Memorial Edition - A fictional post from November 2009
Gary York has inspired me to write about the old CCLA the way I was doing in October and November 2009. I am going to mock up a typical day at the Celebrity Centre in L.A. in 1972.
Return with me now to a typical post I would write last October..........
A typical day at CCLA circa Summer of 1972 - Fictional but based on fact.
I wake up about 7:00 AM in my apartment, shared with my Brother, also on staff and take a shower, shave and put on a white shirt and some dark slacks and walk three blocks over to the staff house on the northwest corner of 9th & Lake. I may buy an L.A. Times on the way over to check the sports scores. I arrive at the staff house for 7:30 muster. Muster is led by Shareen Stuart who first calls roll and then leads us in calisthenics. About 35-40 staff show up. The calisthenics are mild and everyone is young so they go fast.
Qual Sec Sam Loria then leads us in a Chinese School of the Org Board. His opening line is always, "Say good morning to the Org Board!" He has a smile on his face as he says this and after we all do it loudly and in unison, he gives the next command, "Have the Org Board say good morning to you!" He then goes through each department perhaps one day focusing on the awareness characteristics perhaps on the next day focusing on something else. We then break for breakfast at about 7:45 AM. There are a couple of vats of scrambled eggs, a couple of vats of crisp bacon, and stacks and stacks of toast on serving plates along with sticks of margarine. Vats of hot coffee have been brewed and are awaiting us as are cartons of orange juice made from concentrate. There is also a large array of granolas and pitchers of milk, Alta Dena brand at that, a premium brand of milk.
Next we report to our posts, mine being in Treasury in the basement of the Lake St. house, near the galley.
Smiling, Kitty Georgius the Treasury Sec is there waiting for us, as is DIr of RAM, Frances Pavlides, and my Purchasing Officer, Adelle Vonnie. Our Cashier, Mark Ambrose, refuses to come to muster and is given a pass by Kitty and the execs because he stats are among the highest in the world.
Just as roll call starts to be called, Kenny and Kathy Wasserman, who live only about 12 feet from Treasury and are separated from us by only a blanket, wake up and start having some sex, sort of a morning quickie befoe they go on post. They turn on a recording of Elton John's Rocket Man and the groans and grunts start, just 12 feet away from us and make it difficult for Kitty to call roll but she makes it through while they are still going strong. Kitty gives us a pep talk and somewhere during that pep talk, the Wasserman's reach their climaxes, one right after the other. As Kitty's pep talk goes on, Ken Wasserman emerges from behind the hanging blanket and heads out to his post with a friendly "Hi guys" addressed to us all. About 5 minutes later, Kathy emerges, all dressed and we all say hi to her too.
I head off to study where I am studying the Director of Disbursements full hat in the hatting college run by the super able and ethical Carole Ferguson. About 35 to 40 staff are studying along with me. I am an F/Ning student and the time goes quickly and 12:00 Noon arrives quickly and I head back to the Lake St. house for lunch down in the galley in the basement. I sit at a table with this attractive red headed girl, Elena Walbroek who invitied me to sit at her mess table when I first joined staff. Dick Hubbard is also at our table. Those are the only ones I remember but there were maybe about 5 regulars. Henry Baumgard would often join our group. The food was good, always a salad and then a main dish and a starch such as potatoes of one type or another. There was plenty of bread and margarine and large quantities of Alta Dena milk and plenty of orange juice and also fruit punch. The dishes were taken away and there was always a small dessert such as a pudding or a piece of cake. VOTING ON THE MEAL We had to vote on each meal, with scores ranging from inedible all the way to incredible with votes going for both the food itself and for the service.
After lunch it was off to post. My desk was in the basement at Lake St. just a few yards from the mess hall. I would say hi to Kitty, Frances and Adele and start in on my in basket. I would work diligently on my post duties from 1 to 6 pm. I knew the hat cold and was very good at it. Special days were Thursday morning where Bob Mithoff from Div 6 would come over with all the FSM checks to be written and the two of us would work on those together for from 90 to 120 minutes. We wrote around 35 FSM checks a week. They would range from $25 bucks to maybe $400. Bobby Mithoff had a sick joke which he would always say, "Daniel Dick (an actual public FSM) has selected Vicky Cantlay (another actual public person) for her 2D alignment course." Every week he told that sick joke.
On Friday, I would dole out the payroll. Every staff member would come to get their cash and would form a long line. All of the mighty $10 a week stipend was paid in cash. Our total payroll for about 150 peiople was a about $2,000 per week. Just imagine that number. $2,000 per week to pay 150 people! the amount was so small, even for 1972 dollars.
We would break for dinner right next door and then after dinner, I would work until 10:30 and then head over to the center to watch the night's entertainment. The entertainment was great and of good quality about the equal of very good Las Vegas Lounge Entertainment. A typical night's entertainment would feature Dick Glass, the Eloquent Elephant and, then maybe Paul Shapiro singing his own songs and Sharon Gregg singing songs such as "Son of a Preacher Man" Solari and Carr would put on skits and Frank and Frank, two 6'6" string bass players would do some loud but good rhthym and blues songs. The Centre was always packed to the limit with about 150 seats being filled plus more people watching from the snack bar area. My good friend, Beverly Carter hung around after course and we would get something from the snack bar and go and sit together. It was really a shame, she and I were a perfect couple, about the same age and she was an extremely attractive woman, I really had the hots for her and she told me she was pyscially attracted to me too and thought I was one of the nicest guys she had ever met and she thought I was smart and had a good sense of humor and the whole thing. Her block on a 2 D for us was that her dream was that her 2D must be in show business. She and her 2D had to work on projects together. She said that she would not compromise this reality. We became good friends, along with my brother we became a threesome and hung out together and we went to her house and swam there on the weekends before I joined staff and so forth. She and I should have had a 2D but it never happened, she never found the show business personality she desired and she died at Flag, never having been married or even having had any stable 2D, in 1992 at the age of 52. I did not find out she had died until around 2006 when I found out on the internet.
Finally the CCLA show ended at midnight and I walked 1 block to my apartment and went to sleep only to start the same routine over the next day. So ends this trip through nostalgia, simulating an actual post of mine on this thread last October.
Lakey
