Nightingales

Back in 1974 Scott AFB in Illinois was (still is) primarily a "military airlift" base, and was home to a fleet of C-9A Nightingales (passenger jets modified for medevac use), hence the title of this post.

I arrived there at the beginning of February as part of a maintenance team sent from McClellan AFB (in Sacramento) to do some major repair work on their weather radar (WSR-57?) which had recently gone non-operational. For me and Airman Snyder, this was our first "real" job since graduating from tech school at Keesler AFB, and (not surprisingly) we were being used primarily as "gofers" for the rest of the team (all civil servants).

The team chief was a "WG-12" named Richard Balderson, and that first morning he let me tag along as he "made the rounds" - contacting the various parties we would be interacting with while on the base. Of course, me being me, I had lots of questions about what was going on and why, and Balderson (who wasn't much for explaining things) would look exasperated and say "Just pick your nose and look pretty"...

Aside: I can't count the number of times he said that to me during the years that followed... Balderson (who passed away in 2014) was a genuinely nice (but quirky) guy. As I recall, aviation was his life's passion - he was a licensed pilot and (at the time) was building a BD-5 in his garage. And shortly before I got out of the Air Force in 1979 he bought my '69 Road Runner (for his son). A few years later the car was hit broadside (the other driver's fault) and, luckily, nobody was injured. But I digress...

The team was split between two locations - the weather center (where the radar screen was) and the antenna, which was on top of a 110 ft tower. Snyder and I were split up between the locations and, luckily, I spent most of my time on the ground. However, I did have to go up the tower a few times (mostly to relay messages), which was a pain because there were no stairs - just a ladder straight up the side. (There was a circular metal cage around the ladder, but that just meant that if you lost your grip you would bounce between metal bars all the way to the ground instead of falling straight to your death. I'm not sure that's much of an improvement...)

Here's a picture I took early one morning from the platform level below the antenna... As I recall, it was bitterly cold, and the ladder rungs were icy... And those are a couple of the "Nightingales" in the middle of the picture:

At the very top of the tower was a pressurized inflatable radome (bubble) that protected the rotating antenna and related equipment. You entered it by climbing up a ladder through a trapdoor, and the only way to get tools and stuff up the tower was with a rope and pulley.

I only have one distinct memory of being in the radome:
There were 4 of us up there when a civilian named Gil let a really loud fart... We were all like "WTF?" and he said "Don't worry. My farts never stink". He was being totally serious, and he could not have been more wrong... We were stuck there, in an air tight bubble, with one of the worst smells that has ever assaulted my nostrils. The rest of us were gagging and choking - and Gil though we were kidding - I honestly don't think he could smell it... Even at lunch later that day he kept insisting that his farts were "odorless", and if they did smell he needed to go see a doctor because there was something seriously wrong with him. And we were like "Yes, please go see a doctor."

If there is a point here, it's that I was about to spend the next five years of my life working with one of the weirdest groups of people I have ever encountered. And (at the time) I didn't know the half of it.

The Trip Ends

Airman Snyder came by to pick me up at the Motel 6 near the St. Louis airport late the next morning, and if my math is correct, the date was Friday, February 1st, 1974. Our destination was Scott AFB - a mere 50 miles away - and since we had been "fudging" our itinerary we deliberately slept in to avoid showing up at the base before noon...

Aside: Nowadays it would be a lot harder to manipulate your itinerary while buying gas (2 or 3 times a day) with a government (GSA) credit card. That's because the billing info transmitted electronically, including the date and time. Back in the day the gas stations used a mechanical device to make a carbon imprint of the credit card numbers on a paper receipt and then they'd write in the amount and date by hand and send a copy to the government for reimbursement. Sometimes the date was either omitted or incorrect (plausible deniability) and the odds of anyone ever comparing the receipts against your itinerary was slim to none. (We weren't worried.) But I digress...

As we headed into downtown St. Louis I finally got to see the Gateway Arch. When I left St. Louis (as a child) in 1961 they had just broken ground on the project, and there was a huge amount of publicity. As a 3rd grader I had been totally captivated by it and had read everything article I could find - so it was really cool to see it completed.

Then we crossed the Mississippi and headed into East St. Louis - I was not prepared for that... I don't know if I had never seen it as a child, or if things had gone downhill that much between 1960 and the mid-70's - but it was the worst "urban blight" I had ever encountered. Most of the buildings were boarded up and/or falling down - there was garbage everywhere - the streets were deserted, except for a few people wandering around aimlessly - like hollow shells. Research indicates that it had (and still has) among the highest unemployment and violent crime rates in the U.S. (about twice that of Detroit). It was quite a shock.
Then we drove just a few miles and we were in Belleville Illinois - almost entirely white, and affluent. I'm not sure I've ever seen that stark of a contrast between two "small" towns (population roughly 40,000 at the time) that literally bordered each other. It was almost incomprehensible...

So - having driven 2,000 miles across the Rockies and through the Great Plains in the middle of winter (during the "gas crisis"), it was quite a relief to finally roll through the gates of Scott AFB with our truck (and our sanity) relatively intact. We checked into the transit barracks and phoned McClellan AFB to let them know we had arrived "safe and sound" and it was OK to send the rest of the radar overhaul team (all civilians).

Of course, it was Friday afternoon, and since "wage grade" civil servants don't travel on weekends we weren't going to start work until Monday afternoon, which meant we had some time to kill.
Snyder decided to go back to St. Louis to spend the weekend with his in-laws, and he wanted to take the truck. I remember being highly resistant to the idea: It's one thing to stop by a relative's house while passing through town, but taking a government vehicle over 100 miles for personal use is a whole different thing. (Especially when it's loaded with 10's of thousands of dollars worth of radar parts and test equipment.) But I wasn't in a position to stop him. (As I mentioned a few posts back, we were both the same rank and our NCOIC hadn't put either one of us in charge.)

I don't remember much else from that weekend, other than the truck (and Snyder) made it back in one piece - and there was a bit of snow on Sunday...

The Hockey Game

When I left off in my prior post, it was the end of January 1974 and I was sitting in a room at the Motel 6 by the St. Louis airport while Airman Snyder was visiting his in-laws. Then, just before dinner Snyder called and told me that they had gotten tickets to a college ice hockey game and I was invited along -  yeah - he didn't have to ask twice... But before I get to that topic there are a few other things to mention:

First - I had lived in St. Louis until I was 8 years old (left in December 1961), and I hadn't been back since. As a child I had spent a lot of time around the airport (my dad traveled on business), and my sister had gone to a private school a few miles from there, so the area we drove through on the way into town was vaguely familiar, but a lot had changed - I was really looking forward to seeing more of the city again.

Second - the situation with Snyder's in-law's was kind of "delicate". The father had recently (and unexpectedly) passed away (I don't recall the cause), leaving the mother to provide for a 16 year old daughter and a 10 year old son (the same ages as Snyder's siblings). The point is that the family was still kind of in shock.

Third - I had met Snyder's wife and she was a very pretty young lady, so it was no surprise that her younger sister was too. She had a classic "farm girl" physique: Not the least bit fat, but not skinny either. Solid, but not muscular. Shapely, but not "Rubenesque"... Plus, she had waist length blonde hair and was wearing a very short skirt. I have to admit I was mesmerized... Yes - I realize she was only 16, but she did look older. Plus, it's not like I wanted to "get with her" - I just found it hard not to stare... But the main thing I remember was how distant she seemed. I assumed it was because of the recent loss of her father, but I suppose it's possible she just didn't like me :-)

And back to the story:
They picked me up at the Motel 6 (in a station wagon) and we headed into town, driving right over where my aunt Aggie's house had been before it was bulldozed to make way for a freeway, and ending up at the St. Louis Arena (demolished in 1999). I had been there many times as a child (mostly at the Ice Capades) but the last time was before the 1959 tornado tore off a big chunk of the roof. So as soon as we entered the arena I looked up and could immediately tell where it had been repaired (the wood was a distinctly different color). Don't know why I remember that - but, there ya go...

I had never been to a hockey game before, and we were seated in the front row down in the corner - probably not the best overall view of the game, but a really interesting place to be... When we got there the teams were still warming up, and they were amusing themselves by bouncing slap shots off the glass in front of us. (Scares the crap out of you if you don't see it coming.)
And once the game got underway we were treated to a constant barrage of players slamming each other into the corner. Yeah - you have no idea how hard those guys hit until you experience it from a few feet away :-)

And as it turned out, I ended up seated next to Snyder's sister-in-law. (In case you're wondering, I honestly had nothing to do with that - I entered the row first)... So, you know how when you're trying not to notice something, it keeps getting harder and harder to ignore? ... Hair, legs, perfume - inches away - for an entire hockey game - darn near drove me crazy... (Probably why it's so firmly etched into my memory.)

Eventually the game ended (mercifully releasing me from OCD hell) and we headed back to the "burbs". And as we drove along there was another "Snyder" moment: His in-laws were deeply devout Catholics, and at some point the topic came up, triggering him to go on a rant about how they were stupid to believe in God, there was no heaven, and the father-in-law was dead and gone and they needed to get over it... It was a truly "cringe worthy" moment. The mother-in-law endured it in silence, but it really made me wonder how Snyder and his wife ended up together in the first place (I never asked).

Finally, they dropped me off at the motel, where I watched some TV and eventually feel asleep to the sound of planes taking of and landing at the nearby airport.

Snyder's Family

Airman Snyder and I had stopped for the night in Manhattan Kansas, which was only a couple of hours from his mom's house on the east side of Kansas City Missouri. The only part of the next day's drive I remember is passing through the downtown KC area on the freeway, which was particularly stressful. We were in a vastly under-powered flatbed government truck, traffic was surprisingly heavy, I never had no clue what lane I should be in, and (even with the side mirrors) there were a lot of blind spots. (This was in 1974 and I don't think the signs were particularly helpful). But we made it through town without incident and pulled up in front of Snyder's house around mid-morning.

As I recall, Snyder's mom lived alone with his 2 brothers - one about 16 years old and the other around 10. (I don't think there had been a father in the picture for a long time.) Shortly after we got there we ate lunch and the youngest brother didn't like whatever vegetable his mom had fixed, which resulted in Snyder giving him a big lecture about eating everything on your plate.
Unfortunately, I just couldn't hold my tongue: I had been to the chow hall with Snyder many times since arriving at McClellan and he was about the pickiest eater I'd ever seen. So I was like "Seriously? You never eat anything you don't like." and he was like "But that's crappy military food and this is good mom's food"... In retrospect, I really should have stayed out of it. At that point it hadn't yet dawned on me that Snyder had been the "father figure" in his little brother's life prior to joining the military - so yeah, my bad... (But still - hypocrisy?)

Aside: I have always been baffled by how my memory works... That lunch incident was totally inconsequential yet (after 42 years) I can recall what the table looked like, where everyone was sitting, what the window (and curtains) behind the table looked like, what was outside the window - and how mad Snyder got (he was a bit red in the face)... Yeah - it's hard to make sense of what my brain decides to retain.

The only other memory I have of that day is when Snyder and I tried to help his other brother fix a leaking radiator. We were making use of the big soldering iron we carried in our military tool box (the thing was over a foot long and was referred to as the "donkey dick") and we had it hanging down from an extension code draped over a rafter in the garage. Snyder's brother wasn't paying attention to what he was doing and grabbed the iron by the barrel (hot part) instead of the handle, which resulted in second degree burns over the palm of his hand. He was screaming in pain - Snyder was freaking out - and I made a mental note to be extremely careful if I ever had to use one of those again. (And the radiator didn't get fixed.)

We spent the night at Snyder's house (don't recall where I slept) and early the next afternoon we headed for St. Louis, where his in-laws lived. Since he wasn't in a position to invite me to stay with them he dropped me off at the Motel 6 by the airport (right off of I-70). As I recall, his in-laws lived in Florrisant (a nearby suburb).

BTW - they were named "Motel 6" because (at the time) they actually cost $6 a night (less than half of a typical Holiday Inn), but they charged extra for almost everything (except towels and bedding). There was even a coin slot on the television, and I was thrilled to discover that the one in my room was stuck in the "on" position, hence I had free TV. (It was black and white - but still - bonus!)

Coming up next - the hockey game.

Road Trip - part 5

The town of Laramie Wyoming is at an altitude of over 7000 ft, and on that late January day in 1974 Airman Snyder and I awoke before dawn to find clear skies - and bitter cold... As I mentioned in my prior post, our goal was to make it to Kansas City Missouri (where Snyder's mom lived) a day ahead of schedule so that he could spend some additional (unauthorized) time there. And since we would be heading downhill pretty much that entire day we expected to make it most of the way there. (And we did.)

A winter storm had recently moved through the area, and not far east of Laramie we hit a long stretch of I-80 that was completely covered in hard-packed snow. I was going about 60 MPH and (once again) Snyder started freaking out and yelling at me to slow down. I honestly don't know what his problem with snow and ice was, but I really didn't get it... I mean, we were on a totally flat and straight section of highway with visibility for miles. There were no crosswinds or other traffic (or anything else to hit anywhere nearby), and the government truck we were driving weighed around 12,000 lbs. (hence the tires were firmly "planted"). Granted, if I had to suddenly slam on the brakes or swerve that might have been bad, but we had unlimited visibility and I hadn't sensed any slippage at all (traction wise, dry packed snow is roughly midway between wet pavement and ice). Plus we had Newtonian physics on our side (object in motion...) - and we made it through without any issues at all.

Aside: That was the first time I had been through the high plains when they were covered in snow. In the early morning light the scenery was almost indescribably beautiful. (It's another one of those things that's indelibly etched in my memory.)

I don't remember too much about that day, but I do know that we turned south on I-25 at Cheyenne and back east on I-70 out of Denver. And by the time we were partway across Kansas I figured we really needed to call the squadron before quitting time and let them know we were still alive.

Now - it's probably hard for "modern" folks to imagine what a huge deal long distance phone calls were back in the early 1970s... Not only were there no cell phones, but Bell had a monopoly on long distance at the time, and a 5 minute call to Sacramento from a residential phone (on a weekday - adjusted for inflation to 2015) would have been about $20. And if you made the call from a payphone or a motel room it would have been substantially more than that. Luckily, the military had their own internal phone network (autovon), so all we had to do was find a base that would let us make a call - assuming the circuits weren't all busy (which they often were).

It was late afternoon when we pulled up to the gates of Fort Riley, Kansas, and after spending a long time at the gate while the MPs tried to figure out what the heck to do with us, we were finally directed to an admin building across the base... Of course, we were almost 400 miles further east than we were supposed to be at that point, so when I finally got a call through I told SSgt Puller we were at Buckley AFB (outside of Denver) and he had no way of knowing any different (no "caller id").

Since it was already getting dark by the time we got on the road again we decided to stop for the night in Manhattan Kansas (just east of Fort Riley). After spending all that time in the truck I decided to go "walkabout" and I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised... Manhattan was (is?) basically a little college town in the middle of nowhere, and it had a really cool "vibe" about it - I really liked it.

The other thing I remember (funny what sticks in your mind) was looking through some records in a store (KMart?) there and finding ZZ Top's First Album... Now - I had first encountered ZZ Top years earlier in Tyler Texas (where that album was recorded in 1971), and they were extremely popular in the region but I had no idea they were going nationwide. I was really excited about it because I hadn't heard any of their music since leaving Texas and I kind of missed it.

So, all in all, it was good day... No undue weirdness from Snyder - really nice weather - and we'd covered over 600 miles, which put us more than a day ahead of schedule - right where we wanted to be.

Road Trip - part 4

Early Monday morning, Airman Snyder and I filled the government truck with gas and headed east out of Salt Lake City on I-80. Since Snyder was from Kansas City (Missouri) and his in-laws lived in St. Louis, our plan was to get there a day before we were scheduled to, which meant we needed to start seriously "fudging" our itinerary (driving further than the allotted 300 miles per day). Unfortunately, we were heading up over the continental divide, which meant we would be spending a good part of that day in 3rd gear (climbing at 30 to 35 MPH) - hence we weren't going to get as far as we'd like.

The first thing I recall (not particularly relevant) was that I had bought some Port Salut cheese (one of my favorites) in Salt Lake City and Snyder refused to get into the truck with it... I honestly didn't think it smelled that bad, but I went ahead and stuck it in the bed of the truck with our tools and equipment anyway... Whatever...

Then, right in the middle of the steepest part of the climb, Snyder spotted a beer box beside the road and immediately started yelling at me to pull over so he could check it out... I explained to him that the box was almost certainly either empty or contained only empty bottles - furthermore, I doubted we could get the truck to accelerate past 2nd gear after stopping on a grade that steep, meaning we'd be stuck going 15 MPH for a long time... Snyder didn't care. He remained convinced that some underage motorist had seen a police car, panicked, stopped, and placed the beer beside the road (intending to come back for it later). Nothing I said could convince him otherwise, but I did not stop. It was miles before he quit begging me to turn around and go back. He finally relented, but he was still irritated about it for days afterward...

It was pretty late in the day when we stopped for the night in Laramie Wyoming. We'd only driven about 400 miles but, given how much time we'd spent in 3rd gear it had been a pretty long day. And after grabbing a motel room we headed for a nearby tavern to unwind a bit. (FYI: The drinking age in Wyoming was 18 back in 1974 - they didn't raise it to 21 until 1988.)

We actually had a pretty good time. We drank quite a few beers and played a number of highly "spirited" games of foosball - got plenty of stares from the locals - probably wondering who the heck we were. (It was kind of a hick town back in the day.)

Then Snyder asked me if I though the lovely young Native American woman at the end of the bar was a prostitute... First off - I couldn't understand why a recently married guy would even wonder about such a thing. Second - I had noticed her too and she hadn't talked to a single guy the whole time we were there. I was pretty sure that's not how the "prostitution" thing works. I explained this to Snyder (who apparently had OCD and not a lick of sense) but he just couldn't let go of it. For a while I was afraid he was going to ask her directly (never a good idea for a variety of reasons), but he had noticed that the bartender seemed to know her and would therefore probably be aware if she was a "woman of ill repute". So (against my advice) he decided to ask the guy (a big biker-looking dude) about it. The exchange went something like this:

Snyder: "So - do you know that woman down at the end of the bar?"
Bartender: "Yeah..."
Snyder: "Is she a prostitute?"
Bartender: "No.... She's my girlfriend..."

I have to admit that I did not see that one coming, and for a fleeting instant I thought we were probably going to die. But Snyder (for once) apologized profusely and the bartender was astonishingly good-natured about it. (I assume he was used to non-locals hitting on her.)

So, having escaped with our lives, we headed back to the motel for a good night's sleep before hitting the road again in the morning.

The Tabernacle

In late January of 1974 Airman Snyder and I were en-route from Sacramento to Belleville, Illinois in a government truck during the "gas crisis", and since (at thet time) almost all the gas stations were closed on Sundays we found ourselves spending the day in Salt Lake City... Now - I had always wanted to see the Mormon Tabernacle (mostly out of curiosity), and given that our motel was only 5 or 6 blocks from Temple Square, I talked Snyder into meandering over with me to check it out.

A bit of background: During all those years when my mom, sister and I were moving from place to place we encountered a good number of Mormon missionaries. We'd always had a really good time talking to them, and I'd read all their literature - including the book of Mormon - so I knew quite a bit about the religion. (Almost as much as I knew about Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Scientology, etc, etc - more on that later). Snyder, on the other hand, was completely clueless about all of it. (I was amazed at how someone could spend 20 years on this planet and know as little about as many things as Snyder did.)  Heck - he hadn't even heard of the Mormon Tabernacle choir...

As it turned out, we couldn't get into the Temple itself (not sure what was up with that), so we wandered about the grounds for a while and finally ended up at the North Visitor Center, which was actually kind of cool. There were two full floors of displays and they had interwoven the history of Mormonism with the migration west and the settling of Utah - lots of interesting historical stuff there... And in the middle of the visitor center was a dome, and under the dome there was a huge table with a diorama of the place in New York where Joseph Smith had founded the religion. It included the locations where the angel Moroni had appeared to him and where he had found the golden tablets with the Book of Mormon, etc. There were buttons along the side of the diorama and when you pushed them it would light up the locations where the corresponding events had occurred.

And that's when it happened... Snyder asked me "What's this all about?" so I explained about the angel and the golden tablets as he stared at me dumbfounded. When I finished, he shouted almost at the top of his lungs "You mean to tell me they believe that??!!!"

Now - let me recap the scene for you: It was 2PM on a Sunday and we were under the central dome at the visitor center in Temple Square. The dome was two stories high, surrounded by balconies, and the place was packed - there were literally hundreds of people within earshot - and every freaking one of them stopped and stared at us... I cannot recall a single time in my life when I wished I could disappear as much as I wanted to at that moment... Snyder was (as usual) totally oblivious. We didn't stay too much longer, but I could swear people were pointing at us and whispering the whole rest of the time we were there.

Yes - unbeknownst to me Snyder was not merely an atheist, he was a raging atheist. The mere mention of believing in God would set him off... I mean, I can understand someone being a non-believer, but to be that certain of it??? I agree that there is plenty of evidence that a "big bang" occurred, but did quadrillions of solar systems really decide to spring into existence without any underlying cause or order - just totally random? That's one heck of a leap of faith... Now - I'm not saying that there must be a God. I'm just saying that the simple fact that we exist is patently ludicrous, and whatever the reason, it is way beyond our comprehension. Hence it all comes down to faith and I try not to judge anyone's beliefs (as long as they don't involve hurting others)...

Whatever helps you to "enjoy the ride" is fine by me :-)