Working for a living Part One: Stockholm, summer 1969 through early spring 1981

 

My Presam work ID card, circa 1980.  I had combed my hair as a rocker as a silly joke.  

As I’m writing this, I’ve been employed full-time since  the spring of 1976, so it seems I’ve been working continuously for almost 50 years, earning a paycheck!  Not bad, and the rewards have been plenty; food, rent money, mortgage money, buying stuff (cars, pickup trucks, drums, houses, horses, education, vacations, etc.), and making sure that my family was fed and had a roof over their heads.  I like working, and I’m still at it, and I’ll keep it up as long as anybody is willing to pay me for what I do, whatever that is!  A little note about my employment history back in Sweden; back then (1970-1980) it was customary to issue a final written performance review, and for some reason, I saved them all, with the exception of my first job.  So, even though I had forgotten the dates, when I found the records (you will see them below), the dates became accurate.  I think I saved them all when I moved to California in late January of 1981 to show some proof of employment, but I’m not sure I ever had to show them at an interview here in the States!   

PostGirot, summer 1969 and summer 1970

I got my first “real” job with a paycheck in 1969, the summer I turned 14.  I was loafing around during the summer holiday, and my dad obviously got tired of seeing me do nothing, so he found an employment ad where they actually hired 13-year olds, for what was then called PostGirot, a money transaction system that was developed by the Swedish postal service.  I spent the first two weeks in training, trying to learn how to operate a 10-key adding machine.  Since most of the transactions involved paper checks, the idea was that you were to flip over the paper checks with your left hand, read the numbers on the check, and put all the information into the 10-key adding machine with your right hand, without looking at the keys on the adding machine.  However, since I was left handed, I was never able to get the hang of it.     

10-key adding machine.

 The adding machines were hooked up punch card machines, which put out paper punch cards:

Paper punch card; the cards are about 6” long by 2.5” high.

 The punch cards would then be fed into a punch card reader, not unlike the one below: 

Punch card reader, probably late 1960s.  The punch cards would be fed into the slot on top of the machine.

 The “office” was a giant room, filled with hundreds of women operating the 10-key adding machines at lightning speed; the noise from the punch card readers was deafening! 

The output from the punch card reader was paper ticker tape, not unlike the ticker tape in the picture below, where you can see the reel of ticker tape to the left:

Computer ticker tape on a roll.

The ticker tape would come out on a 10” spool, and since I had failed to learn how to operate a 10-key, my job was to take the 10” roll of ticker tape, and roll it onto a 20” reel.  Since the 20” reel took about 3 10” rolls of ticker tape, I had a special glue station, where I would glue the ends of the ticker tape together.  After the 20” reell was full, I took the reel to the computer room, a special room within a room, which was the only airconditioned room in the building.  That was my first job, and that’s why I tell people that my first job was in IT!  Next to my glue station was a garbage can full of rubber bands (since the stacks of paper checks came rubber banded); in my downtime I remember making a rubber band ball the size of a bowling ball.  That thing would bounce!    

I would ride the Stockholm subway on my own from the suburb of Hokarangen where I lived, to downtown Stockholm to the PostGirot office, no problem!  When I got to the office building, in the main entrance hall was a large glass cabinet filled with numbered medallions hanging on nails, green on one side and red on the other.  As you entered the building, you would turn your numbered medallion from red (when you were out of the office) to green, which would indicate that you had entered the building, and, after the payroll lady had inspected the glass cabinet, you would get paid for that day.  The glass cabinet was guarded by the payroll lady aka the cabinet dragon; she would be standing beside the glass cabinet with a calibrated watch, and precisely at 8:00AM she would lock up the cabinet, so if you were late, you had some explaining to do!  I remember seeing kids running toward the glass cabinet, only to have the cabinet dragon lock the cabinet right before their eyes!  Later, I would sometimes doubt this memory; however, after watching the movie October Sky, in the scene where the coal miners come up from the shaft to turn their medallions from green to red just like we did at PostGirot, I realized that it was actually true!       

One of the coolest features of the office building were PostGirot was housed was the Paternoster elevators, which, according to our friend Google is “a passenger elevator, consisting of a chain of open compartments, each usually designed for two people, that move slowly in a loop up and down inside a building without stopping. Passengers can step on or off at any floor they like.”  If I remember correctly, the building was a five, maybe six story building, and the Paternoster elevators would run all day, and if you were really adventurous, you would take it all the way to the top, where it would go around to come back down again.  Given that I was not the only 13-year old working in the building, it is obvious that the work place safety standards were different in the late 1960s!  That would never fly today!   

A Paternoster lift or elevator, like the one at the PostGirot headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, where I worked in the summer of 1969 and 1970.

 I also remember falling hopelessly in love with the lunch counter girl, a beautiful blonde, probably a year older than me.  I couldn’t wait ‘till my 11:30 lunch, when I would see her for a few seconds while she would ladle up meat balls and mashed potatoes.  Then at 2:00PM for my little break, I would ride the Paternoster back up to the lunch room to buy my daily Kex candy bar, and I would see her again for about 30 seconds, and that would be the highlight of my day.  Alas, being an awkward 13-14 year old, I never spoke to her other than getting my food and I never even asked her name, but I can still see her in my mind’s eye!  About five years later, I saw her at a subway station, and I immediately recognized her as she walked by.  Again, just like five years before, nothing happened, but for a few brief seconds, my heart was set on fire anew, all tingly!          

After working there over the summer of 1969, I had made enough money to buy a stereo system, consisting of a free-standing turntable, a stereo receiver, and two speakers.    

I went back to PostGirot in the summer of 1970, doing the same job, but this time I made enough money to buy my first drum kit; a well used British-made Premier!  I don’t remember if the blonde lunch counter girl was there, such is the memory of an old dude!  But I do remember that first drum kit, which I played until about 1974.    

Farsta Long-Term Hospital, June 12, 1973 through July 29, 1974

I don’t know what I was doing in the summer of 1971, except for helping my friend Chino build his speakers, but I do remember going around Europe on the Eurorail pass in the summer of 1972 with my friends Lennart and Thomas, going all the way down to Spanish Morocco, so I can honestly say that my feet have touched African soil!  Then, in June of 1973, I got a job as an orderly at Farsta Sjukhus (Hospital), working first as a summer fill-in orderly, and then on the weekends during my last year of high school.  Farsta Hospital was opened in 1967, only to be torn down sometime between 1987-1989, to make room for apartment buildings.  The hospital was mainly geared toward long-term care and rehabilitation, so I don’t think they had any emergency rooms.  My friend Thomas had worked there, and he suggested I apply, and lo and behold, I got the job!  I was 17, and as impressionable as you can be when you are a teenager.  The hospital was located a 15-20 minute walk from our apartment, so it was very convenient.  I worked on ward number three, and we had some 50-60 patients, most of them elderly.  Many of them had suffered strokes, and the halls were filled with wheelchairs, which could be operated by one hand, since strokes often affect one side of the body.  I had been warned about smell hallucinations (also known as phantosmia or olfactory hallucinations), wherein our brain tricks you into smelling odors that are not actually present, and for the first few weeks of working at the hospital, everything had that typical hospital smell; a combination of urine, feces and disinfectants, but after a while the hallucinations went away.  The weekend shifts were interesting, 7AM to 5PM on Saturday, then a split shift on Sunday, 7AM to noon, then 4PM to 9PM.  This was perfect if you had been to the clubs and discos on Saturday night, since you could go home on Sunday and take a long nap!  Also, since most of the orderlies were young women, this was a pretty great place to be if you were a young  guy!  Most of the work consisted of changing the bed linen, changing the bed-ridden patient’s hospital clothes, and giving them sponge baths.  We also fed the patients that couldn't feed themselves and occasionally even administer nutrients via feeding tubes, changing out urinary tract catheter bags, and turning the bed-ridden patients over every four hours to combat the bed sores.  Bed sores are nasty; once they had developed, they were almost impossible to heal.  Being at an age when everything leaves an impression, I have a bunch of very vivid memories from my time at the hospital:

I saw my first dead person, a man in his 60s that had passed away that afternoon; I couldn’t help myself, and I snuck into the room where he laid.  When I touched him, I was astonished that he was still warm (rigor mortis does not set in immediately). 

One of my buddies took to the hospital morgue, and it was just like the movies; dead bodies laying under white sheets, with name tags attached to their toes.

Every ward had a little kitchen, with a coffee percolator that was operated 24/7.  One evening I must have had seven or eight cups of coffee; that was the first time that I had experienced a coffee rush, complete with a racing heart! 

One of our patients was demented (back then, we didn’t know about Alzheimer’s disease), an older woman probably in her late 70s.  Most of the time she was completely disoriented, not knowing who she was or where she were, and pretty much bedridden.  I had worked with this patient for several months, not seeing any improvement in her condition; however, one day when I entered the room where she was staying, another older woman was at her bedside. visiting.  My patient, who had been unintelligible for the for the last few months turned toward me, looked me straight in the eye and with a clear voice said, “this is my sister”.  The woman visiting confirmed that she was indeed my patient’s sister, so even though my patient was normally in a vegetative state, she still had some long-term memories, one of which had been triggered by her sister’s visit.  I was astonished!   

Since most of the patients were elderly and bed-ridden, the hospital protocol at the time consisted of giving the patients laxatives twice a week, in order to ensure that their digestive systems did not stop working.  The laxatives were usually given on Sunday night and Wednesday night, which made for some heavy cleaning on Mondays and Thursdays, sometimes changing the bed linen several times during the day.  Ergo, the smell hallucinations!    

The summer of 1973 was unusually warm, and since the hospital was not air-conditioned, several of our patients suffered from heat stroke.  One of our patients was a 100-year old man, who, due to the heat, was pretty much comatose for three days, not eating or drinking.  We thought for sure that heat would kill him, but on the fourth day when I came into the room, he was sitting up in his bed, looking around as if he was looking for his breakfast.  It was astonishing, and showed all of us the resilience of life! 

On our ward no. 3, there was also a young male patient, who was paralyzed on the right side, and he also had some neurological problems.  When I first saw him at the hospital, I was completely astonished; I remembered this guy from my fifth-grade class, so we were the same age!  We had gone to school for a year together, and if I remember correctly, he was a bit of a class clown.  The story (never checked by me, mind you) went that at 16, he had gone off on his 125cc motor bike with his girlfriend on the back.  Since he only had one helmet, he had let his girlfriend use the helmet, and they went riding.  Well, he lost control, and crashed the motorbike into a stone fence, and hit his bare head on the stone (his girlfriend was supposedly OK).  Ergo, his paralysis and neurological problems; due to his head injury, he was essentially back to being 4-5 years old, and he behaved as such.  Super sad; some years later I saw him in his wheelchair briefly in central Stockholm.  He had supposedly been discharged from the hospital, and he was hanging out with some questionable dudes,  but again this was a very brief encounter.  

One morning when we made our usual rounds, one of our male patients was sitting up his bed, holding a Foley urinary catheter in his hand, with the balloon still inflated (mind you. an inflated Foley catheter balloon is about the size of a walnut).  He had somehow managed to pull out the catheter out of his bladder, and through the urethra, which must have been very painful.  As someone who has had the "pleasure" of using a Foley catheter (you can check out my blog posts about my prostate, if you are interested), just the thought of pulling that thing out makes me cringe, but I guess anything is possible!      

In the summer of 1973 I turned 18, which was a prerequisite for working the night shift at the hospital. I liked working the night shift; it was usually pretty light, and I spent a fair amount of racing around on the three-wheeled scooter to pass the time, doing some routine checks on the patients. 

After I got my driver’s license in August 1973 and buying my first car (a black 1962 VW bug) I do remember  driving to the hospital for my shifts, listening to my home-made cassette tapes, mostly Led Zeppelin; life was good and I was making money!

However, in the spring of 1974, driving home from a weekend at my friend’s family summer house, my old VW bug gave up its ghost going up a long hill in third gear.  Black smoke was coming from the VW’s heating vent, and I probably blew the engine.  Since I was going in the military service anyway in the fall of 1974, I sold the old bug back to the used car dealership where I had gotten it just a few months before, and I’m sure I just got a pittance for it!  I also sold my Premier drum kit, for the same reason.  Not a great time, I remember feeling low and defeated, not much to look forward to, I just wanted to get the compulsory military service over with.  I stayed at the hospital through July of 1974, after having worked some 1,100 hours in little over 12 months.  So that partially explains my poor grades in my last year of high school; I was too busy working!  But since I never studied anyway, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference…  Consequently, I barely graduated, getting an F in math…  Fortunately, I later redeemed myself academically, but that’s for another chapter! 

My performance review from Farsta Hospital, dated July 31, 1974.  Apparently my behavior had been very good, and my performance had been most satisfactory!

Our 1974 high school graduating class, focused on Natural Science.  I'm middle row, second from the left.  I was friends with almost everybody, but 50 years later I only remember a handful of names; Janne, Par-Erik, Sven-Erik, Fredrik, Claes, Steven, Sevek, Kim, Leif, Peter, Alexsandra, Berit and Monika.     

Pressbyron, part-time sales associate, September 01, 1974 through January 31, 1976

After quitting the hospital, in August of 1974, Lennart, Thomas and myself decided to go out and travel again in Europe, using the Eurorail thirty-day pass.  We traveled all the way from Stockholm to Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands, and then all the way from Kirkwall all the way down to the island of Corsica, to get some sun.  However, by the early fall of 1974 I was working at Pressbyron, which was (and still is) a chain of small convenience stores, mostly located adjacent to the subway stations in Stockholm’s vast subway system.  I remember working at a store in Tallkrogen, which was about a 20 minute walk from our apartment, a not very fascinating or rewarding job, but I did make some money!  Back then we did not have cash registers at the stores; instead we just made change in a change drawer, and then did a reconciliation at the end of the day.  One of the benefits of working in a convenience store without a cash register was that one got pretty good at adding and subtracting, since most purchases were small; a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper and a candy bar. I remember one time being so quick at adding numbers in my head that the numbers just appeared in front of my eyes, almost like a chemical reaction rather than an actual calculation!   

A stock picture of a typical Pressbyron kiosk.  Even though this picture was probably taken sometime in the 1950s / 1960s, by the time I started working at Pressbyron in 1974 not much had changed; the customer would walk up to the window and make a purchase, pay and the merchandise would be handed over.  The kiosk would be stocked with candy, cigarettes, newspapers, magazines and books.

 

A typical Pressbyron kiosk.

 Nevertheless, by October 1974 I was drafted into the Swedish army, to perform my compulsory military service, which consisted of a 7.5 month long boot camp.  On occasion, I still worked at Pressbyron on the weekends, and I also remember complaining an awful lot to my friends, parents and whomever else would listen about the misery of military service!  (I do have some memories from my military service that I've documented elsewhere, such as my "Thinks I think I remember part three" and my "Winter" blog post).      

Our platoon marching toward the Royal Castle in Stockholm for a 48 hour guard duty.  This was probably taken early spring 1975.  I’m second from the left.  Around 1972-1973, there had been a lot of complaints that the soldiers drafted into the compulsory military service had to cut their hair, so by the time I served in 1974-1975, we could keep our long hair, as long as we wore hairnets during formal exercises like this one.

 

Our full platoon, dressed in formal uniforms.  This was probably spring 1975.  I’m middle row, second from the right.  Top row, first from the right was my friend Lennart Duvsjo (not the singer); we would carpool on the weekends.  One Saturday driving home from the barracks, I had insisted on driving his car, and lo and behold, I crashed it!  All the money I had saved up from working at the Pressbyron on the weekends was gone; it all went to repair his car.  Nevertheless, he never held a grudge, and we stayed friends throughout our military service.  Unfortunately, as so often happens, after our military service, we lost contact.

 

My final performance review from the Swedish Army, May 30, 1975.  My behavior in the service had been really good, my overall competence satisfactory, and my ability to serve was great!

Pressbyron, fill-in driver summer job, June 02, 1975 through August 22, 1975

Fast forward to late May, 1975; since I had a pretty good record working at the Pressbyron convenience stores, I got a summer job at the Pressbyron newspaper and magazine delivery hub on Nordenflychtsvagen in Stockholm, driving a stake bed truck.  I remember going to the interview still wearing my army shirt (which, after about a hundred washes, had become super soft and comfortable), and I pretty much went straight from the Army discharge to my summer job.  My boss was a little apprehensive, since I was the youngest driver they had hired, but I got the job nevertheless.  

Nordenflychtsvägen 72 in Kungsholmen, Stockholm, where the Pressbyron magazine, book and newspaper delivery hub was located.  

I mostly delivered pallets of books from the hub to some location that I can’t remember (this was 1975 after all), and I stayed there until late summer 1975, when I entered the University of Stockholm, studying music theory.  One of the cool features of the building on Nordenflychtsvagen was the pneumatic tube delivery system, which delivered intra-office messages and mail.  The system relied on air pressure to deliver cylindrical capsules filled with the mail through a tube system in the walls.  Each office had tube hubs, where you would place the filled cylinders and send them on their way.  Even much later when I was working at Home Depot in Laguna Hills, CA, we had a similar system to carry cash and checks from the front cash registers to the back room, where the bookkeeper would reconcile the money.  

My final proof of employment from Pressbyron as a summer fill-in driver, dated 22 of August, 1975.  Since my employment had been just short of three months, no performance review was given.

My stint at the University of Stockholm, Fall 1975

My Student ID from the University of Stockholm, issued in the fall of 1975.  Gotta look cool!  Apparently I had been able to grow some sort of excuse for a mustache!  By 1980, it had grown quite thicker…

 At the University of Stockholm, I was pretty much an academic failure, and totally out of my league.  Most of my classmates played piano, organ, guitar, sang in the choir, and had years of experience.  I on the other hand loved contemporary music, had played drums in a little band, and I had no clue how to study.  So, by the end of 1975, I dropped out of the university, and  in late January 1976 I also quit my parttime job as a sales associate at Pressbyron, to go and work fulltime.  Here is my final performance review from the Pressbyron kiosks:

My final performance review from the Pressbyron kiosks, dated February 03, 1976.  Apparently, my behavior had been good, and my knowledge of the work satisfactory!

 Presam, full-time driver, January 19, 1976 through September 14, 1977

In January of 1976 I started working full-time at Presam (which was the parent company of Pressbyron) at the delivery hub on Nordenflychtsvagen as a driver delivering newspapers and magazines to stores and kiosks all over Stockholm.  We would also deliver newspapers to the trains at the central train station in downtown Stockholm, much like what you see below:

A Pressbyron truck delivering newspapers to the train, which would take the newspapers to towns all over Sweden.

 At Presam, we would work a six nights, three days rotating shift:  Week one, starting at 9PM on Sunday, we would work six nights, ending on Saturday morning.  Week two, work three days; Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Week three; back to working six nights, starting on Sunday night, ending on Saturday morning.  Week four; work three days, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  Then we would start all over again on Sunday night.  Working shifts like that is grueling, but I was a 21-year old kid and nothing could stop me!  As you can imagine, every fourth week we would party from Thursday evening through early Sunday morning, then work our night shifts, maybe take a little cat nap in the truck on occasion.  The trucks were equipped with auxiliary heaters, to keep us warm in the winter.  During my days off, I would oftentimes moonlight, driving for some of the independent truckers, doing the same deliveries.  I would usually get paid in either cash or gasoline, to keep the tax man at bay.  Contrary to popular belief, in Sweden, the national sport is not soccer or ice hockey, it is tax evasion!  I had bought an old Volvo with a somewhat souped-up engine which slurped gasoline like there was no tomorrow, and I would need to fill up every other day.  No problem, the Pressbyron hub had its own gasoline storage tank, and we would fill up on credit, only to receive our monthly paycheck severely deducted by our gasoline purchases!  Again, being young, nothing mattered; I had my own apartment, my car, my drums and my record collection, what else does a young guy need?

I remember working the Friday night shift after the marriage between King Carl Gustaf and Silvia Sommerlath, which took place on Friday June 19, 1976.  The morning newspapers we were supposed to deliver early Saturday morning were delayed, since the papers wanted to give the best coverage of the wedding possible.  We realized that instead of our usual shift end-time at 7:30 AM on Saturday, we would have to work all the way through Saturday afternoon.  With the help of one of my work buddies, we were able to negotiate a little ad-hoc bonus (100 Swedish Krona); not much, but with the overtime, it made it worth it.  At that time, 100 Swedish Krona could buy you a night on the town!     

My final performance review from Presam as a newspaper delivery driver, dated September 14, 1977.  Apparently, both my behavior and my knowledge of the work had been very good, and I got the best of recommendations!  Don’t know what I was doing right, but apparently it was OK!

 Mjolkcentralen Arla, September 14, 1977 through January 27, 1978

In September 1977, I got tired of working the split shift at Pressbyron, and I got a job as a dairy delivery driver at Mjolkcentralen (the milk central) Arla.  The central dairy was located pretty much in the center of Stockholm, and from there we would deliver all kinds of dairy products to stores and restaurants; milk, yoghurt, cream, etc. 

Mjolkcentralen Arla on Torsgatan in Stockholm.  Judging from the cars, this picture was probably taken early 1970.

 This was a day job, Monday through Friday, which allowed me to live a somewhat normal life, and play with the band on the weekends.  I remember working there in the winter, and the main cold area in the dairy was warmer than the outside!  The guy who originally trained me was a fellow in his mid to late 60s, and he had been with Arla for a long time.  He told me that before 1939, they made deliveries using horse-drawn wagons, and they would be "parked" outside the building, waiting to get in and get reloaded.  That must have been a sight!  We made most of the deliveries using hand trucks and milk crates, but for larger stores we got the dairy products packed in steel wheeled crates, each crate weighing in at about 100 kilos (220 lbs).  We would put the steel crates on the back lift gate, four crates at a time.  Most of the lift gates had little indentions for the crate wheels, but not all of the lift gates.  The idea was that you would hold the crate with one hand, as you operated the lift gate, and most of the time it worked OK.  However, one day, while making a delivery to one of the stores, one of the rolling crates got loose from the lift gate, and fell off.  All the milk cartons in the crate exploded open, causing a milk tsunami inside the store.  I still see that white tsunami in my minds eye, and the cleanup was messy indeed!  This was not a bad job, and the pay was good, but after about 4 months, I got tired of getting up at 4:30AM to catch the first commuter train into Stockholm, and I went back to Pressbyron as a delivery driver, this time delivering candy and chips to the kiosks.

My final performance review and recommendation from Mjolkcentalen Arla, January 27, 1978.  Apparently my behavior had been honorable and my knowledge of the job satisfactory.

Back to Presam as a driver; January 30, 1978 through January 23, 1981

My Presam ID card, probably issued around 1980.  I had combed my hair as a rocker as a silly joke.  We would throw rocker parties on occasion; I would put shampoo in my hair and slick it back.  Much easier than using grease, and much easier to wash out!

In late January 1978 I was back at Presam as a driver, this time working day shifts, starting at a reasonable 8AM.  Initially I was delivering newspapers, but later on I had the good fortune to get transferred to the big trucks, delivering candy and chips exclusively to the Pressbyron kiosks.  The candy and chips delivery was heavy work; there was two of us to our truck, and we would alternate driving every other day.  We had special hand trucks that would carry a heavy load, and going down the stairs to the subway stations, one of us would be in front with our backs to the hand truck and the other in the back, holding on to the hand truck (this was before all the subway stations were retrofitted with elevators).  In the winter, we had shovels to clear the snow from the stairs and steel rods to hack away the ice, just so we could get down safely.  Also, our truck was equipped with boxes of sand, which were located near the rear wheels, and the boxes could be opened from the cab, to spread sand in front of the rear wheels, so we wouldn’t get stuck in the snow.  Also, the locking rear differential helped if we got stuck.  Nevertheless, this was work for a young guy, and we worked hard!  However, again this was a Monday through Friday day job, and the money was good, so good in fact that by 1978 I had saved up enough for a down payment on a  little one-bedroom condo in Huddinge, a suburb of Stockholm.  Since many of my old high school friends had gone off to the university, and were penniless while they studied, I felt pretty good about making money, and having stuff.  Later, when they all graduated, they quickly eclipsed me in wages, something that took me a while to realize... 

A little side note about the winter of 1978-1979, which was one of the coldest in northern Europe that was experienced in the 20^th century.  As far as I remember, it stayed below -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) for six weeks, which was highly unusual, since during my military service in 1974-1975 we had experienced what we call a “green winter” with pretty much no snow and mild temperatures.  So, the winter of 1978-1979 came as a cold surprise.  Since I had the habit of buying a $500 clunker car every six months, during this time I was driving an old Opel, which had an automatic transmission.  Since it is very difficult to push start an automatic (as opposed to the old VW bugs, which you could put in second gear and pretty much push yourself to get started), and since I parked outside by my little condo, I would take the battery out of the Opel, put it on a little plastic sled, and drag the battery to my condo and put it on a charge overnight, so that I had a freshly charged battery in the morning.  Much later when I was teaching at Cal State Fullerton, I would tell my students that back in 1978 we were worried about global cooling, not global warming, and they would look at me incredulously!      

One  afternoon in what was probably early 1980, I was making a delivery to one of the street level kiosks, and my old on-again / off-again girlfriend from high school happened to walk by.  I hadn’t seen her in what was probably five years, and I was glad to see her.  During this time she had worked and studied really hard, and by 1980 she had become a respected professional.  I on the other hand, had pretty much been standing still, more interested in playing drums and parties, than anything that resembled a career.  I said  something like “hey you, how are you?”.  She just looked me straight in the eye and said “I don’t have time for this” and walked on.  For a second I was stunned and a bit hurt, but then I remembered that I had been a lousy boyfriend, and I got what I deserved!  Payback and all that…

Our SCANIA truck, which we used to deliver candy and chips to the Pressbyron kiosks.  We wore blue uniforms, that kinda matched with the Presam / Pressbyron blue signature color.  This picture was probably taken in the fall of 1980.  

One of the Presam newspaper delivery trucks.  These were Mercedes trucks, with a right-hand drive (British drive), to make it easier to get in and out to the sidewalks, since most of the deliveries were made in the city of Stockholm.  I think this was taken in December of 1980, when I was delivering newspapers on the weekends, while saving some money for my move to California, see below.  

Now, my friend Janne from our old band Synd ock Skam had moved to California around 1979, to pursue a music career in Los Angeles.  So, in the fall of 1980, my friend Anders and I had decided to take a little vacation and go and surprise Janne, who was living in Long Beach at the time.  So, in November of 1980, Anders and I indeed surprised Janne in Long Beach, where we stayed with him for around 10 days. 

Visiting California in November 1980.  I think this was taken in Irvine, where Janne had an aunt.  

Another side note about air travel in the early 1980s; when Anders and I flew from Stockholm to New York for our layover, the aircraft was, as was common in those days, separated into a smoking section and a non-smoking section.  The two sections were separated by curtain, so if you happened to sit in the last non-smoking row, I'm sure you were breathing a lot of second-hand smoke, no question!  Also, on the way from New York to Los Angeles, when we had reached altitude, they opened a bar in the rear section of the airplane, with one of the stewards being the bartender.  You just walked up to the bar, ordered your drink, and paid with cash, no problem!  If there was any turbulence, I guess you just hung on! 

Well, I loved everything about Southern California (especially the weather), so by the end of January 1981, I was back in California for good, to pursue my own adventure, but that’s for the next chapter!    

My final performance review from Presam, dated 23 of January, 1981, this one in Swedish.  By this time both my behavior and my knowledge of the work had been very good, and I got the best of recommendations!  Whooo Hoooo!

 

My final performance review from Presam, dated 23 of January, 1981, this one translated to English, since they knew I was moving to California.