SUMMER... My day of infamy (Part 84d)

I had to stuff a hand in my pocket to control a very excited lower member of my anatomy. It was the best thing that happened to me in the past 48 hours. I stopped about three steps up to allow myself to regain control. A couple of the guys were discussing what we should do as there wasn’t anywhere near enough wind to hold a race let alone two. After canvassing all the skippers we decided to hold off starting until later in the afternoon and then try to get at least one race in. By that time I was happy for that decision. Even though my name was first on the board I still didn’t have a crew. Most of the people there were swimming or trying to say out of the sun. I saw Frank, one of our better racers, talking with Cat and her husband. I went over to join them and found him telling them that they needed to get a new set of sails. They had bought the boat from South Jersey. That area had much stronger winds than our area did. Frank was telling them the sails that came with the boat were too “flat” for our area. They needed a set with a bigger “pocket”. Cat’s husband looked distressed. When Frank walked away I got talking with them and they volunteered that they really hadn’t planned to buy the boat in the first place and that a new set of sails was, money wise, out of the question.

When I’d picked up my sails and gear I saw my old sails still up on the shelf. I didn’t really put any thought into them but hearing all the preceding conversations I spoke up and offered that I still had my old sails. After explaining my reason for getting new ones I told them that for light air sailing they should still be OK. Cat spoke up and asked if they could borrow them to see if they would help. There was still enough time to retrieve them and to get back in time for a 3pm start.

When I returned I had a crew. A very inexperienced, but enthusiastic lad, who couldn’t have weighed more than 85 pounds. I had to convince his mother that, with little to no wind, he was perfectly safe. I was excited because we would be one of the lightest skipper/crew combinations in the fleet at around 245 pounds. Elle and I weighed right around 300, the supposed perfect weight.

One race it was. To some degree I was kicking myself for having offered up the sails. Cat ended up finishing a very close second in spite of her and her husband’s combined weight being about 25 to 30 pounds over the desired sailing weight of 300 pounds. I and my young crew ended up a respectable 4th but seeing the results from my old sails I was back to wondering if my new ones were really any good.

On shore Cat and her husband couldn’t have been any happier. The first thing he wanted to know was if I was willing to sell the sails. The question caught me off guard. Since buying the new ones I’d worked hard to make them work for me. Frank had offered up some tips the Summer before and, although not as competitive as I’d liked to have been, they looked good. I remember standing there in the water, holding onto my boat, and asking myself if I really thought I would use them again. When I couldn’t come up with an answer I told them that, yes, I’d sell them. The “how much?” was the hard part. The sails were now ten years old but had only been used for three full seasons and parts of three others. The problem was that the material that had been used to make them had a tendency to “break down” and stretch out of shape after a point in time. The last time I’d had them measured they were right on the edge so... I asked for $40. I remember the two of them looking at each other and then sort of laughing both turned to me and said it was a deal. I remember thinking that it was money that was going to come in handy in the up coming weeks.

It was the silent treatment, again, when I got home and another night on the sofa. A day in the sun had pretty much wiped me out so I did get some sleep. But by daybreak I was awake and the stress level was high. At 9am sharp I was on the phone to Mrs. K at the civil Service office. As I’ve mentioned before, Mrs K was a special person and one of the most upbeat people I’ve ever known. That came across as soon as I heard her voice. It was like “Hi! How are ya?”as if I was a long lost friend that she wanted to catch up with. She asked if I was up to coming in and having a “chat” with her. I still had no idea why she wanted to see me so I said “Sure!” and got dressed in a suit and headed for her office. I could see Elle was tempted to ask what was going on but, being the stubborn German that she was, kept her lips sealed.

As soon as I was ushered into her office she got up and closed the door. That looked pretty ominous to me but the perpetual smile on her face tempered my anxiety. Then, after offering me a seat she proceeded to sit in a chair along side of me instead of behind her desk. With the smile still there she asked me to tell her exactly what had happened. There was no doubt that I was nervous but she let me talk and the more I did the more relaxed I became. She did finally cut me off when I got to the part where the police arrived. The she asked me to listen to her and to wait to talk or to ask any questions.

Long story short (again)... when Leo had told me that I was no longer allowed to run the payroll process he was flat out lying. It was true that the audit of the Data Processing job positions called for a “Machine Operator” (for DP) to have two years experience. BUT, she had decreed that the results of the audit there were to be no negative changes for the people who were presently doing the various jobs meaning I was to be “grandfathered”. Then she went on to say that if he had tried to enforce my removal I had recourse through the CSEA (the union). As far as not having a place for me because the Accountants position had been filled I had seniority over my replacement. Hearing this I became agitated all over again and Mrs. K noticed. To calm me down she then stated that what she was going to tell me could not leave the room, under any circumstances. That got my attention.

She proceed to say that in all her many years of public service she had never had to deal with anyone as "unctuous" as Leo Bumpus. She told me that the sight of “that slime” made her stomach turn. But, as a political appointee there was nothing she could do about him. She went on that the last time he came down to see her it was about some petty matter. She said she told him to get out of her office and not to come back unless she “invited” him and then, with a sly grin, said “That ain’t gonna happen!” Then she got up got and went to her chair behind the desk. Her last remark got me to relax a bit.

To be continued...