A few months after I got there, I was hired at a film place. My first job was to be a driver. I would start out by picking up film from some places and at the same time delivering it. My first day on that job I went with a young Hawaiian fellow who was my trainer.
We stopped some where so he could get lunch. Coming out of the small store, he hopped in the passenger seat and unwrapped his lunch. I swear, I almost hurled. What he ate was a pinky red rectangle of raw tuna. I could see the blood on his chin. It was so gross.
I tried to do this delivery stuff as best as I could but you had to be better than best. By this I mean you had to be fast. I wasn't used to speeding especially when there were innocent folks all over the roads. They crossed at every intersection. I don't mean just one or two but crowds of them.
There was hardly ever a parking space. When I was late getting back the third or fourth time they told me I'd have to go over the speed limit. I was told to not slow down for people, that they'd get out of my way. I couldn't do that. It just wasn't in me. I was terrified of hitting someone.
They told me it didn't matter if I drove on the sidewalk, the grass, or the road as long as I made better time. I could park on the sidewalk if I wanted to park there. They told me they'd pay all my parking tickets, not the speeding ones, but the parking ones.
I was really frustrated. I couldn't do this.
One afternoon I ran into the Ala Moana hotel. I was late, of course. I didn't watch where I was going. I knocked some lady on her butt. It was a black lady and I thought I was in big trouble now because she was not only a guest she was a well known TV actress. I apologized as best I could but she wasn't upset at all. She just laughed at me and told me "accidents happen."
It wasn't long after this I was called in to the office and told I wasn't going to make it as a driver for pickups and deliveries but they had other things in mind for me. I started doing something real simple the next day. I guess they were starting to think I was a real idiot.
I would stand there and un-bag and label the rolls of film to be developed. That wasn't too bad but it only happened a few times a day so they gave me other jobs to fill in. I learned how to work in the dark room. First they taught me how to make reprints. That was interesting.
From there I got sent to the dark room where they spliced together all the film strips. You had to work in total darkness but you had some kind of very faint light that didn't damage the film. It was like a pair of goggles you wore while you worked. You broke open a case if it was a 110 reel you were working on and stuck a sticky label on the one end of it. The other end you spliced to the main roll of films. You kept doing this till your roll either reached a certain size or you ran out of films to be added to it. They also warned me that some lady a year or so before me had lost a finger in the splicer doing it.
Then this wheel of films was put through a vat of chemicals but you never saw that happening. If you went outside of the dark room you could see them coming out on the final wheels. The negatives and prints would roll out to go to another section where they were cut into individual photos.
Sometimes guys would stand around laughing at the photos coming off of the reel. People think when they send there films in no one looks at them but let me clear that up for you. If you take naked pics of your sweetie and send them in to be developed, you can pretty much bet someone is going to see them and notice. I got called over to look at one reel once. I couldn't see it very well. I thought maybe it was flowers. It wasn't. It was a close up of a female crotch. I just laughed and walked away to another job.
Once I helped out with a batch of photos from a school. Those are pretty easy because the photographer knows what he or she is doing so its a simple matter to check them and put them in envelopes with the right labels.
Sometimes I would check orders to be sure the machines were cutting them right and the right counts were in each envelope. I didn't have to count every one. I just had to spot check some of them.
At one time I was given the task of hunting up lost orders. I was taken upstairs with a list of photos and orders I was looking for. This was like the dead letter office of lost films. There were rows of shelves with boxes of white envelope orders. I had to go though the most likely ones looking for the lost ones. I found one or two but most I didn't.
I found an envelope of a totally naked woman. It was a whole roll of just her in different poses. As I looked through more envelopes, the same lady kept popping up. I found out why later when I told one of the guys about it. It seems there was a "studio" where tourists could take "art" photos of naked women.
They paid a big fee for the privilege. I bet some were afraid their wives would find out and just left the film to be developed knowing they'd never have the nerve to pick up the photos. They would always have that memory of their lifetime..
There were film orders here dating back several years. They didn't throw any out just in case. A lot were just unclaimed orders. If someone left a roll to be developed and then left the islands without remembering to pick up there order it got stored here. Usually an order, if it was from a tourist, would have the name of the person and the hotel and room where they were staying on it but no home address. It was not likely the company would send it to them unless they sent the money and requested it and someone like me could find it. They usually just forgot it entirely.
I had other jobs I did. I worked in customer service at times. I was really enjoying the people and the jobs.
I got to work with real people from the island not just military or tourists. At lunch times I'd get to see what they ate and hear their stories. Two very old women worked here. They would tell me about what it was like in Hawaii during the war years. They were both of Japanese descent but they weren't angry about it. They told me they were always treated well.
One lady brought in delicious little puffs of bread dough baked with a bit of pork inside them.
I would hear stories about them going to dances with their gas masks fastened on their hips. They thought they were very ugly but if they didn't wear them they would be in trouble. One lady told me she would hide things in the case along with her mask. She kept at least two cigarettes in there as well as a spare lipstick and some change. You never knew when you'd need to touch up your lips, she said to me.
At one time they held a big party in the shop. It was some kind of blessing ceremony because of new construction. We didn't have to work but we had to be there. It was kind of interesting. The guy that did the blessing wore green leaves around his neck. I saw some wedding photos where they wore the leaves too.
Just before Christmas they had a fancy party for all the employees at the Princess Hotel. I hope that was the name of it. I dressed in one of the gowns I'd bought at Goodwill back in Colorado. Nobody ever commented on it looking used so I guess I was fine.
There was a feast and music. They handed out awards. I'm sure I didn't get one. People gave speeches. It was kind of boring but Tom loved the food.
Tom got time off from work to come with me. We took the bus because we didn't have a car. I was worried about how we'd get home. We managed to get out of the party on time to catch the bus home. It was the last bus, so it didn't go up the hill to our street. We had to walk the whole way. I didn't really mind. When the bus went up Hotel street I was looking out the window. I saw a young oriental lady with overly made up eyes. She had magenta eye shadow in big sweeping lines. She looked like what she was.
Eventually, I was laid off from this job and went on to another film one. The reason for the layoff was because the Christmas rush was over and they had to let at least four people go. It wasn't a case of "last hired, first fired," though. I was laid off not fired because I hadn't done anything wrong. But I was also let go because there was a young girl there who had been hired after me but she was a new immigrant from Viet Nam. I was told she needed the job more than me because it was the only way she could stay here and I had a military husband so I didn't need the job.
I really felt a little bad about that because I liked the job but I knew he was right and he was right to explain it to me so I wouldn't think I just couldn't cut it. Military families do not make a lot of money so in a lot of ways I did need a job.
From there I went on to working for a company that provided drivers for big shot visitors and TV and Movie stars. I won't tell you all the people I drove around. Some you would know, most you wouldn't. Some were politicians I'd never heard of. I got to go to some exciting and interesting places and see things the average person didn't see.
I didn't drive him anywhere but I did get to meet Jack Lord and that to me was one of the most exciting things I did there.
There was another place where I delivered manila envelopes. I don't know what was in them and didn't care but they felt like 8X10s or maybe they were just documents. I had to sign in at a gate an show my ID, then drive up a long winding driveway. I'd start to ring the bell but someone usually would just come out and sign for it and I'd be off again. I never found out to whom I was delivering things. It was a bit odd but I never got in trouble. I just thought I was handing stuff to somebody's secretary.