V 1 N. 22 How I Became a Mediator

 

How I Became a Mediator

George Brose

            This story begins in May, 1988, shortly before our family was scheduled to leave Canada for a year of teaching in Beijing, China.  My wife Marie had been hired by a Canadian organization to upgrade the English capabilities of Chinese graduate students before their departure to study in Canada.  It was hoped that they would then return to China with a favorable outlook toward Canada in their future jobs back in China.  After all, if every Chinese bought a pencil made in Canada it could denude the forests of British Columbia, or so it was hypothesized.

            A month or two before we were due to leave Canada, my father, living in Ohio, had a stroke and was left in a vegetative state in a veterans’ hospital in Dayton.  My mother, in her late 70’s was now alone to look after the family homestead, and I was divided on whether to stay with her or go to China with Marie and our two teenage children, Dominique and Jacques.   After a quick visit to Dayton, my mother gave her blessing to us to go on our way to China.  And we did.  By November, my father had died and I came home for the funeral and knowing our contract would end on the following August, I told her we would come back to Ohio to live and look after my mom.  It didn’t quite work out that way.

            Our year in China only lasted ten months and was cut short by the Tiananmen student uprising that left us in evacuation mode about four days after the massacre of the Beijing students.  The kids and I  had been on the streets that night and had witnessed some of the violence.  It left us scarred in ways we didn’t comprehend at the time.  Nevertheless, we came back to Ohio, and Marie, a Canadian, applied to renew her Green card in the US.   Then she headed up to Canada for a visit with her family but was denied re-entry to the States, because the law stated that you had to remain in the US while the Green card application was being processed.  It forced us into a separation for a year that we had not planned on.  My son and I stayed in Dayton to look after my mother, and Marie and our daughter Dominique stayed in Quebec. 

            During that separation, we did see each other once when I went up to Montreal and then once again when Marie entered illegally for a quick visit in upstate New York.  It seems that back then it was the license plate number that set off the immigration red lights and she was driving a different car from the one she had been in at the first refusal of entry.  That first refusal co-incidentally was the day the Berlin Wall came down.  Freedom was proclaimed by the West.   It made cynics of all of us.

            By June, 1990 Marie’s Green card had been approved and she prepared to move back to the US.  Dominique would remain to attend college and university in the French schools.  Unfortunately in early June, my mother was killed crossing a major street near her home while going to see a sick friend.  I had offered to walk with her to see her friend.  She said she would be fine and went on her own.  That's the last time I saw her alive.   This really upset the family apple cart.  I had not been able to find full time work in the teaching or coaching field and had begun working in construction and house painting under the tutelage of my old high school track coach, Ed Jones.  I did have a part time job at Wittenberg University as a track and cross country coach but the pay was a pittance.

            One Sunday afternoon, Marie and I and my 80 year old Aunt Adele were taking a walk on the bikeway that runs off Irving Ave. near the University of Dayton.  We had my parents’ dog with us, a Schnauzer named Fritz.  I had let Fritz off the leash for a bit, when a jogger came by all fired up on his adrenaline and endorphins and told me if I didn’t put the dog on a leash he would kill it.  That threat to my deceased parents’ dog was the spark that sent me off the rails, and I replied that the only thing going on a leash would be the jogger.  This led to a physical confrontation while Marie and my Aunt looked on rather horrified to put it mildly.  At one point I was on top of the individual and was holding a grapefruit sized rock.  I could have inflicted some serious damage, but somehow I held back.   We were on the boundary of the municipalities of Dayton and Oakwood, and since it must have been a slow Sunday afternoon for the police, a total of five squad cars from both towns showed up. They separated us and no charges were filed.  A lawyer later told me, I could have been charged for failure to control the dog.  Failure to control myself would probably have been more appropriate.  I encountered that jogger one more time a year or so later.  He was in line ahead of me at the Post Office.  I chose not to say anything to him.  Not sure how it might have ended.  

            A couple days after the fight while reading a free community paper I saw an ad for a course called Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) taught by the Quakers.  At my age of almost fifty, I didn’t see a long future with my anger management issues, so I decided to take the course. I'm not sure what stage of the grief process I was in at the time, but I was ready to look for some way of dealing with my anger.   The course lasted twenty-four hours and was spread over three days.  I found it helped me a lot and decided to take the next two levels of the training which would be taught at the Dayton Correctional Institution (prison) by Quakers alongside prisoners who would also be teaching.   After completing those three courses I was a qualified trainer or facilitator of AVP.   As a volunteer, I taught over forty of those courses over the next five years.  I moved up the ranks a bit in AVP and attended several national level meetings and workshops.  I also taught some courses in other prisons in Ohio and even in Greenhaven prison in New York.    While attending one of those national meetings, in Plainfield, NJ,  I took a twelve hour course in Mediation.   I thought this was a cool thing and with my twelve hours of training, I offered my services as a volunteer in the mediation program in Greene County, Xenia, OH courts.  I did three cases under a bit of supervision with the professional mediator in Xenia, and suddenly found myself with a full time job offer in the Springfield, OH juvenile and domestic relations court.  At that time I was now working at the University of Dayton as the women’s cross country coach and assistant track coach.   The pay was a little better than Wittenberg U., but still not enough to support a family of four.   The mediation job along with the coaching made everything possible.

            Initially my mediation work was with the city and county schools regarding truancy and behavior by juveniles that would prevent court involvement.  At that time truancy was a crime that could result in  incarceration of children.  In cases where parents contributed to the truancy, that too could result in incarceration of the parent. That could snowball into removal of the child from the parent’s care.   There were lots of mediation trainings offered by the Ohio Supreme Court in those days and I eventually had over 400 hours of additional training including a week at the National Judicial College in Reno, NV.   I eventually got into mediation of more and more serious criminal cases where victims and offenders were brought together to talk about what happened and how it affected the victim or the survivors of the victim.    I also thought this might be a good skill to transfer to Africa where I had worked in several countries in the past.  I got connected with the Quakers in Africa and went there four times for training mediators in conflict zones including Rwanda, Burundi, the Dem. Rep. of Congo, Kenya, and Tanzania.  By that time, back home I had also moved into other types of mediation in the Domestic Relations and Civil Courts in Springfield. While in that capacity I mediated thirteen cases involving homicides.   I worked there fifteen years until I retired in 2013.  We subsequently moved to British Columbia and I took up the profession again on a part time basis only retiring this year after approximately 3,500 cases.  I have no degrees in mediation; I never wanted to be a mediator, it just happened as a result of life experiences.

       I can also say that I never joined the Quaker church although I've worked with them extensively in the US and Africa.  Were I to join a church it would be theirs.  They saved my life and enabled me to find a profession when I needed one.  

      

Comments:

Most of us have had moments where odd circumstances have given us another direction.  As Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it".  Had you not been confronted about the dog, especially so soon after losing your parents, you might have had a lengthy career as an elevator operator or a mixed martial arts instructor.  As it turned out you had a positive effect on many people through your mediation, coaching, parenting and just being George.  I remember spectating at one mediation.  Forgot how you introduced me to the client but it was something more than "my buddy from California".   Roy M.

Really enjoyed the piece, George.  A well written account of life‘s unpredictability.

If you’d been a responsible dog owner and hadn’t let your mutt run loose, no telling where you might have ended up. 

Dave H.

V 1 N. 21 My First Marathon

 Since starting this blog of short stories,  I have yet to include anything about my favorite sport of running.  For almost seventy years beginning in 1957, I have been a runner, starting with my high school years, then on to university years and afterward as a member of several clubs in the US, Canada, and Africa.  I've only run eight marathons, not many by comparison to a lot of folks, but I'm proud to say all of them have taken me less than three hours.  I ran my last one in 1982.  Maybe I did go over three hours once, but that was when I entered the London marathon, but could not make it to the race, and a British schoolboy used my number to run with my name.   My best was 2 hours 35 minutes and 55.92 seconds in Quebec City in 1981.  You will note that runners like to be specific when talking about their performances.   When I realized I would not get any faster due to aging, I said, "Enough".  But I didn't stop running, just stopped running marathons.

Recently while cleaning out the stable, I came across a reflection I wrote the day after that first marathon.  I put it below in it's original typewritten form.  There is also a picture of me at the finish of that race.  This was the 1976  Ottawa marathon.  It was also the Canadian Olympic trials as Canada was hosting the Olympics in Montreal that year.  You may note that I mention there were only 550 runners in that race.  That number is miniscule compared to the popularity of today's marathon competitions which go into the tens of thousands.  And the fee to run was probably only $5.00, whereas today's organizers bilk runners several hundred to get into the 'big' races.  I also mention that I finished in 40th place, an absurdly good finish in today's races where the top times are much faster.

In the story below, I don't mention it, but if you look at the picture of me at the finish you will note that my shorts look rather tight.  They were.  I forgot to pack a pair in my kit, and Sunday morning when the race was scheduled to start in Ottawa, I discovered that I had no lower gear to run in.  There was no such thing as 'running stores' in those days, and if there were, to find one open at 8;00AM on a Sunday in Ottawa would have been impossible.  Fortunately one of my fellow travellers, Bernard Beland had an extra pair.  However, Bernard was about 5 feet 3 inches tall and had a much smaller waist than I had,  but I managed to squeeze into his spare pair and run a somewhat strangulated race.  

Here is my account:

The Finish

Of note:  No automatic timers, only a single individual recording our number and time by hand.  Also notice that my number is hand lettered.  Nothing like this anymore.  And where is the finish line?  When I moved to British Columbia in 2013, a lady in my new club the Comox Valley Road Runners told me she had also run her first marathon that day.  Her name  Diane Palmason.  Diane became one on the great Masters runners in Canada in the following years. 

From my friend and fellow runner Roy Mason:

 My best was 2:37:something.  I was 17th in a field of 600+ but have a vivid memory of the last 100 yards where there was an older guy carrying his shoes.  Put on a spurt and I could pass him.  No, 16th place was his as he toughed up and sprinted the last few yards barefoot.  The picture of a guy limping, holding his shoes beating me is my memory of that race.  

The lack of an exact time is evidence of cognitive decline. 

(I had a results list.  That's how I knew my time, Roy.) 

Used to be, wake me in the middle of the night and I could supply my best times at any distance down to the tenth.  It is also evidence of the ravages of age which keep me in the recliner instead of going through drawers and exploring shelves where, in 10-15 minutes, I could find the notebook that would supply that info.  That said, I've come to the realization that much of the material I have saved falls into the "nobody gives a shit" category.  

Unfortunately this classification also fits the collection of photos, results and newspaper articles about the La Mirada Meteors girls team I coached in the late 60s and early 70s which I found while organizing a couple rooms.  I assembled this disorganized memorabilia in a large 80 page scrapbook.  Leaf through it and memories flow.  Debbie's record mile is the highlight but I had others that were near her level and a couple with more talent.  Six kids competed internationally and we won a national championship.  

That scrapbook sits on my desk, needing only the subjects of a few photos to be identified.  When that work is done, the book will go on a shelf to be tossed in the trash when my children  clean out the house in preparation for sale.  I could pass it along to one of the few kids with whom I have contact. but while they would enjoy leafing through it and showing it to grandchildren, they aren't kids.  These are 70 year old women.  The book would have the same fate when they pass.  

A last note. The photo you included forces me to comment on your lack of dedication and effort.  This is the finish and you are not leaning at the tape?

 Reply:   Hey do you see a finish line in that photo?  How could I know when to lean?  

V 1 N. 20 An Embassy Adventure in Burundi

 

 

 

The following piece was written about 2007 during one of my regular trips into East and Central Africa to train community mediators.  I would travel for six weeks from country to country teaching seminars organized by the local Quaker community through their organization the African Great Lakes Initiative.  At one point in Burundi I had to go to the American embassy to get some pages added to my passport for several new visas I needed.  Then I went across the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The folowing are two little adventures along the way.  A third brief story is on buying eye glasses in Burundi.

An Embassy Adventure in Burundi and Crossing the Border into the  Not So Democratic Republic of the Congo

by George Brose

 

Final bits and pieces of things I did and saw but didn’t fit into my earlier letters.  It went extremely fast and even more so when I realize that today is Wednesday and on Monday I’ll be back in my office in Springfield, Ohio wearing a necktie after 6 weeks of liberation from that western  curse.  We are allowed to dress down at work on Friday’s and I have some flashy African shirts to hang on me then.  I’m ready to come home.  Not sure I’ll be needed out here again next year which is a good thing, because I feel that there are enough local trainers who can do the job now.  There will still be a need for funding further training but not a great need for ‘foreign experts’.   Where shall I go next year?  Will Zimbabwe be ready for an aging mediator?  The African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) does not have any contacts down there.

 

 

 

Inside the American Embassy in Bujumbura. 

 

I managed to get through three layers of security and into the consular section of the embassy on a Tuesday.  You only get a shot at it on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.  Once they had me in there, I knew  there was no getting out until they said I could. Hoped I wouldn’t have to wait in there until Thursday.  All the way inside, not a single American made personal contact with me except maybe  indirectly on a TV monitor that could identify me by some secret electronic device.  The first ring of guards were Burundian, and well armed I might add.  The next outside ring of protection was also manned by Burundians, and the third ring inside the first door was still covered by Burundians.  I guess that way if any malcontent Burundians decided to storm the embassy and got themselves killed, it could only be blamed on Burundians killing their own, which they are very experienced at doing.  American staff could  then walk away uncriticized.  “Hey we didn’t know what those guys were capable of.  Blackwater said they did the background checks.”   If anyone from the NSA is reading this, please note that I have not fully described the rings to give away any of my country’s secrets other than the Tuesday/Thursday schedule.  All other days of the week, check the golf course or the beaches for consular officers.

 

Finally got to a thick plate glass window where I was able to speak to a pleasant British woman with a lovely accent.  Wait a minute, didn’t we liberate ourselves from y’all?  Spared me having to deal with a New Jersey screech and a diplomatic attitude.   I sifted through the reading material on the coffee table in the lounge.  Nieman Marcus catalogue, latest speech from the president of Ghana, and an agriculture journal specializing in bull semen this month.  Homing instincts led me to the Nieman Marcus catalogue hoping for some sexy ads.  Alas all the models look like androids on crystal meth.

 

Meanwhile a lot of people who knew the magic code, had a micro chip embedded in their forehead,  or were recognized by an invisible guard at security ring number four could walk through a prison strength door and into  the waiting lounge and on outside.  Obviously a military operation of some sort was in progress, because four people in  uniforms  two  navy(one of the female persuasion), one airforce and the fourth army came out all revved up like they were going somewhere important.  There was a big black SUV outside with a diplomatic flag on the fender, the ambassador?  I have no idea who the ambassador might be woman or man.  In a small country like Burundi,  it could have been one of those androidian models from Nieman Marcus.  Discussions were going on about who would ride shotgun.  Then talk about where they were going.  Sounded like it was two blocks away.  Should I be worried?   Was there an imminent threat from Al Queda?   I had just walked those two blocks alone and unarmed, holy shit!

 

Finally I launched an icebreaker.  “What did you guys screw up to get stationed here?”  That got me a lot of cold stares.  Careers obviously were on the line.   Only later did I realize I could have gotten a hot lead enema from these guys and gal.

 

 

Chinese Army on Bad Road to Nowhere

 

Between the Burundi capital of Bujumbura and Uvira, the first big city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo lies sixteen miles of roadway, two border checkpoints, several MONUC (United Nations Military) fortresses, manned by Pakistani troops, smugglers disguised as taxi drivers and three wheeled bicycles manned by polio victims also in the smuggling game.  On the Burundi side of the border a small town of Gatunda lies alongside  beach resorts for the diplomatic corps and aid worker communities. On the Burundi side the road is paved and there appears to be some infrastructure.  Once you enter into the DRC, all bets are off.  Patrols of MONUC, run up and down the rutted and pock marked dirt and gravel road.  Did an artillery barrage do this or forty years of non maintenance?  The Pakistani’s I assume are counting their worry beads, glad they aren’t running up and down the Swat Valley looking for terrorists.  Somewhere out of all this confusion and mayhem, a small team of Chinese UN soldiers is working a mechanical shovel trying to repair the road, but making a bigger mess of it.  When my overheating taxi gets up to the repair crew, the shovel has half the road blocked by its presence and the other half blocked by its digging.  The operator appears to be getting on the job training (OJT) , because I don’t believe a tank could pass the open half of the road where he obviously has been digging.  Suddenly a Chinese sergeant orders us through.  I see no opening nor does a Congolese policeman who runs up to the mess and starts picking up boulders and tossing them off to the side.  The arm of the shovel is elevated now and the sergeant is insisting we drive under the elevated arm so thoughtfully held there by the nervous trainee.  We approach slowly.  The Sarge’s name tag is in Roman letters, probably by some MONUC directive.  His name tag reads  Sgt. I. P. Wang.  I’m not making this up.

 

By a miracle , we pass unscathed to head out of the DRC and onto the Buj.  Each time the Burundi cops stop us for a shakedown, the taxi heats up worse.  I know now that a 92 Toyota Corolla station wagon with hundreds of thousands of miles on it, really doesn’t need a lot of oil to keep running.  We make it into Buj with pistons and connecting rods to spare.  I ask to get off in the middle of town to avoid a final calamitous breakdown. 

 

Buying Eyeglasses in Burundi

 

Travelling last year through Burundi, I learned that eyeglasses are relatively cheap.  In fact there are many optical shops in the city, most run by the Indian community.  I stopped in one and noticed they had a very stylish selection.  Talked with the proprietor, a very pleasant fellow and asked about prices and delivery.  His price was good and delivery was ten days to two weeks.  That fit my schedule as I’d be leaving the country in two weeks.  He copied my prescription and did bifocals instead of tri focals which I had been using for a long time.  The order was then emailed to a manufacturer in India where the lenses are made and fitted and then air freighted back to Bujumbura.   Sounded like a winner to me except my hosts scheduled me against my insistence to go straight back to Kigali, bypassing Bujumbura.   I asked one of the Quaker ladies to pick up the glasses for me, giving her my receipt.  The owner had said that if I didn’t show up he would send them to the States as I had paid in advance.  The lady was my back up plan just in case.  She could also pick them up and mail them.  After six months , I gave up the ghost about getting the glasses and just about forgotten  them.   But when I came through Bujumbura this year, I made plans to try to remember where the shop was and go ask about the glasses.  I talked also to Joyce the hamburger lady to whom I had given the receipt to pick up the glasses.  She said she went numerous times,  but the manager wouldn’t give her the glasses, saying she must have stolen the receipt.  Eventually she gave up, but she insisted on going with me,  so that I could inform the owner that she was not a thief.  I was willing to do this for her pride and also to see if the glasses were still there.  When we walked in, he saw her and was about to exit quickly then saw me, and said, ‘Oh, I’ve been waiting for you Mr. Brose.  I sent the glasses to your home but they were returned.’   I verified with him that Joyce was indeed not a thief, though he seemed to take no recognition of this.  But it satisfied Joyce to hear me say it.   After a year to the day, I got my glasses.  Irony is they don’t seem to be very easy to get used to.  I’ll have to have them checked out at home to see if there is anything that can be done. 

A comment from an old Peace Corps buddy.

George, 

I very much enjoy your essays. Thank you for all of them. 

A year to get a pair of glasses has to be a record. 

I may have set a record in the opposite direction. 

Sometime in late 1966 or early 1967 I was in Dar and couldnt check into one of the dirt cheap places I favored and was darned if I was going to pay for one night at the Twiga, let alone the East African. 

To save money,  I did what any 23 year old idiot would do. I went down to the harbor, found a stone bench, took off my shoes, put them under my head and laid my glasses on the ground. In the middle of the night I woke to find my shoes and my glasses gone. I still had my wallet. And my life. 

I spent the rest of a fitful night trying to sleep at the door of an optical shop near the Askari Monument. When the shop opened I was of course literally on their doorstep, with, by good luck, my prescription, which was in my wallet. 

By noon I had my new glasses. And a pair of Bata sandals. And a resolve never to sleep in the open in Dar es Salaam again. 

Charles

V 1 N. 19 A Memorable Plane Ride

 

A Memorable Plane Ride

 

By George Brose

 

 

On August 13, 1985 my family were preparing to go home at the end of our teaching contract in  Zimbabwe.  We settled into our seats on the KLM Dutch plane in Harare.  Why KLM?  Because they offered a nice ‘missionary’ discount to foreign nationals working in the developing world.  They didn’t know I was a hard-core agnostic at best in those days.   All seemed to be going well until the steward distributed newspapers to the passengers.  It was always nice to get fresh papers from Europe in those days, because the local papers though timely and occasionally covering major international events were often filled with local news that only the locals could manage to find interesting such as the current price for tobacco at the tobacco auction in Harare or the latest rantings from Robert Mugabe and whatever dignitary might be visiting the country. 

            Tragically the day before our flight a Japanese air plane (Japan Airlines Flt. 123) had crashed near Mt. Takamagahara  and all had perished. Actually four people survived of the 524 on board, making it the most deadly plane crash of all time.   These were the headlines on the paper that was passed to me from our well intentioned servant of the airways.   He must have known what was there and probably should have withheld distributing those papers.  Not just about the event but some of the gory details.   According to the story in the paper, the aircraft had had some kind of mechanical failure but instead of heading directly back to Haneda , it had had struggled to regain control, an impossibiltiy because a loss of hydraulics that controlled the aircraft.  It struggled for more than thirty minutes, but ultimately had gone down near the mountain.     The story noted that several of the passengers had had time to write letters of farewell to their families before the crash and some of those letters had been recovered and were transcribed in the story.  So with that unsettling news, I buckled the seat belt a bit tighter than usual and hid the paper from the rest of my family.     

            The plane went on its way and I white knuckled the flight north and finally felt that all was well as we were crossing southern Europe and began our descent toward the landing  at Schipol airport near Amsterdam.   Looking out I could see rather foul weather and  almost without warning there was a tremendous bang on the aircraft, the lighting went out,  and it buckled and took a few twists and then righted itself.  The captain came on quickly to try to calm the passengers in English which was clearly not his mother tongue and said,  “We’ve just been hit by a . ………..long pause…..  hit by a aaa a  a .    Me, I’m thinking SAM missile (surface to air).   After all there were terrorist acts going on in those days.   And then he came back with the word  ‘blitz’.    I was relieved. I remembered my basic German.  Dutch was close in some ways, and that was one of the ways.   'Blitz' meant ‘lightning’, as in the familiar WWII term 'Blitzkrieg'  'Lightning War', but the pilot couldn’t think of the English term.   Eventually someone helped him with the translation and he did say ‘lightning’ and I’m sure many bladders were relieved to hear that news.  We landed without further incident. 

From UPI Archives  Aug. 18, 1985

TOKYO -- A terrified passenger aboard Japan Air Lines Flight 123 scribbled a note saying, 'I don't want to fly anymore. God, please save me,' as the jumbo jet tumbled through the sky before crashing into a mountainside, his family said Sunday.

Rescue workers combing the wreckage of the Boeing 747 said they found two emotional 'last wills' written by passengers before the plane plunged into a mountain in central Japan last Monday, killing 520 people. Four passengers survived in what was the worst single-plane accident in aviation history.

"We’ve just been hit by a . ………..long pause…..  hit by a aaa a  a "   

That had me sweating just sitting in my recliner.   Re the crash that killed 520 but had four survivors, any mention of their religion?   I don't travel much but an ounce of prevention, etc.   Roy,  Ukiah, CA

The actual cause was determined to have been an incomplete repair job done be Boeing technicians.  Nevertheless the plane had made over 12,000 flights after the repair.  Picky Picky Picky.   

Comment from Grace Butcher:

Hi George. 

I was heading home from a visit with poet friend Ann Menebroker (now deceased) in Sacramento many years ago. I forget if my return flight went to LA first, then Denver, but on the way from Denver to Cleveland, we had lunch (it must have been many years ago!) and  then were just droning along, passengers settling in for a boring few hours.  I decided to use the restroom before trying for a nap, and made my way back towards the back of the plane, locked myself in, pulled down my pants.

At that moment, without the usual warning, the plane hit sudden turbulence. I was thrown up against the mirrored door ( I wonder what my expression might have looked like), then slammed down on the seat, then back up against the door again, back down on the seat. While I was flailing around, my pants seemed totally out of reach, as did the door latch, and I had a brief image of my body being discovered in the smoldering ruins thirty thousand feet below with my pants still down around my feet.

Finally I got the door open and lurched out, my pants sort of pulled up. "Sit in the nearest seat!" the flight attendant commanded. But determined to die with my possessions, I kept going, However, by the time I got back to my seat, the other passengers were all just sitting there reading or dozing. My brief glimpse of my mortality was over and would quickly fade along with the bruises on my butt.

Cheers, Grace

V 1 N. 17 My Town NCR

 

My Town NCR

 

George Brose

 

            I was born in 1943.  The years that I can first remember clearly began about 1947 when we lived with two other aunts and uncles and their children all at my grandmother’s house on the northeast side of Dayton, Ohio. Old North Dayton was the hub of the East European immigrant community.  Our neighbors had Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian names and the old folks spoke with heavy accents.    There was a serious housing shortage after WWII when veterans came home to the women and children they had left behind.  Many of those children had yet to be born when the father left for war.  Those couples didn’t have a home to live in because those marriages often were last minute affairs before the men were swept away by war.  The women tended to stay where they had been, still living in their family homesteads and working in the jobs their men had once filled.  Somehow that housing crisis was resolved with extensive loans to ex-soldiers.  As well many of them provided a labor force for building those new homes and expanding communities when they came back from the war. It took a few years to catch up but by 1947 we had moved into our own home.   It wasn’t a new one.  It had been built in 1903, and my father’s widowed aunt had owned it.  She financed the sale,  and I remember going to her new residence every month to make a mortgage payment.  A little over half a week’s pay per month put us into that house. 

            The house was at 37 Margaret Street  in a neighborhood called Walnut Hills on the southeast side of Dayton, Ohio.  Dayton was a midwestern industrial city of 250,000.  When I describe it as industrial, I do mean industrial.  General Motors subsidiaries were the major employers in Dayton along  with Wright Patterson Air Force Base.  Think Delco, Frigidaire, Inland Manufacturing, Moraine Products.  They were all part of the GM industrial net based in Detroit and supported by Dayton.  Chrysler was there as well.   Charles Kettering who was a big player in GM originally came from Dayton.  He was noted as the inventor of the self starter for automobiles.  He eventually became the benefactor of the Sloan Kettering Foundation, and his former estate is now the site of a major hospital in the Dayton area.  Along with those big factories there were also many smaller corporations that supported them such as tool and die factories that help make the machinery used inside those bigger factories.

            What I’ve yet to mention is another major employer in Dayton, the National Cash Register Company, NCR or as Daytonians affectionately called it “The Cash”.  There was a time that any self respecting store had an NCR cash register in it to record transactions and hold cash payments and print a receipt. They could be seen all over the world.   That company is where my father worked.  It was a company that became deeply imbedded in my life and my family’s life.  My father began working at NCR in the mid 1930’s after travelling south to Florida and East to New Jersey after graduating from high school in 1929 at the beginning of the Great Depression.  He eventually found his way back to Ohio and was hired by NCR to work in the Millwright and Heat Treating department at the great factory.  At it’s height, NCR employed 20,000 people working round the clock in three shifts.  When you joined NCR you became part of a second family, the NCR family.

            In the 1930’s even the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s when you took a job with a big company, it was assumed that job would last all of your working life.  It also benefitted the employer to have long term, loyal workers.  To keep that employee happy NCR management sought to provide services and benefits to its workers, much like a good father would be expected to do.  It was a paternalistic viewpoint of NCR management.  Unlike General Motors, which offered better wages, but few other benefits.  At General Motors, the labor unions were strong and negotiated very good hourly wages.   At NCR, there was a weak factory run union, which did not negotiate in the same sense as the United Autoworkers or AFL-CIO across town at GM.  Consequently the wages at NCR were less than GM, but the benefits of working there were much greater.  I do not believe that NCR workers ever went on strike for better pay while I was still living at home.   There may have been some negotiations, but no strikes that I can remember.  The first strike occurred after I had left home, 1968, and it was the beginning of the end.   

    For several years my mother took a job at a federal government agency, and my father worked a second job two nights a week at Sears and Roebuck in their automotive department greasing cars and changing oil.  We were never lacking heat or food on the table.  Our neighborhood was totally blue collar, maybe a few lower management guys, salesmen, and teachers lived there but they were looking for greener pastures.  Working at NCR again with its paternalism helped keep us living where we were. 

What do I mean by paternalism?  Let’s start with family.  NCR provided a summer recreation park for its employees.  It offered a swimming pool which was the biggest in the world when it was built in the 1930’s.  There were picnic grounds in a beautiful forested area.  There was a waterway with canoes for rent.  There were playing fields in the park with softball diamonds.  When my mother worked at NCR before the war, she played in a women’s softball league sponsored by NCR.  The company’s top women’s and men’s teams played in competitions around the country.  The park which was called Old River also had a bandstand where the company provided musical entertainment every Wednesday evening with a concert band of high school students that the company sponsored. 

            In the winter NCR also provided musical entertainment free for it’s workers in a local basketball arena.  I can remember attending those shows with my parents.   All winter as a male child of an NCR employee I could go to that arena on Saturday mornings and participate in a basketball training school.  In the summers it was the same for baseball.  The one criticism I would offer is there was nothing like this for the female children of the employees.  But then the schools had no sports for girls.    Another criticism is that there were almost no black employees at NCR.   The GM factories on the other hand were much more integrated.  If a black man were hired at NCR, it was only in the most lowly of jobs in the foundry or as a janitor.  And the employee benefits for recreation did not exist except for one day a year at the company park. 

            Also on Saturday mornings there was a free movie at the NCR auditorium situated on the factory grounds.  It was open to any child in the city.  And there was no discrimination as to race.  It was my first experience being around African American children.  The show would begin each Saturday with some community singing led by a member of the Dayton Board of Education.  At the end of the movie, every child was given a free candy bar.   At the Christmas show, every kid got a box of candy and a silver dollar.  For that Christmas event they had to have two shows and about five thousand silver dollars were handed out.    GM didn’t have anything to compare to that.  That same spacious auditorium served all ten city high schools for their graduation ceremonies. 

            Another one of the major events for workers occurred in 1954.  The upper management of the company were all golfers and most belonged to a very exclusive club on the south side of town, Moraine Country Club.  Someone in that group decided that it would be of benefit to have a golf course for it’s employees, and so they purchased land next to Moraine Country Club and built the NCR Country Club.  It consisted of not one but two 18 hole golf courses.  One was designated a championship level course capable of hosting a major tournament which it eventually did.   The majority of the workers did not play golf, but with the building of the NCR Country Club, many of them took up the game.  The annual membership fee to employees was $5.00.   Yes, you read that right, $5.00.   My father decided he would learn to play at age 43.   He took lessons from the local pro and was on the course the first day it opened.   I was there and remember him topping the ball off the first tee.  And a grim “Shit” coming out under his breath.  It must have been a very tense moment playing his first round with a lot of guys lined up ready to go off that first tee.    As a family we enjoyed many evenings after work and supper going out to the Country Club and getting in nine holes with both my parents before it got dark.  It wasn’t uncommon to be coming in on the last hole after the sun had set.  There was also a nice snack bar where fifty  cents could get you a great double decker hamburger and fries.  Drink extra.   My first job was as a caddy at that upscale course next door where the executives played.  But they often went over to the NCR course to play and took the caddies with them.  For sure the employees had a better deal at the company course.  They could never have afforded to be members next door, nor would they have been welcome to apply, as the social order had to be maintained. 

            As for banking, there were options.  NCR had an employee credit union.   I had my first financial account at that credit union about 1960, and I’m still a member today even though NCR is long gone.  Today it is called Universal One Credit Union.  By the mid 1970’s the Cash fell on hard times.  The advent of computers brought about the downfall.  The period of downsizing and sending jobs south or overseas to cheaper labor markets was the death knell.  NCR was bought by AT&T and all semblance of the NCR community was forever gone.  The park is closed, the swimming pool is no longer there. 

The company which was in a cluster of thirty buildings just across the street from the University of Dayton is now all but gone.  Only one or two of those old factory buildings still exist, converted by the University to their own use.  Even the building where an early computer was developed during WWII that would break the Japanese code is gone.  The enigmatic Alan Turing had once consulted with NCR in Dayton during the war.  That landmark of history was torn down without a second thought.  

In 1998 I was hired by the University of Dayton to coach their women’s cross country and track and field teams.  One day as my team was working out on those grassy fields I suddenly realized that this is where my modern family had had it’s beginnings in the late 1930’s and now I was earning part of my living at those exact same geographic coordinates as both my parents had once done.   Like my father, I worked at a second job, but it was a completely different career that I would end up following, and I would turn away from those fields to become a mediator in the legal system. 

Today when you go to a store to make a purchase and you run your purchase across a scanner to read a barcode.  That invention is all that is left of NCR.  

V 1 N. 16 Why I Choose Not To Go Into Outer Space

 

I posted the following essay  on FB a few months ago when there was concern for three astronauts having to remain in the International Space Station much longer than initially planned.   I was relieved that they eventually made it home safely.    Now with the Artemis II mission completed and having gotten 4% further into space than man/woman has ever travelled, and with the latest news about some incredible physical feats performed by robots, I am beginning to think that few if any humans will travel a lot further into space.  A four percent improvement?  And that was just a return trip around the nearest relatively stationery object out there.  The next stopping point Mars is a much longer way to go.  And who wants to spend six months on the moon mining zinc or some other element we are short of down on earth?  Mining is one of the crappiest jobs ever invented by man.   So here is my personal reason for not wanting to be up there.  

Why I Choose Not to Go Into Outer Space

George Brose

After much consideration I have found a number of reasons why I would not like to be riding in the International Space Station (ISS) now or ever. The reason is not that it is high up above the Earth and there is some risk involved in going there and returning as witnessed by the current pair of astronauts who are scheduled to come back down to earth tonight. I really hope they make it, because they have been stuck there for nine months on what was supposed to be a 10 day stay. Thanks to foul ups by Space X whose principal owner I won’t mention but I’m sure you know who I am referring to because of his current earthly mission to demolish the US government and it’s agencies in the name of waste. That’s the word I was leading to and it came so easily during this introduction. WASTE !!!

It’s human waste that concerns me dear readers. I have inquired as to how much human waste an adult creates over time. In a year an average size human produces about 300 pounds of turds. Nine months, okay about 230 pounds times two adults, that’s 460 pounds. And let’s not forget about all that toilet paper. There’s really not much they can do with it other than dump it into space. Did I say ‘dump’ as in ‘take a dump’ and shove it out the hatch? Yes, I said that. Apparently that shit bag descends back to earth and burns up in the atmosphere. So that shooting star you thought you saw last night might really have been ‘shooting night soil’. And maybe the tail of that comet was a stream of butt wipes. Think about that you star crossed lovers.

That’s the big part but there’s more. What about urine? Yeah, piss. Well, in the interest of water conservation the ISS has a system to separate the water out of the piss and bottle it for reuse. So if you are up there with a couple of other astronauts you might find yourself engrossed in the game, “Guess Whose Pee Pee We’re Drinking Tonight?” Or “I’m washing in your piss, and I feel clean”. Really this has got me thinking hard about never going up in one of those tight little capsules.

Next. How can two people stand to be locked up in a tight compartment together while their families are down on earth going about their daily tasks? And those astronauts didn’t even commit a crime to be locked up together in such cramped quarters for 9 months. Maybe San Quentin was an early source of information for NASA planners. There must be a lot of pre launch practice living together in isolation to test compatibility. Now according to the latest news release it appears that six more astronauts in blue jump suits have joined the ISS and there were also another two in red costumes. I don’t know who the hell they were, but I’m guessing they are Ruskkies. Actually it is four people who will be returning. A Ruskkie and another American who have not been there so long will also be coming home tonight. That’s eleven people including the four who are about to go home all sharing that space for a day or two. Then they will be down to seven.

My next question, and I’m sure it is one that all of you have thought about but were afraid to ask. What happens if someone farts, has bad body odor, pukes, or wets her or his knickers or god forbid gets a bad case of the runs. There’s only one toilet facility, and it has been described as having some kind of a suction device that draws matter out of the lower colon. The pee pee tube is a separate device. But we all know that sometimes there is no control over which orifice is going to be functioning and when, and maybe both simultaneously, and what if there are three astronauts in line all wanting to go at the same time, and one of them just can’t hold it any longer. I mean back down on earth there is a back door to the Alamo or a second bathroom. Or you can run out in the garden, drop trou, and fertilize the watermelon patch, but in outer space you can only do that once and you are dead.

Other reading has indicated that washing clothing is not easy in the ISS. And that body odor stays on the clothing as we all know. What do you think those six new astronauts smelled when they got into that reception room where the lucky two had been sharing body odors for the past 9 months as well as the two more recently arrived? There are smiles on everyone’s faces, because they probably knew each other and trained together for a long time down on earth, and were friends, but really was wearing each other’s dirty underwear and clothing part of the training? If not, maybe it should be.

Now for the serious piece, and I’m talking safety and fire hazard. We must go back to the fart situation. Farts as we all know, or should know are made up of methane and other gases depending on what one has been ingesting. When sulphur becomes part of the menu it is gas mask time. But the real danger is fire. That methane can be explosive, and if ten astronauts should get into a fart contest it could prove the undoing of the whole mission as the gaseous mixture might ignite and blow the hatches off the capsule, and that would be it. Kaput, Dasvidaniya, Arrivederci, Wiedersehen, Ciao Baby.

Before I end this drivel, let us also consider science. We are told that the astronauts have hundreds of experiments to perform while they are in the capsule, they also have repairs to make and someone must be responsible to see that the station is maintaining it’s orbit and doesn’t descend into a sea of turds burning up in that shit sack it has jettisoned earlier in the flight. I can’t imagine that they will allow that bag to build up too big with all seven of those dudes sharing the quarters. Did I say dudes? Sorry, young men and women. Virile men, and rapacious, vibrant females of the species. Ah species. How will we maintain the species for those later missions into deep space that the billionaires down on earth all speculate drool and send celebrities on for short publicity trips? Why, we all know that procreation needs to become an experiment up there. If the male/female pair lasted up there for 9 months, they could have procreated and returned to earth with a little bundle of joy. The first baby made and delivered in space. Alas, all that time was wasted. If they do have spouses back on earth, those earthlings must be wondering if any hanky panky is part of the hundreds of experiments to be performed. Earth to ISS, “Darling, I dream of you every night.” ISS to Earth, Darling, I have ten sunsets every twenty-four hours. I just can’t dream that much.” If this group can maintain self control, or NASA sent along some old Penthouse magazines in the duffel bags, chastity may be maintained. If not…, we shall just have to wait and observe and find out. Right now it’s two guys for every girl. Sounds like an old Beach Boys song.

COMMENTS:

So far only this from a good friend. Otherwise I would not have printed it.

First, I need to question your information.  Three hundred pounds of excrement seems low.  How have scientists determined that number?  I have a 57 pound incontinent dog (video "A Leap of Faith, Toby's Rescue Story") who far surpasses that.  This is hands on statistical fact as measured by starting my day on hands and knees picking up his overnight elimination efforts.  Before my coffee I collect the paper towels, covered container and disinfectant spray and pick up poop.  His elimination pattern is mobile so I crawl from poop to poop, picking, storing, spraying, wiping.  This is done naked, the way I sleep.  (Yes, more information than you need.)  Toby's usual pattern is to poop at 8 or 9 in the evening and again in the morning hours and makes vital the use of a flashlight on my two nightly bathroom trips.  In the warmer weather he can be outside at night.  My estimate is that he is inside 300 nights yearly.  A rough estimate of PPN (poops per night) is 7 (14 two nights ago).  Multiply 7 x 300 x 9 2/3 years (length of time I've owned him) and we come  up with more than 20,000 poops.  Have scientists had that much hands on experience?  I think not.  

How has this extensive study benefited future space flights?  In a word, NaturVet, an anti-diarrhea product that produces golf ball intense elimination.  With sufficient mixed in the astronauts' diet, poops can be used recreationally for activities such as corn hole, basket shooting or just playing catch.

Happy to help. Roy

After reading this report from 'friend' Roy, it came to me, didn't the Russkies put a dog into space back in the good old days of space exploration?   Indeed they did, remember old 'Laika'?   If not, here's her story as provided by the Smithsonian Magazine.

Laika    link