American Dreaming - 1983 / Part I

As 1983 got going, I found myself reassessing what my goals were. It’s important for anyone to occasionally reassess their possibilities and take stock of what dreams to chase and what goals to pursue. The early portion of 1983 was definitely that kind of period for me.

The whole country seemed to be in a period of renewal. The Reagan administration was now in full swing. There was no evidence of his “trickle down theory of economics having any real value but, despite that, the country’s economy did seem to be rebounding from the beating it took in the late 1970’s. There was a sense of optimism that seemed to be pervasive in all activities.

My options as I saw them were:

1. I could pursue college again (that was appealing as I still had some academic aspirations) but to do so would probably mean a return to my parent’s abode (not so appealing).
2. I could attempt another bout with Corporate America. I had some certified experience now and this might be a good next step until I figure out really what direction I wanted to pursue
3. I could pretty much just pull up roots and do some traveling. I had always loved traveling. I could barely sleep anytime I knew I was about to be take even a short weekend trip. The appeal here was obvious but, the problem was that I didn’t have a lot of do, re, mi laying around so, this also looked a tad scary.

I decided to look for the job because that was a decision that really didn’t negate either the dream of more education or the dream of doing some traveling at some point. It was basically a stall technique.

I applied for a couple of entry-level positions within the two state government run facilities that were local. One was a facility for the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities and the other was a psychiatric hospital. I applied for a position within food service and the other position I sought was within the motor pool as a driver. I had no experience in either job but I scored well in the civil service exams.

While applying for those two positions, I also looked into taking some evening classes at the local community college. I was already familiar with the college as I had been killing time there as a security guard on campus for the first two months of the year. It was a relatively easy position that I was rapidly losing interest in. I needed a full time job in order to maintain the apartment and not fall any further into debt.

One night around the middle of February, I was enjoying some quiet time at the community college on a weekend night shift. It was around 10 degrees outside with a not so nice brisk twenty-mile an hour wind that pretty much assured that there wasn’t going to be much foot traffic tooling around the campus that evening. I bundled up and trudged out into the snow to get some air.

I was crossing the campus from the technology center towards the sports complex when I noticed a vehicle in one of the outlying parking lots that was idling with no lights on (either interior or external). I made a mental note of that and proceeded towards the gate on the edge of the campus as this was at least something we were supposed to check on once every shift.

As I got closer I became a little more curious about the running vehicle. There truly didn’t seem to be any movement within the car (so my first thoughts of a carnal rendezvous were seemingly dispelled) so I opted to take a slightly different return path that brought me within a dozen yards or so of the position of the vehicle in the parking lot. If there were any occupants within the car, they might not view me as I was passing to the rear of the vehicle.

The crisp newly fallen snow was a tad crunchy as I proceeded to appease my curiosity and walked up to the driver’s side of the vehicle and rapped on the window. The light was poor but I could finally make out that there was a person sitting behind the wheel reclined slightly. The person didn’t respond to my first knocks on the window so I added a second try and for the first time that evening I used my voice and yelled “Hey, are you all right in there?”

After several minutes of this, I began to get really concerned and radioed back to the security office that I had a vehicle that was running and an occupant who didn’t appear to be responsive to my attempts at communication.

The night shift supervisor opted to send one of the other guards down in the car with a slim jim (a device that we sometimes had to use to open cars when the drivers had locked their keys in the car). I became more concerned as the occupant in the vehicle continued to sit unmoving in a semi reclined position in the front bench seat.

My fellow security guard arrived with the slim jim and we attempted to open the door. It took a couple of attempts but, we eventually felt the lock give way and we opened the door. At that point, it was pretty obvious that we had a serious condition on our hands. The young man appeared to be grey even in the dim light of the street lamps.

We radioed back to the office (again) and requested an ambulance to come post haste.

Unfortunately, the driver was pronounced dead (on arrival) at the local hospital. It was then I had to write up several copies of the accounts of the evening for the college’s records, and speak with the city cops for their records. My normal 8 hour shift wound up being a bit more like a 16 hour shift by the time everyone had heard my story and questioned me on all relevant aspects of the accounting.

At the end of this ordeal, I was finally allowed to head home.

---Jim