w j wirth

After traveling from Trenton, NJ, I was going through a part of Montana unknown to me. I forgave myself; Montana is a big piece of real estate. A trip to cities along the Hi-Line, the east-west road that runs along the top of the state is a fair trip. Endless wheat fields extending north into Saskatchewan and Alberta, small towns, large farm headquarters, some like small towns, all disappeared in the wake of the speeding Empire Builder. I watched it all from the Vista dome, trying to take it all in, watching the snow-capped peaks of Glacier Park rising in the distance. It was all really quite nice.

Soon, perhaps too soon, the announcement for Havre MT came. I returned to my compartment, gathered my things, made my goodbyes to my Village friend, said I will look you up when I get back, stepped off the train into the arms of my dear sweet family.

It was good to be home; well, shocking really. After 18 months of new, to be suddenly back in the uber familiar actually took a bit of getting used to. I enjoyed my family, getting caught up, remarking how much more mature Donna and Janice had become, listening to tales of my relatives and my folk’s friends, changes to Helena. I matched it all with endless babbling of what I had done and seen, where I had been and, when eyes glazed, I returned to the old standby of what-ever-happened-to and the conversation reignited.

My folks and my sisters were home for a couple of days, perhaps it was a weekend, but then returned to work and school. I was left alone, in the house, sunlight streaming through the windows. I was a bit at wit’s end.

My folks made a car available so I cruised around Helena. The familiarity of Helena crushed back, clearly showing how little had changed, how much I had changed, my horizons broadened. It was all there, nestled under the Cathedral: Last Chance Gulch, Cathedral High, Carroll College, the Capitol. I drove up into the dry gulches with their abandoned mines. I stopped by my dad’s sheet metal shop and saw my Uncle Tink, Red Drennon and some new faces. Weggeman’s Market was still there, the 4B’s, the RB drive-in, Wong’s Chinese Restaurant defining exotic only 18 months ago. The pizza joint I had worked in, checked off the list. Around noon, I stopped by the bank where my mother worked and took her to lunch, she proudly showing off her officer son. It was the right thing to be doing, I was following the path of the good son, and I enjoyed it.

I checked around to see if any of my old friends, the few there had been, were around but everyone had flown the coop. They were working out of town and out of state, some were in the military, others were in law school or medical school; I was the anomaly, back in Helena.
My dad and I went fishing out to Canyon Creek; we went to the lake with my mother’s family; I drove around some more.  And time passed, I don’t remember much more than I related, except for the rising tide of wanting to be off.  The one thing I do remember is the feeling my voyage of discovery was not over. I came to terms with how much I had changed, repeating my earlier position I could never live in a tiny town again.

The leave, two weeks no less, passed without incident. The airline mechanics strike still on, I went back to New Jersey by train.  It seems though I took a different route, more southerly. I traveled along the Yellowstone River, stopping in Billings. I wish I had taken better notes. But, in any event, I arrived in Trenton a couple of days later, Ron picked me up and I was back to work the next day.

Letters from home were getting kind of snarkey. I had left home in December 1964. It was now July 1966. I had not been home and my mother was letting me know the error of my ways. In my humble defense, I had been too excited about what I was doing, what I was seeing, forgetting the past, not worried about the future, living my life Now. Now with a capital N.
But I could see my families point. Setting aside my young man’s inward focus, I decided to go home on leave. After all, I was losing leave, the USAF allowing an accumulation of 60 days of leave.  Anything over was lost. Initially, I planned to fly home from New Orleans, leaving my car at the airport. Then return to New Orleans and drive back to New Jersey. Even now, I marvel at such plans.
But, life being what it is, a monkey wrench landed smack in the middle of that plan. In July, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) walked out of the hangers and, for 43 days, five airlines’ planes sat on the ground. Great, I thought, just when I had decided to fly, I couldn’t.
The trains were running tho. I left Biloxi, didn’t return for forty years, and drove back to New Jersey. Thick Southern drawls poured from the radio, talking about Communists and devils (the IAM among them) taking over the country, driving us to catastrophe (Armageddon). I had noticed that you didn’t have to listen to the radio in the Deep South very long before radio preachers where hitting you over the head with Armageddon. They love Armageddon in the South!
But I managed to get back to New Egypt with little wear and tear and got on the phone. Yes, I could take the train; yes, there were some seats to Chicago; yes, I had to hurry. So Ron, in a kind moment, rushed me to the train station in Trenton. A harried clerk sold me a ticket to Chicago, warning that the train would be crowded, and she could not guarantee a seat on the Empire Builder beyond Chicago. Gambling on a onward seat in Chicago, I sat cramped on the train as it roared through the night. Wasn’t much fun, took a whole day, didn’t eat, the rest room gave out early, the other passengers surly, but still, the first long train ride I ever made and I made notes.
Bedraggled, hungry, anxious for a clean rest room, I poured out with the rest at Union Station in Chicago. The enormity of the clerk’s words in Trenton hit home. “I can get you to Chicago but no guarantees beyond that!” I saw the long tickets lines, decided to freshen up a bit and get a sandwich, then took my place at the end of the line. I moved forward slowly, endlessly, patiently. Finally, I arrived at the ticket agent, an older woman. I explained my destination, a ticket on the Empire Builder to Montana. She smiled wanly at this tired, young man in a rumpled uniform, pointing to the Standby list, her head shaking, the “No, not possible” forming on her lips, when the phone rang.
She talked for a minute, thanked the caller, turned back to me.
“You’re not going to believe this. There’s been a cancellation.” Her finger traced down the Standby List. She looked at me, back to the Standby List.
“I shouldn’t  do this but, here, take the ticket. The train leaves in 40 minutes and I doubt anyone could make it anyway. Besides, my son is in the Navy. ”

The train pulled out of Chicago Union Station into a brilliant sunset. I had a fold-down berth, I could sleep, the rest rooms were clean and there was a Vista Dome that I was soon exploring. I think this is proof of a righteous life and if Armageddon was on its way, it would have to follow me to Havre, MT.

© W J Wirth 2013 All rights reserved.

The light was hazy, the humidity noticeable even in January. Ahh,  Mobile, bigger town, perhaps it’s better here but nope, suspicious eyes found my Montana plates. I drove on through.
Finally, crossing over the Back Bay bridge, I found Biloxi and Keesler AFB. Right on the Gulf Coast, breezes tempered the humidity; white sand and blue water reminded me of Panama City. This will be pretty nice I thought.
Assigned to a BOQ room, I shared the room with an officer from the Austrian Air Force. He spoke perfect English and was here for a school as part of some agreement between Austria and the US.  A quiet man, serious about his studies, he didn’t talk much.
Except about fishing. He was a fisherman, I attract them from every quarter. Tied his own flies, showed pictures of hammered-brass lures he made by hand, he should have known my father and I told him so. He salivated when he noticed my Montana plates and couldn’t get enough of fishing stories of Montana rivers he had read about. A couple of times we got some gear from an organization on base offering rods and reels and went fishing. He was a happy man and I enjoyed it too. Wish I remembered his name; I would like to look him up on a trip to Austria.
He was my roommate for a month or so. But his school ended, we shook hands, and with an “Auf Wiedersehen”, he disappeared. I never saw him again. A lot of military life is like that but I had the room to myself for the rest of my class.

The training at Keesler AFB in Biloxi was intense. Leaving nothing to chance, the course started out with basic electronics. Need to have some kind of grounding in how electrons flow before one can understand how a klystron power amplifier works, the fine points of antenna structure and electronic countermeasures.  I loved it. The instructors were good, very focused, presenting the information and it was up to us to understand it.  I studied at night, I couldn’t get enough. Don’t know what came over me; I guess I could see value in this information, in the opportunity being presented me on a silver platter.
In an old box in the storeroom, I still have some of the books and over the years, I have leafed through them. Good stuff.
The months rolled on and outside, the sun and the humidity increased, driving us to meet earlier and earlier in the training rooms. In spite of the huge amounts of money the DOD spends every year, money to air condition the training rooms didn’t filter down. The custom, well established, called for earlier and earlier class start times. By May, we were starting class at 0400 and ending at 1200, stepping out into a blazing, wet, humid environment.

The early dismissal said we could hit the beach and it was a nice beach – only a few hundred yards from the BOQ. Beautiful white beaches, blue water, the only fly in the ointment being the ship canal someone dredged years before and occasionally one would see some old freighter moving slowly parallel to the coast a few hundred yards way.
In addition to Keesler, Biloxi earned its keep from tourists. White sand and blue water were the featured attractions. But gambling and booze were the glue that kept the tourists, whites only, in the big hotels. Mississippi was an adamantly dry state, ruled by the Baptists from Jackson, a problem.  But not to worry:  a tourist could buy a drink, a bottle, a keg at any shop along the beach without fear. Rumor had it that fortunes were made in payoffs. Don’t know if its true but it seems believable.

One weekend I was invited to take a trip to Vicksburg. Three of my classmates had decided to drive up to the fortress overlooking the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. It was a nice trip, nice to be traveling with someone, sharing stories, four of us cramped into a VW Beetle. I don’t remember much about Vicksburg except some markers and few old cannons, an early instance of my resistance to sight-seeing.
On the way back, it was dark, traveling through canyons carved in endless forests of pine trees. Running low on gas, we stopped at a small gas station, in a clearing scooped from the pines. Getting out of the car to stretch, we were confronted by a group of, well, what can I call them besides rednecks. They were alarmed by the Ohio plates on the VW; they were somewhat mollified by our Air Force bumper sticker, the fact that we were stationed in Biloxi, returning from a trip to Vicksburg, the old Confederate bastion.  The atmosphere softened enough, withering in the intense heat and humidity a better word, for one of them to ask if we had seen “a couple of niggers, err, negroes up the road a bit?” We hadn’t, wouldn’t have said even if we had. The gas tank full, we piled back in the car and thanked our lucky stars we didn’t live there.

I am please to say I took advantage of my Gulf Coast residence. Traveling on weekends, whenever course work allowed, sometimes accompanied, sometimes not, I traveled, from New Orleans to Mobile. Went out to Dauphin Island, just south of Mobile; New Orleans, across Lake Pontchartrain, down into the delta area south of New Orleans, became familiar with places like Gulfport, Pascagoula, Slidell and Bay St. Louis. Lovely country, lovely water, lovely people in the main, but never ventured north again .

Starting to feel a little more comfortable with Air Force pay, I pursued the age old American dream, the passion of young men everywhere, where the rubber hits the road: a new car.  I had felt the siren call of a blood-red Pontiac 1966 GTO, 6.5L, 335hp. As my family will testify, I am not given to extravagance. But only human, now 23, I was soon cruising the beach in style. Nice car, never a moments worth of trouble. Mileage was tolerable when gas was  35 cents a gallon. I drove it 50,000 miles and sold it two years later when I left for Japan.
Come on now, we all have to do these kinds of things at least once.
© W J Wirth 2013 All rights reserved.

Once again I was in my trusty ’62 Chevy pounding down the highways, on my way to Biloxi MS.  I was off for 4 ½ months in a different  part of the country.  I had no idea how different.
The white-lines disappeared under my hood. Tiring of “hell and damnation” pouring from the radio, I switched off the radio and hummed a merry tune through Virginia and North  Carolina.
I turned on a new route, headed across South Carolina, then Georgia, into unreconstructed territory. In 1966, the country was in the midst of the civil rights struggles, and no one should doubt there was a struggle. On and off the interstate highways, I traveled on roads that were old when Sherman marched through. Many towns were eerily quiet, no one about. My purchases of gas and a sandwich greeted with reserve, my pretty white face and license plate always checked.  I crossed into Alabama, drove through the middle of Montgomery, endless forests of straight pines, more small towns. If anyone was about, they were white or a dog.
A few weeks of my own cooking in the apartment had reinvigorated my taste buds. Ron always ate at the O-Club or ate with some gal he was dating, or so he claimed. So I was left to cook for one. It’s tough to cook for one, some dishes demand an audience, some of my favorite dishes demand a haying crew.  I cooked, liked my own cooking, but never seemed to eat enough.
After driving for a half day (12 hours), subsisting on snacks gathered during infrequent stops for gas, I was getting a bit peckish. Occasionally, I would see small signs announcing a catfish place further on. These hand-painted signs were discreet, run down but visible, much in the vein of Wall Drug signs in South Dakota. They promised southern fare, soul food: deep-fried catfish, fries, hush puppies, cold beer. With each sign, my hollow stomach leapt in anticipation. And now the signs were coming fast. I knew I had to stop. The catfish place  was a big one, a huge red-barn in the middle of a big parking lot, full of nice cars and heaps.
Catfish the sign screamed, hush-puppies, fries, beer – that was me.
I left the car and strolled in. The aroma told me I was going to have something wonderful. There was a cash register up front – they wanted your money first. None of this eat and then pay. I admired the pragmatism, although the cashier looked at me strangely, she took my money and gestured to the line.
I got into the line, shuffling forward, cafeteria style. There was plenty to watch. The price of admission included a spectacular show; a couple of big men handling enormous catfish. Some of the fish were 4 feet long. The men would flop the fish down, skin them with a few deft strokes (deft is a word always used to describe this, ever notice?). A few more slashes of razor sharp knives and two huge, thick, meaty fillets lay on the table, the remains into a pot for chowder. In a flash, the fillets were transformed into big chunks, dredged in flour and into the boiling oil. These guys knew their business.
Suddenly aware that I was holding up progress, I moved along smartly and had my tray filled with a couple of perfectly deep-fried catfish filets, hush puppies, fries and finally, an icy cold beer. If there is a heaven, this must be it.
My tray overflowing, I turned and stared into a sea of black faces. There were 300 people if there was one, all behind a tray, all with a chunk of catfish, hush puppies and fries, and all looking at me, all quiet.  Moving, always best to be moving, looking for a empty seat at one of the picnic-style tables,  I heard a rich, deep, man’s voice – “Here boy, sit here”. A large man smiled and motioned for me to join his table, his family.
Adults squeezed together, kids stared and smiled, a young man finished up and left, his sister smiled and stayed. An old woman broke the ice, “Where you from boy?” And we talked and laughed, they were amazed I was from Montana, I was amazed they were from Georgia. Time passed, the food sublime and I had one of the most pleasant meals of my life.

© W J Wirth 2013 All rights reserved.

The apartment in New Egypt quickly became home. It was a good place to live, surrounded by a dark pine forest, tomato fields on the other side of the trees, the occasional deer standing in the backyard.  But, as always, peace and contentment are a not big factor in the human condition. Particularly the tendency to alter contentment into change.
Around Christmas of 1965, it became know that there was an opening for the position of RICMO  (Radar Inputs – Countermeasures Officer). RICMOs were responsible for the quality of the radar inputs coming into the computer system. A major task is to minimize natural and man-made interference with the radar returns. Knowing what I knew about controlling and satisfied with what I knew about controlling, I decided to throw my hat into the ring. A couple of other names were mentioned but I apparently was the only serious candidate.
One day, the Operations Officer called me up to the Control Room Dais one and asked about my interest. We chatted back and forth, he was aware of my fondness for the system manuals.
Finally, and in retrospect, it seemed to be the telling question, he looked at me and said “Are you just trying to get out of controlling?” My first experience with a technique I’ve faced many times since. An offensive move, designed to thrown a person off their pins, attack and see what happens. Still burdened by innocence, I was not aware of such tactics. So I replied in the only way I could, straightforward, laced with some fledgling knowledge of the system, “No sir, I’m just interested in the way this whole thing works: the computer, the digitizers, the communication systems. I figure RICMO would fill in some of the blanks.”  Well, maybe I wasn’t that prepared but I said enough right to carry the day. It was only then I found out that the position required a four and a half month school! And, I just moved into the apartment. Damn. Like most of life, good is frequently laced with bad, or at least inconvenience.

Ron took the news of my impeding 4 ½ month absence with aplomb. Of course, he was distressed over my leaving, of having the apartment to himself, mumbling something about his mythical girlfriends. But he was genuinely staggered by the thought of having to pay the entire $85/month rent himself.
I knew I would be staying in another BOQ when I got to the school. I found out that was OK, since I was on TDY (Temporary Duty), I would still be eligible for my housing allowance. If I continued to pay half the rent, I would have a place to come back to, etc. So, being the warm-hearted, genuine human being that I am, I offered to pay my half of the rent, even though I would be a thousand miles away in Biloxi, Mississippi. My noble gesture was not lost on Ron.
He said, “How will you get the money to me?”
“I’ll send you a check every month” and the matter was closed.
This arrangement worked out well. After I returned from Biloxi, Ron went to some other school for 5 months. He paid his half of the rent and all was well. And I had the apartment to myself for 5 months.

© W J Wirth 2013 All rights reserved.

I don’t know for sure but I suspect all of us have a supremely embarrassing moment filed away in the drawer marked “best forgotten”. I do and I haven’t forgotten it.
The season rolled to Thanksgiving. As kind of a nice surprise, one of the captains at the DC invited 4 second lieutenants to his home to share Thanksgiving with him and his family. Bud was a good guy and his children offered a pleasant bit of noise and fun to the gathering. We had a couple of beers and soon it was time to eat.
We gathered at a large table – Bud at the head, his wife at the other end and the lieutenants and the kids arrayed in between. I was sitting at Bud’s right, not out of privilege but by accident.
They practiced a custom I had heard about but never seen (the first of many). Bud proceeded to carve the “roasted to perfection” turkey and placed a slice on a plate. Dressing full of mushrooms, onions, celery, sage and thyme came next. Mashed potatoes with warm, rich gravy barely caressing the dressing. Fresh peas, I had seen them being shelled when I arrived. Cranberry sauce, rich and red provided a nice counterpoint.
Then Bud passed the plate to the guy on his left and it was handed, person to person, around the table and given to me. He then started on the next plate.
The fragrance of the gravy, I can smell it as I write this, wafted and curled, cartoon like, around my nose. Uncontrollable, my finger came up and touched the gravy and brought it to my lips. It was heaven, it was what they were thinking when the word ambrosia was defined. The next moments were a blur -my fork emitted a faint whir as I shoveled, my knife sliced into succulent turkey, fresh peas popped in my mouth, if I could have climbed onto my plate I would have. I may have hit the guy next to me with the spray from my fork.
Seconds later, my plate was clean. The privations of the last few months erased.
Regaining control, I looked up – only to see the entire table looking at me, Bud with the second half-filled plate in his hand.
Ever the gentleman, Bud  said quietly, “Would you like some more?”

© W J Wirth 2013 All rights reserved.