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4
During my tenure with the Post Office, our second child, a daughter, was born. We named her Shirley Ann CRONK, which was the name we had held in reserve since the birth of our son nine years earlier. “Robbie” was originally scheduled to receive that name (Shirley Ann), but when he turned out to be a boy, we held it in our minds until our daughter was born. Her birthdate was October 2, 1955.
While working as a mail carrier, another one of my patrons with whom I was also very friendly, worked for the U. S. Customs Service in Jacksonville. She was named Violet Whitehead. She told me that there was the possibility that I could transfer to the U. S. Customs. So I went to see the Collector of Customs (Mr. M. D. White) in Tampa, Florida, which was the Headquarters Port for Florida. I spoke with him and told him that I had desired to transfer from the Post Office to Customs. When I did not receive the transfer for the first two openings, I continued to advise the Collector that I was still interested in a transfer. When the third opening came up, I was selected to fill the job.
However, the job was that of an Export Documents Examiner and the job was located in Miami, Florida. I was making $4,410.00 per year as a mail carrier and was at the top of the pay scale.
The new job with Customs paid just $70.00 more, or $4,480.00 per year (GS-5), but that was at the bottom of the pay scale with an opportunity for advancement (which was almost non existent in the Post Office). I accepted the job and moved to Miami. Inez stayed in Jacksonville to take care of our house and our one year old daughter and to keep our ten year old son in school. I reported to work in Miami on October 1, 1956. It took almost three more months to sell the house, which we did, and then Inez and our two children joined me in Miami.
My duties with the U. S. Customs in Miami consisted of examining all required documents which accompanied each export. to determine whether or not licenses and all federal regulations and laws were met. The documents were scrutinized carefully and when any discrepancies occurred, physical examination of the merchandise being exported might be in order.
I recall one instance in which we were going to physically examine the contents of a suitcase which had already been loaded on the departing airplane at Miami International Airport where I was stationed (still being loaded at the ramp), and we approached the baggage compartment of the aircraft. The bag was spotted, and in moving the baggage surrounding it, it was determined that one of the bags was extremely heavier that it should have been. We not only removed the original suitcase, but also the heavy one. It turned out that the original suitcase was within the law, but the heavy one drew our utmost attention when, after determining that it contained only some light clothing, was still heavy. We removed the clothing (bag was still heavy) and discovered a false bottom. The bag contained hundreds of new watch bracelets intended to be smuggled into the country to which the passenger was traveling. Needless to say, they were confiscated.
Mr. M. D. White, Collector of Customs in Tampa, asked me, on about January 2, 1957, if I would accept a position of Assistant Entry Officer in Tampa, which was the Headquarters Port for the state of Florida, at a grade GS-7. I told him I would definitely be happy to accept, and he told me to wait until I heard from him. It was a long period of time before I finally heard from him as to the move. So long, in fact, that I had given up hope on the promotion. But in the last two weeks of March 1957, he asked me if I could report to Tampa in one week to check out the job and to see if I was compatible to my fellow workers.
It turned out that there was just one other worker there who was in charge of the Entry Division, carrying the title of Entry Officer in Charge. His name was Frank J. Knight, who told me I would be there for two weeks on a temporary assignment. In effect, I think it was not me who was checking out the position, but it was Frank Knight checking me out. After just one week, Frank told me that he would recommend me for the job, and that I could go ahead and make living arrangements. I rented a house on Gabrielle Street near McDill Air Force Base in south Tampa. When my two week temporary assignment expired, I returned to Miami, spent one more week there, and then transferred to Tampa permanently on April 6, 1957.
Well, here we were back in Tampa, Florida. The city in which Inez and I were married just over ten years ago, and the city in which I had received my discharge from the military. It was ironical, because neither Inez nor I particularly liked Tampa when we left it in 1945, and through a strange twist of fate, it was now our home. Suffice it to say that now we are glad it happened, because we do not know of any place in the entire United States that we would rather live. We both love the west coast of Florida and the Tampa area in particular.
When I had learned the technicalities of the job of Entry Officer, I was officially appointed a Deputy Collector of Customs. This enabled me to make certain decisions, issue directives, and perform my job in the name of the Collector.
After working in the Entry Division for about two years, Frank told me he was going to recommend me for a promotion to GS-8, and he prepared and submitted the necessary papers to accomplish this. It was approved, however when the promotion was returned, it was for a GS-9, and that is the grade I received.
Because the duties of the Entry Division were so numerous and diversified, I will not try to list them here, but the duties involved enforcing the rules and regulations (laws) of the Federal Government dealing with the import and export of merchandise into or out of the United States, and determining that the correct amount of duty was paid therefor, among other things.
Frank Knight was not only my boss, he was also my friend and my mentor. He was very knowledgeable about the responsibilities of the Division, and in fact assumed the role of Acting Collector of Customs on those occasions when both the Collector and Assistant Collector were away from their posts. He retired, partly due to ill health, in 1963 (I believe), and I was appointed as the Entry Officer in Charge on an interim basis until a permanent selection was made.
However, after serving as the temporary Entry Officer in Charge for about seven months, I was told that the job had to be filled by a Liquidator, and the Liquidator’s job eliminated, or that the job of Entry Officer in Charge would be eliminated. In other words, that left me out in left field with no chance at the job. I met with the Collector and requested that I be given the next Inspector’s job that came open. He concurred, and I was appointed a Customs Inspector in 1964.
Looking back at this turn of events, I consider it as one of the best things that happened to me in my career.
As an Inspector, I worked a considerable amount of well compensated overtime, and soon found myself completely out of debt. Until this day, I never went into debt again, except for a major purchase such as a house or car. Over the years, I managed to save enough money that when it came time for me to retire, I felt that, with my annuity and savings, I could afford to do so.
Several times during the years I worked as Customs Inspector, I was sent to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to relieve the Depurty Collector in Charge there for such things as vacation or sick leave. Once in particular, while I was temporarily assigned to Cape Canaveral, it was necessary to meet the astronauts airplane on their return to the United States from their space mission. These astronauts were Stafford and Schirra.
In the early days of the space program, the astronauts returned to Earth in a small pod which landed in the ocean and was picked up by naval ships. They were then flown to Bermuda and placed in a U. S. military hospital for observation and tests to determine the effect of weightlessness on man. These tests usually lasted about a week, and then they were flown to the United States. Later this process was accomplished on board the naval vessels.
While I was waiting at Cape Canaveral for the airplane to arrive from Bermuda, I was discussing with Alan Shepard, who was one of the persons in charge of the mission, exactly how we were going to process these two gentlemen through Customs. Since they had been nowhere out of the country except the hospital in Bermuda, we decided that we would not examine anything they had brought with them.
But we concentrated on the crew members and other persons on the airplane who had departed the United States for the purpose of retrieving the astronauts.
Lo and behold, it seems that we had to collect duty from almost all persons on the aircraft, except the astronauts, because of the liquor they had bought in Bermuda.
ABC, NBC, and CBS television crews were on hand to record the return, and had their cameras pointed at the astronauts,.
There was a rostrum set up so that the astronauts could address the approximately 200 NASA workers who were assembled to witness their return. I was standing by the airplane in direct line with the cameras, over the shoulders of the astronauts. I was adorned with approximately five security badges, each one allowing me to get closer to the airplane.
After returning to my hotel, the Kiki Hotel at Cocoa Beach, I called Inez in Tampa on the telephone and told her to be sure to watch the news on TV about the astronauts return, and that I was the person in uniform over their shoulders standing by the airplane. When the news came on that night, Walter Cronkite was airing the event, however there were no pictures of the astronauts (except briefly), but rather the article was filled with pictures of the first link-up between two vehicles in space. I was superseded by the link-up, and I missed my big chance to be on national TV
During my term of duty as a Customs Inspector, I was selected to go to El Paso, Texas, for a period of seven weeks to attend Spanish language school. This school was run by U. S. Customs, was taught by Mexican teachers, both men and women, and consisted of a total of fifty lessons. The Customs agents who attended the school continued for an additional seven weeks after the original seven weeks expired, but the Inspectors were allowed the original seven only, and during that time I completed thirty-one lessons. I would like to have spent another seven weeks there because it seemed that just when I was beginning to learn the language, I was removed from the course. Since that time, I have practiced my knowledge of Spanish at every opportunity, and although I can speak it (not fluently), write it and read it (to a degree), I still cannot understand the Spanish language. When Spanish is spoken in a conversation, in the movies, television and radio, I do not understand the subject of which they speak. Seven weeks was not enough time to acquire an ear for the language. However, I can be easily understood when I am doing the talking. I do believe, however, that if I had the opportunity to live in a Spanish speaking country, I would be very fluent in about six months.
On two other occasions while I was working as an Inspector, I was given temporary out-of-town assignments.
Once, when the east coast of the United States was experiencing a stevedore’s strike, the west coast had just ended their strike and the number of ships that had been standing by during the strike all converged on the west coast ports at one time. The work load was overwhelming, and since the east coast was now under a strike, many Inspectors from many east coast ports were diverted to the west coast to aid in processing the cargo being imported. John Gremer, another Inspector in Tampa, and I were sent to Seattle, Washington, for thirty days. We rented an apartment with two bedrooms (separate baths) and enjoyed the assignment as much as possible.
John and I decided we would like to visit Vancouver, B. C., in Canada, and so we rented an automobile and drove to that city, which was approximately 150 to 200 miles from Seattle. We did not know that the Blue / Gray Football Game (the equivalent of our Superbowl) of the Canadian Football League was taking place in Vancouver that weekend, and we found it very difficult to obtain a hotel room for the night. But we persevered, and finally found one with a detached bathroom. Considering ourselves lucky, we eagerly accepted the circumstances, and put up with the bathroom down the hall. It was quite an experience being in the same city as the football game and thousands of people. So many people that the influx caused the city officials to close and rope off several blocks of streets in the downtown section. There was much partying in the streets and everyone seemed to be in a happy mood.
Another trip I made which was not nearly as enjoyable as the Seattle trip, was to the port of Port St. Joe, Florida. I was sent there for a week, again to supervise the discharge of cargo from vessels because a different stevedore’s strike was in progress on the east coast. However, this was different because it seems that the stevedores in Port St. Joe were not part of the stevedore’s union and did not participate in the strike. Consequently, comparing the trip to Seattle, the contrast was very obvious. Port St. Joe, Florida, at night was like a ghost town. There was nothing to do at night except to sit in your hotel room and watch TV During the week I stayed in Port St. Joe, I did manage to attend a movie at the local theater which was open only about three days a week. I was glad to return to Tampa upon the completion of my assignment.
My retirement from Customs came on January 10, 1981, after over thirty-six years of government service. I was very apprehensive about retiring, thinking that I would not earn enough money to survive, but in reality, it has not been that bad. Over the years, I have been pleasantly surprised to learn that, necessarily being frugal in some areas, the transition was not too upsetting.
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