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MID-SUMMER until the endof 1959 accounts for only a smallportion of my life-less than halfof 1 year out of 41 l ived sofar-but it made a lasting impres-sion on me. During that time Icompletely changed directions: Istarted a new job, made newfriends and began a lifestyle un-like anything I’d experienced be-fore.

I was 22 years old and still un-settled, with no real idea what Iwanted to do with the rest of mylife. Two years before, I had beendischarged from the Army afterserving a S-year enlistment. Inthe months following I workedat various menial jobs: stockclerk in a large mail-order de-partment store, driver for alunch wagon, selling hot dogsand sodas to construction work-ers, and as a laborer in the steelmill at Sparrows Point.

None of these jobs appealed tome as a lifetime endeavor, eventhough that last one-in the millwhere hot steel was rolled andshipped to factories-paid wellfor what it was. What it was wasgrimy, dull, back-breaking labor.Working there for 6 monthsconvinced me that my future layelsewhere - p r e f e r a b l y s o m eplace I wouldn’t have to pick upanything heavier than a pencil.

So I filed to take the test foremployment with the FederalGovernment.

My score was a passing one,and that-plus a 5-point veteranspreference-landed me a GS-2clerical position with the SocialSecurity Administration. At thetime I don’t think I knew what

SSA was -my one experiencewith it having been on my 16thbirthday when I applied for mysocial security card-but I didn’tcare what it was. I was just veryhappy to say goodbye to the hot,hard, dirty life in the steel mill,and move on to a cool, calm,clean government office.

I guess you could say the Fal-coner B u l d i n g w a s c l e a n - a tleast compared to the mill it was(everything is relat ive afterall)-and on warm days with thewindows open there was a nicecool breeze. As fur calm, it wasthat, too, except for those after-noons when the strippers werespotted sunbathing on the lowroof of the nearby Gayety ShowBar.

The Gayety was then thekeystone of Baltimore’s infam-ous “Block” of sleazy nightclubs.During breaks in the entertain-ment the girls often retired tothe roof, and when that hap-pened, the male clerks arrivingearly for the night shift went alittle crazy. But forgive me, I’mgetting ahead of my story.

T h a t f i r s t e v e n i n g I w a ssomething I’d never been be-fore: an “EOD.” For the forget-ful or the uninitiated, this standsfor “Entered On Duty.” Therewere eight of us new folks andwe were a mixed bag: black,white, male, female, young andmiddle aged, and we looked con-fused. We had been assigned tothe 4 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. shift inthe Numerical Register Sectionof the old Division of Accountsand Adjustments.

A booklet issued to new clerks

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at the time had this to say aboutthe Numerical Register Section:“This section maintains a num-erical register of all accounts es-tablished, initiates name or ac-count number cross-references,and reinstates rejected earningsi tems based on in format ionshown in the Numerical Regis-ter.”

The section, with its hundredsof large, gray, metal-coveredledgers arranged in numericalorder in racks on the tops ofrows of tables, occupied the 6thand 7th floors of the FalconerBuilding on the corner of Gayand Water S t ree t s near thewaterfront in downtown Balti-more.

The first order of business foran EOD, we learned, was the“orientation.” The purpose ofthe orientation, it seemed, was todeepen our confusion. It con-sisted of a short talk-which,even as short as it was, containedtoo much information for myyoung brain to process-and atour of the building. Both wereconducted by a young , en-thusiastic first-line supervisor.

In his talk he gave us an over-view of the operation, some ideaof what would be expected of usin terms of production and con-duct, pointed out the locations ofthe restrooms (he told us wecould use them anytime pro-vided it wasn’t too often or else itw o u l d b e r e f l e c t e d i n o u rratings-whatever they were),and he had us fill out and signsome forms.

But there was more. He thentook us around the corner anddown the hall to the freightelevator, which, he informed us,could be used by employees atpeak load times, like during achange of shift. He also showedus where. the steps were locatedand mentioned in passing thatthe freight elevator only went tothe 5th floor. He did not com-ment on the empty wine bottlesin the hall, nor did he explain thesleeping wino in the freightelevator. We didn’t ask.

H e d i d t e l l u s t h a t o u rcafeteria was located on the 4th

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floor. That is, around 9 o’clockeach evening an old man cameup on the elevator, got off andstood there selling sandwichesout of a large cardboard box.

As we rode the passengerelevator back upstairs, our guideexplained that the f irst f ivefloors of the building were fullsized, while the 6th and 7th were“L” shaped. When we got off onthe 7th floor, he marched us to awindow and pointed down to theroof of the 5th floor below. Itlooked as if an enormous handhad plucked a large chunk of thebuilding away. There wasn’t anylogical architectural reason forthe odd shape that I could see. Ifinally concluded the buildershad simply run out of money inmid-construction and cut backon the plans.

As I mentioned before, theledgers were arranged in num-erical order in racks on the topsof tables. The tables, four or fivedeep, ran along the outside wallof the building. They occupiedfully three-fourths of the twofloors. The fourth quarter-orone leg of an “L”-conta inedclerical desks, and behind themwas the branch office. On eachof the two floors a f irstl inesupervisor’s desk was located atthe point where the two legs ofthe “L” met. It was a good spotfrom which to observe the activ-ity on the entire floor.

The ledgers were used in oneof two ways: either by taking thework to the book, or by takingseveral books to a desk to workfrom. Most general entries, sucha s n a m e a n d d a t e - o f - b i r t hchanges , were made in theformer manner. The clerk car-ried a small, specially-designedtray of SS-5 cards and walkedthrough the files, weaving in andout of each row, pulling indi-vidual books, making an entry,checking a box on the card andwriting his or her clerk numbernext to it, then flipping the cardover and refiling the ledger, andmoving on to the next book. Inthis way he or she worked fromone end of the register to the

other, from one floor to theother.

Other opera t ions requiredchecking thousands of social se-curity numbers and other infor-mation on punched cards againstthe information in just a fewbooks. In that case the clerkpulled the ledgers in question (intheir place he left a charge cardgiving the location where theycould be found), and returnedwith them to one of the desks.There the ledgers were opened,and the clerk began checkingand making changes page-by-page.

If memory serves, each ledgercontained 200 pages, and eachpage had printed on it the num-bers, names, and dates of birthof 100 people. Sometimes therewas only one card to checkagainst a page, but usually therewere several, and as the eveningwore on the clerk fell into anever-changing rhythm of turningpages, checking and changingand flipping cards: flip, check,scribble, scribble, f l ip, f l ip,check , f l ip , check , s c r ibb le ,scribble. Such was the worklifeof a clerk on the night shift inthe Numerical Register Sectionin the Falconer Building in theclosing months of 1959.

Our social life was rather moreinteresting. In my case it in-cluded the new friends I madeon the job. That first evening Iwas assigned to work with a ladywho was to serve as my trainer.As it turned out she spent asmuch time pumping me for in-formation as she did trainingme.

Shirley (not her real name)displayed an inordinate curiosityabout my private life. In anyoneelse the prying would have beenoffensive. In her, somehow-Iguess because of her wonderfulsense o f humor- i t was on lyharmless fun. She was a funny,nosy lady whose constant streamof chatter, spiced with non-sequiturs, malaprops and doublemeanings, made the long even-ings of repetitive work bearable.In fact, she made them enter-taining.

OASIS

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And in truth it was an ex-change, because I pumped her,too. I probably got more infor-mat ion f rom her (about theromantic status of the youngladies in the section) than she gotfrom me because I really didn’thave much of a private life toexpose-I was still trying to de-velop one.

I managed to keep her happyby making up stories about myexploits. I had a vivid imagina-tion and could often come upwith plausible tales on the spot,but it went on for so long that Ifinally had to start tapping therest of my family for plots. Shir-ley seemed to especially enjoythe lies I told her about the ero-tic adventures of my mother. Iguess she identified with thosefictions because the two of themwere about the same age.

For the most part the youngerc l e r k s i n t h e s e c t i o n w e r efriendly, too, and I was quicklydrawn into a sort of loose-knitsocial club. Few of us wanted togo home to bed when our work“day” ended at 12:30 a.m.-wewere still too keyed up-so mostnights a meeting was called atthe home of someone for thepurpose of a party or card game.Or we might get together for agroup date. That usually in-volved bar-hopping, which wasthe only form of entertainments t i l l ava i lab le a t tha t hour .Sometimes we simply cruised thecity and talked until dawn.

Many times I dropped intobed at first light or later. I’dsleep until two in the afternoon,then get up to start the work/play cycle again. Some of myfriends had been living that wayfor 2 years or more. It would lastonly several months for me. Isoon d iscovered tha t I hadEOD’d at the tail end of an era:we were scheduled to move to anew home in the suburbs earlyin 1960.

It came to pass that my sociallife was greatly enriched as a di-rect result of some informationprovided by Shirley. She in-formed me that a particularyoung lady was interested in me

OCTOBER 1978

beyond mere friendship. So shewas. I rewarded Shirley by con-tinuing my now truthful, if stillslightly embellished, stories; Ieven expanded the scope to in-clude some of my coworkers. Sheshowed a keen interest in the es-capades of myself and my peersduring our nocturnal forays tovarious “hillbilly” bars on East-ern Avenue, and other hotspotsaround town. Those tales didn’trequire embellishment.

The Falconer Building wasoften a hotspot in its own right.Now we have snow leave; in 1959we also had heat leave. When thetemperature went above a cer-tain mark, Government workersi n b u i l d i n g s w i t h o u t air-conditioning were sent home.That seldom happened on thenight shift because when the sunwent down, so did thetemperature-but not always to acomfortable level. Many warmevenings we had every windowo p e n a n d e v e r y f a n i n t h ebuilding going full speed.

Shirley and I sat there in thecross-ventilation and talked andflipped and scribbled the nightaway. That’s a magic memory forme. I can vividly recall the sights,smells, and the sounds of thattime: the clerks bent to theirtasks against the background ofdirty brick walls; the pungentaroma of the inner harbor waft-ing in the windows, and whenthe wind shifted, the even moreinteresting odors emanatingfrom the fish market to the east;the soft sound of whirring elec-tric fans as they cooled our necksand blew punched cards out thewindow; the strange noise ofbats’ wings as they flew in onewindow and out the other; thegentle rustling in the waste-baskets as rats foraged for foodscraps; and the incessant buzz ofblood-sucking insects as theyforaged for us. Ah, yes, I re-member it well.

The Falconer Building is stillthere. It houses, among otherestablishments, a commercialprinter advertising weddingi n v i t a t i o n s - “ T h e c o m p l e t epaper trousseau for the bride”-

and a sub shop.The building is still there, but

the era is past. (Did I just hear achorus of Falconer Buildinga l u m n i e x c l a i m i n g “ T h a n kGod!“?) I guess you could saythat I’ve found a home at SSA-I’ve been here 19 years now-but I haven’t had an experiencesince those early days quite sorich in character or in charac-ters. Life in the suburbs may behealthier, but I’m afraid it’s alsoduller.

Not long after the move toWoodlawn I rea l ized tha t Ididn’t want to spend the rest ofmy life flipping pages in ledgersanymore than I did wrestlingsteel at Sparrows Point, so I tookadvantage of the G.I. bill andenrolled in evening art school.That led to a job in the oldBureau of Data Processing andAccounts drafting section on the3rd f loor o f the Opera t ionsBuilding.

Which gives me an idea foranother OASIS article . . . . 0

My thanks to Jack Sloan, KatieWalker Gill and Rita Stump forhelping to jog my memory during thepreparation of this article.

JIM SIZEMORE . . . Visual In-formation Specialist, OMA . . .creator of the Central Office Bul-letin cartoon feature, “AroundSSA,” and the O A S I S comicstrip, “In The Field” . . . hobbiesare writing and photography . . .articles, photographs and car-toons by him have appeared insuch publications as Camera 35,Changing Times, Black World, TheSaturday Evening Post, and Writ-er’s Digest . . . presently compil-ing a book of quotations on theart and craft of film-making.

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