In the next few months, I will tell stories of my life in pest control and afterward as a Vector Control officer. But first, how the hell did I, a crazed acting Hippie, end up as a Bugman? For one of the great common reasons of all: I needed a job.
For over 20 years of my life, I had a license to kill. I was allowed to use toxic nerve gas and other poisons in an effort to keep diseases from invading and destroying society. I was a Pest Control Field Representative. Bugman. Exterminator. Roach Killer. Low See Low. That last one means "Rat Man" in Mandarin. I learned that and a decent amount of Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Spanish on the job. And you thought we just killed innocent creatures?
When I hitchhiked out to San Francisco in 1980, my brother Dave was living here with his first wife. I left from Miami, where I essentially just wanted to get the hell out, and hitched up to visit a friend in Chicago and then over to San Francisco. I decided that I finally wanted to move to LA and try to become rich and famous. I had hitched out there once before, but only stopped in LA and went totally by San Francisco. Since my brother and wife offered to put me up for a while, I thought that at least getting to SF would get me one step closer. I didn't know then just how big a step it is between San Francisco and Los Angeles!
Oh, did I mention that I left Florida with 20 bucks and arrived with 1.50? I still don't know how. The day Ia arrived in San Francisco, it was September of 1980, the beginning of the Indian Summer for SF. It was 75 when I got off the bus in Bernal Heights and hugged my bro! Kisses hugs all around! Okay, I am in SF. So far, so good. Now, I needed a job.
Two weeks. That's all it took. I took the bus all over SF looking for anything, gas station attendant, construction. Nada. When I was going around looking, I did notice that I had 'the look", short hair, mustache, hmmmmm, the guys in the Castro District have the same look. So naive? I looked in the SF Chronicle want ads (when they were very important and you could actually get jobs from the newspaper want ads!) and saw an ad for a Pest Control man wanted, no experience necessary, will train. Hmmmmmm.
AAA Pest Control. They were first in the phone book! I walked in to the little office, a weird, sweet smell of malathion hit my nose. Only one person was in the office, a funny little man named Fred Killar. Really. He asked me about myself, the usual crap, and he liked me because I was a lansman. I went out with one of his two employees, Todd. Todd was a sleazy guy who was the perfect stereotype of a bugman, smoking cigarettes without washing his hands between being a spray jockey doing "pest control".
He was, though, a guy who I knew how to play. He was okay in that if I kept the conversation to chicks and weed and "stuff", I think I had a job. A job that definitely was one of my interesting and financially decent choices in life. One of the first places we went to was a Chinese tenement in Chinatown. O, boy, did I get an eye opener. These are the things that never leave the mind, so fresh!
We entered the building, Todd with his B&G sprayer, the Beemer of applicators!!! I also had one, pumping up too high as I followed Todd's basic instructions. He knocked on the first door. "CHIT KAP CHAT!! CHIT KAP CHAT!", he yelled. WTF? Todd looks at me and says that means, "cockroach kill" in Cantonese (and sorta in Mandarin. San Francisco's Chinatown was primarily founded by the minority Cantonese, so many people here speak it. Most speak Mandarin).
The door flies open and, "Kap Chat Low!", the man says happily, meaning "cockroach man"! Well, here I am on my first day of being a bugman and already I am learning Cantonese! Whoulda thought, especially with Todd. This was gonna be good. We entered the apartment? Room with a few corners with stacks of items and the intense smell of Chinese food mixed with very close living with hundreds of other poor people in the building. Wow, even a major social eye opener for me. Todd squirts here and there, totally useless and very stinky malathion, the nice man saying with a very heavy accent, "splay more!, splay more!"
I learned a lot on my first day. That is an understatement. But the day was not complete until Todd and I drove back at 5 and he told the boss that he thinks I would be great for the company. Right there on the spot! Thanks, Todd. You wierdo. The boss, Fred, sat me down and said that I will be getting $850 a month, that if I get hurt on the job I am insured and he will see me tomorrow. That was just the first day. I had no idea........
Till next time, Peace!
Ken
