CENTREX: I had a job working for The Safety and Security department at Mankato State University, in the late 1980s. I worked overnight, primarily. I was a radio operator trained on the job to log events standard and emergent, as well as occasionally reach out to municipal emergency services. I learned in those days what must happen in key contexts, and the mandate to roll out police, fire and EMT services in response to each 911 call, unless or until specifically indicated not necessarily by responders already on-scene. I was not in a medical or law-enforcement program as most of my colleagues were—a friend of my girlfriend was an EMT, which is how we learned about the job openings.

The word CENTREX just came back to me. I couldn’t remember the name of the role earlier this week. The call letters were KOL339. I learned some ten codes and started to memorize the phonetic alphabet. I still use it. It gets chuckles from people at times. I will say “niner” in out loud in public if I think it serves the context.