The "A" Parking Sticker

When Judy and I lived in Denton, parking on the North Texas campus wasn't a problem because I never had to park there.  We lived two blocks from the Auditorium Building, which is where the English Department was located.  It was an easy walk, rain or shine, sleet or snow.  Things were different when we moved to Austin.  We were located within walking distance of the UT campus, but only if you were an Olympic speed walker.  In bad weather, it would have been difficult if not impossible to make the walk.

So we needed a campus parking sticker.  Students got a "C" sticker, which cost $3 when I was a first a student.  I don't have any idea how much it was then or how much it is now, but I didn't want a student permit.  The parking lots for students weren't as far away from campus as our apartment, but they were fairly distant.  Judy didn't like walking that far.  Since she was working on campus, only a block or so from where I'd have an office, and I was working, too, we qualified for a better class of sticker.  

The stickers for faculty and staff were "A" and "B" stickers.  Which one you got was determined by your salary, and you can guess which one we qualified for.  They wouldn't let us combine our salaries, so we had to settle for a "B" sticker.  The "B" parking wasn't much more convenient than the "C" sticker would have been, but it appeared that there was nothing else we could do.  

However, as you've guessed, I wouldn't be writing this if a solution hadn't presented itself.  The statute of limitations has long since expired on our crime, so now the story can be told.  We knew someone who shall, even after this long interval, remain nameless.  She worked in the office where the stickers were issued.  Not only that, but she qualified for an "A" sticker.  Because of her position, she could get two "A" stickers, one for each of her cars.  Except that she had only one car.

I don't know whose idea it was, but someone suggested that she could get a second sticker and give it to us.  No one would ever know unless we violated some rule, which we assured her we would never do.  So soon enough we were in possession of the coveted "A" parking sticker.  Not only could we park in the "A" lots, but we could park on the Inner Campus drive, right by Parlin Hall, the home of the English Department, if we got to campus early enough.  

I'm not sure that parking is still allowed on Inner Campus Drive, but in those days all the entrances to the campus were guarded by guys in little gatehouses.  If you didn't have an "A" sticker, you were stopped, questioned, and sent to Gitmo if you didn't have a good reason to be entering the campus.  Okay, I made up the Gitmo part, but the rest is true.

I'll never forget the first day of driving to work with the "A" sticker firmly secured to the front windshield of our '67 Plymouth Fury III (that's it in the photo up above).  There was a little bit of trepidation as we approached the gatehouse, especially on Judy's part.  She didn't have a criminal nature, as she proved many years later when we were on a train that was going to cross the border between Austria and Germany.  But that's another story for another time.  Maybe.  This time, she was nervous.  How nervous was she?  She looked and acted like someone who'd just robbed a bank, shooting and killing two of the guards.  I hoped the guy in the gatehouse couldn't see into the car too well.

Unlike Judy, I exuded quiet confidence as we approached the gatehouse and cruised right on by as the guy inside gave the merest glance to our "A" sticker.  After that, it was all exhilaration, and if the high five had been invented, we'd have done one.

We continued to use the "A" sticker for two semesters, but when our friend moved, we couldn't use that method any longer.  Luckily someone mentioned to me that if I was interested in teaching technical writing, that course paid $100 more per class per semester than teaching freshman English.  I was teaching two classes, and it happened that $200 more per semester would put me into the "A" sticker bracket.  That's how I wound up teaching technical writing for the rest of my career as a teaching assistant.  And also how I continued to park on Inner Campus Drive for the rest of my time at UT, no longer a petty criminal but an honest man.