THE WAITING YEARS
Now began a period in my life which seemed to go on far too long. In my mind, I still held to the goal of someday achieving a college degree. For the foreseeable future there was simply no way I could afford to go back to school. When the school year was finished, in June of 1940, I was so broke I couldn't even to return to Montana! I didn't want to borrow any more money from my sister, Jean. There was little chance of finding work in the McMinnville area, either.
R and her folks very kindly offered me a place to stay until I could find work. So, with nothing else in sight, I accepted their offer. I brought my pitiful little belongings to their house, in east Portland, near Mt. Tabor. I was embarrassed, to say the least. I had learned, or thought I had learned, to take care of myself. I had only a few dollars left, barely enough to ride the street car down town each day, and return at night. I haunted the public and some private employment offices; I read the ads in the newspapers every day. I visited many offices down town, but couldn't seem to find work anywhere. I became quite discouraged and pessimistic.
There were some very pleasant things about staying with R's family, though. Her grandmother, Sarah Francis, then probably in her sixties, was a wonderful artist. She held open house every Sunday, and many people came to see her paintings. Her whole house, even the walls off the stairway, were covered with beautiful oil paintings. R and I helped her with the entertaining of guests at her open house, and sometimes I visited with her while she was painting. Many of her paintings hung in business and public offices around Portland. Some of them had been sold for as much as $500, a lot of money in those days! She had one very interesting technique which I tried years later. She always laid a base coat of bright lemon or chrome yellow all over the canvas. She said it made her pictures look "sunny," and I think it did!
Finally I spotted an ad in the paper! An insurance office down town had openings for several clerks. I called right away, and went down to the office to take the special examination they gave to prospective employees. I thought I had done all right on the test, but was really excited when the office called that very afternoon to tell me to come to work! That was the Farmers Insurance Company; their office was the regional office for Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. The accounts for thousands of automobile and truck insurance policies were kept in that office. There were forty or fifty people working there.
My first assignment was in the files. Four or five clerks handled the filing work. We took orders from various people in the office for particular folders, located the file, and checked it out to that person. We had to pull hundreds of files each day, and replace those being returned. Also many new policies came in each day, to be filed. We had to work very rapidly and accurately, as a lost file presented serious problems. I was on my feet all day.
But I was young and healthy. At lunch time, after eating my sack lunch, I would either play table tennis or take lengthy walks outside. I found that I could beat most of the fellows at table tennis, because of the experience and training I had while at Linfield.
My wages were low, about $35 or $40 per week, if I remember right. But living costs were pretty low, too. Fare to ride the street cars was only five cents, including a transfer, if a person needed one. I ate simple sandwich lunches, purchased in a nearby cafe.
Very soon after getting that job I looked for and found a place to live in a boarding house. It also was located on the east side of Portland, only a block from the street car line. Mr. and Mrs. McLain provided a good home for five or six of us young men. I had a private room, upstairs. Mrs. McLain was a very plain cook, and a kind lady, who made us all feel right at home.
When I moved away from R's home, her parents wouldn't accept any money for my having been there three weeks. They were very generous people, and kind to me. I think it was better that I not stay there, as R and I saw far too much of each other. I still went out to see her often after moving to the McLain's.
When I had a little money coming in, I traded in my little Argus 35mm camera, which my sister Jean had given me two years before, on a much better Perfex 35mm rangefinder camera. It had a faster lens, and a more versatile shutter. I bought the camera from Sandy's Camera Store, just a few blocks from the insurance office. The store clerks offered good advice about taking pictures. I found that the store had a wonderful darkroom setup above the store. I could rent the use of a darkroom and the equipment there for very little, so I began to spend most of my spare time there. With help from the people in the store, I learned how to develop black and white negatives and make much improved enlargements.
On weekends I often went down to the river front, to take pictures. There ships from all around the world were berthed, loading or unloading. I shot lots of film from the bridges and docks, taking pictures of passing speedboats, and fishermen. I remember seeing some Japanese ships there, loading scrap steel. I never gave a thought to the war which was already going on in Europe, and threatening us from the Far East. I was totally self-centered and selfish.
I became close friends with two of the young men in the basement at the boarding house--Bob and Joe Brower. They were from somewhere in the midwest, and were devoted to their church, the Church of the Brethren. Later in the winter of 1940 Bob and I sang with the Portland civic chorus, which performed with the Portland Symphony Orchestra. In connection with that we once helped in the performance of an opera, singing in the chorus. I have forgotten the name of the opera, but it provided much fun and hard work.
Early in the fall I was given a slight promotion at the office to become an accounting clerk. It proved to be a disaster, rather than a blessing for me. The company made a regular practice of moving clerical people around, so that we could be acquainted with all phases of the operation. In this new job I had the task of keeping up with the thousands of Idaho policies (someone told me there were 90,000, but I certainly never counted them!) . It was there I first was exposed to IBM procedures for record-keeping.
Each day I had to work through the cards for the Idaho policies. The cards were stored in big "tubs," flat trays on table-height stands, in front of me. I pulled the cards for necessary processing, and filed new cards in the proper numerical order. The cards for terminated policies had to be located and processed. The printing on the cards was difficult to read, because it was so small. To keep up with the work load, I had to work part of my noon hour, and sometimes for a half hour or more after all the others had left the office in the afternoon. As a result, I became very tense and nervous.I was desperately anxious to do a good job and keep up.
One night as I was riding home on the street car, I suddenly felt sick to my stomach, and vomited up a lot of bright red blood, right on the floor of the street car, and then passed out! When I came to, a lot of people were standing around me, and the car was stopped. I was able to tell them where I needed to get off, and I walked the block or so to the boarding house, very slowly, as I still felt pretty wobbly.
I told Mrs. McLain what had happened, and she had me get into bed while she called a doctor. I didn't vomit any more blood, but felt really punk! The next day I went to the doctor's office, had some X-rays and other examinations. The doctor said I had "an ulcerous condition," and would have to go on a strict diet. Also, the doctor called the insurance office and recommended that I be given a different job. (I had told him of my trouble in doing the work.) Elmo White, the insurance office manager, was very kind and helpful. The job of files supervisor happened to be vacant just then, and I was offered that position. That worked out fine, as I was already well acquainted with the whole filing operation. Very important, I received a small raise, and could be much more relaxed. That was my first real supervisory job; I had four fellows, including my friend, Bob Brower, working for me,and we got on very well.
About this time R and I broke up. I still feel somewhat guilty about that. Her father had died that fall, and I know that in my self-centeredness I had not been as sympathetic and understanding as I should have been. We had talked about getting married, but I couldn't see any chance of that. I have no doubt it was best for both of us, though I know it was a difficult time for me, almost like a death. It did give me some understanding of how people feel after a divorce. I dated other girls, but was somehow always looking for R in crowds, on the street, and everywhere. I did see her occasionally, but had no opportunity to talk with her. Sometime that winter Bob Brower and I decided to move out of the boarding house and try renting an apartment together. We found a neat little semi-daylight basement apartment just a few blocks from the office. We could walk back and forth to work, and save money. We put up our own lunches, so we needn’t go home during the noon hour. We got along fine, sharing the cooking and housekeeping. I remember we had a wall bed, which pulled down from the wall at night, and took up a big share of our little living room.
Bob spent much of his time at his church, while I spent most of my spare time at the public library, the zoo, and the Portland Art Gallery. I was still taking many pictures, and had a growing interest in art. All those places were within walking distance of our apartment. On weekends we often took the bus or trolley and rode all around Portland. We could buy a monthly bus pass for just a few dollars, and ride the transit system as much as we liked. I was trying to save some money, and had paid off my college debts. I had too little money saved to think of going back to school yet.
One thing that I haven't mentioned in previous chapters, or until now, was the steady correspondence I kept up with my mother and sister. Mom wrote faithfully every week while I was in my second year at school in Havre, and while I was in the CCC's and at Linfield. I really enjoyed those letters. Jean, my sister, wrote frequently, also. My father didn't write so often. I sometimes received a letter from Robert, who was married by then, and beginning a large family. I tried to write a letter to the folks every two weeks or so. It was in those years that I developed the habit and liking for writing letters.
I always had been a little interested in flying; in the spring of 1941 I became more so. I frequently saw Air Corps P47 fighter planes flying over Portland, and began to wish that I could join the Air Corps and learn to fly those planes! So I began to haunt the Portland Air Base, sometimes trying to get pictures of the planes in the air. Then I decided to apply to become an Air Cadet, though I understood that one had to have a college degree to qualify.
I learned that a degree was not required--I had enough education--and I passed the written tests easily, getting very good scores. I passed the tough physical exam also, except for one thing--my blood pressure was too low! Ever since my high school running days I had a very slow pulse rate--about 60 beats per minute at rest--and had always passed out easily. I guess it was the low blood pressure that caused that problem. Whatever, the flight surgeons at the base suggested all sorts of things to bring my blood pressure up to the necessary level, but nothing seemed to work. They told me that with low blood pressure a man was apt to black out when making fast maneuvers that would greatly increase the gravitational forces. To make the story short, I formally applied and was rejected three times that spring and summer!
Sometime in the summer of 1941 I made a trip to Glasgow to visit my folks. I was glad to be home, but had only a few days there, as vacation (without pay) was necessarily short. While there I took some pictures of Dad and Mom, and my sister, Mary. I still have those negatives, filed with hundreds of others.
That visit to Glasgow was to be the last time I would see my parents until I came home on leave from the army in 1943. Soon after my visit, my younger sister, Mary, got a job in Washington, D.C., and left Glasgow. She had suffered from multiple sclerosis since 1937, but it was in remission at that time. She was a beautiful girl, and we were all sure she would do well in Washington.
Sometime that summer, or in the early fall, I was again promoted at the office, being made an underwriting clerk. This was a significant step toward becoming a full-fledged underwriter (one who wrote up insurance contracts). In this job I learned how to handle all sorts of auto insurance policies, doing routine tasks like renewing existing policies, or transferring policies from one vehicle to another. I had to look up the rates, and code the applications ready for the key-punch operators to set up those pesky IBM cards. Also, I gave the typist assigned to me instructions on using standard form letters to owners, acknowledging changes, and so on. It was routine work, but important. I often turned to the underwriters, who sat just behind me, for instructions on handling new applications. It was an interesting job,and I liked the prospect of becoming an underwriter.
One day that fall we had a good bit of excitement. In the middle of the afternoon the big plate glass windows that formed the walls on two sides of our office began to make an unusual booming sound. Then the light fixtures overhead began to sway back and forth. Someone yelled "earthquake!" Those closest to the big front doors made a dash to get outside. Many of us farther back in the office just stood up, wondering what was going to happen. A few girls crawled under their steel office desks, probably the most sensible thing to do. The quake lasted a few seconds, and was a mild one. It startled drivers in cars on the streets, though, and traffic had come to a standstill when the shaking stopped. It did wake us up!
Late that fall I decided that I needed a larger camera, one that would take larger negatives. I finally decided on large single lens reflex camera called a Graflex, and placed the order with Sandy's Camera Store. That camera cost about $100, a huge sum to me in those days. It was to have an f4.5 Kodak lens, use 2 1/4 by 3 1/4 film packs, and it had a focal plane shutter with speeds from one second to 1/1000 of a second! When I ordered that camera I didn't give a thought to the war that was going on in Europe, or the growing possibility of war between the United States and Japan. Neither did I think of going back to school, as I still didn't have what I thought I needed in savings to try school again. I know now I had wandered off the track!
Well, the camera finally arrived after several weeks. I picked it up at Sandy's on the afternoon of December 6. I bought a film pack, to be ready to take pictures with it the next day. About 10AM of the morning of December 7th I went out to try my new camera. I walked down from our apartment to a nearby strip of park land, and began to focus on this building and that. I was preoccupied with that when I heard a friend calling to me from her apartment steps. She came running out and told me that the news on the radio said that the Japanese were attacking Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands! Of course I stopped playing with that camera right then. I went to her apartment, and spent most of the rest of the day listening to the various news reports. Everyone was in a state of shock, to say the least!
Early Monday morning, someone set up a big radio in the insurance office, so we could all listen to the news. Then President Roosevelt came on, with his famous speech "...a state of war (he pronounced it "wah") exists between our nation and the nation of Japan." It was really a solemn moment; some of the girls were crying, and we young men, especially, were very angry. Right after the President stopped speaking, I went to the office manager and asked permission to go down and enlist. I had decided the night before that I should get into the service right away. I was not alone, of course. When I got down to the recruiting office I found a long line of young fellows waiting to enlist. At times that afternoon the line was three blocks long! When I finally got up to the desk, they could only give me a reporting date--it was to be January 5, 1942. Meanwhile, they told me, I would have to obtain a release from my draft board, as the Selective Service would be calling up many men soon. Also, when I told the recruiter that within the last year I had experienced serious stomach trouble, he instructed me to obtain a doctor's statement that I was no longer suffering from ulcer or anything like that.
Those next few weeks were full ones! I obtained the necessary clearances from the doctor and the draft board, though the board was reluctant. They wanted me to wait and be drafted in February or March. Everything at the office was hectic, too, as those of us who were going into the service were busy training girls to take over our jobs.
Finally, right after New Years, I was ready to leave. I packed up my new camera and shipped it home, with my college books, most of my clothing, etc. On the fifth of January I was ready, and headed off to war. That is another story that I will tell in a later chapter! Before I end this chapter, though, allow me to give a description of myself at that time. I was twenty-two years old. My hair was quite long, very curly or wavy. Inwardly, I was probably more self-confident than I had any right to be. I had done well at the insurance office, and seemed to be well-liked. I got along well with people, and was a competent amateur photographer, and proud of that. But also I was almost totally ignorant of what was really going on in the world, though our getting into the war had made me recently much more interested in world affairs. I was very patriotic! Yet, at heart, I was mostly very narrow in my thinking, interested almost entirely in myself! I still had a lot of growing up to do, though I didn't realize it. Perhaps the army would be good for me!