I entered another weight lifting meet that took place in Albany at a high school in their gym. It was a poorly organized meet and didn’t end until after 2:00 AM. By the time I was going for my deadlift I had to slap my face and sniff ammonia to wake up. Once I finished my lift I would have left except that I was in the running for a trophy. Before the meet begins you have to write down the weight your opening lift is on all three lifts, Squat, Bench and Deadlift. The lifting order goes by opening weights. So a 132 pounder might lift after a 198 pounder in some cases. I ended up winning a 4th place trophy because my main competitor couldn’t complete his lift that would have beaten me.
Because of my standing in the National Safety-Kleen statistics for the most dollars earned by placements and product I was awarded a place at the Safety-Kleen Advisory Council in Kawaii, Hawaii just like before I left LA only this time I was going to take it and enjoy my prize because I worked my ass off doing a job that I hated. I told Morris about how much I hated Saftey-Kleen and he knew I was the top rep in the Northwest and he would say but you have a good job that pays the bills and a family to support.
The problem was that I wanted to be a minister because ministers have it made. I know because I was one of them. Sure there are good and there are bad ministers but if you can deliver an inspirational sermon and make people feel like you love them and are concerned about them without worrying that they may ask you for something then it’s a breeze. Some of the biggest crooks in the business are televangelists but I despised them and saw them as wolves in sheep’s clothing. You can’t approach the ministry as a job but I needed to support my family. Maybe if it was ten years earlier when we didn’t have any kids and I was still on fire for Jesus I could have overcome the disappointment of failing to make any inroads back to the ministry other than as an unpaid lay minister that was an “errand boy” for the assistant pastor.
Kathy decided not to go on the trip to Hawaii because she was afraid of what would happen to the kids if the plane crashed with both of us on it and I couldn’t convince her otherwise. My manager, Ken said that he and his wife would babysit our kids because they had five including foster kids. At the same time we had arranged when we were still at HPNC with Dave and Diana Massarotti to adopt our kids in case of our untimely death. We were worried that if our relatives took them that they would not be raised as committed Christians but we knew that Dave and Diana would.
When I gave up on Kathy I tried to get my boss Ken to go and he would have but the rules said that it was only for the winner and their spouse. Unmarried sales reps went alone or paid for their girlfriend’s flight. So I flew to Hawaii by myself and after transferring planes in Honolulu I joined other Safety-Kleen people that were taking the shuttle plane to the island of Kawaii. All expenses were taken care of and we stayed at the best Hotel, the “Kawaii Surf” which was the tallest building on the island at the time.
We met for a short sales meeting two times and it only lasted an hour and then there were organized games that we formed teams and played like when I was the Youth Minister at HPNC. Other times I went on a tour of the island by myself. Everyone there was a couple and I ended up being alone other that at the meetings and nightly luau. Every night at around 6:00 PM an incredible layout of food that included seafood, salads, and almost every exotic delicacy imaginable was included. At the same time you could drink as many of whatever alcoholic beverages you wanted but I just drank a couple of beers and ate a lot of crab, lobster and shrimp.
When I returned to the mainland I let it be known at the Safety-Kleen office that I was also a freelance photographer for hire and one of the sales reps was getting married. At first he wasn’t interested because he said that a friend was going to photograph the event. The day before the Friday evening wedding Ed asked me if I was still available to photograph his wedding. I told him that I already planned to come since he invited me. I gave him a deal and told him that I would shoot three rolls of 36 exposure film and give him the film to get developed and whatever prints he wanted if he gave me $100.00.
When I shoot a wedding in a church that I am not familiar with I always talk to the minister ahead of time so I can find out what the church rules are. When I photographed weddings in LA at HPNC I knew the ministers personally and they let me do anything. However in other churches they were usually more restrictive but not all the time. The last wedding I shot in LA was at a church that let me do whatever I wanted including coming on the Alter. As a former minister I understood restrictions are sometimes because of theological interpretations or may be considered an invasion of the minister and even the couples space.
I asked Ed for the ministers phone number so I could talk to him and after his secretary informed him of my call he told her to tell me that he already talked to one photographer and wasn’t going to talk to another. Wow! What a jerk. At least I knew the groom personally so it would make it easier. I asked him what he didn’t want me to do and he said anything that I wanted in order to get the best shot. When the wedding took place I tried to discreetly move around the church and eventually worked my way to the front like I usually do. When I walked up the steps to the Alter platform that the bride and groom stood on with the minister nobody noticed. Then as I began to take photos, not using flash but push processed High speed Ektachrome the minister began to give me dirty looks. I had used up the roll by this time so I left the Alter and sat back in my seat with my camera gear because after I loaded another roll of film I shot the rest of the wedding from seat next to the center aisle.
Immediately after the ceremony was over I had the wedding party pose on the Alter for the formal posed photographs. It took another half hour to complete everything and afterwards before we went to the reception one of Ed’s friends came up to me. He said that he was talking to the minister afterwards and he said that I would never photograph another wedding in his church. I replied that he refused to talk with me about the rules, that the last wedding I shot allowed me on the Alter and I didn’t care as long as Ed liked the photographs, which he did.
We had periodic regional meetings where the regional manager, Dan Sempa would come down from Seattle to conduct a sales meeting the way that Ed Chandler did back in LA. Ken Partridge would every so often take out everyone for breakfast. When the branch won second place in a National sales contest Dan Sempa came down from Seattle to take everyone in the branch out to dinner at the one of the best restaurants in Eugene. Everyone was told to order whatever they wanted off the menu and there was no limit on alcoholic drinks. Most guys ordered multiple exotic drinks that cost five to ten dollars each. All I wanted was a couple of Heineken beers and Dan Sempa was shocked as well as the fact that Kathy didn’t drink any alcoholic beverages.
The contest was an Olympic theme since it was 1984 and not only was Reagan up for re-election but the Olympics were taking place in Los Angeles. The Soviet Union said that it would not participate as retaliation over the USA failing to attend the Moscow Olympics because of their war in Afghanistan in 1980. First prize was one-quarter Krugerrand of gold and second prize was three ounces of silver which just hit an all time high in price in 1980 when it was worth $100.00 an ounce.
Every rep received three ounces of silver from Safety-Kleen headquarters back East in Elgin, Illinois. When we received them they were worth $70.00 an ounce which came to $210.00. When we got our next paycheck there was a $147.00 deduction in federal gift tax which only left us $63.00 left. I should have cashed them in immediately but I held onto them for a year or more before the price of silver plunged and they were only worth $35.00 an ounce so in the long run it cost me money to win the contest.
I was unhappy with the way that things worked out at Faith Center since I finally accepted that Roy Hicks had no interest in ever talking to me. In retrospect I guess he just didn’t want to watch another Bible college graduate crash and burn. At the same time I was unhappy with Safety-Kleen even though I was a top rep and could have named what I want. Dan Sempa offered me the position of branch manager in either Boise, Idaho or Seattle, Washington. I would have doubled my yearly salary from $25,000.00 to $50,000.00 a year but Kathy didn’t want to move to either place. She wanted to go where it was warm and sunny but I didn’t want to return to LA again.
I looked into transferring to the Fresno, California branch and talked to the branch manager about opening a sub branch in Bakersfield which was only one-hundred-twenty miles North of LA by way of the I-5 Grapevine. We were so serious about moving that in March 1984 I drove down to California and stopped in the Fresno branch and talked to the manager. He was interested in the sub-station idea but it had to be approved by the corporate office before he could do anything and who knows how long that will take.
I drove down to Bakersfield to see if I could find work there. At the time the oil business, which was a primary industry in Bakersfield was having issues because of environmental regulation so jobs were scarce. I looked into a straight commission sales job selling lubricants to the same kind of businesses that Saftey-Kleen serviced. You had to use your own car and got paid milage but straight commission in no sure thing. I found that out the hard way in El Paso when I worked for Teleprompter as a salesman in 1980.
So I kept looking and towards the end of the day I saw a help wanted sign on a building that said, “Bakersfield Towel and Uniform Company.” I walked into the front office and there were a few desks with women sitting at them doing paperwork and typing. I told the one that asked if she could help me that I was looking for a job and she had me fill out an application and then I was interviewed by the General Manager who was a jovial person that looked to be around sixty years old. We hit it off right away and he told me that they would be having an opening in June because one of the reps was starting his own business. I would have to join the Teamsters Union and would make less than I did in Eugene but it was still manageable. I told him that I would call him after I got home and talked to my wife about it.
♪Jesus♬Rocks♬The♬World♪ 
Leave a comment