In the last few weeks we've been going through our storage building and tossing out more stuff that has been in storage and unused since our move out of California in March 2006.
One of the items I came across was my last "call log" from my time at Animal Control. At left is a scanned copy of the page of calls, the addresses removed, that I did on Friday September 2, 2005. Exactly 5 years ago yesterday. I also was working on Saturday the 3rd but only had 5 calls for the day and Saturdays were still slow call wise.
Looking at the calls I see that I was working in the unincorporated San Bernardino County area of the High Desert, the Eastern Apple Valley and Lucerne Valley California at the time. The truck I drove that day started the day with 60, 158 miles on it. Of the 10 calls listed, and the P-2 means this was a second page of calls received, 6 were left overs and started my day when I started at 7:30 am. The one call not done of this group, by the lack of the line through it, was a call without enough information to complete it.
The other calls? Well, from left to right starting at the top call, in the dispatch computer program it was call 71-485 which was the day number and then the cumulative call number, 485. It was a "Stray-Running at Large and make contact with the Reporting Party" or as written S-R/RP on Bella Vista with a cross street of Central and although not indicated, this call was in the Apple Valley area.
Except for three of the calls all the calls were in the Apple Valley area, those two calls were in Lucerne Valley and one in Silver Lakes or Helendale.
There were two Bite calls, one with the animal owner one with the reporting party. A Stray Patrol call for a loose and usually hours or even days ago seen dog, then I ended that day with two Skunk calls one in the Spring Valley Lake community which often caught Skunks in traps. Then an over hour drive out to the community of Silver Lakes off the old Route 66 and on the way to Barstow for another Skunk in a trap. And finally the last call written was for a Snake in the yard back out in Apple Valley. My guess is with the snake call since I'd indicated an arrival of 16:10 or 4:10 pm and departure of 16:20 or 10 minutes later, that, as most often occurred, the snake was long gone before I got there. With nothing else written I apparently didn't have any of the constant overtime that night and was back home on time.
This doesn't look like many calls just looking on a sheet of paper, but working any of the "outlying areas" of the county usually meant hundreds of miles a day of driving. From the start of my day at my house to Lucerne Valley was right at an hour drive. From Lucerne Valley to Barstow another hour to get there and an hour back IF you don't have to impound anything at the Barstow shelter. Barstow shelter back to Wrightwood, as I would have to cover on Saturdays was almost two hours- one way! I think you can get the picture, a LOT of driving!
Now this wasn't the 'official' record of what was done in a day, that was on the form called a "D.A.R." or Daily Activity Report. Those were printed off by the literal thousands and gone through almost as quickly by the staff. Those were the pages that 'counted' and got turned in every month. Many people including me, used a pad or scratch paper and wrote or 'copied' all your calls on that and then transferred the calls completed to the DAR. I liked the spiral bound, college ruled, 70 or 100 sheet notebooks. Worked the best for me! I'd use all the sheets one way then flip it over and use them all on the other side back. Even in the photo you can see the print on the other page.
Oh well, interesting reading and remembering. All the way up to the last call I went out too in the department, Saturday February 12, 2006. At 13:35 that afternoon I was "On-Call" and given a 'call back' call to drive out to Trona California (go ahead- look all these places up on Google maps!) which is the Northern most city in San Bernardino County that you have to drive out of the county to get too. Seems that a person staying at the motel turned apartments there had not been seen for several days and he'd left his German Shepherd locked in his room, number 8. The manager had waited till the weekend (of course) to call and have it removed. I was on-call for my last time before going on leave use up all of my time to move and take our 'deferred retirement' and so got the call.
On the page for that one and only last call for that day, I got out to Trona at 17:15 and was there to 17:35. Then I drove back to the Barstow shelter to leave the dog and got there and was there from 19:15 to 19:35 to impound the dog. Then driving back to our house I was back home and "10-7" or end of duty at 20:45.
So that last call was 7 hours worked, hundreds of miles driven, to pick up one dog and take it to a animal shelter then drive home. Money wise it was double time for the call out and time and a half for those seven hours worked.
For many of the ACO's on-call could be quite a racket! For many of the penny pinching public it was quite a waste of their money! Unless of course THEY needed help!
Tad
