8.31.2008

K-W Memories

1984 and the first few months of the next year I spent working at K-W Manufacturing. It was like a factory job, at least that’s how I would describe it. I would take all these round quartz crystals and place them on machines that ground them down to certain thicknesses, which would cause them to emit radio frequencies---the thinner the crystal, the higher the frequency (and the greater chance that many would be broken during the beveling process).

It was a typical day job. I showed up at 7:00, drank copious amounts of coffee and worked for 8 hours until 3:00 with a half hour for lunch. I was never much of a morning person. I had a routine, every single morning before I did anything else I would go to the bathroom sink, splash myself with icy water and sing to myself, “Cold water in the face/brings you back to this awful place.” A lyric from “The Magnificent Seven” by the Clash. I repeated it like a mantra and, sure enough, it seemed to bring me around. At least until I got to work and started in on the free coffee.

There were only about 10, maybe 15 people working in the section of the plant where I was stationed. I got to know all of them as well as you’d want to get to know your co-workers. There was a lot of down time spent waiting for crystals to be ground to a certain pitch and sometimes we would stand around doing crossword puzzles, giving out the clues with everyone trying to answer them.

The guy who sat next to me was named Brad. Most of the time I worked there he and I got along just fine. There was a point where we began to hate each other, but I couldn’t tell you why or if there even WAS a reason other than just being sick and tired of such close proximity on a daily basis.

He started bringing books to work and he’d read them in between checking his work. I thought, aha! What a great idea! I read “The Catcher In The Rye” while on the job. I read a lot of books there, actually, until the head supervisor decided he didn’t like the looks of it. He laid down the law and out literary pursuits were stifled.

Brad found a girlfriend and they got engaged. Her name was Beth and she was a very attractive woman…you know what I’m going to say, don’t you?…much hotter than he deserved. I’d been married for a couple of years so he was always wanting to talk about that. Somehow, some way, I couldn’t tell you why if I tried, the conversation steered itself to a dare. I told him I would make a cassette tape recording of my wife and I fooling around in bed if her would do the same with Beth. Then we would swap tapes.

I am almost positive that I did not expect him to take the whole thing seriously. But, lo and behold, the next day he showed up with a tape and gave it to me. I was surprised, to say the least, but I was also very curious to hear it. I mean, Beth was a real looker.

The recording was well made. You didn’t have to see what was going on…in fact, the pictures in your head would be preferable because then you wouldn’t have to see Brad’s dog-ugly face. I don’t know if it pissed him off that I never reciprocated by giving him a tape of one of my own whoopee sessions with the wife. But surely he didn’t think I was being serious about any of it, and if he decided to actually follow through on his part then that’s all of his own accord.

But, as I said, I don’t think he got too awful mad…he and Beth accepted a dinner invitation from us. We had never invited anyone over for anything like that before, so it was all new to us. Barbara made manicotti and we’d bought a bottle of wine. I had also picked up a bottle of rum along with pina colada and strawberry dacquiri mixes.

The night went well, I thought, although it turned a little weird late into it…I say “weird”…it wasn’t really “odd”, it was just unexpected and we didn’t know how to react.

The alcohol had already started it’s work, I suppose. I don’t remember exactly what we were doing most of the night, but I certainly recall when Brad and Beth started making out right in front of us. They got into a lip-lock, held onto each other like drowning sailors and lowered themselves to the floor as if they were in a hotel room of their own. Barbara and I were unsure what we should do, so we decided to make out ourselves. We didn’t make it to the floor, though. God knows what would have happened if we’d wound up down there with them? Young love.

I have no memory of them leaving. The next thing I can recall is kneeling in front of the bowl puking out enough rum to make me swear the stuff off for the rest of my life (which I have had no problem doing). I was swooning. It was one of very few times I have ever been really and truly sloshed. I was so sick I couldn’t go to sleep. I left the bed and went into the living room to watch some TV. I thought the distraction might keep my mind off of just how wasted I was. I wasn’t having any luck until my channel surfing landed me on USA Network’s “Night Flight”. The Grateful Dead were performing. It was the acoustic concert from the Fillmore that was released on the “Reckoning” album. I lay there and watched that concert and let the music calm me. Next thing you know I’m feeling good enough to fall asleep. Ever since then I have been a true Dead Head.

There was another guy I worked with, I think his name was Jeff. He wasn’t one of the smartest guys I’ve ever known. We didn’t talk too much. There was one time, however, when I accompanied him to the bank to cash our paychecks. I think I’d already cashed mine, though, because I’m almost certain I didn’t make any transactions that afternoon. We were in his van, stopped at the drive-through. When they sent back the money envelopes there were three instead of two (Jeff and a friend of his had both cashed checks). He handed me the third envelope. I’m sure he thought it was mine. Nothing was said about it.

I peeked into it…and there was THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS !!!

Now, if that were to happen today I would, without hesitation, point out the accident to the bank folks and return the money. But it just wasn’t that way back then. I wound up spending it all on phonograph records and a hanging lamp. Yep, that’s a lot of records, cuz’ that lamp couldn’t have cost any more than twenty bucks.

The only other thing I remember about the job at K-W was the foreman, a weasly hermit named Alan. He had a reputation for being a strange individual, and he would often speak of the acid trip that was so bad that it made him give up drugs altogether. He turned to God in the guise of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God. He was always going on about how the Roman Catholic Church was the Beast of the Revelation. He had tracts from Armstrong’s ministry which purported the same and much more drivel (a lot of Sabbath and Old Testament Festival resurrection). He proselytized so hard for that cult it was ridiculous. His main method of evangelism was to try and make other denominations look foolish, like they were all bogus (as I’ve since learned is the practice of more than one orthodox Christian sects). I was a Methodist, and he was constantly insulting me about it. His bullshit spiel was one of the main reasons I walked off the job one hot afternoon in March, 1985.

The job I worked prior to K-W was at the ice plant. I froze my ass off there. If memory serves, my duties were to chop ice from a huge block, put it in a grinder then bag it when it was done. That sounds about like what I did there, but I could be wrong. It wasn’t a very memorable employment.

Then after I left K-W I joined the Navy. I didn’t think I could find work anywhere. My wife was pregnant and it became very obvious that drastic measures were in order. Thus I found myself in Orlando, Florida, not knowing what the hell I was doing there. I should have known it would never work. I am the exact opposite of the kind of person who can make it in the military.

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