IBM Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Formerly muddled 1972 IBM memories

my worst automobile accident

all muddled up The found diary has somewhat clarified my previously muddled 1972 IBM memories.

One thing I know: I got arrested at IBM Poughkeepsie at an antiwar demonstration on May 10, and was found guilty on May 18.

One thing I gathered: According to the Okie, her father, who worked at IBM Kingston, was furious with me because of the arrest. He, or both of her parents, gave her some sort of ultimatum of either them or me.

Another thing I know, although I’m surprised how this played out: the Okie ended up living at my parent’s house in Johnson City starting on May 24. Eventually, she slept in my sister Leslie’s room when Leslie went to Mexico with our great aunt Charlotte and some of Charlotte’s siblings. But she must have slept on the sofa in the den, or somewhere before that.

I what?

The Okie and I were desperate to find jobs. When I failed to find anything else, I ended back at IBM Endicott. I was a good employee when I worked there in 1971. It might have been that I thought the war machinery was built in Poughkeepsie but not in Endicott, to my knowledge. But that was disingenuous thinking.

I started there again on Wednesday, June 6, from 5:12 pm until 4 a.m., sometimes longer. Initially, I was running a metal cutting machine, cutting copper for hours, and sometimes running an autoclave, none of which I recall.

According to the diary, a guy named Rex had given me rides home a few times in ’71, and again early in ’72. Other folks (Pat, Pam) gave me rides home. While sometimes, the Okie or sister Leslie gave me a ride to work and occasionally picked me up, I also hitchhiked both ways sometimes.

On June 20, going to work, “an older man picked me up, telling me how much he liked colored people, how he fought for colored people, how some of his best friends were… He insisted on shaking my hand and swerved off the road. When I suggested that he stay on the road, he got mad and said, ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel, get out!'” I did but fortunately got picked up by another driver, and I also hitchhiked home.

The accident

Now, I did post here about my most serious car accident, except that I had gotten the week wrong. It was actually, on Wednesday, June 21. Hitchhiking, “I got picked up by a guy named Charlie. I didn’t know him but he knew my father and recognized me in him. He drops me off at a corner [McKinley Avenue], and I open the door then…

“As I learned later, this woman who had some arthritic condition in her leg, and had high-risk insurance, as a result, plowed into the rear of Charlie’s car at 35 mph because her leg could not reach the brake. Charlie’s car was pushed forward into the car in front of his, but since the car in front was much heavier than Charlie’s, it threw us back. Charlie was of course in the driver’s seat, but I was halfway out of the car and was knocked unconscious.”

“The ambulance took us to Ideal Hospital, where I had X-rays taken. They also took my pulse, temperature, and blood pressure a half dozen times before midnight. They gave me a shot of insulin and sewed up my three stitches. “

My parents, sister Marcia, and the Okie came to see me. “I couldn’t sleep and my very sore shoulder made turning over very difficult.” There are more details, about being in the hospital, in the same room as Charlie, for a day and a half. For one day June 30, I went back to work. But when the family picked me up EARLY, at 2 a.m. – my arm gave way, and I ended up doing physical therapy for six weeks.

Karma

As I wrote a decade ago: “It was wrong, FOR ME, to have worked at IBM that summer. I don’t want to say I was punished by God in the accident, but metaphysically/spiritually/whatever, it was just bad karma. And it only would get worse.”

A couple of unrelated sidebars. Sunday the 25th: “Mother awakened me from a sound dream-filled sleep after the Okie had given me a back massage. I had to conduct the morning service including prayer, which supposedly brought tears to the eyes of my mother and [my sister Leslie’s godmother] Mrs. McElroy. [The sermon was given by Beverly Thomas of the Urban League.]

Monday the 26th: The Okie, Leslie, and I saw A Clockwork Orange, which I liked more in the immediate aftermath than I recall it now.

International Business Machines

company town

Those of you of a certain age KNOW that International Business Machines, or IBM, was not just a large corporation, but, if you could get in there, a career. This article specifically addresses the import and outsized significance of IBM to the Triple Cities of Binghamton, Johnson City, and Endicott.

“The company was founded in 1911 as the Computer Tabulating Recording Company (CTR) and took up residency in Endicott, where the three companies that merged to form CTR had been based.” The buildings of the company dominated Endicott, taking up 150 acres of real estate. “At its height, IBM Endicott employed 19,000 people in the region and the majority of the population of the city.”

While there were undoubtedly many places that were “company towns”, Endicott, and the surrounding Broome County, were the first and foremost.

Les at IBM

When my father needed a job in the early 1960s, he was considered lucky to get into IBM Endicott. I had guesstimated that he had worked there for six years, but now I am uncertain. In the 1963 Binghamton City Directory, he was listed as working at the Interracial Center at 45 Carroll Street, but in ’64, at IBM. It’s probable that he was working at IBM in ’63. Could he have been working at both in ’62, since the IBM job was at night? IDK.

I DO know that he hated the job. It was mind-numbing boring for him, I’m guessing, moving materials around on forklifts from one area of the massive campus to another. He had been a trucker in his past, so I imagine that he was good at it.

It was only in retrospect that I realized how much I missed him. He did try to compensate by cooking waffles on Saturday mornings, and spaghetti Saturday nights, since we didn’t see him that much during the week. As I learned from him, the secret to a great spaghetti sauce is cooking it for hours.

Perks

Occasionally, we all went to the IBM Country Club. I have this vague recollection of seeing an exhibition game between the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics there. I could be misremembering the venue, but getting tickets was somehow a perk of him working there.

In this blog, I have told at least a half dozen times, how my 9th-grade homeroom and biology teacher, Mr. Joseph told me straight out that my father was “CRAZY” for leaving his job at IBM. This was “especially for a position with Opportunities for Broome, an OEO government job (where he thought he was making a difference). Government jobs come and go, but once you’re in the IBM family, you were set for life.”

Eventually, that became less true. In 1978, IBM moved 1,000 families from upstate New York to the Charlotte area, where, coincidentally, my parents and baby sister had moved four years earlier. That was the first big influx. (Charlotte pizza, before the Northerners came, was AWFUL.)

Me at IBM, first time

I graduated from Binghamton Central High School in January 1971. After looking for a few weeks, I got a job, of course, at IBM Endicott. I wrote about it here.

“My job was to do these three processes. The first was to put this laminated coating over these circuit boards. The second (and the most difficult) was to bake them in these ovens, making sure not to bend the pins or have the coating get on the pins. The third task was to bake this plastic holder onto the circuit boards.

“Irritatingly, the first shift did a lot of the first task, leaving the second task to me. And I really had to do it, because the coating would start riding up the pins if they weren’t baked within 10 or 12 hours. They didn’t like me because I would do the first task so fast that the company raised the rate for that job, something from 60 to 80 boards per hour. That WAS a tactical error on my part.

I was on the second shift, which ostensibly was 5:12 p.m. to 2 a.m ., with a 48-minute lunch. But I hardly ever worked that. It was usually 5:12 p.m. to 4 a.m., and then from 12 noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday…I saved a lot of money for college because of the 16 hours of overtime per week… Because I was generally too tired to go out – I managed to lose 30 pounds because I was too tired to eat…”

Give blood

“First time I ever gave blood was while I worked there because I could get paid at work while taking of the hour to donate.” When I left, my manager was disappointed, but I needed to go to college.

I made $3,371 in a little less than six months working at IBM before I went to college. “This would be the most money I would make until 1978. I made enough to pay for my college expenses and to lend my parents $1500 for the down payment on a house. Tuition was cheap, and I had a Regents scholarship to SUNY New Paltz.”

Getting to 5 Gaines Street, Binghamton

spray-painted

Les.Roger.backporch — Les and Roger Green, back porch of 5 Gaines St, 2nd floor, 1953

One of the facts I’d previously established is that Agatha Walker married McKinley Green in April 1931. But by 1936, they were living apart in Binghamton.

In the 1940 Census, they were still separated, with Mac at 98 Lewis and Agatha and her son Les at her parents’ house at 339 Court Street. My father’s last name had changed from Walker to Green, misspelled Greene in the Census.

By the 1941 City Directory, though, the three of them were all together at 10 Tudor. Not incidentally, that address doesn’t exist anymore, demolished to facilitate a bypass off of Riverside Drive.

The single useful thing found from a visit to the Broome County Clerk’s office was a record of the Order of Adoption of Leslie H. Walker, inf, [presumably infant, though he was 13 days shy of his 18th birthday] by Mr. McKinley Green. I knew this had happened, but seeing it in Book 22 of Civil Actions and Special Proceedings, page 572, was kind of cool.

Les was in the military in 1945 and 1946. I know from anecdotal information that he had a variety of jobs, including delivering flowers, before and after his service.

McKinley was a porter at Wehle Electric, but usually, he was a laborer. In 1947, he started at WNBF radio and Tv, as a laborer, and by 1956, as a janitor. He stayed there until he died in 1980.

No perceived miscegenation

My parents were married on March 12, 1950. They looked for a place to live in town but were thwarted. Potential landlords thought my mother, who is very fair, was white and that they were an interracial couple.

They subsequently moved to 5 Gaines Street, on the top floor of the two-family dwelling. It was owned by my maternal grandmother, Gertrude Williams, and presumably, her siblings, though she outlived them all. She and her sister Deanna (d. 1966) lived about six short blocks away.

Back in the 1890s, the resident was someone whose last name was Archie, which was a variant of the family name Archer, so it had been in the family for a long time.

Gaines Street is a single short block, notable growing up because the Canny’s trucks would go from Spring Forest Avenue, take a right down Oak Street, a left across Gaines, and another left onto Front Street and head out of town to NYC, Syracuse, Albany, Scranton, or wherever.

The directory says Les worked as a chauffeur at Niagara Motor Express, or elsewhere through 1957.

Meanwhile, by 1954, Mac and Agatha had moved upstairs at 5 Gaines, with my parents moving downstairs. This was likely predicated by the fact that my mother had her second child, Leslie that year.

New job

In the 1958 volume, Dad is an employee of the Interracial Association at 45 Carroll, not all that far from where he grew up. He’s listed as the assistant director the following year. The organization morphed into the Broome County Urban League in 1968.

I know Les was doing lots of other things in this period: arranging flowers at Costas, painting, and singing. By 1964, he was at IBM, a job he hated. So when my homeroom teacher, Mr. Joseph, told me my father was crazy for leaving IBM in 1967 for an OEO program called Opportunities for Broome, I shrugged.

When I’ve visited 5 Gaines Street in the past, I’d noticed that the hunter-green asbestos siding was now brown. What I didn’t notice is that the brown was sprayed on. And not particularly well on the side of the house, because the green is still partially showing on the side.

This was one of the first stops on the Roger Green magical history tour that I went on recently.

40 Years Ago – June 14, 1972: Purgatory

For several seconds, I believe that I have died, and that the people around me are part of the Judgment.

After I was arrested and convicted of trespassing at the IBM Poughkeepsie (NY) plant, one or both of the Okie’s parents decided that it was either them or me; the fact was that the Okie’s dad worked at the nearby IBM Kingston plant. The particulars are now fuzzy, but somehow, my parents agreed to have my girlfriend stay at their house in Johnson City, NY that summer, where they had just moved from neighboring Binghamton. she was staying in the room of one of my sisters. (More on that eventually.)

The thing was that the only job I could find was at IBM Endicott, and while I don’t believe it was involved in the same war program as IBM Poughkeepsie, it was the same multinational. Nagged by one of my father’s friends, and perhaps the Okie, I went to work there about June 5. Unlike the previous summer, where I had three different tasks to do, I had this one job ALL night involving putting clips on circuit boards – boring doesn’t begin to describe it.

I don’t recall how I got to work every day, but at least on Wednesday, June 14, I hitchhiked. I got picked up by a guy named Charlie. I didn’t know him but he knew my father and recognized me in him. He drops me off at a corner, and I open the door then…

As I learned later, this woman who had some arthritic condition in her leg, and had high-risk insurance, as a result, plowed into the rear of Charlie’s car at 35 mph because her leg could not reach the brake. Charlie’s car was pushed forward into the car in front of his, but since the car in front was much heavier than Charlie’s, it threw us back. Charlie was of course in the driver’s seat, but I was halfway out of the car and was knocked unconscious.

Some period later, I am lying on the sidewalk and there are a bunch of people standing around me in a circle. For several seconds, I believe that I have died and that the people around me are part of the Judgment. But is it heaven or hell? Then I hear an ambulance in the background, and I realize that I am still in Endicott, which is more like purgatory.

We get transported to a nearby hospital. At some point, one or both of my parents arrive, as does the Okie, who burst into tears. She’s crying because she is glad I’m OK. I THINK she’s crying because my face was a ghastly, swollen mess, which, IMO, it was.

I was in the hospital a day and a half. I remember one night, my pillow fell off the bed, and I had to ring a nurse because my shoulder was too sore to pick it up.

Friday, my father picked me up and took us home. What I remember most was the Union-Endicott High School football field filling up because of all the rain we had received from Hurricane Agnes. I spent a week home, and then a week at work.

Friday, June 30, my mom, the Okie, and my sisters picked me up from work. Usually, I worked from 5:12 p.m. until 4 a.m. – 10 hour-days were the norm – but we were getting a long weekend, so I got out at 2 a.m. We went grocery shopping. I was carrying a fairly light bag with my left arm when suddenly, it just gave out. Fortunately, I was able to catch it with my right arm.

For the next six weeks, I ended up doing physical therapy and probably worked a couple more weeks in the end.

The thing is: it was wrong, FOR ME, to have worked at IBM that summer. I don’t want to say I was punished by God in the accident, but metaphysically/spiritually/whatever, it was just bad karma. And it only would get worse.

40 Years Ago- May 18, 1972: Arrest and Trial

Fourth degree criminal trespass, in the state of New York in 1972, was a VIOLATION, akin to a traffic ticket. Specifically, it was not a CRIME, such as a MISDEMEANOR or a FELONY would be.

After I got back to my dorm room after my arrest at IBM Poughkeepsie on Wednesday, May 10, I figured I ought to call my parents to tell them what had happened. I remember almost nothing of the actual conversation. I DO remember that the conversation took 2.5 hours and cost $39! In-state calls with New York Telephone, at the time, were more expensive than out-of-state calls. Monopolies and all that.

That Saturday, I go visit my friend Alice in jail. I hug her; the matron didn’t like that. We talked for a good while, then I needed to give her a phone number. Having no paper, I started writing it on her hand; the matron REALLY didn’t like that. I left Alice with a Bible, and maybe a couple of other books. Odd, because Alice wasn’t terribly religious, but I figured it would be allowable.

Come to the trial date, and we had our day in court, getting to tell our stories about why we were protesting this IBM 360, which could help propel bombs as though it was part of a video game. You could tell the judge was sympathetic. But he noted that the law gave him no choice but to find 11 of us, including Alice, guilty of 4th-degree criminal trespass. (The 12th person, who had been arrested for disturbing the peace, was actually acquitted.)

The charge for which we were convicted was important. Fourth-degree criminal trespass, in the state of New York in 1972, was a VIOLATION, akin to a traffic ticket. Specifically, it was not a CRIME, such as a MISDEMEANOR or a FELONY would be. This means that when I fill out job applications and I am asked, “Have you ever been CONVICTED of a CRIME?”, I can honestly say, “NO.” I have to imagine that the charge the district attorney had WANTED was likely a MISDEMEANOR, and therefore a CRIME, which, potentially, could have proved to be more complicating for the rest of our lives. Yay, judge!

Ten of us were fined $25 each, conveniently, the amount of our bail. Alice received time served, which was eight days in jail. If you got arrested as well for some reason, ease your worries regarding your bail because there are a multitude of trustworthy bondsman, such as the ones in Shelton, Connecticut.

The father of my girlfriend, the Okie, who worked at IBM Kingston, the next county over from IBM Poughkeepsie, was terribly unhappy with me. He, or more likely his wife, gave this ultimatum to the Okie, them, or me.

We’ll come back to this narrative in mid-June.