Drivers Wanted

During the 1960's, a house-sitting gig fell into my lap.  The house was on Future Street at the base of Mt Washington, about three miles north of downtown Los Angeles.  The rent and utilities were paid and the house was comfy and very secluded but lacked any furniture or appliances.  I moved in with my stuff in a box and put a mattress down on the floor in one of the bedrooms.  These were the only amenities added during my two year stay.

I began looking for a part-time job since this windfall arrangement left me needing money mostly for just food and gas.  In those days the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times had a classified ads section with twenty or more full pages of employment opportunities.  Several hours of reviewing job openings and their minimum requirements revealed that my best shot was an ad for "Drivers Wanted".  The four year bachelor's degree from the prestigious private liberal arts college (that my dad took a second job to pay for) left me qualified for no other job listed.

I called up United Clearings Inc. and made an appointment for an interview.  The place was less than two miles away in an industrial area adjacent  to the Los Angeles River in Atwater Village.  I was hired to drive a company pick up truck from six to ten in the morning, Monday through Friday.  I simply picked up cancelled checks from a dozen or so bank branches and delivered them to a central processing facility at the end of the route.  The job existed thanks to the lack of an internet and today's electronic banking technology.  The pay was more than I needed and it was easy, same route every day. 

Six weeks after I started working, one of the dispatchers came up to me and asked, "would you be interested in a full time job as an air courier?  The job just opened up and we need to fill it right away."  This struck me as odd.  There were over sixty drivers who had been working there long before I was hired.  Any concerns I may have had were forgotten as I learned the details of the job.  I was to board an early morning PSA flight from Burbank Airport and escort cancelled checks to San Francisco.  Later that afternoon, I would board a return flight to Burbank with more checks.  There was a six hour layover from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm in North Beach, San Francisco for which I would receive full pay and be free to do whatever the hell I wanted.  North Beach in the 1960's - I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to find ways to pass the time.  I started the next day.

Every once in a while I would wonder, "Why me?'  Was it that the dispatcher took notice that I was a college graduate?  Who knows and who cares.  I quickly settled in and soon was on a first- name basis with lots of people I saw everyday - flight crews and attendants, airport workers, bank employees, the North Beach Public Library staff, and the owner and fellow diners at the Neon Chicken where I ate lunch most days.  

PSA flew every hour on the hour and often my flight would have less than a dozen passengers.  I got to the point where I would fall asleep as soon as we lifted off and then have to be woken up by the flight attendant after we landed.  It was a little bit of a grind but the flying added a certain cachet to the job.  Especially for someone such as myself who had been born and raised in Los Angeles and had never ventured further than a day trip to Tijuana.  My dad was amused by the whole thing and started calling me Sky King.  Several friends from college lived in the Bay Area and we often went to the movies, race track, zoo, and Golden Gate Park or Washington Square for a picnic.

When the job stretched into the latter part of the year, the change in the daylight hours brought on a fascinating side effect.  Monday through Friday when I was in Los Angeles it was dark out; and conversely, when I was in San Francisco the sun was out.  This was because the morning flight left before sunrise and the return flight landed back at Burbank after sunset.  When I would be driving around in the day time in Los Angeles on the week ends, I would sometime lose my bearings because I would become absolutely convinced that I was in San Francisco.  I found this fairly alarming the first few times but I soon started to enjoy the sensation and would look forward to driving on the weekends.

One morning that same winter when I got to work, the dispatcher told me that all of the airports in the Los Angeles basin, including Burbank, were fogged in.  I was to drive out to Lancaster where a private plane would take me and the cancelled checks to San Francisco.  United Clearings had a contract with Crocker Bank that carried a stiff financial penalty if the checks did not arrive in San Francisco every morning.  I asked. "There's an airport in Lancaster?"  The dispatcher assured me there was and gave me directions.

I picked up the checks from downtown as usual and made my way out to the Antelope Valley where Lancaster is situated.  I arrived at what I would describe as an "air field" as opposed to an airport.  I was directed to the "private plane" apparently powered by a single engine with a propeller attached.  My pilot for the day, Les, introduced himself and seemed like an interesting guy.  He was wearing jeans, tennis shoes, t-shirt, dark glasses and held a can of Budweiser – it was after all, past sun up.  Me and the 300-odd pounds of cancelled checks were going to be his only passengers, so we loaded on and took off. 

Lancaster resides in what is referred to as the "High Desert", and as such, can be subject to some dramatic updrafts, weather permitting.  This was among several pearls shared with me by Les as we rose to 15,000 feet in what surely must have been world record time.  Once aloft, the trip to the Bay Area was pleasant enough, although engine noise had rendered me partially deaf about halfway.  The landing, which we attempted at San Francisco Airport  was technically a success despite the gale force cross currents, lightening, thunder, torrential rain and our inability to make visual contact with the ground until we stepped out of the plane and onto the runway.  I delivered the checks to Crocker Bank and that afternoon flew back to Burbank on PSA as the storm had subsided.

When I returned to United Clearings at the end of my route, I asked the dispatcher, "How often does Burbank get fogged in?"

He told me, "It is rare."

I said, "Define rare."

He thought a second and then said, "Well, the last time it happened was right before you took the job.  The whole coast got socked in by heavy weather and our plane with the courier went into a mountain up around Monterey."

I said, "What happens if I can't make it in tomorrow?"

He looked a little worried, "Kinda short notice, wouldn't ya say?"

I persisted, "Just supposin', what if?"

He said, "Just like last time, I'll have to do it until I find somebody to take it over."

With that, I wished him luck and ended my brief career as an air courier.  On my short drive home I turned on the radio to catch the news.  I was curious about tomorrow's weather.