Editor’s Note: This is the 29th bankruptcy in volume 3 of editor and publisher Donald H. Harrison’s 2022 trilogy, “Schlepping and Schmoozing Along the Interstate 5. “All 3 books, as well as others written through Harrison, can be purchased at Amazon. com.
Chatting and chatting along Interstate 5, Volume 3, Exit (Basilone Road): San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant
Before you reach Basilone Road, exit Interstate 5, pass two domes at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant (SONGS) on the left. Currently under deconstruction, it is permanently closed to the public, but stories remain about what the paintings were like. there. Julius Katz tells the story of one of them.
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Like many attractive things that have happened in his life, Julius Katz had no premonition that he would spend 25 years directing work at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) before retiring in 2002 at the age of 65.
With an economy in recession and unemployment at its highest level in 40 years, Katz’s leadership position at the now-bankrupt Builders Emporium has been eliminated. As the days turned into weeks pounding the pavement, desperate to supply his circle of relatives, he needed a job right away. At the suggestion of a family member, she applied for a project with Local 89 of the North American Workers International Union (LiUNA). On the fourth day after paying his $100 dues, he sent a team of workers to a parking lot in La Jolla that was to be demolished. He gave them a 95-pound jackhammer and gave them orders on how to use it. The following week, another 35 people were called in for some other task. User number 35 didn’t call there and Katz had the number 36.
“We were sent to San Onofre. I arrived in my car, an old Volvo, parked, registered, got the papers and my license plate and went in,” Katz said in an April 2022 interview. Ten members of the group, in addition to Katz, accompanied him to a trailer that served as an office. Unable to say “Julius,” Hector reminded Katz of “Julio,” the Spanish pronunciation, a call Katz answered for the next 25 years. .
Their first task was to descend through an manhole near the structure to pull the nuclear plant out and avoid a trickle of water. It took several hours to locate the source of the leak and then seal it. This allowed a painter to descendiera. al hole with half a liter of paint and a paintbrush. Swish, swish, and the painter went out. All your pictures to paint a mango.
Katz was then tasked with moving furniture, painting desks, and locating pieces in services that were needed elsewhere. When 30 of the 35 employees were laid off, Katz thought he would be next. He was sure of this when they called his phone. loudspeaker and ordered him to report to the office. However, the boss told him, “I can tell you that you don’t have much experience with structural work, but you are smart with other people and actually know how to fill out the paperwork. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I want a user on the relay team, from 12 to 7, and I’ll appoint you foreman. I’m going to increase your salary by $2 an hour and I’ll give you a team of 14.
“I said, ‘Oh, okay,’ I walked by the house and said, ‘Hey, Judy, I’ve been here for 3 weeks and I’m a foreman. ‘The next day, I introduce myself to a group of guys. all with decades of experience. “
That was life before the nuclear power plant was put into operation. However, when the reactors were put into operation — or “hot” in the vernacular — “the whole aura of the position changed,” Katz said. “Everybody had to get tested for drugs and all of a sudden, a lot of other people disappeared. After all this was said and done, everything was fine and everything was working normally. Then they cut my shift, so I went back to time. He had acquired several skills. One of them. I’ve become a core driller, who uses a device that drills holes in concrete to allow cables and pipes to pass through. I had checked an assistant of an experienced piercer and he taught me how to do it.
Katz said he “shipped with this great device and I would pick a partner. We were drilling holes in the walls. Sometimes we had to hang from the ceiling on the seats. Thank goodness no one was hurt. I’m no longer a foreman. Just an idiot. Then one day, the boss called me and said, “We have a challenge in the cemetery; I need you to lead the graveyard team. Katz said he protested the fact that there were 50 other items in the cemetery; You’re not ready to monitor them. His manager responded, “You run the cemetery’s central tool room. It’s a complicated thing to do. You’ll work 6 1/2 hours and get a foreman’s salary and a $2 bonus. This continued for six months and then “I came back and became an official punch and an expert in all trades. “
Katz worked inside the Nutransparent power plant, which staff nicknamed the “can. “This required dressing in a nuzzle uniform. ” First you put on pajamas, then you put on a special suit, then you put on booties over your tennis shoes,” he said. “You cover your head with a balaclava, and depending on where you’re going, you put on a clear plastic mask. Everyone carries a dosimeter (to measure radiation) that is attached to your plate. Every month, they read it to see what kind of doses you were getting. When you went into the can, you had to use a special radiation device. The tin was divided into several zones, some of which were delimited by rope. There were purple spaces that you couldn’t get into because they were high-radiation spaces.
Upon entering the “can”, the staff would be accompanied by a fitness physicist who would make sure they understood where they can and where to go. In some places you can enter, but only for a limited time, for example 10 or 20 minutes.
“The equipment used in the radiation domain was marked with a giant purple bar,” Katz said. “If you saw something with a purple bar, you knew you could use it in that domain. tool room, I would do my job and then I would pass out and they would take a reading from my dosimeter. I would usually shower after passing out, then get dressed in my normal clothes, and then leave.
“They were very protective of other people who were thrown into the can and, God forbid, if you get stuck crossing the finish line in a radioactive area, you can be fired immediately. There’s no doubt because they were installed so that any fool would know you can’t cross that line. There were 3 sets (Can 1, Can 2, Can 3) and each unit had a container; The giant domes you see are closures.
Katz said he had been in the box “filling in the radiation holes” the day he was fired for a year. Katz said forcing him to do homework on the day they knew he would be fired seemed reckless. During his dismissal, he worked in a furniture store and, upon his return to San Onofre, worked as a carpenter’s apprentice, helper, and schlepper. He also made concrete and “I’ve never been a foreman again. “On his 65th birthday, on September 30, 2002, he gave him a jacket and a pocket knife for his retirement and “to end my days at San Onofre. “
Katz’s life can be divided between his pre-San Onofre era, when he was a roadie for popular singer Johnny Mathis, and his post-San Onofre era, when he and Judy enjoyed traveling together, especially on cruise ships, until his passing.
His days before San Onofre began in the Bronx, New York, where his immigrant parents, Sidney and Regina, originally from Romania and Hungary respectively, settled around 1935 after living several years in Cuba. His uncle Dave came to the U. S. before and his family circle has a picture of him in a World War I U. S. Army uniform, “but no one in the family circle has been able to specify how or when he was delivered here,” Katz said. “All the other people connected with that time they died or were murdered in the concentration camps. My father’s circle of relatives was killed, my mother lost two sisters.
The circle of relatives lived in a six-story building until, with the help of an aunt, they were able to move into a triplex. “My aunt rented two floors above our space and we lived on the ground floor. My sister was there. My Uncle David, my brother Stanley and I shared the same bed at one point, whether I wanted it or not. At the end of World War II, my mother’s niece, Magda, married Fritzi, who returned home after the war. He survived the invasion of Normandy and when she became pregnant and had nowhere to live, they moved into a bachelor room. Then there were 3 of us in one room, 3 in a big bed and my little sister lived in a closet. I swear to God. You can touch the walls with both hands. My parents lived in another room.
His father and uncle bought a dry cleaner in Manhattan and soon bought a second store in a community where many other people spoke Spanish. Since his father had learned the language in Cuba, he developed an intelligent relationship with his clients. “That’s where My first assignment was assigned to me when I was a young teenager, as an occasional handbag salesman or local number broker using my father’s business as a storefront. “
Her mom “took care of the space, fed our kids, and when Dad and Dave came home, she fed them. I was cleaning at all times. The best thing, during the holidays, Thanksgiving, Easter, birthdays, is that she tidies up the living room and we’d have 20-30 more people there at a time. At my bar mitzvah, we had a space full of other people.
After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School, he finished business school at the City College of New York City. He emphasized advertising courses, which led him to work in the mailroom of the advertising agency Dowd, Redfield, and Johnstone. For the Korean conflict, Katz enlisted in the Army Reserve and, after six months of active duty in the United States, “played as a soldier every summer” until the end of his enlistment. After the service, he and a friend made a decision. They moved to Los Angeles, where they stayed with an ex-girlfriend and her husband until their husband told them to leave. They discovered an apartment in a position for “swinger singles” in Hollywood, “where other people just walked into other people’s apartments. “and take a dip in the pool from the second-floor balcony. “
From there, Katz and three friends rented a space about three blocks below the Hollywood sign, even though no one was working. They all earned unemployment. To pay the rent, they organized “participation” rental evenings at their home. One of his roommates was assigned a task at the Dolores Drive-In on La Brea Avenue. Normally, Katz or some other roommate would take him to and from work. But one day, on his way home, he was given the passenger seat of a new Jaguar XKE. Katz’s friend punched him in the ribs. Look, she exclaimed, the driver was Johnny Mathis. Katz, in the kitchen, prepares a dinner of spaghetti and gravy for her roommates, her friends, and Mathis. The next day, Mathis’s agent called them, thanked them for their hospitality, and invited them to the Ambassador Hotel for the opening of Mathis’ exhibition. A limousine came to pick them up and they had a delicious dinner, stayed at the venue, and went to see the exhibit at a party after the concert.
“In some ways, we’ve become close friends with him,” Katz marveled. “We were going to go bowling at LaCienega Lanes. It had a space that maybe we weren’t in; the roof opened onto the pool and there was a hot tub that could only accommodate another 25 people; It was very big. Somehow, my friend Mark became his level manager and I was appointed lighting director, which was a ridiculous title. So we started traveling with him, here, there and everywhere. We did a stint in Las Vegas and they sent us a limousine. We stayed there for two or three weeks and everything was paid for. All I did was point to my name.
Mathis’ birthday is September 30, the same day as Katz’s, only Mathis is a year older. Although the band broke up after an argument between Mathis and Mark, “for a long time, I corresponded with him and we sent him birthday messages. “cards. ” When Katz’s mother and sister arrived in California to make a stopover at him, they were due to stop at Mathis at his home and “he gave my sister 12 autographed albums, which she still keeps to this day and cherishes. “
Katz then went to work at the advertising branch of the May Company, where he wrote, proofread, and transported proofs to and from major newspapers in the wonderful Los Angeles area. “It wasn’t Mad Men, but there were a lot of 3 martini lunches and I had a blast. “That is, until May Company made the decision to outsource its advertising arm. The next stop in his career was Builders Emporium, followed by San Onofre, which would surround most of his professional history.
Since April 2022, Julius has been living in the Del Cerro community of San Diego. He is a faithful father of four children and grandfather of five.
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