President Nixon and the Military draft board came up with the lottery system during the Viet Nam war. The draft board held a drawing, like a power ball drawing. 365 dates put in a basket and drawn out, one date at a time. If your birthday matched that date, you got drafted. My number was 33. I was behind in credits at university so had no student deferment. With such a low number I dropped out of school and looked for a full-time job to earn and save some money before being drafted.
With that lottery number, no one wanted to hire me. At the Telephone Company they advertised a job with a high turnover. The job was counting money collected from pay phones.
At a nondescript building in Burnsville, MN was the Coin Center. Payphones had a metal cube box at the bottom of the phone that held the collected money. When you removed the box, a trap door sealed, so the collecting person couldn’t get at the money. Back at the Coin Center, a room about the size of a home kitchen had two coin-counting machines. Closed circuit cameras covered all views of the room. Harold, the counting security manager watched a monitor connected to the cameras. My job was to break the seal on the collection can and dump the money into the sorter, counter, The machines sorted the quarters, dimes, and Nickles, counted them and emptied the coins into money bags. An armored car picked up several thousand dollars each day.
As a counter, I had to wear a smock with no pockets so I couldn’t sneak away a couple coins. One day, my counting machine had a bent quarter that wouldn’t go through a slot in the sorter. I was going to give it a nudge with my thumb. I aimed wrong and the spinning sorter disk cut three slices in my thumb.
Blood spurted. I grabbed a handful of smock with my good hand and bundled it around my cut thumb to stop the bleeding. Quickly I ran from the counting room and went into the men’s restroom. I ran water over my thumb. It hit my thumb clear and left my thumb red. Blood spattered all over the sink and mirror.
Harold had seen my accident on his monitor. He came running into the room. One look at my thumb and the red mess and Harold started retching. He choked back his hurl as I guided him into a toilet stall. I pushed his head down between his knees, afraid he was going to faint. Harold’s boss, Frank, came rushing in.
“Blumer, I’ll take care of him. Get back to the counting room. Harold,” he said leaning over him. “Where are you cut? How are you hurt? Frank looked at me again. “Go!”
I shrugged. With my smock around my thumb again I went into the lady’s restroom. I swapped paper towels for my smock, but blood was still leaking out. Frank, his boss Glen and more bodies crowded into the lady’s room. They took me out. Harold, white faced sat on a chair in the hall. Twenty stitches later at the emergency room ended this adventure. I did get a couple days break from counting. I wasn’t worried about my thumb. It was just another bunch of scars to add to my growing collection. My main worry was my draft status.
Like all the other young men registered for the draff, I watched each televised drawing. When they drew 33, I expected to find a draft notice in the mail any day now. I checked the mailbox. Empty, so I waited. The next day –empty. The next –empty. The draft number was way past 33 and still I had no notice. Young men with a higher number were being drafted to duty, I was going crazy. My hand would shake each day when I reached for the mailbox door. Finally, I called the draft board.
I asked them if they could tell me anything or give me even a guess when they might draft me with a number of 33. The woman on the phone said she’d check. Back on the phone, she said, “You aren’t 33. We have you as 256. When did you say your birthday is?”
At least I got some answers. The lady corrected my records. Two days later I opened my mailbox. There it was. “Greetings From Uncle Sam.
