September 1956
Winter rain ended my weeding job. Dettner moved me to his printing plant at 4th and Howard Street, in San Francisco. I was glad to have a winter job and he was glad to have cheap child labor.
Every morning, Frank picked me up in his 1947 Chevy. He was a journeyman printer, ten years on the job, slim, kind hearted, and a decorated World War II veteran.
On my first morning commuting with Frank, the boss drove past us in his shining new Cadillac weaving through traffic, racing to work.
My new co-worker chuckled. “You know, I’ve been watching him do that for years. I just relax, puttering along in the same lane, and usually get there at the same time he does.” I looked out the window and watched the Pacific Ocean broken by the rhythm of the Golden Gate Bridge’s orange cables whizzing by. “Look, Mike, we call him the whirling dervish because of the way he rushes around the job screaming and shouting. Just try to stay out of his way, and don’t take his yelling personally.”
Luckily, I spent my first two months buried in the deepest dungeon. I was alone in a dirty, airless room, feeding Smirnoff Vodka labels into a voracious finishing machine that clanged, banged and shrieked all day. My ears rang and my head pounded by the days’ end. No one visited me. No one bothered me.
Then I got a respite from purgatory, a brief stint as janitor. I had no machines to torment me, and wandered around picking up trash, sweeping floors and talking to folks. They told me Dettner was to the printing trades what my rich Uncle Frank was to the building trades, a bully and a cheapskate. I learned enough from them to confirm I didn’t want to be a printer when I grew up.
Three weeks later I was bound to a machine again. This one was just outside the boss’ office, on the first floor. Stacks of C & H sugar wrappers and a string-binding machine surrounded it.
“It’s simple,” Dettner instructed. “Just grab a stack with your left hand, step on the pedal, wrap them in string, and stack them with your right hand.”
I was a basketball guard who couldn’t dribble with his left hand. It wasn’t so easy. The day wore on. He occasionally peered out his office door and shook his head. Finally, he was in my face screaming, “Faster. Faster!”
My budding coordination shattered and I knocked over a few sugar stacks.
“God damn it, kid. That costs money,” he yelled even louder. I stumbled and knocked half the pallet over. “That’s it,” he screamed.
That was it for me, too. Pissed off, I kicked over the rest of the pallet and sugar packets spilled everywhere. I darted past him and out the door, never to return.