INTO THE FUTURE... with hope (Part 94a)

January 1 was highly anticipated by everyone working for the County. Salaries would be up and health care expanded. For me there was added responsibility. Mrs K had tapped me to work with Sonny on revising the Police Patrolman exam. It had been his project but he hadn’t been making enough progress on it and she felt I might be able to help get it back on track. The Police exam was, by itself, the most anticipated test administered by the Civil Service department. Given twice a year, there had been almost 1000 applicants the last time it was given. It was a professionally created exam much like the Clerk Typist exam, designed to test for general knowledge. However, there was also a portion designed to test for reasoning powers. The department had been using the same one for three years and Mrs K felt it was time to “shake it up”.

Sonny had been dubbed “a strange duck” by Wilson who, behind his back, even called him SD. Very much a “loner”, he didn’t socialize all that much with the other PT’s and there was little really known about him. He seemed like a good guy to me so didn’t look at the pairing with a jaundiced eye. It would’ve been easier to have worked with John as my partner as we really worked well with each other, constantly bouncing new ideas off each other.

Another departmental development was that our buxom receptionist had been transferred to another department in the County Center building. Her novelty had long worn off and Wilson had finally “won” and got her moved out. One of the girls who had taken the Clerk Typist exam and had passed with high marks on both the written and practical parts had stood out in my mind as an obvious replacement. However. it wasn’t an easy “sell”. Annette was a victim of polio and had no use of her legs. You have to remember that this was the beginning of 1964 and people with handicaps were on their own. But, Annette didn’t consider herself to be handicapped. She got around with metal canes and kind of propelled herself by throwing her legs forward. The problem was in convincing Mrs K that she could do the job. My thought was that she would make the perfect receptionist as she would be willing to stay put, answer the phone and answer questions. Mrs K threw all kinds of questions at her and Annette handled them all with ease. I was really pleased when Mrs K said “OK“.

A big change took place in the Data Processing department as of January 1st. The work I’d done of job descriptions had been accepted and the Board of Supervisors approved a budget just for them. They were still tied, loosely, to the Audit and Control department but Jay was now a full fledged department head with the title of Data Systems Manager. The position of Keypunch Operator was now called Data Entry Clerk with a senior level added (and an increase in pay). Two new girls were in the entry level position and Lucy was in the senior position. My old position of Machine Operator had been changed to Data Processor and Jo now held it. Andre was promoted to Senior Data Processor. All my old co-workers had been given new titles, a pay increase but they were only provisional in that they would have to take a test and pass it to become permanent. It was not something that made Mrs K happy but because of the fall out from Leo’s mismanagement of the department she went along with it. I was no longer barred from visiting the DP office and in fact Jay and I were working on the possibility of having some of the tests scored using electronic equipment. It wasn’t quite like old times but it was close.  

Back at the mobile home park the lot next to us finally had a mobile home in it. It was the newest model and I was a bit jealous as some of the changes were really nice. I was able to glean the fact that the owners were in their 40’s with a son in college. I’d been hoping for something like the teen girls who had been living there when we first moved in. The unit across the street had been sold to a single middle aged man so that was a disappointment as well. Eric had decided to have his unit (our old one) moved to where he was originally from but it wasn’t going to happen until the end of the month.

Elle’s pregnancy was still going well with her only problem being that her incontinence was a bit worse. Her doctor told her to follow up with Buddy’s father (the doctor who had done the corrective procedure on her back before we were married) after she’d recovered from the birth. Just the thought of another operation, even though it wasn’t major, just scared her mightily. One of the reasons we’d put off doing anything about it was our medical insurance had been limited but now, with the benefits changed there was no excuse. Selfishly, I was concerned about what the ultimate results would be as we’d integrated her wetting into our love making. Realistically, I knew we had to follow up on the doctors suggestion.

Bags had been away over the holidays so it wasn’t until the second week in January that I finally tracked him down. Of course he wanted all the money right away but I was able to hold him off for a while. It was helpful that his girl friend, ”Crash’s“ daughter, was there when I gave him the money so she could tell her father about it. That cleared the way to starting to put it together. I was excited even though I didn’t have a plan in place to explain to Elle where I’d be going on Saturday afternoons.

All in all the new year was starting off well.

To be continued...