The Dynamic Duo

Doesn’t that sound cool? Kind of like a movie sequel; kind of alike a store lady that has been riding, and is now riding again….......kind of like, I dunno, just kind of cool. It may be a little misleading, but that’s how this game is played. You gotta pull out all the stops and hook the audience in….........and now for those few of you who may still be with me, our feature presentation: The Store Lady Rides Again.
In our last chaper, the intrepid Store Lady had just driven 80 miles to Windy Camp so that the Calvin Inmates might have their store. Wednesday, Aug 30 was supposed to be the golden, magical day. The day a brand new computer was going to be installed in the store, a PC with Word, Excel and, wonder of wonder, the internet! In the meantime, the store would be closed for a few days, so UltraMom made good use of her time to drive to Idaho and work some more on clearing out that house she has decided to sell. A little R & R time was necessary; dinner with relatives, church, and spending time with UM’s best Idaho friend, whose kids now own Murhpy’s brother, albeit from a different litter. There was also a bit of playing the piano and playing of the old Carpenters records, but a LOT of sorting, discarding and lamenting how much was still to be done.
(Switching out of tiresome third person) I knew I had to be back in Carlin no later than 6 PM Tuesday evening. After all, I had a Weight Watcher group to lead. But after stopping longer than intended to visit with my friend Sharon in Arco, and being held up 40 minutes by road construction at The Craters of the Moon (look it up), it was soon apparent, even to me, that this was not going to happen. Resourcefully, I phoned a staunch LifeTime member and asked of her an enormous favor. “The scale is there in the closet. Can you just weigh people, write it down, and tell them to talk amongst themselves until I arrive? I should be there before 7:00.” She graciously agreed. Pulling out all the stops, I breezed into the meeting room at 7:10, wearing levi capris, tennis shoes and a crumpled T-shirt (NOT approved WW leader apparell), and carrying my poodle. I proceeded to, first, apologize, and second, deliver an awesome and insightful lesson on goal-setting. At least that was the intention.
Okay, Wednesday morning I went to the prison, to ostensibly meet the computer tech(s) and let him(them) into the store. No computer people were there, but there WAS a familiar face I thought most likely never to see again. Joe was back in Calvin! Joe, you may remember was one of my first store clerks, and made it his (very difficult) mission in life to keep me organized and the store running smoothly. He had wrangled a transfer to a prison closer to his mother, and where he could live in a cell instead of the dormitary-type setting of Calvin Camp. Joe breezed into the store as if he had never been away. “I wrote you a letter telling you I was coming back,” he informed me. “There was a caseworker at that prison who didn’t like me. I applied to work in the Coffee Shop there, but he never gave them my application, and then informed me he was sending me back to Calvin.” Of course there was no way I would fire Ricky or Trevor to hire Joe back, but there might just be a way…...............
“Joe,” I said, “Would you be willing to work in the store for no pay? If the LT okays it, for Days Only?” This might require a little bit of explanation, esp. as I don’t entirely understand it myself, but there are certain jobs in the camp that have no pay associated with them. But they are still bona fide jobs, though, so the worker will still earn a few days off his sentence (I don’t know the formula) like any other inmate worker who is paid. They call these type of jobs “Days Only” meaning you are earning only your sentence reduction days, but no money. Joe is lucky to have relatives who regularly send him money, so he agreed. Ricky and Travis were all right with it too. Later that afternoon, when my mail was delivered to the store, there was a letter from Joe telling me he was coming back.
Eric, a very nice and personable computer tech finally showed up about an hour later. But the plan had been changed. The whole Satellite System was down, so they weren’t going to install our camp on it yet. For now, he would make my old computer work, and replace a few tractor feed printers about the camp that had been giving their users a lot of grief. The scenario I had envisioned (straight from Jackson), of a couple of hours work and a shiny, new, working computer played out a little bit differently. Eric squatted on the floor for hours at a time in front of the antiquated control unit and modem with the phone glued to his ear and Ernie on the other end. The phone lines were tested, which involved two different phone companies. Connections were tested and lots of things tried that made only a modicum of sense to me. Joe was everpresent, asking Eric questions and trying to help troubleshoot. Apparently it had been Joe, a year or so ago, who had been sitting on the floor, on the other end of a conversation with Ernie and finally getting the computer to work. Periodically, Eric would go out to his car to get something, or to the phone closet to do…......something….....
I hung around, ate some cookies and crackers, visited with the guys and told a lot of people there would be “No Store Today.” I was there for 9 1/2 hours.
Eric ended up spending the night in the area, and bright and early this morning, I met him at the camp and again let him into the store. After a bit more monkeying, he finally had a verdict. The controller was bad. It might just work if we could find a spare start-up disk. This started a camp-wide search, and yielded countless 3 1/2” floppies from various offices. None of them were what we needed. So now Ernie is rebuilding us a new controller. There is a rumor it may be “over-nighted’, in which case we could have it by tomorrow. Another just as credible (probably more credible, actually) rumor is that we will have it mid-next week. But for now, I’m going to Windy. I’ve got some tickets to run.

UltraMom