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The Paper Trail

 

I was hired to locate two escapees

 

I began with a blank page

 

I no sooner got onto the page when I stumbled across a letter.

 

 

No, not that kind of letter

 

It was just a single letter.

 

You know, like not married.

 

You must mean a “V”

 

Why do you say that?

 

V’s are always single.  They are pokey, all elbows and not at all cuddly.

 

Armed with that information I continued along the page, searching for clues.

 

 

 

 

As luck would have it, I picked up a print on the welcome mat outside of the front door at the Motorola Plant.

 

 

Clever, these two.  I'm fairly certain they ae going to try to blend in here and when it’s safe, they’ll stand on their heads and sneak out as an M.

 

But I’ll be ready.  Even though I was told two escapees, it was obviously two escaped V’s.

This brings to a close the case of the Type-o.

 

 

 

 

Sparky

 

Something in the system was broken.  Doctors and nurses were stretched to wit’s end, patients lined the hallways waiting in varying degrees of pain for even the slightest attention, while one little boy sat on the floor, holding tight to his stuffed dog.  He was scared and nervous but knew, as long has he held tight to Sparky, it would all turn out okay.  

Doctors seemed to have stopped using complete sentences but were instead thinking several steps ahead of their current thought.  One exhausted nurse, who not only didn’t get her lunch but never had a chance to sit down for past two hours, noticed the small child holding tight to his dog.  She stopped rushing and just stood looking at the boy.  The sounds of the buzzing hallway blended in with the fluorescent hum and in that brief moment she caught her breath and could feel herself calming down.  This, somehow, was what she needed.  This was her lighthouse, a beacon of hope amidst the jagged, rocky shore of wheelchairs.

She smiled as the boy looked up at her, and she gave him a wink.  Then a loud, Code Blue, disrupted her moment and she was off, down the hall.  Little Charley didn’t know what that meant but closed his eyes and hugged Sparky a little tighter. 

 The broken aspect of the system was not within the hospital walls but across town, slithering without remorse at Kareless Insurance.  The people tasked with the financial responsibility of health care.  Proficiently skilled at raising their rates, while dictating to doctors to utilize the cheapest means available to achieve the minimum possible health. 

With high-gloss, full color, double-sided brochures advertising smiling actors who supposedly took advantage of Kareless Advantage policies and a bank of lawyers to insure their wording keeps them out of litigation, their CEO watched as the name CODE BLUE was painted on the back of his new yacht.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CCR

 

It was the time life itself fell apart.  There would be no picking up the pieces and no fitting it all back together.  It was done.  Over.  I remember CCR was playing on the radio.  They were singing about a bad moon rising.  How appropriate, I thought.

There’s a particular kind of silence that follows a moment like that — not the peaceful kind, but the hollow, stunned quiet where even the air seems to step back and give you room. And then, of all things, CCR comes drifting through the static, singing about trouble on the horizon. Life has a dark sense of timing. It cues the soundtrack without asking permission.

It feels like one of those irreversible hinge-moments, the kind that doesn’t just change the chapter but tears the whole binding out of the book. There’s no “picking up the pieces” because the pieces themselves don’t recognize each other anymore. They’ve become different shapes.

It’s astonishing how a single moment can feel like the floor giving way — not a stumble, not a crack, but a clean, merciless drop. And yet the world around you keeps behaving as if nothing happened. The dashboard lights stay steady. The radio keeps humming. The sky doesn’t so much as flicker. Only you know that the axis has shifted.

So there you are, in that impossible stillness, and CCR comes rolling in like some cosmic stagehand who missed a memo. The guitar twang, the warning in Fogerty’s voice — it doesn’t just accompany the moment, it announces it. As if the universe wanted to lean over your shoulder and whisper, “Pay attention. This is the part you’ll remember.”

And you do. Not the exact temperature of the air or the color of the sky, but the feeling — that strange, cinematic clarity that arrives when life decides to break character. The way the world suddenly looks overexposed, like someone turned the contrast up too high. The way your own breath sounds foreign. The way the song on the radio becomes a kind of prophecy, not because it predicts anything, but because it confirms what you already know: the tide has turned.

There’s a quiet dignity in the way you recall it. You don’t dramatize the collapse; you simply name it. “It was done. Over.” That’s the voice of someone who has lived long enough to recognize finality when it walks into the room.  And yet, even in the wreckage, you’re still noticing the soundtrack, the symbolism, the eerie appropriateness of a bad moon rising just as your own world dimmed. That instinct of yours to catch the poetry in the rubble, is what turns a memory into a scene, a scene into a myth, and a myth into something that can be carried in that odd little pocket just beneath your belt.

 

 

Two Eggrolls

 

The following pages are just a few of the jobs I’ve had during my life.  I understand it is a lot to read, but don’t do it all at once.  Just come back to it every now and then.  The jobs are not listed in the order I held them, just in the order I remembered them.

The reason I called this section Two Eggrolls is because of one particular adventure that took place in a Chinese restaurant.  The lady who wanted to sell the egg rolls and the man who wanted to buy the egg rolls kept tripping over the language.   You’ll see.

Approximately one hour after reading this, you’ll want to read it again.  You may even experience the aroma of Chinese food as you turn the pages.  Don’t be alarmed, that is just the power of your brain having a little fun with you.  The pages have not been sprinkled with a blend of sesame oil and mischief. 

Once in a while I’ll be reading along and suddenly the author takes a sidestep.  He or she does something completely unexpected.  I love when that happens.  Predictability is boring.  I’m sure it throws some people off, but so what.  Life is not a sure thing.  Every step isn’t always going to have deep, fuzzy carpet beneath it.  The river is full of loose and slippery rocks that look like they might be a good place to step, but then you find yourself floating downstream, soggy wallet and all.

 

Many years ago, I lived in an apartment complex that was shaped like a three-sided box.  There were rows of apartments that went around three sides of a large grassy area.  It was like having our own park right there in the middle of everything.  One day I came home with a model airplane.  It had a little gas engine and actually flew.  I would hold on to a long cord and slowly turn in circles as this plane flew around and around in a larger circle. 

That was the day I discovered the freedom of flight, for when the cord broke, I stood and watched as the plane was no longer going in a circle but flying straight and crashing through the window of someone’s apartment.  The plane and my allowance were now gone, and I had some explaining to do.  Mentally, I can still see that plane flying away from me. 

 Over time I’ve come to know that the important aspect of flight was not lift or thrust but how cheap the manufacturer is.  A few more cents spent on a better cord could have changed the course of my entire life. (Okey, maybe not, but for sure, the course of the plane)

 

I worked as a bagboy at a Wrigley's supermarket some time ago.  It was one of my first jobs.  On this particular day, the store was busy and everyone was hustling.  As I walked down the candy aisle I saw that someone had spilled a large bag of M&M’s.  I couldn’t just ignore it but in order to clean them up I’d have to get something to put them in.  There were too many to just scoop up in my hands.  

As I headed towards the back room to get a dustpan and wastebasket, the assistant manager yelled across the store for me to come up front immediately.  I turned and went to see what he wanted.  He then proceeded to yell at me for walking past the M&M’s and not cleaning them up.  Then he said, “Go and get something to put those in.”  I thought how nice it would be if that assistant manager had a better cord.  He wouldn’t be so quick to fly off the handle like that.

 

Once upon a time, in Torry Pines, California, I worked as a lead technician.  The project was a fusion reactor, and my bosses were engineers and scientists.  I was pretty much a gopher.   

The day was warm and sunny, as it always was in California, and they sent me out on a forklift to retrieve a large scaffolding and bring it to building C. 

I bounced along on the forklift and eventually found the scaffolding they were talking about.  I pulled up to it, sliding the forks under the lowest rung and lifted it enough to clear the ground so I could drive back to the building. 

As I was heading towards the building, I noticed two of my bosses back by the building waving at me, so I waved back.  How friendly, I thought.  However, the closer I got to the building the more frantic their waves became.  When I was close enough to hear their voices, I understood they were yelling for me to stop.  The top of the scaffolding had snagged the powerline that was sending power to the building.  I had pulled it clear off it the corner of the building.  Not my finest hour.

 

We had a craving for Chinese food, so we called the local restaurant and placed our order.  When I arrived to pick it up, I thought I should add a couple eggrolls.  We both liked eggrolls and so I asked the owner, who was operating the cash register, to please add two eggrolls.  She said, “No. Order does not come with eggrolls.”  I tried to explain that I knew the order didn’t include eggrolls, but that I wanted to buy two.  Again, she said, “No.  No eggroll with order.”

We went back and forth like that a couple times, and then I gave up.  We never got our eggrolls.

The phrase – fish out of water, became very clear to me on a job I had working in the world of 401K’s.  I sat in the interview and answered all of their questions truthfully.  “Do you speak Spanish?” No.  “Are you familiar with retirement plans and 401K programs?” No.  “Have you ever worked with multiple computer monitors at the same time?” No.  “Have you ever worked in customer service before?”  No.  “When can you start?” 

Apparently, they were in desperate need of a warm body.  They hired me, even though I knew nothing about what they did or how that did it.  There were very thick binders full of rules and laws, and monitors that wrapped around as far as you could see.

  We were not allowed to put anyone on hold.  We just had to be quick at researching the answers to their questions.  

This was, for sure, my least favorite job.  (Not of all time, but it was right up there).  I stayed a year and ended up making more money being fully vested than I did with my paycheck.  You see, I was already retirement age when they hired me.

 

I walked into a candy store and asked if they were hiring.  It smelled sickly sweet, but also pretty good.  The owner of the company hired me, and my first assignment was to sit on a barstool, and as the freshly made chocolate covered cherries came down the conveyer belt, I had to lightly touch the top of each one with a curled-up piece of wire.  

That formed a C on the top of each candy, to indicate it was a chocolate covered cherry.  That was my job.  I wasn’t at all expecting what happened on my second day. 

When I showed up to work I was met at the door by the owner.  He explained that the cook and the truck driver had gotten into a fight and the cook was in the hospital.  Today, the owner and I would be making the candy.  I think he was even more nervous than I was.  

I learned how to make peanut brittle, and that is what we did for a good part of the day.  I never did wander into the storefront again.  I spent all of my time in the back of the building where the candy was being made and packaged.  

It was fun but I thought I could make more money elsewhere, and so I eventually got a job at a factory that made M-60 Army Tanks. 

That was the second time I had to join a union.  The first was at the supermarket, where I had to join the retail clerk’s union.  This time I had to join, what seemed like a more adult, serious type union, which took even more out of my paycheck.  My job was working on a drill press.  I had to drill holes in tank wheels.  I had to drill 28 per pallet and seven pallets a day, then stack them and band them up for shipping. 

After my first day, when I shut the drill press off, I grabbed a broom to sweep up around my work area. 

 Suddenly it was like 20 voices yelling at once.  “Hey!  Put that broom down.  What do you think you’re doing?”  

Apparently only union sweepers are allowed to sweep.  Who knew? 

Joe, the old man who made the wheels, before they were given to me for drilling, had been there for years.  He never did more than what was required, but once he discovered I would play checkers with him at lunch time, he picked up the pace and we got production out in half the time, spending the rest of the day playing checkers.  On day I went with him at lunch to grab a sandwich.  That’s when I discovered Joe didn’t eat lunch but would down a pint of whiskey instead.  It never seemed to affect his work, or his checkers.

No good deed.

My cousin and I were walking along a dirt road when we came upon a construction site.  There was a flatbed truck with a large load of bricks on it.  The driver got out of the truck and asked us if we would please unload the bricks for him and if we did, he would pay us.

He said the reason he couldn’t get any closer to the job site was because the reverse in his truck stopped working.  We believed him and so we unloaded all of the bricks by hand, carrying them from the truck to where the driver said he needed them to be stacked.  

After about two hours, we were dead tired and had sore and bloody hands.  When we had finished the driver handed us five dollars, saying we could split it between us.

 

Thinking I needed to do something productive with my spare time, my friend talked me into joining the Sherriff’s search and rescue department.  This seemed like a worthy cause, so I signed up.  Little did I know that I had to go through the Sherriff’s academy, buy the uniform and carry a gun.  Hokey-smokes.

That seemed like a lot to ask of a volunteer, but I did it.  It turned out to be excellent training, as I learned about tracking, first aid and how to spend an entire day searching for a lost hiker, through underbrush and bramble while still looking sharp and fresh, should the media show up at the end of the day.

Here’s the problem I may have neglected to mention.  I have zero sense of direction.  I’d be hard pressed to find my nose with both hands and a flashlight. 

So where did the Sherriff’s put me?  Driving the rescue truck, of course.  There were no GPS systems back then.  I had a paper map of the county on the front seat of the truck with me, that’s it. 

It was up to me to find where we were to meet and set up the command post. Keep in mind, no one ever gets lost on a warm, clear day.  It’s only at night, when it is raining and there is no moonlight. 

One such adventure involved a downed aircraft.  The report was that a small plane had crashed somewhere in the hills of East County.  The black box was sending out a distress signal, so we were all called out to find the plane and any survivors. 

A large number of us spent a good part of the day searching everywhere for any sign of wreckage.  Late that afternoon the search was called off.  It turns out that the black box signal wasn’t coming from the back hills but from a boat, in San Diego harbor.

One, all out search, involved a lost child.  He had gotten separated from his family.  They called the parks department, who in turn called us, the mounted Sheriffs and the fixed-wing department.  Everyone and their uncle were out looking for this little boy. 

They took turns calling different sections to come in for lunch.  One of the Sherriff's on horseback rode into the command center to get lunch and tied his horse up to a manzanita bush.

As he stood there tying up his horse, he heard something beneath the bush.  He bent down and saw the little boy under there with a couple Hershey bars.  

The Sherriff asked him if he’d been under there the entire time.  The kid shook his head, yes.  Then the Sherriff asked him why he hadn’t said anything.  The boy began to cry and said, “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

Not all stories had a happy ending, so I’ll stop there.  I must admit it was a fun adventure.

Here’s a story that fortunately didn’t happen to me or because of me, but I was fortunate enough to see it when it did happen.

I was working for a company that made heating systems.  Their one and only maintenance guy was running connecting sections of iron pipe along the ceiling. This guy had no fear whatsoever.  He would climb up on anything and everything to reach something. 

On this particular job, this pipe had to run the entire length of the building.  It required several trips up and down this large A-frame ladder. 

About halfway through the building the maintenance guy discovered he had run the pipe through the ladder.  Just underneath the top rung.  There was no way to solve the problem other than to undo a great deal of what he had just done.

No matter where I worked or what it was I was doing for a living, my desire to write didn’t stop. 

I was working at a hospital, as a dietary aid, helping to fix and prepare meals for the patients.  Whenever the opportunity presented itself, I would write a poem, greeting or short story on the backside of the paper placemat that was on their tray. 

One day, while doing the dishes and cleaning off the trays, I noticed someone had written back to me on their placemat.  They introduced themselves and said they were in The Cracker’s Ward.  That was their term of the mental portion of the hospital.  “They think I’m crazy.” She said. 

It has been too long now for me to remember everything she talked about, but I do remember she was very happy to her from the outside world. 

 

On most bridges there is a sign showing what the clearance is.  That allowable space where you can pass under it without incident.  There are no such clearance signs for under buses.  When you’re thrown under the bus, that’s it.  You’re toast. 

One company I worked for built sections of the space shuttle.  Needless to say, they were massive.  Although huge, they were quite fragile. On the day it was scheduled to roll out and be presented to the public and the media, there were American flags everywhere, a band playing and a smattering of important people.  It had been tied down onto a flatbed trailer and after the ceremony it was to follow a prescribed route to its destination. 

The part that didn’t make it into the paper the next day was that the head of transportation who had put the route together, and organized the police escort, had failed to verify the clearance under one of the bridges.  As the large space shuttle section hit the top of the bridge it was trying to pass under, it crumpled as if made of paper.  Worse than an accordion at a Polish funeral.

All of his years of service without a single blemish didn’t matter.  The head of transportation was toast.  He was gone before the flags were lowered.  We tend to do that to people.  We seem to need someone to blame.  Not that it changes anything.  It’s just how we are. 

I suppose I could blame the restaurant owner for not having a better command of the English language, but that wouldn’t get me the eggrolls.  (I know, I need to let it go).

 

 

zc

I bet up there it was LOUD.

 

As I was sitting on a beach chair in the driveway, I happened to look up just in time to see a slow-motion collision between two clouds.  They exchanged information and then went about their separate ways.  No insurance companies were involved, and no police report was filed.  I expect most people never even noticed it.  To tell you the truth, if I hadn't been looking up, I never would have noticed it either.  I never heard a sound.

 

 

Once the Lake dried up

 

They laid off the lifeguard

but never removed the sign

No Diving