At 72, He’s Working Hard at Retirement

PORT HUENEME —  On a cold, rainy morning, Bill Hill lounges around a nondescript gray building just off the water, waiting for his number to be called.

Well past retirement, Hill picks up extra income working the Port Hueneme docks as a “casual” longshoreman.

It is a physically demanding job for the 72-year-old, and far removed from his more cerebral past. An educator for 37 years, Hill taught in Oxnard at Fremont Intermediate School before being named a principal, first at Kamala and then at Sierra Linda elementary schools in the Oxnard Elementary School District.

In 1984--the year he retired--Hill began a four-year term as a school trustee in the same district.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that now when he looks around the room crowded with jeans-and-sweatshirt-clad men and women nursing cups of coffee and waiting for work, he can point to some of his former students.

“Actually, some of them are my bosses,” Hill said of his former students. “They’re union guys.”

A casual works at the port when there is too much work to be handled by the more than 60 members of Local 46 of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union. Hill makes $182 for a 10-hour day, equivalent to the lowest pay any union member can earn, but the maximum for a casual.

The Port of Hueneme, which handles mostly fruit and luxury cars, carves its niche by taking on cargo that requires special handling. It is the largest exporter of citrus fruit in the United States.

To earn his pay on this particular day, Hill rides a van up into the dark, noisy interior of the Aniara, a 12-deck car transport ship from Europe loaded with 1,100 expensive imports including Miatas and Jaguars. When he gets to a floor covered with BMWs, he climbs behind the wheel and drives one of the ultimate driving machines down a narrow path into the cloudy day.

To become a casual when he started 11 years ago, Hill had to show up for work on a day when there was more work available than all the union members and casuals who showed up could handle.

For Hill, after trying for more than five months, success came the day after Christmas. Today, a potential casual has to work five full days before making the official list, a process that sometimes takes more than a year.

Hill said he is probably the second-oldest casual at the port.

“When I got on, there was apparently some suspicion that I was a person from the Fair Employment Commission,” he said.

In 1984, the port was a lot less busy and the longshoremen unloaded each box of bananas by hand onto a conveyor belt. Since then, mechanization has changed how the job is done, but the port has grown and casuals are still a necessary part of the work force.

“The mentality down here is a lot like the Army,” said Hill, as he waited in the rain to board the Aniara. “Do as you’re told and don’t ask questions.”

The atmosphere is different from that of Hill’s other part-time retirement job as a substitute teacher. With more than 30 years of educational experience, he encourages questions from students eager to learn.

But he admits he prefers the physical labor of being a casual. Or maybe he just enjoys hanging around the port.

Hill grew up in the port town of San Pedro in Los Angeles County, watching ships dock and unload in the shadow of Fort MacArthur. “During the Depression, I got comfortable with the blue-collar work ethic because everyone was struggling,” he said.

His Oxnard home, which he shares with his wife, Eve, features a wall devoted to the sea--a traditional ship in a bottle, photographs shot from points along the coast and mementos from his days sailing on his 14-foot sloop, Super Satellite.

Though Hill no longer sails, he was a charter member of the Anacapa Yacht Club and sailed almost every weekend through the 1960s and 1970s.

But his focus constantly returns to the port. He’s made two unsuccessful runs for the Oxnard Harbor District’s Board of Commissioners and is a regular figure at the morning casuals’ dispatch, listening for the familiar call of “7261.” Over the years, Hill figures he’s put in more than 4,000 hours as a cargo handler.

“It’s kind of an adventure. You have to be a little bit adventuresome to do the longshore thing,” he said.

Times correspondent Catherine Saillant contributed to this story.