Author Archives: Jon Reed

Wages

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– Wages –

By Jon Reed

Once upon a time, companies paid employees by handing them paper checks issued by a payroll department every other Friday afternoon. Not surprisingly, attendance was higher those days, much to the irritation of management. Except, of course, if Michigan’s first day of deer season fell on a November 15th Friday, few employees showed up at all. Paper checks were standard before computers existed and commercial banks had improved electronic abilities. Handing over pay to civilian workers was a little different than the United States military pay system for servicemen at the time.

After enlisting in the United States Air Force, I discovered the difference. At the end of our second week in basic military training, we were lined up to receive our first pay. We had been screamed-at and harangued for so long, we were being handed cash for belonging to the military. Standing under a broiling sun, surrounded by snakes and scorpions, it was quite bizarre for a young man at the time. We were paid something like $30 in greenbacks, although memory fails after so long. It worked out to about 600 hours or five-cents an hour, somewhat less than my salary as an engineer only a few weeks before.

Sergeant Tough Guy sat with an open cash box on a card table. Near his right hand lay a loaded M1911 Colt .45 caliber automatic pistol pointing right at us. I suppose it was meant to prevent foolish people from making a grab for the money. I had no idea whether the gun would go off if the card table collapsed, but I’m sure it would have put a large hole through several trainees with a single round. Oddly, there is no history of anyone robbing a Lackland Air Force basic military training cash box.

Of course, with $30 to spend every two weeks, like everyone else I had no idea what to do with it because there was no place and nothing to spend it on. The Post Exchange only sold toiletry articles, chewing gum, magazines, and souvenir United States Air Force tee-shirts. No one wanted more souvenirs than bad memories of crawling through live-fire training ranges under barbed wire and mines exploding to keep things interesting. No, we had enough souvenirs, thank you. Returning to civilian life after the military, I was glad our company didn’t line us up for our pay every other Friday with a loaded .45 pointed in our direction.

But it changed in the early-seventies when we were informed wages would henceforth be automatically transferred to us in a new Direct Deposit Program without worrying about lost time and paperwork costs. A week before the new program was to begin, my wife and I discussed the changes it would bring. We decided to split our responsibilities so she could manage most of it. Thursday afternoon before the program began, I called home and she said, “We need some cash for the weekend. Can you stop at the bank and get $180? We need two fifties, three twenties, and two tens.”

I was confused, thinking she didn’t understand the program. “Listen, it’s Thursday. We don’t get paid until tomorrow, Friday, the 15th of the month. We don’t have $180, in our account. I’ll go to the bank tomorrow night or Saturday. I can’t go today and try to take out more money than is in our account.”

“Yes, you can. The transfer to our bank takes place tomorrow morning at 12:01 am Friday. The bank cannot register a withdrawal transaction this afternoon until tomorrow and the start of Friday’s business day.” She was growing impatient. “Listen. Just tell them your wife said it’s alright. And could you pick up some clean clothes from the dry-cleaners on Michigan Avenue, afterward?”

I hung up thinking trying to withdraw money that wasn’t there couldn’t work and I would be painfully embarrassed. Besides, I’d never heard of anyone walking out of a bank with more money than they had on deposit unless they were waving a gun and chased by wailing squad cars. And what was with the dry cleaners request? How can anyone pick up dry-cleaner clothes without a ticket?

I pulled up to a teller’s window at 5:30 pm that afternoon and filled out a withdrawal slip. Minutes later, the vacuum canister whooshed away a piece of paper requesting two $50’s, three $20’s, two $10’s, along with my driver’s license. A querulous, disembodied teller’s voice came over the inter-com, embarrassed and confused, as if dealing with early dementia. “I’m sorry, sir, but you don’t seem to have enough money in your family account to cover this transaction.”

I could feel my face blushing but no one was around. This was exactly what I didn’t want to happen. All I could say was, “Well, we’ve just implemented a Direct Deposit Program. My wife said my salary for this pay period will be transferred to the bank at 12:01 am before the Friday business day begins … and that to tell you that it’s alright.”

There was a slight pause while this was assimilated, and I wondered whether the bank’s security personnel or city squad cars would begin arriving with wailing sirens. Instead, a sympathetic voice came back, “Oh. Well then. It’s alright then, isn’t it?” The vacuum tube whooshed and the canister came back with a clunk, complete with $180, bank slip, and driver’s license. “Have a good day, sir.”

I drove away, still wondering about the power of a wife’s permission and direction. Now greatly emboldened, I walked into the dry-cleaners shop ten minutes later and gave my name before mentioning I didn’t have a ticket to pick up our clothes. But my wife had said it was alright. The owner gave me a long look and shrugged, before I paid the bill and he handed over the clothes. As I put them in the trunk, I realized I was set for life; all I had to do from then on was say, “My wife says it’s all right” and I could get away with most anything.

Appendix

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After an evening of sushi and wine, I awoke at 1:38 am with a shooting abdominal pain. My wife was at my side in an instant. “Are you alright? Can I get you up?”

“I’ll be all right in a minute,” I grunted. “I think I have food poisoning.” At daybreak, I still had a mild cramp. The following morning was the same.

“Do you think I should see a doctor? I hate calling if there’s nothing wrong.”

“Yes, it wouldn’t hurt. They probably can’t see you for a few days, anyway.”

My internist’s secretary said, “Yes, we can squeeze you in at about 12:15 pm.”

Well, that was easy. In a few hours, I drove over and sat on an examining table to be poked and prodded.

“Well, sir. I think you may have diverticulitis or possibly appendicitis, but a CT scan is in order. I’ll call St. John’s Providence Hospital and set it up if you can drive there now.”

“Yes, sure.” A half-hour later, I was led into a CT, MRI, X-Ray Scanning department. Could I still finish, miss rush hour, and still have dinner? Exam over, a technician handed me a telephone. It was my doctor.

“The exam shows you have acute appendicitis. We’re taking you to Emergency right now for an appendectomy, probably a laparoscopy.” I looked at my watch with a sinking feeling. So much for dinner. After filling out admission papers, I was in a hospital bed for the night, surgery scheduled for 1:30 pm. the following day. Thursday was already shot to hell, so why not Friday too? With countless injections and an IV bag already dripping stuff inside, I would have preferred a medium-rare filet and a well-made martini. An assistant to an assistant arrived to go over details, then another assistant, followed by the surgeon himself with a coterie of followers, hangers-on, and the mildly curious.

Friday morning arrived as expected, and surgery was pulled ahead to 9:30 AM, These guys were serious about getting the job done quickly. Had it been only yesterday, less than 24 hours before, when I asked whether I should call a doctor? Trundled into an operating room, before my wife arrived, someone asked, “Are you comfortable? Well, then, all we’re going to do is ….. “, and I was awake and it was over. Other than my belly still hurting, I wondered a moment if anything had happened at all.

Moved to a post-op unit, my IV fluid bag needed changing every few hours, so rolling its six-wheeled stand to the toilet while still hooked up was interesting. Things were going great until the following day when my insides decided to go on vacation. Ileitis inflammation of the intestines had set in. Accumulating gas and matter had to be removed before any more hamburgers and beer.

There was vague talk of inserting an NG tube, whatever that was, but what did another tube matter? Then I found out it was to be inserted through a nostril, into the back of my throat, and down into my stomach. Think about sliding an oily asparagus spear up your nose and leaving it there a moment. How about an hour? Yes, that gross. I asked how long the nasal-gastric tube process would take.

“Oh, we thought you knew. It has to remain there until nothing comes out, perhaps tomorrow or the next day.”

I was left to lie in agony for the night without the strength to celebrate it might be for only a day or so. I watched the minute hand on the clock creep past every minute of that long night. Sunday dawned without, obviously, any food. How long is it again that a person can go without? This wasn’t a reality show where I could call a timeout if I really had to have a Wendy’s.

The tube connections kept pulling apart and I would find myself lying in a pool of my internal fluids. What fun! My throat was cut and bleeding, my sinuses clogged, my lips chafing into ribbons from dryness. The asparagus spear up my nose now felt the size of a carrot. That afternoon, someone noticed the NG suction container wasn’t getting any stuff in it, which was good, so I was switched to a gravity bag.

Except nothing was going in the bag. It took a while to think about the implications, wondering why I was still hooked up. By seven that night, I decided I couldn’t take another night like the last. I hit the nurse’s call button. “Nurse, if there’s nothing in the bag or going in, please find someone to explain why I still need this god-awful tube stuck up my nose. We might as well argue it out now and not at 1:00 in the morning.”

The surgeon on call for the night finally arrived. Logic prevailed, but I was admonished, “If the bloating returns, we’ll have to reinsert the tube” as if this were all my fault.

“That’s fine with me, by God. I’ll take that chance. Now, please remove this tube so I can go back to recovering and have a chance to sleep tonight.” Do you have any idea how much better a person can sleep without asparagus or carrots up their nose?

By mid-day Monday, I was passing gas, moving bowels, and lapping up hospital soup like crazy, one happy camper. I was finally cleared to leave and my wife drove me home. I was shocked at how careless people were driving. Doesn’t anyone realize how frail the human body is?

A single accident and each person involved might have an NG tube up their nose. Perhaps it should be a requirement to obtain a driver’s license; an NG tube up the nose for a day to see what it’s like. We would all be driving white-knuckled as though on winter glare ice.

Hydroplane

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One summer high-school break, I wanted to do something else than build more model airplanes and practice trombone. I often read Popular Mechanics magazines on rainy days and found myself staring at an article “Build your own Racing Hydroplane.” The plans looked amazingly like those of model airplanes, only larger. It was an eight-foot, single-seat, racing boat that rode a few inches over the water at 30 mph using only a 7-1/2 or 10 hp outboard. Other than size, there wouldn’t be much difference between building it and the model airplanes I was familiar with. I had helped my father build a kit rowboat in a neighbor’s basement the year before, so I knew the work involved. All I had to do was scale-up the magazine plans, find some space, spend part of my $100 lifetime savings, and saw a few pieces of wood into shape.

A local bread baker gave me a roll of wrapping paper for the plans, and I cut out paper templates like my mother used to make dresses. Bicycling to a lumberyard to look for marine wood, I quickly discovered it cost far more than planned. But there was nothing wrong with less-expensive white pine, a strong and easy wood to work with. With hand saws, planes, and files, I soon had $30 worth of shaped wooden hydroplane pieces lying in a corner of the basement. A major family discussion ensued. Where would I assemble it, because I would never get it out of our basement once I started it there. My father agreed to let me use our single-car garage, but it meant having to park his beloved station wagon in the driveway for the summer. I’d never begun a project of this magnitude before and he probably wondered how far I would get before giving up.

The following Saturday, I began fastening the pieces together over a set of borrowed saw-horses. Only a few weeks later, the frame of what looked like a real hydroplane began appearing. My exhilaration was short-lived after discovering brass screws to fasten a plywood skin cost far more than my budget, but my father came to the rescue, suggesting I use then-new, less-expensive fasteners called screw-nails. I was back in business. After tracing more paper patterns onto thin plywood, I hand-sawed each skin piece and nailed each section into place on the hydroplane’s frame.

By the end of July, Dad was checking progress every day. When would he be able to park his car in the garage again? After filling the boat’s seams, filing, and hand-sanding, I painted it with primer and topcoat paint that cost another $15. I added a girlfriend’s name on its sides, hoping to get a kiss and maybe she would pay for the paint. Neither came to pass, and now I had a real problem. I had a beautiful machine sitting in the garage, nearing a budget limit, but without an engine, steering wheel, hand-throttle, or stabilizing rudder. I think my father was surprised his sixteen-year-old had actually built a purposeful racing hull, but delivering more newspapers wouldn’t help.

My parents decided to advance a little money against future birthday and Christmas presents, and Dad found an old $75 Mercury 7-1/2 hp outboard motor for me that he could also use for fishing. Of course, I had to rebuild it to show I was capable of more than just wood-working. Then one night he unwrapped a racing steering wheel he’d found on the east side. An engine throttle soon followed. It was called a “dead man’s throttle” because if a driver is thrown out of a hydroplane at high speed, a spring-loaded lever kills the engine and the boat won’t run out of control. My mother began worrying about my safety, and “dead man’s” throttle didn’t assuage any fears, so I agreed to wear an old football helmet, life preserver, and safety harness.

After Labor Day, everything was ready to go. Dad found a public launch site in Waterford and we loaded the boat, motor, gasoline, helmet, life-preserver, and a toy paddle. It was a calm, cool mid-morning when we finally slid it into the water, and I was soon chugging along the shoreline of a long-forgotten lake until the tiny hull lifted and began skimming over the water as designed. The engine rose to a howl and the lake surface rushed by. Holding the throttle wide open, I edged back into the cockpit and was soon flying across the water, glorious sunlight glittering across a small chop. Distant green shore rushed by and I was alone with the howl of wind and engine.

Waving excitedly at my father and passing speedboats, I followed the shoreline before turning the steering wheel. The boat pointed in a different direction but continued straight across the water. Uh, oh. In my hurry to try the boat, I had forgotten to install the bottom stabilizing fin. I barely missed hitting a diving platform before throttling back and carefully returning to our launch point at half-throttle, without telling Dad about the near miss. I somehow doubt the football helmet and life-preserver would have helped.

After a few more summers dashing across local lakes, I began tiring of the boat, ready to move on, a friendship that was cooling. Building the hydroplane had been a time of father-son bonding difficult to repeat. I was away from home a few years later when Dad wrote to ask the fateful question, should he sell it to a couple of boys in the neighborhood? It would be a loss for both of us. He later said they mounted a 25 hp Mercury engine on it, and probably scared themselves silly if they didn’t kill themselves first. Did they ever wonder who “Carole Lee” was that was painted on its sides?

Wedding Shoes

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My fiancée and I attended many friends’ weddings while we were engaged. It was surprising how many groom’s shoe soles appeared worn and dirty when the bride and groom knelt at the altar. One shoe was so worn that it almost had a hole in it. Why would anyone choose to be married, a high point in life, in footwear so flawed? Hadn’t he thought others would see his soles when he knelt? How mortifying that everyone but his new wife would know she was forever consigned to someone who wore back-of-the-closet shoes on the most important occasion they would ever share.

Marriage is a life-changing event and I thought more care should be taken with such details, if a man has his act together. My wedding would not reflect a lack of thought, but show how much I cared for my new spouse and a commitment to doing things right. Months before the big day, I purchased a pair of expensive Florsheim Imperials with mahogany-grain leather soles, more than three times the cost of men’s fine footwear at the time, and carefully laid them away in their cotton shoe-bags. I would never be a perfect wedding-cake groom, but I would have the best damned shoes ever seen at a wedding when I knelt at the altar.

The night before, my brother and I were sitting in a hotel lounge when I remembered the new Florsheims and told him about my plans to wear them. He congratulated me on planning so far ahead, but then grew solemn. If I put them on in the morning after donning a tuxedo, how would I prevent the soles from becoming worn and scuffed by the time I knelt? How had I missed such an obvious point?

There were few alternatives. It wouldn’t look right to arrive in a tuxedo and loafers and then change footwear. Sneaking in bare-foot, or just wearing socks, was more ridiculous. We even discussed whether I could wear the cotton Florsheim shoe-bags over the shoes while entering the church. But, no, that wasn’t any good either. I simply needed to temporarily protect the shoe soles until the last moment.

It struck us both at the same time. All I had to do was tape cardboard over the shoe bottoms, enter church normally, and remove the cardboard in the church vestibule before the ceremony when I was alone. Then I would join my bride-to-be at the altar and, moments later, upon kneeling, reveal absolutely brand-new, un-touched shoe soles. I wasn’t sure whether this would reflect careful forward-thinking or weirdly obsessive compulsiveness but, if anyone noticed, they would be scratching their heads wondering how I pulled it off.

My brother went to his hotel room to find some cardboard, while I retrieved the shoes, brought them to the lounge, and borrowed scissors and tape from the front desk. Alas, my brother returned not with cardboard but a magazine. As fate would have it, his reading material that day was Playboy magazine. I didn’t like the idea of Playboy on my shoes, but we were out of time and no one would see anything anyway. It took only minutes to cut and tape the pages to the shoe soles before turning in for the night.

The following morning flew by in a rush. I carefully tied my new shoes and finished dressing. Nothing was amiss, so I soon found myself alone in a church backroom, focused on everything except shoe soles. I was dizzy with excitement and love, glancing at a clock on the wall just before the 10:00 a.m. ceremony, thinking, my God, I’m actually getting married. These were the last few moments of being single and a new life ahead. Moments later, the organ music and boys choir began and I walked out before hundreds of wedding guests rising to their feet.

Waiting behind the altar rail as the processional music continued, hundreds of people turned to gaze at the bridesmaids and groomsmen proceeding down the aisle to line up in front. My beautiful bride emerged in a radiance of light, the entire church fixed upon the vision walking down the aisle on her father’s arm. She and her father were halfway down the aisle, the congregation still following them, when I saw Dave staring at my feet. The Playboy pages were still taped to my shoe soles. Worse, I couldn’t remember whether any pages displayed scantily-clad Playboy Bunnys.

There’s a reason wedding guests focus on radiant brides and ignore thoroughly frightened grooms, especially forgetful idiots who are frantically peeling Playboy magazine pages and tape from their shoe soles. But we had done a good job of sticking the pages on. A lot of it was firmly stuck, almost impossible to remove. I was just peeling away the last, hidden behind the altar rail, when everyone turned to the front. Fortunately, no one in the church, including my bride, had noticed me behind the rail. Her smile was truly ecstatic.

Dave guessed what had happened and grinned a look that said, “It wasn’t me this time, brother. This was all your idea.”

The ceremony began and the choir was in full voice. As we knelt at the altar, perfect shoe soles were revealed for the first time. As the ceremony was concluding, I could see a puzzled sigh settle over our kindly priest. He was staring at a pile of mangled Playboy magazine pages and tape behind the altar rail, out of sight, wondering when such a mess had appeared.

Snow Bunny

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Learning to downhill ski all began with a $15 high school birthday present. A friend and I had seen a skiing movie and it seemed so easy, gliding down snowy slopes and carving turns. We needed to get our hands on the equipment and teach ourselves how to slide down hills. What could be simpler? We were soon wandering the floors of a downtown sporting goods store.  

New ski equipment was appallingly expensive, but we found used wooden rental skis for sale at $15 a pair. The ski bindings were called Ski-free, with metal cables and springs to hold ski boots in place against a swiveling toe-plate. We would have to guess how to adjust them. In theory, when a ski twisted, sliding downhill, a spring-loaded part rotated to one side and released the ski boot instead of breaking an ankle. We were now snow-bunnies, but needed poles. I found a pair so short the grips only came to my waist, not knowing they were sized for six-year-olds. I couldn’t afford real ski boots, but World War II movies showed soldiers skiing down mountains with heavy packs and weapons. Since they wore combat boots, why not install toe clips on old ill-fitting combat boots I already had? Today, a single ski ticket and lesson cost more than my total outlay. 

Determined to learn to ski as soon as the snow flew, I enrolled in the first Detroit Free Press Beginners Ski School. It was free to anyone who found their way to a now-defunct ski area called Mount Dryden. In the parking lot, just before the 7:00 p.m. lesson was to start, I discovered a binding so loose a critical ball-bearing had fallen out and was lost. I was about to miss my first lesson unless I fixed it. Rummaging in the gravel, I found a tiny round stone and inserted it in place of the ball-bearing. Reassembling the binding, I didn’t realize I had effectively locked it in position. Instead of releasing normally, I would snap an ankle as easily as a Sunday dinner chicken leg if I fell. Carrying my now-almost-lethal skis to the top of the beginner’s slope, I fastened the combat boots on and joined eight other participants.  

The crisp evening was enchanting, snowy slopes sparkling in Mount Dryden’s arc lights. So this was what downhill skiing was like. How wonderful watching real skiers swoop and swoosh past, and we all hoped to be doing the same in an hour. Our official ski instructor glided over and did a double-take inspecting my strange equipment. Since everyone had signed a waiver absolving the Free Press if anything went wrong, he shrugged and slid a short distance below before showing us how to align our skis in a basic ‘snow-plow’ position. We all leaned forward, putting our weight through our boots into our ski edges, but mine didn’t seem to work very well. A snow-plow maneuver is the first and simplest method of controlling speed and direction we were supposed to learn.   

Each of us slid gently forward a few yards before stopping, again forming a line. Everyone with the right equipment had no problem and turned expectant gazes on the last one in line, me, having arrived a few minutes after my parking lot repair. They didn’t have much time to watch because without any structure in my combat boots, I couldn’t transfer any weight into the ski edges. Once I began sliding toward the group, I had no control. Even with the skis in proper position, I couldn’t turn, slow down, or even stop. This may explain why ski schools are no longer conducted at seemingly the top of the tallest hill in a ski complex. I flew past both instructor and open-mouthed group with a yell, accelerating over the edge and down Mount Dryden’s steepest slope.  

It was a hell of a ride and why I never fell half-way down and broke something, I have no idea but I must have been traveling 50 mph at the bottom when I ran out of Mount Dryden’s well-groomed artificial snow. In fact, I ran out of Mount Dryden. Understanding I had probably finished my first and last ski lesson, still traveling at a terrific pace, I flew between the last hay bales and arc lights before exploring Lapeer County’s interesting countryside in total darkness.  

With no way to stop, other than falling and breaking something, I hoped I wouldn’t run into a fence or a tree large enough to break me in two. I sincerely doubt management thought any skiers would find themselves out beyond their property line. Unfortunately, that left a frozen swamp facing me, mostly underbrush, cattails, saplings, and rough-plowed field, to stop an out-of-control snow-bunny. I was far beyond a lot of it when I finally somersaulted in a tumbling heap of skis and poles.   

I lay there, head spinning, ears buzzing. Miraculously, nothing was broken or sprained, just a few bits of torn clothing to show for my adventure. Still wondering what happened, I lay there deciding I must now be a downhill skier since I was now downhill and had begun by wearing skis. So it had been a successful evening after all. I retrieved everything in total darkness and began the climb back to civilization, managing to skirt both ski-instructor and group on the way back.  

When I got to the car, I discovered the locked-together Ski-free binding was, sure enough, still locked together. Perhaps, I decided, I should break down and get some real ski boots and bindings before trying again.