I had a little bit of fun satisfaction tonight. We have a new nightime security guard here on the complex where I live. He parks his car in the spot that had been mine for two years before our underground parking space could be fixed from all the sludge that had been dripping down from the parking above. My car was the worst hit by all this, so I am extremely thankful that that situatiion is now finally fixed.
One of the complex's managers had called me last month and asked me if I would go back to using my old underground parking space even BEFORE it being fixed. She said that it would be finished befor the rains became. Actually, it actually DID rain before that it happened, but I covered the car with a cover that I have, so that was okay. I just don't want to have to put it on every day (it takes a while), that is why I have an underground parking garage.
Well as soon as I was no longer using the temporary spot--that is meant for maintainance workers--somebody else started using it, but only after the normal working hours. From my spending a lot of time out on my balcony that looks out onto the parking entrance and the maintenance parking spots, I figured out that who was using it late at night now was the new security guard.
As you can imagine, I am totally in favor of secure guards. And I could see that this one was a very young man, and it reminded me of myself when I was going to Law School, a very expensive private law school that in order to be able to afford if one's parents weren't paying for it, students had to get financial aid (which I did and it took me several years to pay back and I had NOT become a lawyer), the only other or supplementary way was to have a part time job or be already rich.
Having a part time job is NOT compatable with going to law school. All the highest scoring students in our law school were married and the "deal" was that the wives would do ALL the "family" work and the husband students would just study 24/seven. Othewise, according to many, you could not make it. (Sadly, a common end to those situations was that after the guys passed the bar exam and get a legal job, they divorce their wives. Or as the concept went...)
I guess if you wanted to menorize every single legal case in all of United States jurice prudence...my attitude about that was no. My tack on the law was what really makes since, what is moral, what is just. Of course one learns that that is NOT the standard...the standard is really a lazy and frustrating one, and that was simply "what had been ruled before". Well, that bored me; how can you ever evolve? And anyway, my strong suit is not memorization.
So I broke all the rules in the book--had numerous dinner parties, had sex all the time (at times I could not concentrate in class because I could smell on my fingers the powerful sexual scent from woman of the night before) AND I ended up getting a NIGHTIME JOB (which I guess you figured out stopped at that time the dinner parties and the sex).
One of the jobs I had while in law school was security guard at a luxury appartment complex. My shift was midnight to 8:00 AM, and then the first law school lecture of the morning would began. When I had that job, after classes I would THEN have breakfast, and then go to bed. I had to disconnect the telephone, beause now I was trying to sleep during the day. It was a very hard way to operate. My parents HATED it, because I was to carry an armed gun and my parents were afraid that that I would therefore get shot. Well, I could have been shot even I wasn't carrying a gun!
The rules of that job included that every hour I was to complete a total security tour around the complex grounds. I had a device (a watchman's clock) that I was to use to clock into various spots on the grounds that would make an imprint on a reel in the device to show a person in authority the next day that I had been to each required spot and the times I had there. Other than that hourly "tour" duty, and being available for the needs of the tenants ("Help, I locked myself out of my aparment!"), I could sit in an office and study my law homework.
This was a terrible job for me to have...uttelry lonely, nights in Sacramento during the school year were cold and damp, and I hated being outside to walk these grounds at night. I was chilling in my thick jacket while everybody else in the complex was warm and cozy in their apartment with the flikering fireplaces and lights of their televisions taunting me through the closed blinds of their living rooms.
So now when I saw our new securty guard here, my heart would go out to him and I yearned to at least acknowlege his existence.
Late tonight, I was out on my balcony, enjoying the night air and having a delicious night cap, I saw the guard come aroud, lean against his car, light a cigarette, and talk on his cell phone (of course).
I wished I could at least say hi to him, but I was up here on the third floor, and finally I realized, "Why not just go down there and talk with him for a moment?" So I did. I knew I was interrupting his cell phone conversation, but I apologized for that and said I wasn't going to be long. I identified myself, asked him his name (Colby). I said that I had seen that he was working here and I was glad to see it. I mentioned that I knew it is a lonely job (but I guess the cell phone with a girlfriend fills in the gaps), and he agreed, yes, it was a lonely job. He was a very beautiful young black man, and most likely not the least bit similar to me, not doing work while going to law school, etc., but that doesn't matter, I wasn't expecting to be FRIENDS with him, I just wanted to acknowledge him.
I liked it that he pointed out that he saw that our entrance gate was stuck open (that must have happened sometime earlier today), so he was monitoring that situation. I told him that at least once a month some bozo here crashes into the gate, but that the management get that fixed as soon as possible.
Anyway, it was a satisfactory few minutes, I had gotten to do what I wanted to, and maybe he feels a bit more appreciated on this otherwise lonely and thankless job. I can see how valuable cell phone contact is for a young man of that generation. It would have come in handy to me when I was in law school!
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