I was serving in Tower One of the first Avro high-rise in downtown Oklahoma City, and was currently having a good time. On this day we were having a three shift rotation and we had just finished with the night shift. Now Tower One was fully manned, with all forty operators and about twenty security personnel on duty for the eight to four shift.
There were so many buzzers, some of them sounding, in the control room, that you couldn't find the one you were looking for easily. Even the engineers and operators were confused. Everyone buzzed or called out to each other, not really listening to what other people were saying, just trying to find the person they were talking to.
So I was having a good time listening to all the noise while the control staff tried to figure out what was going on. I was in my fifth year as a Telephone Technician at the Oklahoma City Police Department and Tower One was my favorite post. There was never a dull day at this post.
Contrary to what most people thought, the people who worked in the Police Department were not cut out for a nine to five job and you couldn't force them to do it. Most of our people were communications experts, in the fields of Telecommunications and Electronics, and some as Information Technology.
They all contacted one another, from the Computer Scientists to the Police Officers, by cell phone and the radios, much more than they used phones. So you can't really stop and think about what you are doing because you are too busy. Everyone was trying to hurry and find answers for their questions, and had no time to converse about them.
So there was even more confusion. But Tower One was a lot different from the rest of the Police Department. In Tower One, we were more like a family and the questions were more important than the answers, and you could converse about them. The confusion was like a game and we never knew when to expect it.
We could wake up one day and see ten or fifteen separate problems or one major problem, or none at all. Things were always moving and changing, and you couldn't figure it out until you started. We didn't know how the training and the people in Tower One worked.
But Tower One was the life of many of our citizens and we were very slim compared to the rest of the Police Department. Tower One was the main communications control point in the city. Any major emergency, movie or sports event was handled by Tower One. No one would ever know what took place behind the doors of this control room because of the serious work environment. But we were always having a good time.
She's gone, and he kept crying. The cops had tried to find out who killed my mom, but they couldn't. My brother was my only family, besides my Aunt Laura and Uncle Ted, who happened to be passing through town. They took me to their house and introduced me to their kids and their grandchildren. Everyone knew about my mom and I was already feeling homesick for her. The only day I didn't cry was the day my Aunt Laura came to the house.
So my aunt was my best friend at the time and the house felt like home for me, even if I didn't know the people. Reese told my Aunt, "Without Sara and me, there won't be no family. We're all that's left. So this was how I got to Oklahoma City and started to describe how I got where I am today.
I started college at the University of Oklahoma but only stayed three days. I didn't like the program I was going into and I wanted to find a program that I would enjoy. So I left OU and .my aunt and uncle didn't know what I was going to do. My aunt told me she would wait however long I needed to, to decide what I wanted to do. That summer was the worst summer of my life.
I sat around and thought about things, but I didn't really do anything, especially considering I didn't have a job. I didn't have any plans for the summer, I just knew that I would go back to school, in the fall.
I started to pull my life together and I tried to fix the problems I had made. I was staying with my friend, Reese, who had the same problems I had. But he was happier than I was; he was going to get married to his girlfriend of three years in two months, so he had a lot of things to make him happy.
I didn't have anyone in my life, I was just alone and people looked at me like I was the only thing that was wrong in the world. I felt the same way, because I had nothing to look forward to, and even no idea what I was going to do.
Reese really wanted to marry his girlfriend, soon as he saw her; he was going to marry her and have a family and a house, and was going to forget about me by the time school started again.
He planned on moving to Alaska, where he had been born, and where he could find a job easily. I decided to go to my aunt and uncle's house in Oklahoma City, to tell them something, but they were at work, so I stayed and waited for them to come home
