Answering customer service phone calls gets to be a monotonous bore after a while. Way back in 1990-something I had the opportunity to answer the calls for American Family Publishers, the magazine wholesaler that spokesman Ed McMahon gleefully exclaimed offered customers the unbelievable chance to win 10 MILLION DOLLARS!!!*
(*If they had and returned the winning number.)
A typical phone call might go like this:
Me: “American Family Publishers, this is Mr. Whiteside. How can I help you?”
Caller: “Hello young man. Can Mr. McMahon come to the phone right now?”
Me: “I’m sorry, he’s having lunch with Johnny Carson right now, but I can assist.”
(Truth be told, I had no idea what Ed was doing. He wasn’t ever anywhere near our office in Tampa. I hated to ruin the illusion for his fans though.)
Caller: “Well…maybe I can call back.”
Me: “No need. I will be sure to give him the message.”
Caller: “It’s just that he keeps asking me to renew my subscription to Cat Fancy and I wanted to ask him if I really needed to do that to win the sweepstakes.”
Me: “No ma’am. You do not need to order to enter the contest. Just send your entry card back without adding the order sticker.”
Caller: “Are you sure Ed, er, Mr. McMahon won’t be mad at me?”
Me: “I can assure you Ed will be glad to hear from you and will certainly make sure you are entered.”
Caller: “Oh, thank you so much young man. By the way, are you single? My granddaughter just graduated from Glendale Community College and she…”
Me: “I’m sorry ma’am. Another call is coming in, and Mr. McMahon wants to make sure we handle them right away. Have a great day.”
Sometimes the customers actually had a problem with their magazine, and God help you if a subscriber missed an issue of Cat Fancy. When that happened, we had to look up their account details in our state-of-the-art mainframe. 99.9 % of the time this was mundane, but every once in a while, an address stood out. Such was the case when I talked to a subscriber who lived on Whiteside Street in Los Angeles. Whiteside isn’t exactly a common name and hearing there was a street named after my family made me more excited than it probably should have. No doubt it was the highlight of my work week. I vowed that if I ever made it to L.A., I would visit.
Cut to at least fifteen years later. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art had a traveling exhibit about the life and work of the great film director Stanley Kubrick. That’s how my friend and fellow film buff Erik and I found ourselves in the City of Angels. Add that to the Warner Brothers studio tour and the Dodgers being in town and it made for a great long weekend on the other coast.
The idea of my eponymous street still gnawed at the back of my mind. Before we left, I looked up to see where it was and sadly saw it ran right through East L.A. I’m sorry to say that made me want to forget the whole idea. My rationalizations were plenty. There’s plenty to see in the touristy parts of town. Why waste time fighting the traffic through downtown just to see a street. Going to a road only because it has your family name is goofy. Blah, blah, blah. The truth is that East L.A. has a reputation, I may have watched Colors and Boyz n the Hood one too many times and I was nervous to go there.
Our last day in the city was perfect. The weather was clear and crisp in that uniquely California way that makes you want to move there before you remember the insane cost of living. The Dodgers’ game started early afternoon, and we were lucky that Kershaw was pitching. My mind was still preoccupied with Whiteside Street though. How could I fly across the country and not do the one thing I most wanted to do in the city just because I was afraid? With a few hours to kill before the game, I decided to mention my Whiteside Street expedition idea to Erik, and he thought it was a great way to kill the morning.
Traffic was a breeze that Sunday and we made it there in under a half hour (an L.A. miracle). It turns out that Whiteside Street is a quiet little road that features some single-family homes and several auto repair shops. No, it’s not in the best part of town, but there was nothing about it that ever should have scared me away. We found a street sign that I used to take one of my most favorite travel pictures. It’s sad to think that irrational fear almost robbed me of that memory.
Thanks to the magic of Google, I now know there are Whiteside Streets in Memphis; Newington, Connecticut; Roanoke, Virginia; and Victoria, British Columbia. They are now all on my travel list. I haven’t even looked to see what part of town they are in.
Hanging with my favorite street sign.
In case you want to visit Whiteside Street for yourself:
