More Odds and Ends

I seem to have covered all the major stories I intended to tell about my times at Keelser AFB in 1973, but there's still some (mostly pointless and unrelated) stuff that doesn't fit anywhere in particular, so I'm just going to cover it here.

First story:
One day I found a tree frog on the latrine wall (no idea how it got there). It was a tiny thing - about two inches long with suction cups on its toes - totally cute (and harmless). So I took it out into the hall to show to some of the guys and I was about to turn it loose outside when somebody had the bright idea of  introducing it to the WAF admin who worked in the squadron office. (Yeah - I'm not sure at what age boys outgrow the whole "scaring girls with frogs" thing, but apparently it's well into adulthood)... Since Mike (the bay rope) dropped by the office almost every day he figured he had the best chance of catching her off guard, so he headed off with the little critter to make the introductions while the rest of us remained in the dorm (going about our business)...
Mike stayed gone for a very long time... Apparently, when he set the frog down on the WAF's desk she started screaming uncontrollably and couldn't stop - she ended up not being able to breath and they had to call the paramedics... Of course, the squadron commander came running out of his office at the first scream (who would have guessed that anybody could be that afraid of amphibians?) and needless to say, he was not the slightest bit amused - Mike ended up in in a fair bit of trouble...
What's the point of the story? Heck if I know, other than it would make an excellent hypothetical for a tort law class (IIED). But you'll be happy to know that the frog was completely unharmed (except maybe for some hearing loss from all the screaming) and was returned to its "natural" environment :-)

Next story:
There were 3 chow halls in the triangle (one was right next to our dorm), and one day some of us happened to eat at a different hall and discovered that although they all served the exact same menu there was a significant difference in edibility.
So my baymates and I made a habit of regularly stopping by the other chow halls and (over time) we compiled a list of where to eat depending on what was being served... BTW: No particular chow hall was consistently better than the others - each had good and bad fare (ours had french toast so greasy it wasn't fit for consumption). But on any given day there was reasonably good chow to be had if you were willing to walk a bit.
So why do I remember all of this? Because of the way people reacted when they discovered we had gone through the trouble of figuring it all out... Like, we'd see some guy heading for the nearby chow hall and we'd be like "Dude! Are you crazy? They're serving such-and-such - you seriously need to go to the north chow hall!" and he'd get this half-puzzled, half-amazed look on his face. Yeah - I don't think it ever dawned on most guys that they were allowed to eat at other chow halls let alone that the food quality varied... And that's yet another story with no real point - just more memories about being an "old timer" at Keesler.

And a semi-related one:
I'm surprised at how few memories I have of actually eating in the chow halls (I guess when you do something every day it just doesn't stick around in your brain) but there is one particular ketchup related incident I remember quite clearly - it was one of those "how stupid can you get" things:
One day I was eating lunch and was about to put some ketchup on my fries when I noticed that the "tear here" arrow was pointing to the middle of the packet... I remember being totally puzzled by it. I mean, why on earth would anyone design a ketchup packet that opened in the middle??? The packet didn't appear to be different from any other ketchup packet, but I figured "Why would they tell you to open it in the middle unless that's where it was supposed to be opened?"... So - after one heck of lot of effort I managed to tear it open and the ketchup ended up everywhere but on my fries.
I was seriously pissed off... Not only had some moron designed a ketchup packet to open in the middle, but the darn things didn't work for sh*t! (How rude...) Then I flipped the packet over and realized that the fast food logo on it was mislocated by almost half the length of the packet... Yeah - the Air Force had picked up some misprinted ketchup packets for cheap...
So, why did I actually try to open a ketchup packet in the middle just because that's where the arrow was pointing? And what kind of person would even notice the arrow in the first place? Why do I remember it so clearly after 41 years??? All good questions :-)

Moving on:
By the end of that summer I'd pretty much concluded that the Air Force was a typical mindless, and inefficient bureaucracy.Then in mid-October OPEC announced an oil embargo (the one that led to the infamous gas crisis), and a couple of weeks later I saw President Nixon on the evening news announcing an "energy independence initiative" that included reducing energy use in government buildings.
When I got to school the next morning I discovered that half of the fluorescent tubes had been removed from every light fixture in Cody Hall (a big building) and it was the same in every building I was in that day... Yes... Within a matter of hours an order had gone from the White House to the Pentagon to every military installation in the U.S. resulting in hundreds of thousands of tubes being removed from light fixtures literally overnight. I was absolutely blown away... From that point on I never doubted the military's ability to mobilize on a moments notice. (Lesson learned.)

So, I guess that's enough for now... Over the next couple of posts I'll try to wrap up "tech school" so I can move on to my one and only assignment in the "real" Air Force.