1972's Impossible Dream!

 1972’s Impossible Dream!

by

Wally Lee Parker

A summer spent working as a nightshift janitor at Spokane’s international airport — recalling the overwhelming odor of stale coffee, the cold glare of disappointed hookers, and the soul-shattering positivity of Robert Goulet.

I lost my job when Deer Park’s sawmill shut down in the spring of 1971.  Jobs were sporadic almost everywhere that year.  My wife, Juanita, was attending school in Spokane and working on Spokane’s north side at Holy Family Hospital, so it seemed best to sell our Williams Valley acreage and move into Spokane.  Once settled, I began a three-month Nursing Assistant program at Spokane Community College.  In late March of the following year, I was hired by Holy Family as the hospital’s first and at the time the only male nursing assistant — the orderlies working there being considered something of an upgrade from my position.

I began a blessedly short orientation — to the best of my recollection starting on Monday, April 3^rd.  As fate would have it, that was the same week a new hospital administrator, Donald J. Snowden, began his orientation.  Referencing the then husband of England’s Princess Margaret, the staff quickly nicknamed him Lord Snowden.  Considering the English publics’ reaction to the real Lord Snowden, that wasn’t intended as a compliment.

Lord Snowden came onboard with a number of new proposals.  Computers were just beginning to make their way into healthcare.  Of course, at that time computerization meant a bulky room-size conglomerate of mainframes that tended to put out so much heat it required that the air in which it sat be maintained at a temperature so low everyone working in the area had to wear jackets, or at least sweaters.  Evidence of its existence was suggested throughout the hospital by remote data input/output units and hardcopy printers using a continuous strip of fan-folded paper, each side of which held a line of perforations that the unspooling mechanism used to grab, then march said papers incrementally forward after each line of text appeared.  After printing, the pages were hand separated along a pre-scored line, and the strips down each side containing the sprocket holes for advancing the pages torn away and discarded.  Since so little of the information used within the hospital at that time was electronically entered, stored, or retrieved, the printers usually sat idle.  The new administrator also had this brilliant idea for something called total patient care — that a plausibility likely sold to the Dominican Order of Nuns under the premise that every patient had the right to be cared for by a licensed nurse of some type, as opposed to a nursing assistant.   And he wasted little time in instigating both of these changes — beginning with Total Patient Care, which meant I wasn’t around to see the computer being installed.

I think it would have been the Monday of my sixth week as an employee assigned to the hospital’s orthopedic unit — at that time located on the ground floor of the Dominican Order’s former nursing home.  That two-story structure, first opened to residents in July, 1960, faced Rowan Street on the south side of the hospital’s campus.  The three-story hospital tower to the north was opened in September, 1964.  And in the late autumn of 1971, construction was begun on another two floors — as intended in the original design.  Those were in the final stages of being equipped for occupancy as of the date of my employment.

Anyway, on Monday, May 8^th, 1972 — the beginning of my sixth week — I was finishing up my day on the orthopedic floor when a young lady from one of the offices came onto the unit and handed me an envelope.  I had no idea what it was about, so I smiled and said, “Thank you.”  I opened it up and there was a nicely composed missive informing me that I was about to be terminated.  A three-paragraph article in the Thursday, May 11^th edition of the Spokesman-Review echoed the missive.

“Thirty-two nurses’ aides and assistants at Holy Family Hospital this week were notified they would be cut from the payroll at the end of this week as an economic measure, Donald Snowden, hospital administrator, said Wednesday.

“Snowden said the layoff stems partly from ‘the generally serious economic picture in the county and the continued inflationary trend’ and because of a ‘continuing low patient census at the hospital’ which also reflects a national trend.

“Hospital officials said they do not foresee further layoffs in the immediate future.”

Not all the nurse aides were let go.  Those that had been there since the hospital’s nursing home days remained employed — at least mostly — as were a few others such as Juanita.  In Juanita's case the probable rationale was that she had proven herself an extremely hard and competent worker.  Added to that was the fact that she was attending nights at Spokane Community College in an effort to strike off the plethora of prerequisite classes required for admittance to the new two-year associate degree nursing program.  We believe that probably helped in the hospital’s decision to retain her.

Now I’m not going to swear to the exactness of some of the above and below since, as of this moment (spring of 2023), I’m trying to look back to things that came to pass 52 years ago.  While some of it I can confirm by searching Spokane’s newspapers, there’s no one I know of left that I can bounce my more personal recollections against.  What I can say with some certainty is that Lord Snowden’s alleged employee austerity program ended two months after my “execution by missive” when want ads seeking both Registered and Licensed Practical Nurses as new hires began appearing in Spokane’s newspapers.  The activation of Snowden’s Total Patient Care and the oncoming staffing needed for the newly expanded hospital suggested the implementation of a simple equation — more space and more beds equaled a need for more licensed nurses.

But at that point Snowden’s future plans weren’t of too much concern to me since I was once again seeking some form of employment.

At the time Juanita’s mother, Loraine, was working for a janitorial service called American Building Maintenance.  Loraine said they were always hiring, and I should check with them.  I did and was hired.  This of course was a very close to minimum wage job.  And I can’t recall any significant benefits beyond a paycheck — which doubtless explains a good portion of the high employee turnover.

Referred to as ABM, this nationwide company held the janitorial service contract for the passenger air terminal at Spokane’s former Geiger Field — renamed Spokane International Airport in 1960.  I was assigned to the night shift at the airport — which was fine with me.  The shift would begin at 11 p.m., and end at 7 o’clock the next morning — or maybe it was a half hour later than that.  I can’t remember the date I started, but expect it was somewhere in the later part of May.

There were four of us on the night shift.  One was the supervisor, who, unlike a lot of supervisors, actually did some of the work. There was one younger fellow who proved difficult to find on occasion.  Then a charming older lady who had an understandable problem when it came to working by herself in any dimly lit baggage rooms that also contained one or more dead bodies.  And then of course there was me.

Looking at this small group pitted against such a mass of bare concrete columns, thick overhead beams, and seemingly endless corridors — endless corridors that in their stained floors seemed to evidence an ability of coffee to splash out of even the steadiest of held cups — I was absolutely certain we’d never be able to keep up.  From said certainty came a sensation of dread whenever I noticed anyone walking in my general direction while carrying an envelope and emoting an officious air.  But then, since the last of the scheduled evening flights were due to have arrived shortly before we went on duty, I didn’t have that much to worry about regarding officious looking people wandering around the concourse.

About all I remember about the young fellow on our team was that one of his assigned areas to clean was the office, waiting area, and pilots’ lounge for Cascade Airways.  Cascade was founded in 1969 to provide commuter and charter services in and around Washington State — their area of service quickly expanding beyond those borders.  In the summer of 1985, the company filed for Chapter Eleven protection.  And in mid-September of 1986 the remainder of its assets were auctioned to the highest bidder.

I suspect the root of the derogatory nickname most everyone used when referencing this company came from the fact that the airline flew smaller commercial aircraft that were by nature more susceptible to the mountain borne turbulence found over Washington’s Cascades and, a bit further east, the Rockies.  Since said flights were occasionally punctuated by what might be described as rather exciting bumps, mysterious wiggles, and lurching drops, the airline was often referred to as “Crash-cade Airways.”

One of the ongoing themes in the young janitor’s conversations were the unique magazines — he referred to them as “whipping comics” — he regularly retrieved from the wastebasket in the Cascade Airways pilots’ lounge.  He said that each month he’d usually find at least one or two graphic bondage titles so disposed.  A little research for typical nameplates published in 1972 dredged up “Stinging Whips” and “Bound in Terror.”

Access to such juicy discards may explain why any given organization’s housekeeping department usually has the most reliable — or at least interesting — gossip.

Our lady janitor had long experience at the airport, that apparently due to her well-known efficiency at work which facilitated her transition to employment with whatever company had most recently won the janitorial contract.  Her area was the larger offices and adjacent baggage rooms.  Whenever confronted with one of the gray metal shipping containers used to transport human remains, she’d ask me to trade jobs for that specific room.  Normally being alone with a corpse didn’t bother me, so I always did.  But I have to admit, sometimes while working in those chilly backrooms during the deep silent of the very early morning, even I would get the heebie jeebies when sweeping around those metal boxes.

Occasionally the nightly routine would be broken when someone noticed a set of two or more clearly bewildered hookers meandering around the deserted halls.  Doubtless on a quest to snare some late-night arrivals, they appeared stunned to find none.  Of course, it was security’s job to inform these ladies that, unlike larger airports, Spokane’s was essentially deserted after eleven o’clock at night.  Said working girls usually appeared disgusted by the transition from an expectation of engaging in some purely transactional friendships to being nudged out the door without the same.

My suggestion that we ease their disappointment by giving each an application for employment with American Building Maintenance, and in the process explain that just about anybody could get hired there, was rejected by my supervisor — though I’m sure he understood that in making said suggestion my heart was in the right place. 

None of us being saints — therefore sometimes more than a little curious — every once in a while we’d sneak up to the upper administrative level where mugshots of all the known working girls were posted.  Though we did this mostly to see if we recognized anyone we knew from high school, we also enjoyed speculating as to which of those portrayed were likely to be most successful in their line of endeavor. 

But it wasn’t all fun and games.  One irritation I suffered when working in the publicly accessible areas was the constant shower of Muzak — recorded music played over strategically spotted speakers.  Even though the only denizens normally at the airport all night were the security guards, janitors, aircraft and building maintenance personnel — and sometimes a wayward traveler trying to save some money by sleeping in one of the waiting areas until flights picked up again in the morning — the Muzak played all night.  This actually turned out to be useful since it was the same songs played in the same order at the same time each and every evening.  So, we’d use the Muzak to pace ourselves — calculating whether we were ahead of schedule or behind by what was being played at the moment.

One of my jobs was to clean the large male restroom servicing the main concourse.  That facility contained maybe five or six stalls, six or so urinals, and five or six washbasins — if I’ve got that count wrong, it’s because over the years my brain has become as rusty as some of the plumbing I was then dealing with.  One of my tasks was to take a long-handled strainer and fish the cigarette butts out of the bottoms of the urinals.  Most everybody smoked back then — at least it seemed — so there was usually quite an accumulation.  One evening, while working my way through the restroom, it occurred to me that if I was on schedule I’d need to be dipping the urinals at precisely 3 a.m.  And the way I’d been timing that was that Robert Goulet would be singing his version of “The Impossible Dream” — then a very popular showtune from the Broadway musical “Man of La Mancha.”

The play was loosely based on the classic novel Don Quixote.  And Goulet’s song includes phrases such as “the unbeatable foe,” “the unbearable sorrow,” and “the unrightable wrong.”  Truly uplifting sentiments for my particular job at that particular time of morning.  In truth, if Mr. Goulet had at that moment stopped by the main concourse restroom to take a leak, I would have cheerfully strangled him — possibly, for extra pleasure, with the flexible wire handle of my urinal strainer.

Depressing as the airport was, at least it was a job — and the people I was working with were a very pleasant group.  But then, in early August, I got a call from the personnel department at Holy Family.  The director said an opening had come up among the house orderlies.  Would I like the job.  I said I could start tomorrow.  She said it would, as a matter of courtesy, be better if I gave ABM the standard notice.  She assured me the hospital job would still be there in two weeks.  Having been through house orientation at the hospital just a few months before, I could bypass that and begin by shadowing one of the house orderlies for my first few days.  She added that as soon as the job had been posted, members of the staff began circulated a petition for my rehire.  I’m assuming Juanita stoked that effort more than a bit.

And with said petition, the next 35 years of my bumpy, fret filled working life were set in motion.

As a final note, something over a year after my first firing, Lord Snowden himself was shown the door.  His computer was disassembled, and his new concept of Total Patient Care quietly shelved — one would assume due to the beans one is forced to count after economic reality sets in.

———  W. L. P.  ———