Its been a long time since the last post. Life's been happening, a lot of travel for me the last couple of months!
Today I was just going through shows during lunch at HULU.com and I came across the episode from the 1970's TV show "Emergency" titled "905-WILD".
I vaguely recalled the episode, I used to watch Emergency with my family, it was junior high age for me back then. I've probably seen it since it was shown 34 years ago, "Emergency" was rerun at various times on different L.A. TV stations long before TV Land and the Internet. I just remembered something about Tigers on that specific episode and that it had been an attempt by Jack Web to 'spin off' another show by highlighting an organization like Animal Control as he'd successfully done with Paramedics for "Emergency!" Didn't work for Animal Control though and that late episode of the 1974/75 season didn't go anywhere.
It was interesting to see again though! I didn't remember Mark Harmon, now famous as "Gibbs" on "NCIS" was in the episode, as the partner of another actor I remember as being in many of Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" movies from that same general era. It is very typical Jack Webb of the late 60's early 70's like "Dragnet" and "Adam 12" were like (I liked those shows too!), the cute kid, the nice old man, everybody has a short speech, and lots of 'looks' as things happen. Since it happens through Emergency, there's all the show regulars, Gage, DeSoto, all the Doctors and Nurse 'Dixie' at "Rampart General". There's even a supposed surgery on a pygmy goat that at the end doesn't even have any evidence of anything being done to it! But the 'cute' kid and 'kindly' old man don't notice, they're just glad the hospital 'saved' their little goat. Of course at the expense of contaminating a hospital and who exactly was going to pay for all the stuff used for the goat?
Oh well, it was TV in 1975. Look at it from that perspective and enjoy! Watch it RIGHT NOW at www.hulu.com, it's season 4 episode 22 in their collection. The site says it will be available until September next year (2010) so you've got time. Mark Harmon looks so YOUNG! Beatles haircut and all, I wonder if he remembers doing the show?
Other than the acting I did like seeing animal control trucks just like what San Bernardino county had when I started in 1981. Back then though our trucks were all shades of browns and tans, didn't go 'all white' trucks until the mid 1980's. But in 1981 there were a couple of Dodges with the same cage boxes and high mounted rear spare tire. Thing I remember most is that those early 1980's Dodges would lock up and slide sideways in a heartbeat! No anti-lock yet!
Now of course with Animal Planet and all the news events that have and continue to still occur, public awareness of animal control is way up there. In 1975 on that show and through most of the years of my own career nobody really knew about the job except those people that called or who were "regulars". I remember that lack of knowledge made it great for weekends and holidays back then. Nobody knew much about animal control let alone we worked 7 days a week and 365 days a year. So back then you'd work your butt off during the week and be able to relax on the weekend, Saturdays for me, and get caught up with calls to check back on or just plain have an easy day. Saturdays were often the day of the shift you could have a chance to visit with the co-workers without getting calls or having to hide from the supervisors since back then there usually weren't any on then. Or it gave a person the opportunity to visit with friends while getting paid for it. Almost everyone that came to visit with me on my days off was working one of their regular days!
I know of many people that only visited with friends and such while at work, why not? You didn't have anything to do right then and you not only got paid for being there but it didn't cost you any of your own gas or time on your days off! It did get abused though, even worse than what I've just described. Shopping while at work, doing Laundry while at work, you know- drive up to the laundromat and unload your clothes out of a cage and go to it! Actually a person did get written up for doing that, now years later and she's still there, a supervisor. And she used to do worse than that when I was still there. She'd set up early morning patrols and ride out with an ACO to some of the far flung places in San Bernardino County, she'd sleep all the way there then they'd patrol a hour or so then use the 4X4 abilities of the trucks to explore for ROCKS!
Her county supplied pick-up truck was always loaded down with rocks or things she'd find while driving around the desert.
Don't be shocked reading that, this was the 1980's and you can't do that anymore. All the trucks have GPS monitoring (for this?) and you have to account for almost all of your work hours now a days.
Yes, I was lucky, and I remember thinking so then, it was a great job! Now I feel like myself and the friends I had then were in the 'Golden Era' of San Bernardino County Animal Control.
Tad
