Frontiersman, March 2024

Knowing When to Quit
The Dunk Tank
Sam Aurelius Milam III

During the middle 1980s, I worked as a Quality Assurance Auditor for AMD, in Sunnyvale, California. For the first two years that I worked there, the company had good sales, and lots of profits. During that time, management hosted a big employee picnic each spring. There were various festivities, including a dunk tank. A member of management would sit on a seat over a huge tub of water. Beside the seat was a big target. An employee could obtain three baseballs from an attendant, to throw at the target. If a baseball hit the target, then the seat would drop the member of management into the water. Great fun. Dunk the boss.

Usually, I’m not good at athletic things. I never have been. When we were choosing up sides at the Harmony Elementary School, I was always the last person chosen. At the Oak Crest Junior High School and the East Central High School, I avoided most of the physical education malarkey by joining the band. In college, I was moderately mediocre at handball and completely inept at judo and karate.

Given my lack of skill at such things, I don’t know why I even got in line for the dunk tank event, at the AMD picnic, but I did. Maybe it was because of who was on the seat. She was the manager of one of the areas that I routinely audited, so she knew me reasonably well. I didn’t know her nearly as well as I would have liked, but that’s an entirely different story. Anyway, when I arrived at the head of the line, I gave one of my baseballs a little toss into the air, just a few inches, just to get my grip right and, maybe, stalling for time. Anyway, there must have been something in my glance when I looked at her because she yelled, “Sam! Don’t you dare!” by which time my baseball was already whizzing toward the target. I was amazed. It was a once-in-a-lifetime bull’s-eye. The seat dropped and she went into the water, butt down, arms and legs up, somewhat like I’d always imagined her but, as previously noted, that’s an entirely different story. Anyway, it was a beautiful sight to behold. I handed my two remaining baseballs to the man in line behind me and strolled away.

The trick is knowing when to quit.

Same as Downtown
As retold by Sam Aurelius Milam III

When Father Murphy completed his studies at the seminary, he was immediately sent to a church on the other side of the state. It was a church that very much needed a new priest, having lost its previous one several months earlier.

Father Murphy boarded a bus and arrived at his destination in the evening, just before dark. During his short walk from the bus station to the church, he was somewhat distressed by the neighborhood. He’d had a very sheltered upbringing and wasn’t familiar with neighborhoods like the one in which the church was situated. Many of the buildings in the neighborhood were boarded up. Many were in need of repairs. The streets were not clean and, in one location, as he neared the church, he observed a collection of disheveled-looking people huddling under old blankets or big pieces of cardboard. It appeared that they intended to stay there all night. Father Murphy speculated that, maybe, these were “the poor” that had been mentioned during his education.

When Father Murphy arrived at the church, he found two nuns, it turned out that they were the only remaining residents of the place, sitting near the front of the church, apparently engaged in meditation. One of them, who identified herself as Sister Julia, showed Father Murphy to his quarters.

Father Murphy was eager to begin his work, so he decided to go out, briefly, into the neighborhood, even though it was late, and quickly getting dark. He went out the front door of the church and turned right, toward the corner. Turning the corner, he headed toward the next corner, at the other side of the block. As he approached that corner, he observed a very scantily clad woman, leaning against the post of a stop sign. She smiled, wiggled, and said, “Quickie Father, five dollars.” He didn’t have the foggiest notion what she meant, so he said, “Bless you my child,” and turned the corner, heading along the back side of the block. At the next corner, he encountered another such woman who also smiled, wiggled, and said, “Quickie Father, five dollars.” Increasingly puzzled, Father Murphy decided to get back to the church as quickly as possible, and ask about this peculiar local terminology. Maybe it was a regional usage, a result of immigrants from overseas.

Ending his little excursion early, he turned right, at the corner, and headed straight back toward the front of the church. When he arrived there, and started up the stairs, he saw that Sister Julia was standing just outside of the door. He hurried up to her, filled with curiosity, and asked, “What’s a quickie, Sister Julia?” She replied, “Five dollars, Father, same as downtown.”