Probably the day she started working as a sanitary inspector. (... 203 words...) In the neighborhood, just next house beyond Sofija, lives Čarga's (first) ex wife, married to an electrician, vintage 54, whom I remember from childhood, we played sometimes, called him Yellow because he was a redhead... Well, her sister was the wife of dr. Nevenov, who was the chief inspector, so she got a hint that there's an opening for one more inspector(... 19 words...). The Yellow wasn't lucky - some ten years later he had a serious encounter with high voltage on a pole somewhere, with such bad results that he retired immediately, he wasn't fit for work anymore. Didn't enjoy the retirement for too long, died within a few months. That girl just wasn't lucky with her husbands, which is too bad, she's really a dear and pleasant person, one would wish her for a neighbor.
Over time I got to know some of the folks there, but more through her stories than contact, as I didn't really drop by too often. Maybe I'd pick her up when we'd have to go somewhere right after, and would chat up the folks while she was closing up.
I actually remember three of them. First of all Vlastimir, and not by goodwill. A sleaze, probably udbaš, finished inspectorial higher (2 years of medicine, that division) and still bragged how he's a better inspector than the doctors. He played a few nasty plots against several people. From the regulations he was supposed to enforce, he knew the one about the room height. He plotted against their lady boss (who was appointed when dr Nevenov went solo practice) so she got fired. He managed to have his half college recognized as a whole, internally, so with the passed labor* he earned more than the doctors, which lasted while the inspection was of the province. Once it got reorganized as a part of the ministry of health (v. 02-V-1992.), oops ciao. Still, he managed to be the boss for a while.
The second is M.Č, of Lika by origin, married into the Čestić clan (which is mentioned as early as 21-I-1973.). She's the mother of those twins, of whom one married the older of the Smetovački sisters. Cream of the cream. She may have been good in nature, but that didn't surface then, as she was too deep into her current lifestyle, i.e. life on budžinbulevar and the standard of living that went with it. (... 42 words...)
The third is B., whom I saw maybe once or twice, but heard him several times, because in his eighties he took to call once a year to check on his former colleague. He's a legend by the way he finished medical high, with four sacks of beans - that's what his family could afford to feed him during his schooling. The lady whose tenant he was would cook it for him, perhaps adding a random peace of meat at times, and that was what he ate four years. Much later another connection revealed itself ... 06-VIII-2019..
Even when I did drop by, later when they moved to a smaller building in the backyard, overlooking the market, I more often met my colleagues from the educational inspection, who were on the floor above. There I'd meet my former director, then Cvetana and once, later, even Zaka (he, an inspector, now I've heard everything).
At work I invented a gimmick to avoid turning [my*] back to the class. Or maybe I did that last year, who'd remember exactly. The blackboard were wide, all over the wall, the MPSŠC requires a lot of drawing. Good that I don't have to wipe it that much, or to call for the orderly to do his number and amuse the class, but the far left end of it, in the corner by the window, is a fuckup. I have to turn my back to the class to reach the corner with my right hand, and then there's clamor within seconds. Well maybe I don't have to... I remembered how in 1976 I realized that I'd suddenly become illiterate if my right hand was out of commission, say in a cast, so I started practicing my left. Took the chalk in my left and it turned out even easier than with a pen, and not too much uglier than with the right. The added effect was that this attracted the guys' attentin („look how prof writes with [his*] left!“), all the better.
It would happen often that there's five-three-two minutes left before the bell and I've done what I planned, nothing to do now. To check the time, I used the pocket watch I got in Moscow (24-II-1978.), which is discrete and I can do it unnoticed, facing the blackboard. This unnoticed thing is one of the two things I remembered from the methodics class (the other was „don't shout, there's 40 years of breathing chalk ahead of you“). To fill the time, I'd tell a joke or two, or when there was just one minute left, I'd just pull out the bag (later the tozna) and roll a cigarette. While smoking in a classroom was forbidden (except during a popravni), no regulation anywhere mentions rolling. After a few months of that, I noticed that a guy from the last bench extended a hand across the aisle and received money in it. They explained to me later that they were betting on my speed, if I roll it within 20 seconds one guy wins, if not, the other. And this wasn't the first time they timed me.
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* is this really necessary in english? Is there anyone else's back at hand that I could turn, what confusion is this supposed to avoid?