Just Another Day

Just Another Day



I really have no need for an alarm clock anymore. Ever since I started working second shift at my County job, there isn't any particular time I have to get up in the morning. Oh, sure, there are the occasional times when I have to get out of bed early. Morning appointments I have to go to, like the doctor and the dentist. Once in a while I have to take the wife to work on days that one of our cars is in the shop. Stuff like that. I generally use my wife for my alarm clock on those days. She works day shift, so she can give me a holler before she heads off to her daily grind. It's not normally necessary, though. My internal clock usually has me awake in plenty of time on those particular days.

As a rule, I climb into bed around 1 am on weekday nights. The wife usually mumbles something incoherent to me and drops back to her slumbers almost immediately. I turn on the TV at the foot of the bed and keep the volume low. It never seems to bother her. Maybe I'll click over to watch the Discovery Channel and see Jamie and Adam on Myth Busters. Or watch Mike Rowe doing some disgustingly dirty job. Sometimes I'll turn to the Travel Channel and watch Andrew Zimmern, who eats all the nasty stuff around the world. I'm OK with that unless he's chomping on members of the insect world or some big, fat spider. I'll give him a pass on those nights. I like Anthony Bordain also. Or maybe I'll check out something on the SciFi Channel. Just something to help me transition from awake to asleep.

I'll watch a little of something like that until my eyelids start drooping, which usually doesn't take too long. I'm clicking the off button on the TV remote and turning off the light generally around 1:30.

Sleep comes quickly most nights.

This morning, like most mornings, the alarm didn't go off. My consciousness slowly rose from sleep mode to a groggy awakening and I noticed the dimness of the bedroom. It looked like it was going to be another gray morning in beautiful northeast Ohioland. I recalled from the night before a weather forecast of rain and maybe some early autumn snow showers for this Tuesday morning and clearing later in the evening. Nice. Not even Halloween yet and frozen stuff falling from the sky. The older I get the more I hate snow and ice. One eyeball peered at the alarm clock on my nightstand and saw it was around a quarter to nine. About the time I normally say hello to the new day.

Hello day...

I glanced over to the other side of the bed. Yep, ol' Bailey was there. My older Schnauzer dog was stretched out on the bed where my wife sleeps. This was normal – he usually sleeps with us through the night and, after his morning visit to the outdoors for his relief and a quick dog biscuit, would return to the bed for some more snoozes with me. He is an older fellow and takes his sleeping seriously. I leaned over the side of the bed and saw Barney, the other, younger Schnauzer, the blind one, laying next to the bed. That was normal also. Once in a while either my wife or my son would toss him on the bed before I woke and then, when I came to, there would be two hairy beasts sleeping with me. That was OK with me too. They were part of our little family.

As long as they didn't hog the bed too much.

I padded to the bathroom to take care of my morning business, then returned and pet the dogs for a minute or two. The furnace had clicked into its cooler setback mode at 8 am, so it was chilly. I quickly dressed in my usual uniform of jeans and sweatshirt, put on my glasses and watch and headed downstairs. The dogs followed, knowing I'd let them out again, which I did. I glanced at the front page of the newspaper and checked the obits. My name wasn't there. A definite plus, I thought.

I took my pillbox off the shelf above the sink then quickly downed my daily allotment of meds with a glass of water. Gotta keep the pharmaceutical companies in the black, I thought. And my doctor happy, of course. I tried to remember a day which didn't start with a fistful of medicine. I could remember it, but it was a long time ago. Getting old is not for the fainthearted, as the old adage goes.

Then I let the dogs in and checked my calendar on the wall to see what was up for the day. Hmmm... Oh, yeah. Rotate the tires on the Toyota. One of those husband kind of jobs. Guess I could handle that. Or, rather, the tire dealer could handle that. Which meant I had to leave for the tire shop fairly soon.

I gave the dogs another minute of petting before slipping out the door and getting into my car. I zipped my hooded sweatshirt tighter as the cold started biting into my not-ready-for-winter skin. It was about nine in the morning.

I walked into the tire shop a few minutes later and was told that it'd be at least a 2 hour wait to get my tires rotated. They did their servicing first come, first served. I knew I'd probably have to wait before I even left the house. I agreed as I had nothing much going on until noon. Figured I'd be out of there LONG before that time. (You can see where this is heading, right?) I walked from the tire shop to a nearby gas station and bought a big cup of coffee to help brush away the cobwebs that still clustered at the corners of my eyes.

At 11:45, almost THREE hours after I had arrived, I was handed my car keys by one of the smiling tire guys and I ended my long morning at the tire shop waiting for my free tire rotation. I'd thoroughly read two magazines, went through the daily
Akron newspaper and had watched a little daytime TV which was on in the waiting area. Women's stuff. I mean, I didn't even know they sold pubic hair dye! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it, right there on the tire guy's TV. Holy smoke! Guess that's what ya gotta suffer through when your tire dealer is the most popular guy in town that morning.

Since the clock was fast approaching 12 o'clock noon, I left there and drove directly to the gym. It was a workout day for the wife and I.

She and I meet several days a week at a local gym where we have memberships. She goes there for her lunch hour and I meet her. We walk the treadmills, do some weight stuff, maybe a bit on the stationary bikes. Enough to make us sweat and feel like we're doing something good for our bodies. You wouldn't notice it to look at us, but these things are gradual, they keep telling us. Don't want to lose too much weight all at once. Ha – like that's gonna happen! We usually have the gym's TV tuned to the Cleveland news while we move about and sweat, watching the weather, watching the news, watching the familiar anchors read their teleprompters. This day the politicians are still lying and slinging mud, the stock market is still an abysmal horror and the criminals are still plying their trade in thievery, murder and mayhem.

Pretty much a normal Tuesday.

When our hour at the gym is over, the wife hops into the Honda and zips back to her office. She muches a little something for lunch at her desk on those days. I drive home and fix something to eat for lunch myself. I pop the dogs outside on their chains again to make sure they have that opportunity. I usually carry whatever food I'm having for lunch upstairs to our office and eat it while checking my email, responding with a letter as needed and probably surf the Internet a while. Today my lunch is eggs, toast with marmalade and orange juice.

Around 2 pm I hop into the shower and clean up for my approaching work shift. I shave, dress and then it's time to pack a supper to take with me and check to make sure that I have a newspaper and a book in my briefcase.

Then it's into the old Toyota for my 45 minute drive to the office.

The drive north, to the next county seat where my workplace is, is usually pleasant. It's now autumn, so I get the added treat of seeing the colorful fall foliage along the roadside. Today isn't the best of days, being cloudy and gloomy, but I keep my eyes on the countryside drifting by and admire the changing of the seasons anyhow. Most of the trees have turned color already and quite a few of them have already shed their leaves. The road surface is paved in leaves in certain stretches like colorful sheets of construction paper – red oak, yellow maple, cream-and-green sycamore, brown ash. The highway closer to my destination, for a dozen miles or so, was freshly paved only a month ago and is pleasant to drive on. With my newly rotated tires (You remember I had that done this morning, don't you?) and the smooth road, I'm in a good mood by the time I reach the office and park my car.

I walk into the building, step into my work area and say hello to my fellow workmates. Bill, my old friend from high school is working on his laptop doing some design work; Pat, the man I work the 2nd shift with is in his wheelchair and checking out the upcoming nightly work; Dale, the vivacious lady who works the computer on day shift is updating a spreadsheet and keeping a close eye on the primary computer console, and my boss Larry is on the phone with a customer or perhaps a supplier. I put my supper in the little refrigerator we have in our area and talk to the day-shift people about the upcoming work to be done for the half-hour that our workdays overlap. The boss then comes over and shows me some special work he needs accomplished. Before long Pat and I say our goodbyes to all the day-shift folks leaving for the evening. He sits down at the computer and I get busy doing the paperwork that's always there to be processed. I chit-chat with Patrick as we handle the workload to be accomplished that evening. The hours pass and soon it's supper time. I pull my dinner from the refrigerator and pop it into the microwave after Pat's got his warmed up. Tonight it's chicken curry and sticky rice that I made yesterday. The spicy aroma from the curry makes my eyes tear as I carry it to my desk to eat. I add a little Tabasco to it and eat it with gusto, reading my local newspaper and chatting with Patrick. Then it's my turn at the primary computer and I spend the rest of the shift watching the systems we have to monitor 24/7. I make the necessary adjustments as the night lengthens and before long it's almost midnight and time for our relief to arrive.

First through the door is Christine who puts her lunch away and sits down with us to get the turnover for the upcoming overnight hours. We pass on whatever is happening with the systems and what special tasks need to be worked on. Then Alice, the second overnight operator arrives and she also gets the information she'll need for the night. The four of us talk for a while about whatever is on our minds. Tonight it's a mixture of politics (both office and national), Alice's upcoming wedding, kids, the upcoming winter and the arrival of a work manual we're all waiting for. We laugh a lot and enjoy each other's company for a little while.

Sometime between 12:15 and 12:30 I bid adieu to the night ladies and start my trip home. It's gotten cold outside and the road's still wet from the snow/rain mixture that's been off and on most of the evening. The drive home is quiet – there is usually very little traffic at this time in the morning. I notice that the sky has finally cleared and the stars are out. I see the constellation Orion riding high and bright in the clear black eastern sky. The year is definitely waning, I think to myself. My major concern on my trip home is whitetail deer, as this is autumn and they're starting to move across the roads more often than they do in the summertime. I watch closely as I drive and do see a doe crossing the road in front of me just before I enter the city limits of my hometown. I see her in plenty of time to slow down. Some nights its all I can do to keep from hitting them.

The back porch light is on for me when I pull into my driveway. The wife leaves it on to light my way to the door. I pop into the house and grab a piece of pepperjack cheese from the refrigerator to take up to bed. I hate going to bed hungry and it's been a long time since supper.

The wife is in bed but still awake this particular evening, watching the end of a TV program. We chit-chat for a few minutes while I slip under the sheets and munch the cheese I brought up to eat. Our old dog Bailey watches carefully from his spot on the bed as he usually gets the last bite. I reach over and pet the younger dog who's under the bed before I turn out the light.

Sleep comes quickly, again.

And another exciting day for yours truly ends.

Was it a good day? Sure!

I have a home to go to at the end of the day, a wife who's there waiting, a job to occupy my time and give me mental stimulation and friends to share my day with. I have enough to eat, my health is fine and I live in the best nation on earth.

I'm a lucky guy. Even on “just another day”.

Wild Blue Yonder

WILD BLUE YONDER

Have you ever made a promise that you wished you hadn't? Have you ever decided to do something, perhaps on the spur of the moment, that, after more calm and reasoned thought you really, really wished you hadn't? And after you'd made the promise, you walked around with a belly full of dread, knowing that you'd be held to that promise and you'd have to do what you said you would.

Well sir, that's exactly what happened to me. The unthinking promise had been made and the action that had been promised was fast approaching.

Lemme tell you how I got into that mess.

It first starts with a man named Paul. (Forgive me, Paul, for any inconsistencies in this narrative. I'm working with a sometimes unreliable memory.)

The first time I laid eyes on Paul was at my new job way back in 1982. I was a freshly-hired computer operator for a regional telecommunications company in northern Ohio. On my first day at work I was introduced to my fellow employees – Fred, Betty, Jim, Ed, Mike, Dave, Susan, Michelle and Paul and some others. Paul stood out from the pack because of his accent – he was a Brit. Medium-sized guy, fairly well built – looked like he was no stranger to physical labor - unruly ginger-colored hair and very memorable, piercing eyes. He was working on second shift when I started, and I was on first, so I didn't get to really know him very well until I was moved to the afternoon shift. I remember asking him when we met if he was Australian, as I used to work with another fellow who hailed from that continent. He assured me that no, he was definitely not an Aussie, he was British and was from one of London's eastern suburbs, a little place called Ilford, about 12 miles east of London. Actually not too far from Barking, Barkingside and East Ham. (I just love those names!) When I listened to him a bit longer I could discern the differences between his speech and my old acquaintance, Sean, who was the Aussie. It was completely different when you actually listened. And not quintessentially Cockney, as his forbears were mainly Irish and the hints of Eire were still in his tongue. Paul, at that time had been in the U.S. for around a half-dozen years, give or take a few. He'd married an American girl and would eventually have 4 children with her, 3 girls and a boy.

When Paul and I eventually did land on the same shift, we seemed to hit it off quite well and became friends. We had a lot of the same interests and we seemed to enjoy each other's company. We both shared a love of fishing and we'd talk about that sport for hours on end. His European idea of a sport fish was, however, baffling to this American. In the U.S. we divided our fresh water fishes into sport or trash varieties. A fresh water sport fish might be a bass, a crappie, bluegill, catfish or perhaps a perch. Trash fish would include sheephead, gar, sucker and carp. I found out from Paul that the carp was considered a highly-prized game fish in England. I asked him if he were kidding. He informed me that no, he was not kidding. The carp was a legitimate prize over there. They even had a big ancient female carp in the zoo and she had a name! I assured him that carp around where we now lived were garbage and not sought after. I even sent him a picture in an email one day of a manure spreader working a field, and instead of it spreading manure, it was spreading carp and pieces of carp from a recently drained nearby lake. Paul sent that picture to some of his friends “over there” and they were mortified to see the mighty carp so badly treated. Almost started an international incident! It was a hoot!

Paul's wife abandoned him and their four children when they were still quite young and left him the responsibility of raising them. I never understood why and I'm not sure he knows the reason himself. But he undertook his new duties manfully and managed, somehow, to do a decent job at raising them. His youngest child, Thomas, recently turned 18 and Paul said to me not long after that he'd “made” it finally – he'd guided his kids into adulthood and was at last “legally” free from having to support them. Of course he knew a parent is never really free from his children. But, in the eyes of the law, his legal responsibilities were over.

He was promoted to supervisor some years after I started work at our office and he was my superior for a while. It never really intruded into our friendship. A few years after that I was promoted to the same level and we shared the responsibilities of the large computer room together along with another supervisor. Eventually he transferred to another department and, a couple years later, was instrumental in my transferring to a new position in that same department. We helped each other out as circumstances allowed.

During my almost 20-year tenure with that company I learned a lot about my friend Paul. He liked the outdoors. He loved fishing and boating and being out in the woods and lakes and rivers. He liked riding motorcycles and riding them fast. He was, quite possibly, the most clever and imaginative man I've ever met, extremely quick-witted and a gifted story teller. I could literally sit and listen to him talk for hours.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't like Paul.

Was he perfect? Hardly. Who is? He has fought with alcohol pretty much all of his life and has not made much of a battle of it on many occasions. He has carried a love of the brew Guinness from the old country and it still whispers its sweet, dark, malty songs in his Irish ears to this very day.

Paul was also known to all his friends as accident prone. He was fearless in a lot of his endeavors and paid the price for that propensity for recklessness with innumerable bumps, bruises, cuts and stitches, abrasions and many, many close calls. I recall him talking about various things he'd gotten into and he would literally have us gasping with the closeness of his escapes from sure maiming or death. People were a bit afraid to do anything even remotely dangerous with him, knowing his apparent magnetic ability to bring mayhem upon himself and anyone close to him.

We all held our collective breaths waiting for the inevitable catastrophe.

About 8-10 years ago Paul decided he wanted to take up flying. I guess he'd had some experiences back in England with gliders and had fallen in love with being up in the air. At this time in his life he had some disposable income and started looking around at the possibilities available to him to get airborne.

He first started playing around with the ultra-light path to the sky. These are lightweight, slow-flying airplanes that are subject to minimum regulations and thus are easy to get flying in. They account for about 20% of the U.S. Civil aircraft fleet. The governing regulation for ultralights in the U.S. is Federal Aviation Regulation 103 which specifies a powered "ultralight" as a single seat vehicle of less than 5 US gallons fuel capacity, empty weight of less than 254 pounds, a top speed of 55 knots, and a maximum stall speed not exceeding 24 knots. Restrictions include flying only during daylight hours and over unpopulated areas. Paul took some lessons and toyed with the idea of buying one but decided he wanted to do better. He once described ultra-light flight like this: Imagine you nailed a lawn chair to a 2 by 4 piece of lumber. You sit in the chair and a number of people grab the other end of the board and try to shake you off the chair.

So he took flying lessons to be able to fly a real airplane instead.

I remember him telling me about how the lessons were going and how much he loved flying, the freedom of the air, the visceral thrill of being airborne. He recounted his lessons in the Cessna aircraft he was training in and how much fun it was. He also recounted how much trouble he was having trying to land the airplane. He had many days where he told me he thought he'd never get the hang of putting the plane down in the middle of the runway correctly. He was very discouraged. He didn't think he'd ever get the knack.

Finally one day he came up to me and said, “I've figured it out! I made 10 landings yesterday and nailed 8 of them! And the other 2 weren't really that bad!” He went on to tell me the procedures he had used to achieve this memorable accomplishment. He was all smiles and was tickled to death that he had mastered the hardest part of flying.

Soon he soloed and became an accredited pilot.

That's when he posed THE question to me.

“You want to go up?”

Since he was now a licensed pilot he was allowed to take people up with him when he went flying.

I said, “Sure”, and a day was set a few weeks in the future for us to go flying.

So I had LOTS of time to think about going flying with Paul.

I had time to remember ALL the close calls he'd had in ALL his other ventures. I had time to remember ALL the stories he'd told us about almost getting killed doing this and that and the other. I had time to remember ALL his problems learning to fly and ALL his landing difficulties.

I just had LOTS and LOTS of time to play “what if” games in my head. What if he has problems taking off and we fly into some trees and get killed? What if he loses his engine and we fall out of the sky and get clobbered? What if a wing falls off and we fall to the ground like a rock? What if he has a stroke or a heart attack and I have to land the plane? And what about those landings he had SO much trouble learning how to do? What if he forgets how to do them?

Oh my God, what have I got myself into?

So the two weeks go absolutely zipping by. Every time I look at the calendar I see the Saturday I'm to go flying approaching like a fiery lightning bolt.

You need to know now that I'm NOT a good flyer. Yes I've flown before. I've flown airliners from here to there on numerous occasions – to the west coast, to Vegas, to D.C., Chicago, Miami, Oklahoma. Even to Panama and back twice. I'm not a stranger to flying. I even flew the “Tin Goose” - an ancient Ford tri-motor aircraft from the early 30's from Sandusky, Ohio to North Bass Island in Lake Erie to go ice fishing one winter.

But the little guys? Nope. Never been on one of the teeny ones.

Any time I had to fly I was uncomfortable at best and grimly unnerved at worst. I knew when I had to fly that it was, logically, the ONLY way to get where I had to go. It was fast, it was safe and it was performed by millions of people every year without concern.

Still didn't make it fun. Nope. Not at all.

To make things even more difficult, my wife was having a ball watching my nervousness increase day by day. She found my consternation hilarious. She knew that things would be OK. She wasn't worried in the slightest for my safety. And she was enjoying – I repeat – ENJOYING my discomfort! Doggone it! I'd mumble about my queasy stomach and she'd chuckle. I'd moan about my watery bowels and she'd laugh. I'd complain about my shattered nerves and my fear headaches and she'd cover her mouth to keep from giggling.

It was a torment.

Finally the dreaded Saturday arrived. My wife and I got into our car and drove to the local county airport to wait for Paul to arrive with his rented Cessna with my name on the passenger seat.

She smiled the whole way there, dammit!

Too quickly the little airplane landed and taxied up toward the bench where we were sitting and stopped. I hoped it wasn't him but... Yeah, it was. Paul jumped out and, with a big smile walked over and said, “You ready?”

I probably sounded like Minnie Mouse when the “Uh-huh” came out of my dry throat and across my parched lips.

I walked toward the airplane like Saddam Hussein approached the hangman's noose. I heard my wife's hearty chuckles following me.

The plane was LITTLE. It was a 2-seater Cessna – a 150 I think they call it. I slid into the right-side passenger seat and had a terrible time getting the seatbelt out of the doorway and around my shivering belly. And then the door didn't want to shut and I had to fuss and fuss with it. My quivering fingers had difficulty even finally clicking the seatbelt closed. At last that monumental chore was finished and Paul handed me my earphones and mike. “Don't say anything until I talk to the controller and get the OK to take off.” He then started the engine and we began to move. The engine was very noisy and the plane felt very light and agile on the ground, moving up the taxiway toward the end of the runway quickly. Soon he had left the taxiway and had lined up on the end of the runway facing into the wind. The radio crackled with his request and soon we had his permission to take off. He pressed the throttle forward and the engine REALLY got loud then. Soon we were careening down the runway at, what seemed a breakneck speed, bouncing and bouncing, the plane eager to become airborne and then... we were up.

And it was kinda cool. The ground was dropping away like it always does when you fly and the surrounding countryside was opening up and you could see a long ways around. When we achieved whatever flight level he was shooting for we leveled off and started flying around the local area. He pointed down and asked, “What's that?”

I looked and then said, “Hell if I know.”

He said, “You've lived here all your life.”

I answered, “But not at 5,000 feet!”

We flew around a bit more and he did all the stuff you'd think he would. We did the “you take the controls” thing and I did. Didn't like it much. Then we did the “watch what happens when I ease off the power” and we sunk like a rock. Didn't like that too much, either. It was interesting looking around and I did begin to recognize a few places from the air. Soon we had to head back to the airport as Paul only had the VFR license and needed to return the airplane to his home airfield before dark. He swung around and, there ahead of us was the runway for my county airport dead ahead. He pushed the wheel forward and we headed down. The runway grew in our windshield at an alarming rate. Still not too much fun. Soon we were over the runway and he eased off the throttle and, whisper quiet, he touched down.

It was a perfect landing.

He taxied quickly over toward where our car was parked and gave me a quick goodbye as he really had to scoot to make the sundown curfew to his airport.

I walked over to my car on still rubbery legs, feeling a bit like Lazarus returning from the dead. I stopped, turned around and watched Paul take his rented plane up into the sky again on his 20-or-so-mile return flight to his home airport. The plane slowly disappeared into the clear blue sky of a beautiful autumn Ohio Saturday in its last hour before dark.

I'd made it.

Suddenly I felt pretty good. Stomach was quiet. Voice firm. Hands steady. I'd gone up into the wild blue yonder with my old friend Paul and survived to tell about it. I was going to see another day, more than likely.

I looked at my wife. “Wipe that silly grin off your face, woman!” I said. “Ain't nothing funny going on here.”

I think I heard her chuckling all across the parking lot and half way home.

I'll get her back yet!

Airman Stories - Part Three

Airman Stories – Part 3

At first I thought I was being sent to Egypt. Yep. Egypt. The orders stated I was to report to “The Canal Zone” and I immediately thought of the Suez Canal. Then, when I came to my senses I realized that it was probably referring to the Panama Canal Zone. And that was exactly right. I was heading off to the isthmus of Panama to a unit named Detachment Five, Fifth Weather Wing at Howard Air Force Base, Panama Canal Zone.

My transportation to my next assignment was on a chartered Boeing 727 out of Charleston International Airport in South Carolina. It was all military personnel on board and they all were heading “down south”. Some would be getting off at the first stop which was Panama. The rest were heading further south to whatever assignments I did not know.

Charter flights are where old airline pilots go to die. Our pilot and copilot looked to be in their 60's. Maybe late 60's. Both white-haired gentlemen. But they were competent in the cockpit and we flew the 1,641 as-the-crow-flies miles to Panama with no problems. The weather was fine over the Caribbean and we took the “windward” route, as the captain told us. This was not the direct route as that would have taken us over Cuba and that was not allowed.

If you're not familiar with geography, Panama sits on the little strip of land that connects North America with South America. Across this thin strip of land lies the Panama Canal. The canal was opened in 1914 and the land for generally 5 miles on either side of the canal was called the Canal Zone. From 1903 to 1979 this territory was controlled by the United States. From 1979 to 1999 it was under the joint control of the United States and Panama. During the United States controlled time, the land in the Zone was used generally for military purposes and maintenance of the canal, but there were a total of about 3,000 civilians who called the Zone home also. There were many military installations in the Zone. The one I was to call home for a year and a half was called Howard Air Force Base.

To orient yourself, picture the isthmus as a east-west strip of land bisected generally north to south by the Panama Canal. At the southern terminus of the canal, on the eastern side sat the capital city of Panama which had the same name, Panama. Cross the canal from Panama City to the west, then turn north about a mile or so and you reach the gates of Howard. South of the isthmus was Panama Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Follow the canal to the north and you enter the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

It was the spring of 1968 that my charter jet landed on the 9,000 foot runway at Howard AFB and rolled up to the terminal building. I was met there by my sponsor, an airman who'd been selected to “show me the ropes”. He took me to my barracks and got me set up in my area, showed me the facilities around base and made sure I knew were I was to report for duty. His nickname was “Flaps” as he was learning how to fly.

The barracks buildings on Howard were all large, 3-story Spanish-style concrete buildings with red tile roofs. There were no windows in them, only screens, as the temperature there rarely dropped below 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The highs most days were around 86 and that only varied by a degree or two all year round. So, unless the building was air-conditioned there was little need for glass windows. In the barracks the ground floors were never used. This was due to the high humidity in the tropics. Things would mold and mildew in days without some sort of drying agent. Ground floors were the worst, so they were left open and empty for ventilation. Each of us that lived on the 2^nd or 3^rd floors had what was called a “hot” locker. This was a steel wardrobe locker where we stored our clothes and shoes. Each of these hot lockers had a 100 watt light bulb that was on constantly. By burning the light bulb it generated heat and the heat reduced the humidity in the locker and allowed your uniforms and other clothing to remain mildew-free. I found out that leather shoes left on the floor would turn green in 2 days.

The weather observer work was quite similar to what I had learned to do in Oklahoma. We covered six shifts a day on Howard, three in the weather station in the base operations building and three in the aircraft control tower. Weather observations were performed from the control tower instead of a stand-alone ROS as it was at Ft. Sill. One weather observer would be in the tower along with 2 aircraft controllers. Our control tower sat at the top of a huge hanger. You'd enter the hanger and climb a bunch of stairs to the roof, then enter a door and climb another 2 stories into the tower. The bottom story of the tower contained the radios and recording devices used by the controllers. The top story had windows all around and had the best view of the base, the runway, of course, and all the adjoining airspace.

Howard was my first overseas, resident Air Force military installation. It had housing units for married personnel, a commissary (grocery store), BX (base exchange – store to buy various items from cigarettes and magazines to uniforms and other useful items), churches, theater, schools and other facilities that you might find in a small town. Plus, of course, the necessary hangers, offices and repair facilities to keep military aircraft flying. It also had an airman's club, an NCO club and an Officer's club for off-duty recreation.

Outside the barracks there were coconut palm trees and we were awakened each morning by the squawking of the local parrots in the trees. The locals called them parrakeetos. It was a common occurrence to see work crews of native Panamanians taking a break by climbing up a coconut palm, knocking a few off and getting a cool drink from them. Very common.

There was a contingent of Panamanian Indians who were quartered on the base who did a lot of the maintenance work. Cleaning barracks, running the chow halls and clubs, mowing, trimming, road maintenance. All the Indios on our base were from the same tribe – San Blas - and had a chief who divvied up the work, kept the men honest, watched out for their welfare and was generally their boss. They swept our barracks, emptied our trash, made our bunks and did the latrine cleaning. We occupants of the barracks chipped in a couple dollars a week to the chief and he paid the workers from it. You could also hire them for special duties – washing and ironing uniforms, washing your car, etc.

The national language of Panama is Spanish. To be able to communicate, at least a little, you had to pick up some useful Espanol. All traffic signs were bi-lingual – Spanish and English, so you picked up some there. You learned alto meant stop, derecha meant right and isquierda meant left. Omnibus meant bus. Parada meant stop the bus. And, of course, you learned enough Spanish to be able to get a drink in a bar. Cerveza was beer, ron was rum. Those were actually the primary drinks in the tropics. Panama made several kinds of beer; Cerveza Balboa, Cerveza Panama, Cerveza Atlas are three I remember. The best selling rum was Ron Cortez, which was marvelous rum and sold for $1.85 a quart. The beer at the package store was maybe $1.50 a six-pack?

We stayed away from the local whiskey's as they were awful!

You learned that hecho en Estados Unidos de America meant made in the United States, that peligro meant danger, that trabajo meant work and, of course, hombres and mujeres meant men and women. You needed that for the restrooms in the city. Leche meant milk, helados was ice cream, biftek was steak and empanada was a tasty pastry with a meat filling. You learned some swear words, too. Anyone surprised about that?

The BIG saying around base was “Que paso?” Basically it meant “What's happening?” The normal answer was “nada” - “nothing.”

The land around the base (and many areas on the base itself) was jungle. Guaranteed, 100-percent, Tarzan-and-Jane-type jungle. If you stepped from a road or path into the stuff you were lost in 10 feet. As God is my judge that is the truth. The smell of the jungle was present everywhere also. It's very hard to describe but if you've smelled it once you'll never forget it. It smells like a million years of things growing, dying and rotting, then growing, dying and rotting again. Pungent, ripe, foul, dank, heavy, cloying, sweet, stinking and wet – always wet. And lots of other adjectives would fit too. I remember returning to Panama after a leave home during New Year's of '68-'69. As soon as they opened the airplane's doors upon landing I knew exactly where I was. The smell of the jungle was a dead giveaway.

The U.S. Army used Panama a lot for jungle training for the troops heading off to Vietnam. Why? Panama was worse than Vietnam.

Panama was hot and humid. It rained there every day. In the dry season it rained only once a day. In the wet season it rained generally twice a day. When it rained it came down straight and very, very hard. It put down a lot of water in those showers. A lot. The base had concrete-lined ditches all over the place to carry off the rainwater. You were always sweaty and hot when you weren't in air conditioning. Always. We weren't issued blankets for our bunks. There was no need for blankets. We were issued two sheets and a pillowcase each week and you needed to replace them at least at that frequency because of the sweat. You rarely even needed the top sheet to sleep. We drank all the time to replace the sweat that was always occurring – water, pop, beer, whatever. We drank liquids a lot.

The wild animals in the jungles of Panama were very different than those in North America. Jaguars and ocelots, boa constrictors and a thousand other snakes, coati mundis, iguanas, sloths, many kinds of monkeys, brilliantly colored birds and huge insects were just a few of the animals you might run into just a few steps off the roads. There was a fer-de-lance snake killed on the steps of base operations only a week before I arrived. This is a horribly venomous pit viper. There was a three-toed sloth hanging in a tree very close to the gate into Howard. Sloths move very little, so he was a fixture there for a month or two.

I'll tell you some animal stories a bit later.

The Panama Canal itself was a very busy place. Ships were passing through there constantly. You could always take a look out into Panama Bay and see freighters and other ships lined up clear to the horizon waiting their turn to pick up a pilot and pass through the canal. The transit took about a day and every boat that went through had to have a licensed Panamanian pilot aboard commanding the ship. This was to safeguard the canal and its locks from accidents which could cost millions to repair. You could sit in an observation area at the Miraflores Locks (close to the southern terminus of the canal where I was located) and watch the ships pass through. Most were cargo ships but there were the still frequent cruise ships and military vessels. Jacques Cousteau's ship “Calypso” transited the canal during the time I was there. The water to fill the canal and operate the locks came from a man-made lake called Lake Gatun situated in the middle of the isthmus. All the locks were gravity-fed from this lake.

On my first trip off base I went with one of the new friends I'd made. We picked up the bus at the stop in front of the barracks and rode it into the city. It traveled out the base gate to the main road, then south a little before turning east and going over the big Thatcher Ferry Bridge that crossed the canal. The bus then traveled along the Fourth of July Boulevard which was the border between the Zone and the Republic. If you looked to your left you would see the rolling green lawns and fields of the Canal Zone with the white-washed buildings. Very colonial looking. To your right was the Panama City slum we all called “Hollywood” with it's rusting corrugated tin roofs and open sewers running down the streets – one of the poorest sections of the city. The dichotomy between the two areas was striking. The bus finally stopped and we got off and entered the city. The airman I was with was looking for a new radio and we visited several stores that sold that kind of goods. A lot of the retail stores in Panama are run by East Indians. Most of the shop owners are at least tri-lingual. They speak their native dialect – call it Indian to be generic. Then they spoke Spanish, as that was the national language. Then most spoke English also, as much of their trade was with the military and the folks from the Canal Zone. Some were even half-way fluent in a few other languages (I recognized French, Portuguese and German) as ships from many lands docked there and their passengers and sailors frequently shopped among them. My new friend found his radio and, after a few beers – cervezas – at a local bar we rode the bus back to base.

One night in October, about a month later, I was in the Republic with several friends for an evening and while we were waiting at the bus stop for the last bus back to Howard we saw something quite interesting and unnerving. Along Fourth of July Boulevard we saw a group of Panamanian Army canvas-topped trucks and a couple of Panamanian Army jeeps with mounted and manned .50 caliber machine guns. They went roaring by heading who knew where. We looked at each other and wondered what was going on. When our bus returned us to the base we noticed a red light flashing at the gate. We were informed by the AP's that the base was sealed and we would not be allowed to leave again until further notice. When we asked around we found out what had happened.

There was an election campaign going on in Panama that fall. We'd seen political posters all over the city when we were visiting there. They take their politics very seriously in Central America and there were a dozen or more parties with candidates running for president that year. Arnulfo Arias was the winner of the election as the coalition choice of five of the political parties. He had been in power only 11 days when we saw the La Guardia Nacional troops rushing by our bus stop that night. Apparently, as one of the first acts as the new president he had decided to purge the Panamanian military of some high ranking officers who wouldn't go along with his orders. The officers, headed by a man named Omar Torrijos Herrera were incensed at the dismissal, staged a coup and took over the country. Arnulfo Arias fled from the republic to Howard Air Force Base where he was whisked away in the middle of the night to Miami to escape capture. Torrijos, who was a lieutenant colonel at the time, promoted himself to general and dictator of Panama. And that was what was going on that strange night as I was returning to the base.

Things settled down fairly quickly after Torrijo's coup and we were only confined to the base for a week or so. There was some sporadic gunfire in the city during that time and some of the NCO's and officers who lived in the Republic were anxious, but nothing much really happened. As far as we low-ranking airmen were concerned we saw very little changes in the city except for the cleaner streets, less criminal elements and a higher presence of La Guardia on the streets and in the bars and other establishments. Torrijos had “cleaned” up the city. The La Guadia Nacional in Panama was the Army, police and national guard all rolled into one. They all wore the same uniforms whether directing traffic or fighting in a war. We were warned that they were short tempered and if they gave you an order while you were in the Republic you responded quickly. I personally saw a small La Guardia take on a big, drunken Army dude in a bar and lay him on the floor in five quick seconds when he refused the La Guardia's order to leave the bar.

They were some tough little hombres.

Some recollections of my time in Panama:

One of the Sergeants who lived a floor above me in my barracks was a collector for his zoo back home. He would ship animals back to the States, apparently. I didn't know much about him until one evening a buddy of mine said that Sgt. So-and-So from upstairs was going to base operations to pick up a boa constrictor to send back to the States and did I want to go see? Well, of course I did. We walked over to Base Operations and saw a couple Air Policemen holding a big snake. I guess they'd found it out on one of the taxiways on the other side of the airfield. Sgt. So-and-So took a look at it and had the AP's stretch it out on the counter so we could take a good look at it. The snake was a Green Boa Constrictor about 8 feet long but only as big around as maybe a softball. The sergeant said he should have been much thicker. He then showed us why the snake was so skinny. Along the snake's back were dozens and dozens of jungle ticks protruding from its skin. These insects looked like brown dimes sticking in its back. While the sergeant and the AP's held the snake still, a few of us other guys used our cigarettes to burn ticks off the snake's back. You'd heat one up and he'd back right out of the skin where we could pick em off and stomp on them. A unique experience to be sure.

On one of my days off I grabbed a friend and we rode my motorcycle, a 125-cc Yamaha with almost no brakes, over to the city of Colon on the Caribbean side of the isthmus. It was only about 50 miles there and 50 miles back. It was a fun ride and we had a good time playing tourist in the northern Panamanian city. After returning I realized what I had actually done. I had ridden a motorcycle with almost no brakes from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean and back in one day! Not many people could say that, I'll bet.

One day a coati mundi wandered into the barracks. This is a dog-sized animal that looks like a cross between a raccoon and an anteater. It was friendly and we fed it. The animal liked that and made itself at home. It stayed about a week before someone reported it and we found out it was a pet of someone's up in base housing. A couple AP's came by to pick up our buddy and take him home. He was sleeping under one of the tech sergeant's beds and didn't want come out. The ol' sergeant said, “Wait a minute.” He placed a saucer on the floor next to the bed and poured some beer into it. The coati mundi came out and was lapping up the beer when the AP's, wearing gloves, picked him up and took him away. A beer-loving coati mundi. Quite a pet, eh?

Our weather detachment received a satellite-tracking trailer in the summer of 1969. Weather satellites were fairly new and it was a novelty to use our new “toy”. I remember tracking a very devastating storm from that trailer that summer. It was a monster that hit the gulf coast of the US and her name was Camille.

Traveling around Panama City was fun. You could ride in little buses that held a dozen or so people. There were hundreds of them. They were called Chivas which apparently meant “slow sheep”. They were always decorated with colored tapes, bright paintings of all kinds of things and there were usually pictures of saints taped to the ceiling and walls of the inside of the buses You jumped on one and rode it as far as you wanted and, when you got off you gave the driver a nickel. You rarely saw one of the drivers use his brakes. It was gas pedal and horn, gas pedal and horn, red lights be damned.

Very early one morning while I was working a shift at the weather station I noticed something on one of the windows. It was one of the giant stick bugs standing on the outside of the glass. He was about as big around as your little finger. I got a yardstick and laid it on the glass on the inside of the window next to him. That bug was 16 inches long from the end of his back legs to the tips of his front legs. We had a display for the pilots in the briefing area of some of the other big bugs we had in the jungles. Mainly big beetles, some almost as big as your fist. They had problems sometimes with the jets hitting those bugs and breaking windscreens.

In late '67 there was a change in the ranking of the enlisted men of the U. S. Air Force. What it meant for me was this: my rank of E-4 Airman First Class was changed to E-4 Sergeant. I was officially an NCO from that time forward. So in Panama I was entitled to go into the NCO club. As it was just across the street from my barracks, they served meals and drinks and had entertainment on lots of weekends, I spent quite a bit of time there. In fact, I ate breakfast there so often that the cooks, when they saw me come in the door, started cooking my favorite – a thick western omelet with big chunks of ham and green peppers and onions. But I had them make a change. Along with the three aforementioned ingredients they would also add mushrooms and jalapeño peppers. Along with 3 or 4 cups of coffee it was a superb breakfast!

I had a good friend in my barracks catch malaria while I was down there. I had loaned him some of my paperback H.P. Lovecraft horror novels during that time. I learned that you didn't want to be shaking with malarial fever and reading H.P. Lovecraft at the same time! Your nightmares were pretty awful, from what he told me. The disease of malaria hadn't quite been eradicated down there. They sprayed for the mosquito very frequently both from the air and from the ground, but the mosquito that caused the disease was a hard one to kill and there was the occasional case here and there.

Flying home on leave in January of 1969 on an older Air Force 4-engine prop aircraft. It was the middle of the night and we were flying over the center of the Gulf of Mexico. There were about 20 passengers flying to the States that night and I believe about all of them were asleep except for me. I was gazing out the window looking to the east when I noticed a sliver of bright light flying alongside of us. It looked, for all practical purposes, like a disk or a saucer. Uh-huh. Middle of the Gulf of Mexico, middle of the night, everyone asleep except me and, hopefully, the pilot – UFO flying alongside. My heart was beating fiercely as my brain was trying to assimilate what my eyes were seeing. And it was getting bigger and brighter as the seconds went by. I was thinking I'd just fell into an episode of “The Twilight Zone” and was just about ready to get up and see if the pilot was seeing what I was seeing when, all at once, I understood what was out there. It was the moon rising from the waters of the Gulf. The sky was black and the water was black. The only light was that of the moon as it slowly rose in the sky. I now know how some of the UFO sightings in the world are probably natural stuff.

Getting on a Boeing 707 in Miami, Florida for my return flight to Panama after my New Year's leave. It was a South American airline, can't remember which one, and the announcements were primarily in Spanish. A lot of the passengers were, shall I say, dangerous looking? They looked like desperados from some spaghetti-western movie, drooping mustachios, fierce black eyes, odd clothing. You also had to remember that around this time there were numerous hijackings of aircraft to Jose Marti airport in Cuba by people trying to make a political point. A lot of those hijackings originated in Miami. And this aircraft was going to be flying OVER Cuba on it's way to Tocumen airport in Panama City and points further south. I sat there in my dress blues uniform and hoped that the next landfall I'd see would be Panama, not the Communist island of Cuba. It was a very long flight and I let out a grateful sigh of relief when our wheels touched down in Panama.

Sitting down in my seat on the jet that was going to take me home from Panama when my tour was over. Cheering and loudly singing the Animal's rock song “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” along with the rest of the rowdy military passengers when the wheels of the aircraft left the ground, knowing that we were going home, going back to America, going back to “The World”. It's hard to describe the joy in my heart on that northbound flight on that sunny day in the fall of 1969. The joy of a man laying down his tools after a good, hard day's work, knowing his sweat and efforts had been appreciated.

Even if that appreciation was only given by his fellow comrades and his family.

I was one of the lucky ones who did not get spat upon when returning to the United States. Some of my fellow soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen had to pass through that indignity. I thank God I did not. I'll leave the judgment for those who performed those acts to God's mercy because I have none to give them.

How do I sum up the experiences of my four years in the U.S. Air Force? There was no doubt in my mind that it was the seminal period of my life. I had transited in those 1,430 days from my boyhood to at least a reasonable version of manhood. I'd left behind my home, my family and my individual aspirations and dreams to join with my brothers in the military in serving my country. My part in the grand scheme of things was small but, I hope not too insignificant. I was a cog in the great machine of the era that will forever be known as The Vietnam Years.

I followed my orders. I served to the best of my ability. I willingly gave up four years of my life to ensure that my son, who was still an idea, not a reality, would continue to reap the rewards of freedom I had enjoyed. Yes its a cliché and yes patriotism is passe in some quarters these days. But not in my house, not in my family and not in my heart. I proudly fly my flag every day from my front porch.

I pulled my old blue dress uniform coat out of the closet the other day and looked at it. The ribbons on the breast and the stripes on the sleeve have faded a bit over the years and the brass could use a bit of a shining up. My name tag still looks out from the top of the pocket flap. But to my aging eyes the ribbons are still as brightly colored as the day they were first pinned on, the sergeant stripes on the sleeves as colorful and sharp as the day I was promoted and the brass as sweetly shining as the sun itself.

I wouldn't have missed a day of it.

Airman Stories - Part Two

Airman Stories – Part Two

When I enlisted in the Air Force I was given a choice of three careers that I'd like to pursue while in the service. There were no guarantees that I'd get what I wanted, but I were given some choices and the recruiter said they'd try to match as many as possible. There were many careers to pick from and I ended up choosing Intelligence as number 1, Weather as number 2 and something else for number 3. It doesn't really matter as I received my second pick, Weather. My orders after basic training were to report to Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois on a certain date and be prepared to start Air Weather Observer School.

Did I have any background in weather that might have prompted me to select it? Nope. Did I know anyone in weather except for, of course, Dick Goddard on television? Nope.

I just thought it might be interesting.

I didn't have enough time served in the military at that time to be allowed any leave, so when I departed Lackland AFB I was shipped directly to my next assignment at the tech school in Illinois.

During the end of 1965 and most of 1966 there was a big buildup in military forces all through the U.S., so when I arrived at Chanute the schools were all filled for the moment. I had to wait until a class opened up which I could attend. Having to wait meant I was not allowed to move into a school barracks. I had to wait my turn. So my first barracks assignment at Chanute was in what they called a PATS barracks. PATS stood for Personnel Awaiting Technical School. It was a old 2-story green building quite a long way from almost anything on base. It had been built in the early 1940's and was, ostensibly, originally a WAAC's barrack – Women's Army Air Corps. The concrete floor of the barracks was all chipped and pockmarked by the thousands and thousands of high-heel shoes of the WAAC's that had walked over it during the Second World War. At least that was the explanation I received for the rough condition of the floor.

Perhaps it might have even been true.

I was to spend almost a month in this building waiting for a class to open.

Since we weren't in school at the time, the Air Force had to find work for us PATS to do – to keep us busy. So we did a lot of policing – picking up trash all over the base, KP – working in various capacities in the gigantic kitchen of the huge main chow hall on the base, and they would also “park” us in the base movie theater and show us hour after hour of “Air Power” documentaries to keep us occupied. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the “Air Power” films, but if you ever watched TV in the 50's and watched a series of films entitled “Victory at Sea”, you will have an idea of what they were about. As “Victory at Sea” was about the Navy, “Air Power” was about the Air Force. Hour after hour after hour after hour of grainy black and white films showing WWII bombers and fighters doing their “thing” during the war, dropping bombs and shooting other airplanes. It was cold outside by this time – late December and early January – and the theater was warm. A LOT of us had a difficult time staying awake during the “entertainment”. Unfortunately there were NCO' s prowling the aisles who were determined to make sure you stayed awake. They'd yell at you and thump you if you started to drowse. So we propped our eyes open when in the theater, picked up the trash as we were ordered and did our duty on the clipper lines or cleaning details in the mess hall. And we PATS waited for the school to open.

One nice part of life on Chanute was a tradition called “Pizza – Pop”. A small business in Rantoul had the franchise to sell pizza and soda pop to the airmen, delivery style. They would drive around to all the barracks in special small trucks or station wagons and yell out the doors, “Pizza Pop!” The men in the barracks who where interested came out and bought a hot pizza pie and a cold can of cola from him. It was an interesting arrangement and us hungry guys were very appreciative. The guy had to have made a fortune!

Finally I got my school orders. Hurrah! With the school assignment I was at last assigned to a school barracks. This was a much newer, 2-story building with 4-man rooms. I think we had about 75 to 80 airmen living in each barracks and there were six to ten barracks in the squadron area. This was to be home for the next 4-5 months.

Daily life on Chanute AFB was quite different in a lot of details than it was in basic training at Lackland. You still had quite a bit of regimentation in your daily life, but not NEAR what it was like in Texas. Most of the time when you weren't in class you were free to do pretty much whatever you wanted – within limits, though. You could go to the base theater, library, church or the Airman's Club. More on that later. Or even visit the adjoining town, Rantoul, Illinois if you were adventurous.

Let's talk about the Airman's Club. It was called “The Chevron” and it was a bar/nightclub sort of place on the base. It sold beer and mixed drinks and had entertainment on the weekends. It was strictly for the enlisted men and not for the NCO's or officers, E-4's and below at that time. I'd like to say I never set foot in the place but that would be a lie. I spent many hours there, probably drinking more than I should, listening to the bands and watching the go-go dancers that were frequently hired to entertain the airmen. (Go-go dancers? Don't forget that this was the 60's, for goodness sakes.) The alcohol was inexpensive and there was not a whole lot else to do after your classes and your homework were complete. I have many fond memories of “The Chevron.”

School, when I started going to it, was quite interesting. I'd had no idea how much there was to learn about the weather. Seemed like it ought to be fairly easy.

Wrong!

In our classes we learned about basic meteorology, plotting weather information on charts, weather instrumentation, teletype and facsimile operations and did some training on some early weather radar gear, specifically on the CPS-9 Weather Radar. My specialty was in the observation of weather, so we didn't get into any forecasting training. That specialty was for higher level NCO's and officers.

Here's some weather facts for ya:

There are 9 basic types of clouds that can exist on 3 distinct levels of sky and they develop into 27 states of sky. Some of those clouds were cumulus, stratus, cirrus, cirrocumulus, cirrostratus, nimbus, nimbostratus, cumulostratus, altostratus and cumulonimbus. There were even some funny named ones: Altocumulus Castellantus, Altocumulus Standing Lenticular, Cumulonimbus Mammatus. Lots of Latin derivations. Some of these clouds produced rain, some snow, some thunderstorms, hurricanes and tornadoes.

How high must a cloud be before it's a cloud? Fifty-one feet. Below that it's fog.

Cold fronts on weather maps are colored blue and have little points on them. Warm fronts are red and have little half-moons on them. Stationary fronts are red and blue and have alternating points and half-moons. Occluded fronts (fronts that have ridden over other fronts) are purple.

Winds blow clockwise around highs and counter-clockwise around lows. In the northern hemisphere, if you stand with the wind at your back there will be a low pressure system to your left. Always. This is Buys Ballot's Law.

Barometric pressure can do seven things in a 3-hour period: steady, steady then rise, steady then fall, rise then steady, fall then steady, rise, fall.

Precipitation can take many forms, all different and all to be memorized: rain, rain showers, sleet, hail, small hail, snow, snow pellets, snow crystals, ice pellets, drizzle, freezing rain, freezing drizzle.

What causes wind? The unequal heating of the earth's surface.

The acronym CANS tells you rain is approaching by what clouds are coming toward you: Cumulus, Altostratus, Nimbostratus, Stratus.

Looking back on the way we observed and forecast weather in those days it all seems so very primitive compared to what goes on today. We had fairly crude, low range radars, weather satellites were just on the horizon, no computers. We relied on the observations of trained people, reported on teletypes, gathered together by other trained meteorologists and the information on those reports along with some faxed weather maps and local upper-level temperature, humidity and wind data were the information used by the forecasters to forecast the upcoming weather. In those days, forecasts were for a day, maybe two. Anything beyond that was called an “outlook” and could be WAY off.

School was in session during that winter in three shifts, six am until noon, noon until 6 pm and 6 pm until midnight. I was lucky and was assigned the noon until 6 pm shift. Classes were 50 minutes followed by a 10 minute break, repeated 6 times. School was taught in a huge sprawling 3-story brick building close to the airfield's flight line. We marched there and marched back as groups from our squadron area – a distance of a little less than a mile. It was so cold during some periods of this winter in Illinois we were issued face masks to wear when outside. We carried our schoolbooks and the weather charts we were working with in canvas schoolbags hung on our left sides with a strap over our right shoulder. We looked like masked mailmen heading out on their rounds!

School was a blur that winter and, by the time the ground thawed, the spring breezes started blowing and the daffodils poked their heads out of the ground, we'd learned our stuff, graduated and had received new orders.

Please be aware that time in the military is divided into assignments and leaves. Assignments are given to you by a set of orders. Orders are the lifeblood of the military and nothing much happens until you get your orders. My orders at the end of tech school told me where my next assignment was going to be.

And that first assignment as a freshly-minted Air Weather Observer was to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma.

I was initially confused by that assignment. Ft. Sill is a well-known, very old Army Post where training is given in artillery and, at that time, helicopter piloting. I didn't know there were ANY Air Force personnel there. I found out after reporting, however, that there was a small detachment of Air Force weathermen assigned to Ft. Sill to provide meteorological support to Henry Post Airfield on the Army post. Apparently the Army had no meteorologists. We were detached out of Sheppard Air Force Base about 50 miles south in Texas which meant that our paychecks and any further orders would be sent from there.

I found all that out after I'd reported in. I also found out at that time that there were only 16 of us Air Force folks on the whole army post, with literally tens of thousands of soldiers around us. We were quite the novelty with our upward-facing blue and white wing rank insignias on our sleeves instead of the army down-facing gold chevrons.

It was a great assignment! When we weren't working one of the 5 shifts that we had to cover for the day, we were free to do whatever we wanted. We actually only put on our uniforms to go to work. The rest of the time it was civvies. The work consisted of two shifts at the primary weather station in the post airfield offices, 4 am to noon and noon to 8 pm where we assisted the forecaster with assembling weather teletype reports, coloring received facsimile weather maps, posting charts, transmitting the forecasts and helping the forecaster brief pilots. The other site we worked at was the ROS, the Remote Observation Site, with 3 shifts, 7 days a week. The ROS was a small building very close to the runway where we would monitor the weather, write up our observations, cut a teletype tape and transmit it into the weather network at appropriate times where it would be incorporated into forecasts around the country.

For our living quarters we had the full 2^nd floor of an old barracks near the airfield, probably World War II vintage. We had rooms with 2 to 4 men in each plus a rec room with pool and table tennis tables. Some of the married airmen lived off-site with their wives and children. Us single guys living in the barracks also had a TV room where we could relax and watch television. I remember seeing the last episode of “The Fugitive” in that room when Dr. Richard Kimble found the one-armed man. It was comfortable living in that barracks as we could decorate our rooms as we wished (within some military restrictions). As long as we kept our areas clean we were OK. We had inspections once a week and the rooms had to be tidy with made bunks and shined shoes displayed under the beds.

The military reservation was bounded on the south by the Oklahoma town of Lawton. It, at the time, was your typical Army town with lots and lots of bars, pawn shops and other businesses catering to the military. On Army payday weekends, the city police rode with the military MP's and the MP's rode with the police. Any disturbance could thus be handled by the appropriate authorities using this procedure. It was very rowdy in Lawton on those weekends and being arrested was a distinct possibility. The amount of drunken soldiers on the streets, at times, was unbelievable – a veritable Mardi Gras every other weekend in Indian Territory.

Ft. Sill is gigantic in area – a rectangle about 10 miles from north to south and about 30 miles from east to west - 300 square miles. A lot of the land on the post is devoted to artillery ranges, so you couldn't travel around the post haphazardly. But the roads entering live ranges were blockaded and red-flagged, so you'd have to be pretty stupid to get into trouble. Geronimo, the famous Indian chief is buried in an Indian graveyard on the post – he died in captivity there back during the Indian War days. The military reservation is bordered to the north by the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, an area of land similar in size to Ft. Sill itself. The refuge contained many species of wildlife indigenous to the area including bison, longhorn cattle, elk, whitetail deer, prairie dogs, river otters and burrowing owls. The Wichita Mountains stretch along part of the Refuge and Part of Ft. Sill and the largest of them, Mt. Scott, has a paved road that runs to its summit.

I've driven that road many times both as a single man back in the '60's and with my wife and son on vacations later in life.

While I was stationed down there I drove a 1962 Chevy II Nova convertible, blue with a white top, stick shift on the column, small V-6 engine. I was also dating a girl in Tulsa. It was one of those odd occurrences. I'd met Kathy in my hometown in Ohio when I was a senior in high school and she was attending a business college in town. She was from Tulsa and, after I graduated and she moved back to Oklahoma I figured I'd probably never see her again. Lady Luck played her hand, though, and I was stationed 200 miles away from her a year later – an easy drive. She still lived at home with her parents and a brother and sister, so I became the sixth member of their family when I was able to get away from the post for a few days. We all got along really well and it was a welcome break from the military when I took my long weekends up in Tulsa. They were my second family.

There was a legend about the Wichita Mountains that I heard about while I was at Ft. Sill. It told of a cave located somewhere in the ruggedest part of the mountains that was sealed by an rusting iron door. In the cave, depending on which version of the legend you believed, there was eleven million dollars in Spanish gold in ingots and pieces of eight. Or there was $500,000 of loot from the outlaw Belle Starr. Or, in another version, there was $200,000 of Jesse James outlaw loot. The treasure site was called generically “The Iron Door of the Wichitas” I would sit in the ROS on many days and look to the north to the Wichitas. I could plainly see them from that vantage point approximately eleven miles away. I could even see the particular peak in the mountains where the outlaw Frank James, when he was an old man and before he died in 1915, had returned to and, at an old campsite, had dug up a coffee pot that he'd buried after a robbery many years before. It still contained the stolen greenbacks after all those years. I could see that site where outlaw loot had been recovered and I knew in my heart that there was more to be found for a resourceful individual. I ended up spending many an hour scrambling around those mountains and looking for treasure. The incredible ruggedness of the area made my quest virtually impossible, but the lure was there.

I even feel a tug to this day.

Some images that come to mind of my days in Oklahoma:

On one visit to Tulsa I was driving around in my convertible with Kathy near Keystone Lake on the Arkansas River. We were some miles out of town when we spotted a cougar slipping into the woods on the right side of the road. A doggone cougar! We mentioned the sighting to her dad and he called the state police to report it. We found out that it wasn't a particularly uncommon occurrence. Very different wildlife in that territory than the bunnies, squirrels and deer of my part of Ohio.

Shooting off firecrackers behind my girlfriend's house in Tulsa with her brother one Fourth of July and accidentally setting their house on fire. It ended up destroying their roof and inflicting smoke and water damage to the interior. No one was hurt and I got to help the firemen hold the hoses while they were pouring water onto the blaze. Please note that this was not one of the high points of my life.

Getting haircuts at one of my married fellow airman's houses in Lawton. He was a certified barber in his home state of Indiana, but not in Oklahoma, so it was actually illegal. Go figure. I think he charged us a dollar per haircut. He also liked to serve salty dogs to his friends when we would visit. A salty dog is grapefruit juice, gin and salt. Very good and very intoxicating.

My roommate Mike catching gonorrhea from an Indian “girlfriend”. Don't know exactly what tribe she belonged to. Watching the torment he went through with this disease made me positive that I would never be in that position myself.

Mike, my roomie, was an interesting guy. He was the son of a career Army sergeant and a French mother who married after World War II. He spoke fluent French and English. He had a hard time with authority during his tour at Ft. Sill and I had to get him out of scrapes fairly frequently. The one time I couldn't help him was when he got involved with a criminal element from Lawton and was caught stealing televisions from the local Ramada Inn. He spent a few weeks in the Comanche County Jail for it and almost got dishonorably discharged. He had to do restitution to the motel and had a hefty fine to pay. He lived on macaroni and cheese for six months or so as to have enough money to pay off his debt. Mike was later assigned to Udorn Air Force Base in Thailand. I corresponded with him for some months until my letters started being returned marked “Deceased.” I still, to this day, do not know what happened to him.

Regularly pawning my stereo record player when I ran out of cash, which happened fairly frequently just before payday. I'd pawn it for $10 and would redeem it after payday for $12. A good deal as it allowed me to eat on the day or couple days before I got paid.

Not eating isn't very much fun.

Working one day in the weather station and noticing a very young looking man in shorts and tee shirt coming in with a newspaper and going into one of the offices. I asked the forecaster on duty if that was the paper delivery boy. He looked at me oddly and informed me that the gentleman I'd just seen was my new detachment commander, Captain So-and-so. I'm so glad I asked the forecaster and not the commander. But the guy was so doggone young looking!

Working in the ROS one stormy spring night listening to the radio. It was early in my residence at Ft. Sill. The station playing was from Oklahoma City, about 80 miles north of me. The announcer was tracking 3 tornadoes as they moved across the city, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood. Three! Apparently this was a common occurrence in those parts. I prayed the storms stayed to our north.

Coming back to the barracks on my first Christmas in Oklahoma after a long midnight shift. I was very depressed being away from home for my 2^nd Christmas in a row, I was 19 years old and everyone was gone, either at work or home on leave. I grabbed a bottle of whiskey that was sitting on my roommate's dresser and tipped it into my mouth intending to mitigate my sorrows for a while. I immediately found out that there was only a half-inch of booze in the bottle and my roomie had been putting out his cigarettes in it. I got a mouthful of nasty, wet ashes for my trouble.

It was a Merry Christmas indeed.

I spent a total of about 22 months at Ft. Sill. I'd been promoted to Airman 2^nd class, two stripes, while there, and had grown familiar with the ins and outs of military life. I'd made a lot of friends and learned a lot of lessons, some easily and some, which I won't delve into, a bit harder.

I was concerned that my next set of orders would send me to southeast Asia and I wasn't overeager to be sent in that direction. But when the orders came I was quite surprised at the completely different direction Uncle Sugar was sending me.

I was being ordered to...

to be continued.

Airman Stories - Part One

AIRMAN STORIES – PART ONE

I guess you could say it all started with me not wanting to get shot. I always thought that was a good enough reason for what I did. Getting shot was likely to, at best, hurt a whole lot and, at worst, have a good chance of killing you. So any alternative would be a good one, yes? Right?

I certainly thought so.

In 1965 I was coasting through the end of my senior year in high school, dating a bit, working after school slinging hamburgers, tooling around town in my '56 red and white Victoria, being a semi-normal teenager in Middle America. I was what you might call a middle-of-the-road student or maybe a little below that. Proficient enough with my studies that I was definitely going to graduate, but definitely not with honors. The big worry for us guys graduating in 1965 was that doggone war. It overshadowed pretty much everything. Vietnam was heating up big-time that year and all the senior guys in school were aware that they would be required to do something about it after they graduated, even if it was just crossing their fingers and hoping they wouldn't get drafted. Oh yes, the draft was definitely in full bloom that year and it seemed, at least to me, that they were grabbing pretty much everyone who waited around and hoped they wouldn't get 'em. I knew I wasn't smart enough or rich enough to go to college. I knew I didn't want to run to Canada like some of the draft-dodgers were doing in those years. Too cold and I didn't particularly like hockey. I knew for sure that I didn't want to start a family and get a deferment that way. And I didn't want to get drafted.

So I did some investigating.

I figured that if I enlisted in one of the branches of the military other than the Army or Marines, maybe there would be a better chance of not meeting a communist bullet with my name on it. I narrowed the field down after visiting several recruiters and settled on the Air Force. Being in the Air Force wasn't a guarantee that I would stay safe, but the odds were a lot better there than in the Army or Marines – or even the Navy, I thought.

I graduated from high school in June of that year and, while I was waiting for my departure date to enter the Air Force, I went to work in the factory where my father was employed. I worked on an assembly line where they were making Post Office trucks. The company bought the truck chassis from Chrysler and Dodge and built the bodies and cabs for them. I worked on the Dodge truck line from right after my graduation in June until November, when I left for basic training.

I left my hometown on a sunny, late fall day on a Greyhound bus. One of my classmates from high school had enlisted at the same time I did and was sitting next to me on the bus. He looked as green around the gills as I was feeling. This was real. We were actually going. We were on our way to the military, during wartime, and it was exciting and terrifying in equal measure.

The bus pulled out and headed up the familiar city street, my folks standing there at the bus stop waving, teary-eyed, as we rounded a corner and proceeded up the highway. I figured it'd take us an hour to an hour and a half to get to Cleveland.

I was wrong.

The bus did not go directly to Cleveland. It went to every single city, town and village between my home and Cleveland. Pick up folks and drop them off. Pick up some more and then drop them off. The 60-mile-trip took four hours or more. I saw a lot of little downtowns through the dirty bus windows. My initial terror was beginning to evolve into acute boredom.

Finally we arrived in Cleveland and made our way to the recruitment center where our papers were checked, we were given physical exams, immunized against this and that and finally sworn in. I could go into great detail about those procedures, but suffice it to say there were a lot of mostly naked men walking around in corridors with papers in their hands going from room to room. It reminded me of a locker room after the team had lost the big game. Smelled like it too.

I watched a tough-looking guy faint dead away when they drew blood from his arm. His Air Force career was starting with a bang.

Finally we raised our hands and read the words that were on the paper in our hands, repeating the oath of enlistment from a lieutenant who was administering it. It was actually pretty anticlimactic. We'd just sworn to protect our nation with our lives and it seemed so mundane, like we'd only promised to behave ourselves until next Thursday. We looked at each other and grinned shakily.

Four years active service, baby. That's what we signed up for. Oh boy. We were in it now!

We were marched down the street to a restaurant for our first meal as Air Force recruits. We went into the front door. It was a very nice restaurant. Linen on the tables, nice silverware. We thought to ourselves, “hey, this isn't so bad!” We continued marching through the front dining room and were led through another door into a back room. There were picnic tables set up back there in what looked like a storage room, and that was our “mess hall” for the meal. Reality had arrived with a vengeance. The meal was so-so, on paper plates and with plastic utensils, filling and plain. We were then marched back to the recruitment center where buses were waiting to take us to the airport.

Our flight to Texas where the basic training would be given was interesting. As it was my first airplane flight it was exhilarating and scary too. We flew on a Delta Airlines turbo-prop (don't forget this was the mid-60's). Noisy, bumpy, shaky and more than a bit unnerving. And, of course, we didn't just fly directly to Texas. Nope. This was a puddle jumper flight. We flew from Cleveland to Detroit. Then from Detroit to Indianapolis. Then from Indianapolis to Memphis. Then from Memphis to Shreveport. Then from Shreveport to Austin. Finally we got off the Delta turbo-prop in Austin and boarded a 727 jet liner for the last leg from Austin to San Antonio. It was like going from a Model-T Ford to a stretch Cadillac limousine. Smooth, quiet and fast. It was probably only an hour flight. We'd taken off and landed six times. I was an experienced flyer by then.

On arrival at San Antonio we were loaded onto buses and driven to Lackland Air Force Base, some miles outside the city, where Air Force basic training was given. Our bus driver told us to smoke 'em if we had 'em and to enjoy the ride, 'cause the fun was going to be over very, very quickly.

His observation was dead on.

Most of the movies and TV shows about military basic training are close to being accurate, at least for the first few days of your residence. The bus stops, an angry-looking sergeant with a flat-brimmed instructor's hat and crisply ironed fatigue uniform comes aboard and starts yelling. We later learned he was our T.I., the Training Instructor. Chaos then ensued. You're roughly herded off the bus and made to stand in yellow footprints painted on the parking lot. The bus leaves. The sergeant yells some more. Then he lines you up and marches your raggedy group off into the darkness for a long time until you arrive at your barracks – your new home for the next six weeks. For us it was the wee hours of the morning. He assigns each of us a room with 3 other recruits and we got into our bunks, shut up as ordered and, surprisingly, fell asleep quickly.

I got an upper bunk.

It was a newer barracks. Two wings to the building with the Training Instructor's office in between. Two stories, somewhere around 25 men per story, per wing. About 100 men in the barracks in 4-man rooms. The rooms had 2 double bunks and lockers. The floors were shiny green tile. There were showers/latrines at each end of each floor on each wing. They were very clean. We were to learn very quickly who kept the building so clean and shiny.

Three guesses who.

At five o'clock in the morning the lights all came on and more Training Instructors came running through the barracks screaming at us recruits, beating on the walls, shaking the bunks, shouting at us to fall in, fall in, FALL IN! We soon found out that “fall in” meant to run out to the sidewalk in front of the building and form up into four lines of 25 men each. We didn't do it right the first time. Or the second time. Or the eighth. Or the tenth. We practiced “falling in” a lot that first morning. Get in your rack. Listen for the command “fall in”. Race to the front walk and stand in attention at your designated spot. Get yelled at for not doing it fast enough. Run back to your room and do it again. Finally we got it down to about 60 seconds to get 100 men from their racks into silent ranks on the sidewalk in front of the building. It might have taken us a dozen tries. Or more.

We didn't know it, but this was our first lesson in teamwork. You worked with your fellow recruits and you helped each other do what was required.

The next days were a blur of marching to the mess hall, eating whatever was put on the plate in front of you and eating it fast. More marching. Going to the huge supply buildings, getting your uniforms and putting them in a big duffel bag. Haircuts. Marching. Doctors and dentists. Marching. Learning how to march correctly, to hear the commands and to execute them perfectly. Practicing. Drilling. Marching everywhere. Going to school, sitting quietly in your classroom and learning many things, from how to fold your underwear and place it in your locker, to who your next-in-command was. To learn rank designations, how to salute, military courtesy, Air Force history, how to wear the uniform properly, how to clean the barracks perfectly. We had physical fitness classes twice a day and began hardening our bodies. We sweat a lot. We cleaned the barracks over and over and over. We stood guard duty during the nights. We put up with the hazing the instructors did to us, teaching us, toughening us. We did more and more each day until we thought we couldn't do any more. Then we did even more the next day.

There were tests to take and you had to pass them all. If you didn't, they “sent you back”. This was the bitterly hated consequence of failing tests or not keeping up on your physical fitness, where you were removed from your present group of trainees and transferred to another group which was “behind” yours in training. It meant starting over and it meant you wouldn't be leaving after six weeks. Maybe it'd be 8 or 10 weeks. Or longer. Nobody wanted to do that. We lost a few of our men that way. Some even had to go to a special “fitness” flight where they would be worked harder and harder until they were able to pass the physical fitness tests. Or flunked out and were discharged from the Air Force. That happened occasionally.

Not anybody's idea of fun.

We had our first cigarette after the fifth day. Smoking was quite prevalent in those days and a lot of us had quit cold turkey when our buses had arrived at Lackland that dark morning. There was a contest that fifth day of our training where each of us had to locate as many inspection tags as we could find on our new uniforms. As a point in fact, new military uniforms are literally peppered with inspection tags. A pair of pants might have 2 or 3, some ingeniously hidden in seams or wherever. The dress blues coat might have a dozen. They all had to be removed. We found as many tags as we could, added them to a pile with ones from everyone else on our floor and wing.

Our guys won and we had 10 minutes to enjoy a cigarette in front of the barracks under the watchful eyes of the T.I. I will never again in my life taste a cigarette as wonderful as that one!

After five weeks our titles changed from “recruit” to “airman”. We were learning and had progressed to the point where we were a cohesive unit and were gaining pride in the skills and knowledge we had acquired

The total training lasted six weeks and changed us from recruits to airmen. We were a disorganized mob of individuals when we arrived and when we left we were a united group of airmen, aware of what was expected of us and proficient in the traditions and mores of the United States Air Force.

Some memories of those initial, formative weeks:

Marching to the mess hall for breakfast the first day and seeing the banana trees growing outside the door. This was Central Texas and the beginnings of the tropics, at least as far as this Northern Ohio boy was concerned. I watched the fruit grow on those trees during my time there.

Having to get another haircut on the last week just before leaving basic. We would all depart with our hair in buzzcuts. I wouldn't be able to part my hair until my 3^rd or 4^th week in Tech School.

Carrying our cigarettes in ankle holders or in our socks. We were not allowed to carry them on or in our uniforms.

Marching three miles in the rain to run the obstacle course and finding out the course was closed as it was too muddy. Thanking God we were in the Air Force where things like this happened, as opposed to the Army or Marines where we would have had to run the course wet and muddy. Many times.

Getting our pictures taken for our hometown newspapers and being told to NOT smile for them. We all looked so innocently fierce in our scratchy brand new blue uniforms.

Learning how to shoot the M-16 rifle and enjoying the hell out of blowing holes in paper silhouettes

Listening to a tough T.I. with halitosis who was 2 inches away from your face describing your deficiencies, background, ugliness, mental insufficiencies and wildly inappropriate parentage in the most colorful language you'd ever heard.

Learning that President Lyndon Johnson was in your chain of command. He was your boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's boss. We actually had orders on what to do if he showed up at the barracks in the middle of the night when we were on guard duty. I think my reaction to that unanticipated occurrence would have been to faint dead away.

Visiting the base movie theater during an off Sunday afternoon to watch whatever was playing and fighting gallantly to stay awake past the opening credits. And teasing your fellow recruits who had failed in this task.

Learning that I could do all the required push ups and sit ups and that I actually could run 2 and a half miles. A couple years before this time I had to run one mile for my Eagle badge in the Boy Scouts and I thought that feat was the pinnacle of my athletic prowess. I surprised myself.

Finding out how great any food tasted when you were really, really hungry and discovering how quickly you could fall asleep at 9 o'clock in the evening when you were bone weary.

Learning you could wake up at 5 am, make your bed, hit the can, get dressed and be ready to fall out in 5 minutes.

Listening to your head Training Instructor's radio playing the Statler Brother's “Flowers on the Wall” song almost every night before you went to sleep. And ending up dreaming of some flowers on some wall. I still know the lyrics to that song, word for word, 44 years later.

Meeting other recruits who were vastly different from anyone you had ever met. Ones who were walking encyclopedic baseball statistic freaks, real Southern hillbillies with near undecipherable drawls, poor guys from Appalachia who were the next thing to barefoot when they arrived wearing their bib overhauls and not much else, guys from every corner of this country and from every social strata.

Marching proudly with your flight of a hundred airmen and hearing one sound as your feet hit the asphalt crisply, simultaneously, left-right-left-right, your T.I. counting cadence, you and your one hundred brother airmen moving as one.

The pride you felt on your graduation day when all the training flights that were graduating held a grand parade and you marched in review past the commanding officers and any visiting dignitaries who were there, along with families.

At the end of the six weeks Basic Military Training we all received our orders for our technical schools.

I was chosen to attend the...

to be continued...