnam's Sons. Title -- Forty Dollar Car. It's rather autobiographical."

On April 25 I did come home for supper and shocked everyone because I had Lois with me. I took her home and stayed the night.