As I've mentioned before, I spent my last 4 months at Keesler on the 1st floor bay just south of the squadron T.I.'s office. That particular bay was populated (intentionally?) with airmen who were in long term electronics courses, hence there was very little turnover - meaning I got to know more about a lot of the residents than I ever wanted to :-)
But first, let me "recap" what made the experience so interesting:
Those of us in electronics training at Keesler had gotten the highest scores on the military entrance exams (showing a particularly strong aptitude for math and science) yet for one reason or another had not continued on to college and, furthermore, had made a conscious decision to enlist in the military even though there was still a war going on in Vietnam... Of course, the war was winding down - and not nearly as many people went on to college back then as they do now, but it was still a pretty "oddball" demographic.
Some (like myself) were socially inept, had self-esteem issues and/or couldn't afford college. A lot of us had been "hippie" types and consequently couldn't find jobs. Some (like Juneau) drank a bit too much while others "smoked" a bit too much, and a few had gotten in trouble with the law - and when you factor in "above average intelligence" it made for some interesting dynamics :-)
Here's a picture of some of the guys from my bay (I think Juneau took this one):
I'm the second from the left (in the blue Olympia Beer T-shirt). The guy next to me in the stocking cap was the bay "rope" and the one on the opposite end (with the cigarette) was one of the most obnoxious jerks I've ever known. (I think his name was Ron, so that's what I'll call him.)
Ron clearly had a massive inferiority complex. He was the type of person who was never wrong about anything, and if you implied otherwise he would respond by getting in your face and yelling profanity laced insults at you.
Aside: I don't think our current (and subsequent) generations can fully appreciate how pointless it was to have a factual argument back in those days. This was before the internet, so if you wanted the "truth" you pretty much had to go to the library and spend hours poring through newspapers and periodicals. It was really frustrating not being able to prove your point.
Anyway - given how easy it was to set Ron off, antagonizing him became something of a sport amongst his fellow bay-mates... My favorite involved Mark Farner, the front man and lead guitarist for Grand Funk Railroad. At some point during that summer a false rumor circulated that Mark had died and Ron was absolutely devastated - he totally worshiped the guy.
All the rest of us were like "Seriously??" I mean, this was in the back in the day of guitar gods like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman (both recently deceased) and lesser knowns like Johnny Winter, Jeff Beck, Mike Bloomfield and Alvin Lee... I'm not saying Mark Farner wasn't a good guitarist, but still - seriously?? So whenever Ron started to get on my nerves I'd just say "Mark Farner is dead" and watch him explode :-)
Another one of Ron's issues was that simply wouldn't listen to anybody: That summer he bought a stereo kit, and when he started assembling it his roomie came over said "Dudes! You have got to see this!". Juneau and I walked across the hall to discover that Ron was using a 100 watt heat gun to solder all the components onto the circuit board... Now - you can get away with doing that to resistors and capacitors, but transistors are extremely heat sensitive and anything hotter than a 35 watt soldering iron is highly likely to fry them... We all told Ron as much, but he reacted with his usual "You guys don't know what you're talking about!" - so we just shrugged and left.
Of course, the stereo didn't work (surprise, surprise) and he absolutely exploded, screaming that Heathkit sold him faulty parts and he was damn well going to get his money back... Not sure how it ended up (he never said another word about it) but it was all so typically "Ron".
Another aside: Up until the mid-1970s things like TVs and stereos were really expensive, mostly due to labor costs. (In the late 60's a color TV was about 1/4 the cost of a new car.) Then almost overnight everything changed. Hundreds of discrete components were replaced by a handful of "chips", the manufacturing moved to Asia (with increasing levels of automation), and before long you could buy the finished product cheaper than you could build it yourself. The point is that up until the mid to late 1970s there were literally millions of electronics hobbyists building their own stuff and within a decade there were hardly any left... Sad... But I digress...
The final story involves Ron and the new roommate of the guy at the end of the hall (the one who brewed the extremely strong coffee):
Now - the roomie seemed totally normal to everyone except Ron, who kept trying to convince us that the guy was totally nuts. He just wouldn't shut up about it. He went on week after week until we were totally sick of hearing it. We were all like "Geez Ron - what's your problem? He's fine! Just give it a rest!"
Then the coffee guy came back from a weekend away to discover that his roomie had spent the entire time marching around the room in a little circle (there was a path worn in the linoleum). They escorted the roomie to the hospital (never to return) and we later learned that he'd been given a Section 8 discharge...
Yes - as shocking as it was to learn that the guy really did have mental health issues, it was nothing compared to the shock of discovering that Ron was actually right about something :-)
