Jack Martini's Journals

Sept-Dec. 1970

Some of Frank's actions at work were both humorous and at the same time disconcerting. For example, often when he was in the operating room, Frank was preoccupied with his thoughts, and at times when a person talked to him, it was like talking to a stone wall. One could go through a twenty minute dissertation and when finished might receive a "Huh? What did you say?." And the person had to go through the whole sequence again.

Another one of FG's quirks was his untimely interruptions. You might have a stack of messages in front of you, some very important, some routine, but they were all live, paid traffic. Frank would come up to you and plop a note down on top of the message stack and say: "Here, send this to Edna Citrano, or Al Malone right away." Murder crossed the mind of more than one operator for they had to sop what they were doing, interrupt their own train of thought and move Frank's routine or deferred memo to its destination.

Another habit that was difficult to accept was the boss's requests for various materials. He usually yelled across the room: "Pass the shears! Pass my black book! Pass the gum tape! Damn it, how can a man work without his tools. Hells bells and damnation!"

Frank was working on his beloved locally generated call sign book which only he and Bill Meloney could amend by general order.

(Jack inserted this story he received from Ray Smith, senior Morse operator at KPH and one of FG's "pillars of strength" along with Jack: )

Hey Jack, just wanted to say how much I am enjoying the extracts from your "journal".

One pretty funny FG story I remember concerns he and Joel Medina. Joel was sitting 500 that day and we were using either a Model 14 or 15 teletype machine maybe you can tell which.

In any case (another FG expression) case these machines, when they were running low on tape, used to make a "ding ding ding ding" sound so one day a "ding ding ding ding" came from the general vicinity of Joel.

Frank glared at Joel with no response, and this went on for many dings and glares. Finally Frank could stand it no longer and rose from his seat and jerked the cover off the Model 15 with a mighty tug. It was full of tape! Frank glanced at Joel who was diligently stirring his Tea! Frank returned to his seat shaking his head (one of those unforgettable FG stories).

73 Ray

End Part 5

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