Frederick P. Mackintosh...

1025 Gillespie Street today (Courtesy of Google Maps)

Both my grandfathers died before I reached the age of four.  My grandfather McLaughlin died when I was 2 and grandfather Mead died when I was 3 years old.  I barely remember either one.  But fortunately for me, there was a remarkable old man who lived across the street from the house where I grew up who became my perfect surrogate grandfather.  His name was Frederick Peter Mackintosh.

I first spent time with "Mr. Mackintosh" in about 1944.  I was four years old and had learned to cross the street unescorted.  He was then in his 80's.  Our acquaintance was brief but very important during my formative years.  His influence on me was profound.  He died in November 26, 1955 when I was in the 10th grade.  I have missed him ever since.  I find myself often asking, "How would Mr. Mackintosh approach this job?"

Frederick P. Mackintosh was born March 4, 1864.  He was originally from the Boston area.  He attended M.I.T. and graduated as a mechanical engineer around 1882.  Soon thereafter, he went to work for Thomas Edison at the Edison Machine Works in New York City.  This was a company established to supply jumbo dynamos (generators) for the original Pearl Street Station as well as dynamos of various sizes for the different types of electric light installations Edison was offering customers. The Machine Works was incorporated in 1884, employing about 800 workers.  In 1886 the Machine Works, along with 200 of its workers, were moved to two unfinished factory buildings on a 10-acre site in Schenectady, NY, intended to have been the McQueen Locomotive Works.  That is the move that determined that "Papa" Mackintosh and I would be neighbors more than 50 years later. 

Edison Machine Works continued as a separate company until 1889, when all of Edison’s electric related companies were merged to form Edison General Electric. The plant expanded rapidly and 1892 saw the merger of Edison General Electric and the Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts to form General Electric with the Schenectady location used as GE's headquarters for many years thereafter.

Fred Mackintosh was in good company as a young engineer working in the blossoming electrical industry.  A few of his colleagues at the Schenectady operation included:

• Justus Bulkley Entz (June 16, 1867, New York City – June 8, 1947, New Rochelle, New York) was an American electrical engineer and inventor.  He invented the electromagnetic transmission, introduced in the Owen Magnetic of 1915, and was a pioneer in the early automobile industry.
• Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (October 6, 1866 – July 22, 1932) was a Canadian inventor who performed pioneering experiments in radio, including the use of continuous waves and the early—and possibly the first—radio transmissions of voice and music. In his later career he received hundreds of patents for devices in fields such as high-powered transmitting, sonar, and television.
• Kunihiko Iwadare (August 15, 1857 - December 20, 1941) was a Japanese businessman.  A graduate of the Imperial College of Engineering (Kobu Daigaku) in Tokyo, he worked as a telegraph engineer for the Japanese government.  He left Japan in 1886 and traveled to New York.  He was introduced to Charles Batchelor, an assistant of Thomas Edison.  Iwadare was hired to work in an Edison facility in Manhattan at Goerck Street.  Iwadare was transferred to Edison Machine Works in Schenectady, New York in January 1887.  Iwadare returned to Japan, hoping to participate in building the electrical industry in Japan. He first joined Osaka Dento (Osaka Electric Lamp Company) as an electrical engineer, and after eight years resigned from his post to start his own business as a general sales agent in Japan for General Electric and Western Electric companies.  In 1895 Western Electric wished to expand their telephone equipment sales business in Japan and proposed a limited partnership with Iwadare.  Iwadare accepted the proposal and a new firm was created in August, 1898.  In 1899, changes to treaties between Japan and Western countries went into effect.  The limited partnership created in 1898 was restructured into the joint stock company, Nippon Electric Co. Ltd.  Iwadare was named Managing Director of what is now known as NEC Corporation.  He became Chairman of the Board in 1926.
• John William Lieb (February 12, 1860 in Newark, New Jersey – November 1, 1929 in New Rochelle, New York) was a renowned American electrical engineer for the Edison Electric Light Company.  Lieb was president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers from 1904 to 1905. He received the IEEE Edison Medal for "the development and operation of electric central stations for illumination and power."
• Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist who is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.

Fred Mackintosh would go on to work in later years with both Irving Langmuir, the recipient of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Charles P. Steinmetz, the Prussian-born American mathematician and electrical engineer and professor at Union College.  Steinmetz fostered the development of alternating current that made possible the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States, formulating mathematical theories for engineers.  He also made ground-breaking discoveries in the understanding of hysteresis that enabled engineers to design better electromagnetic apparatus equipment including especially electric motors for use in industry.

In this heady atmosphere of creativity, I always had the impression from talking to Mr. Mackintosh that he was the practical implementer of some of the ideas produced by the "thinkers."  He told me that as one of the first mechanical engineers hired by Edison, he held a number of patents on the mechanisms of electrical switch-gear. 

The New York Hippodrome as it appeared in 1905

I once asked him what his proudest achievement was as a General Electric engineer.  He told me that it was the design and installation of the lighting switchboard for New York's Hippodrome Theater.  The Hippodrome Theater, also called the New York Hippodrome, was a theater in New York City from 1905 to 1939, located on Sixth Avenue between West 43rd and West 44th Streets in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan.  It was called the world's largest theater by its builders and had a seating capacity of 5,300, with a 100 x 200 ft. stage.  The theater had state-of-the-art theatrical technology, including a rising glass water tank.  Mr. Mackintosh told me that it was the first theater to have multi-colored lights with rheostats (dimmers) on the individual colors and regions of the stage.  He was very proud of this design.

One of Frederick Mackintosh's
several patents

His assertions regarding patents are supported by a casual search of the patent data currently available on the World-Wide web.  Patents on such topics as "Safety Device for Circuit Closers" (patent issued April 15, 1902; "Starting Rheostat" (patent issued September 6, 1904); and "Motor Controlling Switch" (patent issued April 4, 1905) are just a few of his dozens of patents.  He was a prolific producer and translator of ideas.

I believe that Fred Mackintosh retired from General Electric in 1936.  He had acquired substantial shares of GE stock during his more than 50-year tenure with the company.  He and his wife, Gertrude, had lived frugally, and were extremely well-heeled during their twilight years.  They had the house at 1025 Gillespie Street (originally 3 Gillespie St.) in Schenectady that had been built around 1895.  During the depression, he had acquired a house on the adjacent lot and had it removed, giving the Mackintoshes a beautiful side yard in a neighborhood of closely-packed houses. They also had a lovely Victorian lake-house on the eastern shore of Lake George.  They were members of the Mohawk Golf Club, but I know of no other activities that might be considered extravagant.

Several memories reflect snippets of his life that he shared with me when he and I spent our days together:

-  He was a descendant of Peter Mackintosh, a colonial firebrand and close associate of Paul Revere during the American Revolution.

-  As a young man, he was a member of a naval militia unit not long after the end of the Civil War.  His unit practiced naval maneuvers in one of the surplus ironclad "Monitors" left over from the war.

An early New York car registration
like the one Fred had from his
early Cadillac

-  His first car was a 1903 Model A Cadillac.  At that time, New York State issued a brass license tag about the size of a silver dollar.  It would be tacked to the wooden dash board of the vehicle in order to be visible.  He had saved that tag and had it on display on the wall of his garage at 1025 Gillespie Street.

A 1903 Model A Cadillac
similar to Fred's first car

-  When he quit using the early Cadillac, he had saved the engine, transmission, and built in air compressor from the car.  They were preserved in a bathtub full of grease and oil upstairs in that same garage. Both the medallion and these mechanical items are still in the posession of Fred's grandson, Frederick Sewall Mackintosh.

-  When I got to know him, he was a Ford man, driving a 1940 Ford 4-door sedan.  He was vocal in his admiration for Ford automobiles.  He later, in about 1956, sold that 1940 Ford to my brother for $35.00.  Those days are long past.  Apparently, Fred had been a Ford man for a long time.  In a 1914 State of New York publication called "The Official Automobile Directory of the State of New York, Containing a list of permits issued, numerically arranged, with names and addresses of owners and make of cars" lists the following:

So Fred had been a Ford man with a Ford Model T in 1914!  Also notice that 1025 Gillespie Street had once been 3 Gillespie Street.

Fred's car, the one my brother bought for $35.00, parked
in the driveway during a significant snow  event,
probably in 1945.  The garage and part of the workshop
 are visible in the background.

If you were to look at the Mackintosh property on Gillespie Street, you would observe three buildings, all of simple frame construction with clapboard siding.  There was a two-story house with a shallow front lawn (shown at the top of this blog entry).  To the left of the house was a driveway that descended down a slight incline beyond the house and led to a 1-1/2 story 2-car garage.  And to the right of the garage a few feet stood a two-story workshop with external stairs ascending to the second floor.  

All the machinery was downstairs; the upstairs was used for storage.  Fred told me that when he built this shop, he had a single 1/2-horsepower electric motor that drove an overhead shaft using a wide leather belt.  Each power tool in the shop was driven in turn off of that common shaft, using similar wide belts of leather.  He had gradually evolved to more modern power tools, each one powered by its own motor (He liked Craftsman tools.).

One day, he offered to give me the original motor that had powered his whole shop.  We carefully removed it from its concrete mount, loaded it onto a hand cart, and dragged it across Gillespie Street, and into the basement of my parents' house at 901 Union Street.  It rested there until my parents sold the house while I was in college.  I had no time to "rescue" the old relic, and so it was lost to history.  The most interesting thing about that motor was that it was huge compared to a contemporary 1/2 horsepower motor.  It probably weighed close to 80 pounds and was over a foot in diameter.  It also had "start" and "run" windings.  You had to use what is known as a double-pole, double-throw switch to operate this ancient motor.  You energized the "start" windings, gave the motor a spin, then shifted over to "run" windings once it got up to a certain speed.

As a small boy, I spent many hours with Papa Mackintosh in that magnificent shop.  We built stuff.  He never changed his methods and I still practice them today.  If we had decided to make a boat for me to play with in the bathtub (a real, remembered event), it went like this.  First, we'd sit down and talk about the requirements.  It should float.  It should look like a boat.  It should be small enough that I could pick it up with my little hands.  We might debate whether it should be painted.  Once we had established the requirements (and everything was written down in a notepad!), we started to discuss the design.  Fred made a very clear distinction between requirements and design.  He might describe three or four possible ways to fulfill a requirement, but some of those ideas simply might not work in a specific application.

Yours truly on the porch at 1025 Gillespie St.
In about 1945.  Photo courtesy of Sewall
Mackintosh, Fred's grandson.

I remember the day we sketched out the bathtub boat.  We did full-scale drawings -- top view, front and side elevations, all drawn in pencil on a cross-scaled engineering pad.  Then we had to decide on a material.  What type of wood would be least likely to warp or split?  Then to the method of fabrication.  What tool would we use to cut out the pieces?  How would we fasten them?  Would we paint them before or after we assembled?  Everything was thought through.  Only then did we make a pattern out of paper or cardboard and start to cut wood.  I learned early on that the planning and engineering took far longer than the making of the object.  These were valuable lessons.

The shop itself was a marvel of efficient space usage.  In a building that was probably no more than 24' by 24', there was a metal lathe, a wood lathe, grinder, belt and disk sanders, router table, shaper, table saw, band saw, tall drill press, and planer.  And there was room left over for a variety of work benches and vices.  And finally, there was a cast-iron pot-bellied stove for heat in the wintertime.  Between the studs on the walls were shelves full of old cocoa tins with their tops cut off and small handles soldered on to pull them out of their stored positions.  Each one had a soldered label holder so they could be easily identified.  There were literally hundreds of these neatly-arrayed containers.  Every nut, screw, and washer known to man was represented, along with such gems as, "pool cue chalk," "spark plug parts" from when spark plugs could be dismantled and repaired, "oil for Gertie's clock."  The place was amazing.  And I got to spend most of my free time there as his adopted grandson.   Gertrude had little use for children, but Fred loved me as if I were his own.

One of those hand
made cocoa cans

Every kid needs a man like Fred Mackintosh to teach them some basics.  When we first met, he always walked me to the street when I was leaving to make sure I crossed safely.  As time passed, he taught me how to use power tools, how to sharpen things, how to change tires, how to tune up an engine in the days of points, plugs, and condensers, how to row a canoe, and how to interpret the behavior of materials.  He even taught me a "secret" way to tie shoes so they don't come untied.  He taught me the elements of first aid.  I learned to make coffee from him.  He helped me refurbish a set of war-surplus skis.  He was fanatic about safety and advanced planning.  He always encouraged me.  When he got too old to bend over and pull the rope on his power lawn mower, he and I designed and built a ratcheted-gear foot pedal starter that he could use.  I watched my very first TV image with him on a 9" screen experimental General Electric TV in 1948.  He also taught me manners and civilized behavior in support of my parents.  We hung out together.  We fixed things.  We rode in the '40 Ford to go shopping in parts houses, junkyards, hardware stores, and lumberyards.  And if my dog, Duke, was with me on a particular day, he went with us.  And I don't remember Fred Mackintosh ever "talking down" to me.

The Mackintoshes had one son, Donald, who still lived at home.  He was an electrical engineer and had followed in his father's path working for the General Electric Company.  Don later married, after his mother had passed away.  He and his wife Barbara remained close friends of the Mead family.  I babysat for Don and Barbara's son when he was only a few weeks old.  One of my most treasured possessions is a photograph that includes Papa, Don, Barbara, Clayda (Barbara's daughter), and Sewall (Don and Barbara's son), taken in front of a Christmas tree the year before Fred died.

On a visit to Schenectady in the 1980's, I called Sewall and his wife, Barbara "Petie" Mackintosh, just to say Hi.  It seems that they were in the process of cleaning out the old shop and wondered if I could help identify a few items.  I jumped at the opportunity.  I drove to Gillespie Street and we entered the building that had been such an integral part of my life so many years before.  Everything was as I had remembered it.  The motor-driven shaft that had once powered the shop's machines still hung from the ceiling.  The array of cocoa tins had garnered a few cobwebs, but were still in place.

My treasured picture of Fred

Sewall offered me anything that I might want as a memento.  I said that I'd like three things -- a picture of Fred if we could find one, one of his M.I.T. textbooks, and one of those crazy cocoa tin storage containers.  I went straight to the one that said "Pool Cue Chalk."  Sewall and Petie insisted that I take more than one.  I retrieved a few more of the cocoa tins, a framed photograph of Papa Mackintosh in which he looks about 25 years of age, and a few of his many old textbooks. Those treasures are now on a special memorial shelf in my shop.  Fred is with me in spirit as I work on the projects that he has inspired for over 70 years.

Part of the memorial to Fred that is in my shop

On that same shelf is also a "Home Workshop Encyclopedia," a 1940's publication of the staff of Popular Science magazine.  Inside the front cover, written in a child's wobbly script, is the statement, "Mr. Mackintosh gave me this book Christmas day, 1948.  Bobby."

Papa Mackintosh, know that you are remembered and revered.   RIP

Postscript: I extend my thanks to Frederick Sewall Mackintosh for providing several corrections and clarifications to my original blog post.  They have been incorporated 8/30/2021. RMM

Andy Andreason's Great Dream...

The Stinson Voyager -- Similar to Andy's plane

In 1975, I accepted a position in the LHA Program Office at Ingalls Shipbuilding (a division of Litton Industries) in Pascagoula, Mississippi.  I had previously worked in the Logistics Directorate at the same location.  My new job would involve managing the change boards that reviewed all proposed changes to the LHA ship, a 39,000-ton, 800+ foot long amphibious assault helicopter carrier.  Changes may be initiated to solve an engineering problem, or to meet some contractual requirement that was overlooked, or simply to improve the product.  Our job in the change boards was to determine if the change was truly required, whether the proposed solution made sense, whether it was the most cost-effective solution, whether it met specifications, and when it might make sense to incorporate the change.  We had representatives on the boards from many divisions of the shipyard -- material, planning and scheduling, production, etc.

One of the gentlemen, the representative from production planning, was a fellow named "Andy" Andreason.  Andy lived in Foley, Alabama, and commuted over 80 miles each way to work each day.  On a good day, it took over 1 hour and 15 minutes for his one-way trip.  He looked for an alternative.

The highway and straight-line distances from Foley to Pascagoula

Andy had been an active private pilot for about 40 years and had accumulated thousands of hours of flight time in small aircraft.  One of his favorites was the Stinson Voyager, a single-engine airplane that had been produced by the Stinson Aircraft Company of Wayne, Michigan, between 1939 and 1945.  They produced over 5,000 of these light aircraft that were unique for their slatted wing design.  The planes cruised at about 100 miles per hour.

Andy's idea was simple: Buy and restore a Stinson Voyager.  Then, by keeping a car at the Pascagoula Airport, he could commute by air in his own plane, from Foley to Pascagoula (a straight-line distance of about 50 miles), and drive from the Pascagoula airport to the shipyard, a distance of only about 8 miles.  What a concept!  Of course, it would only work in fair weather, but it would greatly reduce Andy's commuting time and stress level.  He found a good used Stinson, bought it, moved it to Foley, and began the restoration.  And, because we worked together, the entire change board got daily updates as the restoration progressed.

An early Stinson Voyager advertisement

It was probably early 1977 that Andy was ready to make his first commuter flight.  The restoration was completed and his "new" airplane had been flight tested and declared airworthy.  On the first day with favorable weather, he made the inaugural flight and his plan worked perfectly!  Over the next 10 days, the weather continued to be perfect, and Andy commuted by air every day without incident.  Then he told us he was taking a couple days off while his A&E mechanic inspected and readjusted a few items on the plane.

On the day that Andy was supposed to resume his airborne commute, he failed to be at work at 8:00 AM.  This was unusual for him, since he was a very punctual worker.  Unusual also was the fact that he didn't call to let us know of his absence.  Finally, about 9:30 AM, I called his home to check on him.  His wife answered.  The conversation went as follows:

"Mrs. Andreason, this is Bob Mead at the shipyard.  Is Andy in?"

"He's here, but he doesn't want to talk."

"Is he OK?"

"He's fine, but the plane isn't.  He'll tell you more when he comes to work.  He'll be there tomorrow."

The next day, we learned the whole story.  To fully appreciate this description, understand that Andy was 65 years old and a very large individual, probably tipping the scales at about 275 lbs.  Andy had gone out to the airport as usual and moved the plane out of its hangar.   Andy tried to start the engine, but the battery was drained from all the usage it had had in the hands of the mechanic.  Andy set the hand brake, set the throttle for fast idle, stepped in front of the plane, and pulled the propeller to hand start the engine.  To his surprise, the engine started and sped up to far more than a fast idle.  As Andy ran around the plane to reach into the cockpit to slow its RPMs, the plane started to move!  You see, his mechanic had, among other things, adjusted the hand brake and the idle speed.  Andy hadn't accounted for the handbrake readjustment, and hadn't pulled the brake handle far enough.  He then grabbed the tail of the aircraft to stop it from running into another nearby plane.  As Andy ran sideways to rotate the direction of the plane, he lost his grip and it plowed into the airport's fueling station, demolishing and igniting one of the gas pumps!  By the time he got a fire extinguisher and some assistance, the front half of the plane was destroyed.  Andy was embarrassed beyond words!

This story actually has a happy ending.  Andy's long-range plan was to retire and use the plane to travel across the country with his wife.  Not long after the disaster, Andy located another damaged Stinson Voyager, in Texas, with an intact front half.  He bought it, retrieved it from Texas, and completed a second restoration of the "married" air frames.

The last time I heard of Andy and his wife, they were flying the "new" plane to distant points and Stinson owners' gatherings.  God bless them for realizing their dream!

A Strange Experience with "Mr. Smith"...

Ingalls Shipbuilding, shortly after I had left their employ

I went to work as a Systems Engineer at the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries in April, 1972.  My immediate boss was a retired Army Colonel named Mickey Dodson.  Our organization's job was to analyze each system and subsystem on the new DD-963 class of destroyers and to define the maintenance processes and procedures to be used on the ship.  It included everything from the changing of light bulbs to the overhaul of the ships' gas turbines.  It was a very interesting job on a really exciting new ship production program.  We were the Maintenance Engineering Analysis department, part of the larger Logistics Analysis directorate.  Mickey's boss was the Director of Logistics, Mr. Ken Beyer, a retired Navy Captain, and a very capable leader and manager.

The shipyard had grown from a tiny regional business to an enormous industrial phenomenon in a matter of only 2-3 years.  When I arrived, it employed over 20,000 people and was still growing.  One effect of this extreme growth was that rental housing was difficult to find throughout the Mississippi gulf coast.  I finally managed to rent a small house in Biloxi, on Pinewood Drive.  It was about 36 miles from the shipyard.

A few months after I had started at the shipyard, Ken Beyer hired another former naval officer as an assistant.  To protect his privacy (if he's still living...), let's call him Bob Smith.  Bob was a Naval Academy graduate who had left the navy after his obligated service and had recently been working as a consultant for one of the "Beltway Bandit" companies in the northern Virginia area.  He had lots of contacts in the Navy Department, and his lovely wife, (let's call her Vicki), was the daughter of a prominent Vice Admiral.  Since Bob's wife was still in the D.C. area, I invited him to move in with me until he was able to find housing and move his family to the Gulf Coast.  We soon were roommates in my three-bedroom house in Biloxi.

I noticed right away that Bob consumed a considerable amount of alcohol and slept very little.  Most evenings, he would walk the half-mile or so to the public beach at the foot of Beauvoir Road, carrying his hoop net, and fish in the surf for mullet.  He never kept or cooked the fish; He just enjoyed the activity of fishing, often until long after midnight.

Most of the time, we commuted together to work and back.  We would alternate vehicles.  One morning, as I was driving to work with Bob as my passenger, he started to speak in gibberish about the Queen of England.  Something about her inability to understand modern naval maintenance.  If he could just do a briefing for the queen, he was sure that she would appreciate his profound understanding of his "Royal Maintenance" philosophy to support modern naval warfare.

I wasn't quite sure what to think, but I halfway concluded that he had been sharing some kind of bizarre joke that had escaped me.  He shortly resumed normal conversation, so I didn't give much thought to his queen discussion.  Soon we were at our shipyard building, where we proceeded to our individual offices (He had a real office; I was in a "bullpen" containing dozens of adjacent desks.).

After about an hour, Bob's secretary came to my desk expressing her concern.  She said that he had asked her to place a phone call to the Queen of England.  His voice was very shaky and when she went into his office, he was drenched with sweat and visibly trembling.  She had come to me because she knew that he and I were living together.

I immediately went down to Bob's office and paid a brief visit.  Everything his secretary had described was correct.  Bob was having some mental or physical crisis.  I knew that Bob had the highest regard for our boss, Ken Beyer.  They were both Naval Academy alumni and Ken had fought in World War II.  I went straight to Ken's office and briefed him on the situation, suggesting that it would be wise to try and get Bob to the hospital in Pascagoula, about three or four miles from the shipyard.  One of my concerns was that Bob might not want to go to the hospital.  He had wrestled at the Naval Academy and was still a large, muscular individual.  We probably would have to get outside assistance if he didn't want to go willingly.  My hope was that Ken might diplomatically convince Bob to go with a group of his friends who cared for his well being.

Ken Beyer worked his magic.  He casually "dropped by" Bob's office.  In the course of their conversation, Ken mentioned to Bob that he looked a little pale and asked if he'd been feeling OK.  Bob indicated that he'd been feeling uneasy and on edge.  Soon, Bob, flanked by two large friends, Ken and I were admitting him to the emergency room at the Singing River Hospital.  Bob was very agitated and unable to sit for more than a few seconds.  He would not allow anyone to draw blood, since he "knew it was part of a plot."  At one point, he wandered into the hospital chapel, which was only a few yards away from the emergency waiting area.  We found him tearing up the pages of a bible, saying that he knew the secret was here somewhere.  Eventually, he was admitted, placed under psychiatric supervision, and administered a sedative.  I stayed with him in his room and eventually he went to sleep.  Outside his room was a National Guard armory, and they were conducting helicopter operations on the field between the hospital and the armory.  I watched the activities for a while and eventually got a ride back to the shipyard, where my car was located.

The shipyard administration had notified Bob's wife of the situation, and soon she and her father, the  Admiral, were on their way to Pascagoula.  I met them the next morning at the Mobile airport and delivered them to their motel in Pascagoula.  The admiral had made it clear that he wanted no contact with any shipyard officials during the visit, as it was strictly a personal matter.  I was the host to both Vicki and her father during their stay.

After a few days, Bob seemed to have returned to "normal."  He was discharged but took a couple of weeks off.  He decided to take a job in the D.C. area, and eventually left the shipyard.  We stayed in touch over the ensuing years, mostly by exchanging Christmas cards.

By 1979 or '80, I was no longer employed at Ingalls, had moved to Huntsville, had become a general contractor, and was in need of some supplemental income.  I received a call one day from Jerry and Eleanor Smith.  Jerry had been one of my bosses in the shipyard after I had transferred from Ken Beyer's organization to one of the program offices.  Jerry and Eleanor had started a small consulting business near D.C. and needed some of my services.  Their timing couldn't have been better!

It seemed that the Smiths had gotten a contract with one of the larger government services companies to develop the reliability/maintainability plan on a new class of LSD (Dock Landing Ship) vessels, the LSD-41 Whidbey Island Class..  Knowing that I had experience in this area, they wondered if I was available to produce this document.  I jumped at the chance.  For the first couple of weeks, I lived in their apartment in Tyson's Corners, as they were working on a job in California.  But I needed to find a more permanent residence.  I called Bob Smith to see if he knew of any space available at a reasonable price.  He surprised me by suggesting that I move in with him.  He informed me that he and Vicky had recently gotten a divorce and that he had ended up with the house, which was located in Herndon, only a few miles from where I was working.

I arrived at Bob's house on a Sunday afternoon, having flown back from a weekend break in Huntsville.  Bob greeted me and then revealed that the house had essentially no furniture.  He had an easy chair and a small TV propped upon a folding tray table.  His mattress was on the floor.  I could sleep on the carpet rolled up in the blankets he provided.  This was meager living at its best!  I immediately called Margo and asked her to send my air mattress and sleeping bag.  I was paying very little rent, so I really didn't mind the inconvenience.

Living with my former roommate was interesting.  He had a pot-growing experiment going on in what had formerly been the dining room.  There were dozens of seedling pot plants in neat shelves under special fluorescent lights.  One day, a realtor showed up unannounced with a couple who wanted to look at the house.  As they passed through the dining room, Bob explained that he was raising tomato plants getting ready for Spring planting!

One day, after we had finished some take-out chinese food, Bob looked at me and asked, "When we were in the hospital in Pascagoula, after I had my breakdown, was I hallucinating, or were there really helicopters outside my window?"  I set his mind at ease by explaining that they were real helicopters.

Over the years, I gradually lost touch with this fascinating but self-destructive individual.  I sometimes wonder if he's still among us...

As it turned out, I successfully completed the assignment and the Navy bought off on the publication.  I later learned that Lockheed Martin Shipbuilding had attempted to produce the document and failed, as had another subcontractor.  I had gone to the Bureau of Ships early in my process to assure myself that I understood their expectations.  I then went to the operations organization to understand their desires.  I realized that each bureau was using a different math model to estimate long-term costs.  I worked with the mathematicians to reconcile their differences.  After that, selling the final product was quite routine.  It pays to deal with the "worker bees" when producing things for a client.

Barbers...

Bella, the barber shop dog at Terry McCay's Barber Shop

When I moved to Tennessee in 1981, I began going to the "Please-U" Barber Shop on Elk Avenue, not far from the court house.  Over a period of two or three months, I gravitated to James Stewart as my barber.  From that time forward, I would wait until James could take me whenever I entered the shop.  He was "my" barber.  We carried on conversations when he was cutting my hair.  He knew the way I liked it cut.  He learned about my family and I learned about his.  There's a certain kind of good bond between a barber and his clients.

Then, about 12 or 13 years ago, James announced that he was retiring.  He had turned 85, and he had decided to throw in the towel, literally.  I was heartbroken.  I tried the other barbers at the Please-U, but it wasn't the same.  Then, on one of my many business trips, I ran into an old colleague, Randy Cash, at the Atlanta airport.  We were catching up when he mentioned that he often came to Lincoln County because his barber was there.  He had started as a child having his hair cut by a fellow named Dickey Campbell.  Dickey had a shop in Huntsville at that time.  But eventually, Dickey moved his shop to his home state of Tennessee, and Randy had followed him (I said it's a special bond!).  I made sure I got Dickey's address before Randy and I parted ways.

Soon, I tried Dickey Campbell and liked the way he cut my hair.  He was "my" barber for the next several years until earlier this year, when he ran into some health issues that forced his retirement.  I felt terrible for Dickey, but had no choice but to start looking for another barber.  I didn't want a stylist or some foo-foo salon.  I wanted to find a barber that can get rid of some of my extra hair (of which there's not a lot these days) and carry on a pleasant, engaging conversation.  My first attempts were to go to what I call the strip mall chains.  You've seen these -- Head Start, Sport Clips, Master Cuts, Klean Cuts, and the like.  The problem with these shops is evident from the second visit -- you never seem to get the same hair cutter twice in a row.  In fact, it looked to me as if the whole crew got replaced between visits!  This continued for several months until last week, when I mentioned my frustration to Mary Ann.

Like the champ that she is, Mary Ann jumped on the Internet.  "This one looks interesting," she said.  "He has a write-up that is from some very satisfied client.  He talks about a barber shop dog that greets the clients."  Not long after that, I left the house to find Terry McCay's Barbershop on Winchester Road in Huntsville.  I had called ahead to make sure I didn't need an appointment.  Mr. McCay assured me that he'd be glad to see me come in at any time.  I got a great haircut at a fair price, was greeted by a very friendly dog, and met my new barber.

The Space Capsule...

"Godspeed, John Glenn..."

Yesterday, John Glenn passed away.  It got me thinking about the influence of the space program in its early days.  Today we hear about a launch of some astronauts on their way to spend a few months on the space station.  To most people, it's a fairly ho-hum affair.  It was not so in the early '60's, when every launch had us glued to our television sets (with their massive 21-inch screens).

My twin nephews, Mark and David, were born in 1960.  When they were young, I sometimes built them Christmas presents.  One year, I built them a really nice puppet theater with custom lighting and curtains that opened and closed like those in a real theater.  They put on shows for kids in the neighborhood and at school, and friends of the family often gave them hand puppets as gifts to round out their sizable collection.  Eventually, the theater and the hand puppet collection became the property of St. Margaret Mary School in Slidell, Louisiana.

It was the gift I decided to build for another Christmas that I was thinking about today, reflecting on the life of John Glenn.  I decided to build the boys a space capsule.  I wasn't sure exactly what form this might take, but I knew it could be fun.  I was living with two other bachelors, Forrest Frueh and Jim Mouser.  They were the entire Business Law department at the University of Oklahoma.  We lived in a house with a large great room and they were accustomed to my "projects" taking form in that large space.

I started by imagining three large panels hinged for storage, but capable of being set up as a kind of open-back surround set, like the illustration here:

I envisioned the kids sitting side by side on little folding chairs in front of some intergalactic window.  I bought some 3/4" plywood and built the form you see here with a 3' x 5' panel in the center, and a 2' x 5' panel on each side.  I could begin to imagine it set up in the kids' bedroom in Slidell, where my brother and his family lived.  And I could probably transport it in my '62 Galaxie 500 convertible if I put the top down.  It seemed like a plan.

My next thought was that a space capsule had to have a window or portal from which the young astronauts could look out into space.  I purchased a fluorescent light fixture and an 18" ultraviolet lamp.  After mounting it on the top of the center panel, I cut a rectangular opening and mounted some black velvet in a frame molding, with the idea that I would paint space objects -- stars, planets, comets -- using fluorescent paint.  I felt that I might end up with lots of lighting effects and that the boys would use it in a darkened bedroom.  The view out the "window" with the UV light turned on would be spectacular!  At this point, here's what I had;

One day, probably in early November, I was driving to work on campus when I spotted a juke box lying in a gutter that had obviously been abandoned there.  I stopped, saw that it had lots of useful goodies on it, and wrestled it into my trunk.  That night, I took it home and started to dismantle it.  Little did the manufacturers know that they had provided me with a gold mine of useful space capsule hardware:

Juke Box Item	Space Capsule Application
Chrome Bars in front of Speakers	Zero-Gravity Hand Hold Bars
45 RPM Turntable	Intergalactic Gyroscope/Stabilizer
Coin Receptacle and Changer	Interplanetary Currency Converter
Selection Panel with Illuminated Letters/Numbers	Computer Display

In no time, I was removing practically every bit of hardware from the pathetic cast aside juke box.  I quickly disposed of the cabinet and began thinking of the details of how I would use the found goodies.

I manufactured a panel that resided beneath the window and mounted the tune selection panel there.  Underneath were a string of blinking Christmas tree lights that showed through the translucent plastic parts of the panel.  That became the on-board computer.  Now, it started to look like something scientific.

Soon, I had added other hardware.  I decided it needed noise, too, so I added a doorbell, door chime, buzzer, and buttons to actuate them.  After all, what's a space capsule without a few emergencies?  I painstakingly painted the black velvet, using a toothpick to paint the stars, a tiny brush to do the galaxy and planets (I chose Saturn and Jupiter because they were the most visually impressive.).  And then, I added labels to everything, so any observer could recognize an intergalactic stabilizer or currency exchanger.  Along with the hand holds, it looked something like this when finished:

I carefully dismantled the panels, including the separable wiring harness.  I had thoroughly tested the wiring and functionality of lighting and sound.  The weather turned out to be beautiful on the day I drove from Norman, Oklahoma to Slidell with the top down on my '62 Ford convertible and the three panels stacked next to me.  My brother, Willy, had agreed on an address where we would meet to store the space capsule for a couple of days before Christmas.

On Christmas morning, it was a huge success with the boys.  It soon migrated into their bedroom, where it occupied a prominent corner for a few months.  Mark and David would sit for hours jabbering about extra-vehicular walks and chatting with an imaginary mission control.  They were in a space world unto themselves.  Alas, it's noise-making capability was its downfall.  My sister-in-law, Joni, soon decided it would be quieter in the Mead household if the space capsule relocated to the boys' school.  Unwittingly, I had made another contribution to St. Margaret Mary.

The Tom Morgan Autoharp...

Tom Morgan's unique F-hole design

Not long after I went to work for John M. Cockerham & Associates in 1984, I was assigned to work on a contract in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  I would drive up on Monday morning, leaving at about 4:00 AM, to get to Oak Ridge in time for a full work day.  I'd leave Friday evening, getting home around 9:00 PM.  The first few weeks I went up there, I stayed in a hotel.  But this was during a period when we received a fixed amount for housing each day.  (It's no longer that way -- Now we receive actual costs up to a specified maximum per diem.)

Margo and I had purchased a pop-up camper about a year earlier.  It dawned on me that I might save a few dollars by towing the camper to Oak Ridge and living in it during my week-long stays.  The next week, I towed it to Oak Ridge and found a nice state campground with trailer hook-ups for $7.00 per night!  The only problem was that they had a maximum stay of 10 days.  During the week, I explored several areas in and near Oak Ridge, looking for another campground in which I might stay indefinitely.  I finally found the Riley Creek campground on one of the creeks feeding Watt's Bar Lake.  It was scenic, quiet, comfortable, and I was able to negotiate a price of $65.00/month!  I soon was a resident with a waterfront view.

My view from Riley Creek campground

My recollection is that we received about $48.00 per day for lodging.  This meant that if I worked in Oak Ridge 22 days per month, I was making nearly $1,000 per month by staying in the camper!  I remained in Oak Ridge for several months.  Soon, we had paid off all our credit card balances and even taken a couple of short vacations with this windfall.  It was then that I talked to Margo about the possibility of buying a custom-built autoharp.

I had been playing the autoharp for over ten years by this time and had acquired 3 or 4 instruments.  They were all mass produced, and I had modified them to accommodate my personal tastes and to make them easier to play (new damping felts, lighter chord bar springs).  I felt that I was ready to describe in great detail the features and options I would want in a custom-built instrument.  Margo thought it was the right time.

I had recently bought "The Autoharp Book" by author Becky Blackley, published in September, 1983.  In that book, Becky described several instruments built by custom luthiers.  I began tracking down and calling them.  Some were no longer making autoharps.  One gentleman, when I inquired about some details of his design, informed me that I had no right to question his craft.  I wrote him off my list.  Then I talked to Tom Morgan, of Morgan Springs, Tennessee.  I looked up Morgan Springs on a map and found that it was midway between Oak Ridge and Fayetteville.  It was on my weekly route to work.

I called Tom Morgan and we had a wonderful conversation.  We discussed his design ideas.  His instruments were unique in that they had carved spruce tops like violins.  The spruce he used was 70 years old at that time.  And the exterior of his sides and backs were of Brazilian rosewood that Tom had acquired in the early 1950s at a surplus auction at the Martin guitar plant.  We agreed that the following Friday, I would leave work early and drive to Tom's shop (and residence) on my way home for the weekend.

That Friday, I followed Tom's directions, driving first to Dayton, Tennessee, and then proceeding up Morgan Mountain on Highway 30 toward Summer City.  Near the top of the mountain, I spotted a couple of landmarks and was soon turning in to the Morgans' driveway.  Tom and his lovely wife, Mary, greeted me like a long-lost friend.  We proceeded into their home where Mary retrieved her autoharp, which was the first one Tom had crafted.  It was then over 20 years old, had been played daily, and still looked like new.  She handed it to me, along with a few select finger and thumb picks, and asked if I'd care to try it out.  I strummed a few chords and the tone was like no other autoharp I had ever played.  I was sold -- if Tom had the time to build me one and if I could afford it.

Tom and Mary Morgan
at about the time I met them

Tom and I proceeded to his shop where I received the grand lumber tour.  Stacks of seasoned spruce, board-feet of rosewood, mahogany, curly maple, every kind of tonewood imaginable were in organized stacks.  And there were partially-completed instruments and repair jobs lining his workbench.  It seems that not only did Tom Morgan build coveted mandolins, banjos, guitars, and autoharps.  He was also much in demand for his top quality "invisible" repair work on damaged instruments.

We finally turned to the subject of an instrument for me.  He would build me a duplicate of Mary's autoharp in German spruce and Brazilian rosewood with ivoroid binding, and rosewood chord bars, for $1,000, including inlaying a dogwood blossom inlay in the back of the instrument.  I would create the inlay and send it to him to put on the instrument.  There would be no timetable, since repair work always would have priority.  I would pay half up front and half upon delivery.  We shook hands on it.  There was no need for a paper contract.  Tom Morgan is a man of his word.

About 2 years later, I received a call from Tom that my autoharp would be ready for delivery the following weekend.  He and Mary would be conducting an inlay workshop at Dollywood, but perhaps Margo and I might join them in Pigeon Forge and take delivery personally.  The following weekend, we did just that, driving to Pigeon Forge, meeting Tom and Mary for dinner, and receiving my new instrument.  It was gorgeous -- everything I had expected, and more.  The rosewood glowed with its multi coat, hand rubbed lacquer finish.  The tone was spectacular with a long sustain period, in spite of the fact that it was brand new.  The tone usually develops such richness over time and usage.  I couldn't have been happier.  The wait was worth it.  And Margo and I had befriended Tom and Mary to boot!

That weekend turned out to be a tragic one for Tom and Mary.  On their way home, Mary became seriously ill and Tom took her to the emergency room of a Chattanooga hospital.  They ultimately performed surgery only to discover that she had cancer.  And that disease took her life way too soon.  We were devastated.  She was a beautiful lady with a humble, generous, and kind spirit.  But Tom's friendship has grown over the years.  As a retired Air Force veteran, he often comes to Huntsville to take advantage of the medical facilities and pharmacy services at Redstone Arsenal.  We usually have lunch when he and I are in town.

And what about the autoharp that he crafted for me?  It has only improved with age.  I use it more than any of the instruments I own.  I maintain it carefully and it looks like the day I picked it up.  Tom has only built around 25 of these instruments.  I have learned that I am in good company.  John McCutcheon and Mike Seeger each had one and both of those instruments, tragically, were no longer in use.  McCutcheon's was lost in a fire. I took lessons from Mike Seeger one summer and he discussed his Tom Morgan autoharp.  He told me it was "bulletproof."  He said, "I could take on an airplane and go somewhere to perform where the temperature and humidity were totally different from home.  It would stay in tune and perform as advertised.  It was an amazingly stable, predictable instrument."

Mine is the same -- amazingly stable and predictable.  I change the strings every two or three years, keep the chord bars in good shape, and play on.  Tom Morgan's autoharp does the heavy lifting.  Thanks, Tom, for your skill and your friendship.  And thanks, Mary, for inspiring Tom.

Midshipman Cruises

Boxes of plebe year Midshipman hats

In the Fall of 1958, I entered the University of Rochester as a freshman.  One reason I selected Rochester was the presence of a Navy ROTC unit.  I hoped to apply for the NROTC scholarship program, so I immediately enrolled in the non-scholarship, so-called "Contract NROTC" program.  During my first year, I applied for and was awarded the full scholarship.  That program started at the beginning of the Summer between my freshman and sophomore years.

Involvement in the NROTC scholarship program involves participation in three Midshipman cruises, one during each of the three summers of a normal four-year bachelors degree program.  Typically, the first cruise, between freshman and sophomore years, is on a ship.  The Midshipmen wear enlisted-type white uniforms and Dixie-cup styled hats with a blue stripe around the rim.  They complete a series of written workbooks and are assigned to the various departments of a ship over a period of about 6-8 weeks.  The second cruise, made between the second and third years, is an indoctrination summer, introducing the Midshipmen to Marine Corps training as well as naval air indoctrination.  Lastly, prior to the senior year, the Middies go back to sea on ships, this time acting in their future roles of junior officers.  They again complete workbook assignments, but this time, the assignments have much more to do with their future responsibilities and less to do with introducing them to shipboard life.

In the Rochester unit, assignments to Summer cruises were based on performance.  A list of available billets would come in and the highest scoring Midshipman got the first choice from the list.  It followed that each succeeding high-scorer got his choice of remaining assignments.  The first summer I was to go on a cruise was 1959.  I chose an Atlantic fleet cruise on a large combatant in the hopes that I might get to participate in a NATO joint exercise.  My orders arrived shortly before the Summer break.  I was to report on a certain day in June to the USS Northampton (CLC-1), based in Norfolk, Virginia.

We were fitted with our new uniforms, taught how to fold them properly and stow them in our duffel bag.  We were provided with a list of toilet articles and other items to include when we reported aboard.  Our training included shipboard etiquette -- when and how to properly salute, how to board and disembark the ship, seating conventions in the mess deck, shipboard timetables, etc.  I was eager to get started!

The City of Richmond, our home for a night

My parents decided they would like to drive me to Norfolk and drop me off and then take a few days of vacation.  They invited my "Aunt" Rose Lane to accompany us in our new 1959 Ford four-door sedan.  We loaded up the car a couple of days before my reporting date and headed out.  We had decided to take the Baltimore Steam Packet Line's sleeper ferry from Baltimore to Norfolk.  So after the first long day of driving, we reached Baltimore, located the ferry landing, and drove aboard an ancient sleeper ferry, the City of Richmond, built in 1913.  Accommodations were compact to say the least.  We enjoyed a really nice dinner and then retired to our cabins.  12 hours after leaving the pier in Baltimore, we awoke in Norfolk.  The plan was to do some sightseeing in and around Norfolk and get a good night's rest before dropping me off at the Norfolk Navy Base the next morning.

The USS Northampton (CLC-1) in 1959

I was delivered in my spotless white middies the next morning to a receiving building near one of the gates of the Norfolk Navy Base.  After processing, a group of us were put aboard a bus that delivered us to Pier 2, where the Northampton was moored.  As we walked down the pier lugging our sea-bags, I remember thinking this was the biggest ship I'd ever seen.  It was huge!  Actually, the Northampton was a very large ship.  She was laid down as an Oregon City-class heavy cruiser (CA–125), on 31 August 1944 by the Fore River Yard, Bethlehem Steel Corp., Quincy, Massachusetts.  When the war ended, all work stopped on the ship for many months.  She was redesigned to add an extra deck to the hull, raising her superstructure substantially.  She was fitted with state-of-the-art radar and communications gear and finally commissioned in 1953 as a command light cruiser (command ship).  When I went aboard this 675-ft. long monster, she was serving as the flagship of the second fleet, based in Norfolk.  I would soon learn that one characteristic of the Admiral's flagship is that there is more than enough spit-and-polish to go around.

The Midshipman contingent aboard the ship that summer was 40 individuals -- 20 from the NROTC program and 20 from the Naval Academy.  We were divided up into four groups, one each for the initial assignments to the Deck, Engineering, Operations, and Supply Departments, within which we would begin completing our workbooks.  Every couple of weeks, we rotated to the next sequential department assignment.  In addition to our workbook assignments, we also stood watches in the currently active department.  This meant we were in an assigned watch station, such as the bridge as a telephone talker, or the Combat Information Center, or an engine room for periods of four hours separated by eight hours in which to sleep, eat, bathe, and work on completing our workbooks.  We also had cleaning assignments and were expected to be at Quarters muster at 06:30 if not on watch.  It was a busy time.

We would bunk in Living Compartment 2-129-0-L, a compartment 2 decks below the main deck, at the 129th frame of the ship (close to amidship), on the centerline.  My initial cleaning assignment was a head and shower room not far from the Midshipman sleeping quarters.  I was to totally clean the facility, scour the showers, toilets, sinks and urinals and polish the brass and copper between the time the Midshipmen evacuated it around 06:25 and 09:15 or so when the Executive Officer showed up for an inspection.  That may seem like a lot of time to clean a few commodes, sinks, and urinals and polish some brightwork.  It is not.  In fact, it was damn near impossible to get everything ship shape from the time I returned from Quarters until the XO made his appearance.  Fortunately, I came up with a brilliant scheme.

I experimented for a few nights polishing some of the brass and copper lines and wrapping them with toilet paper.  It might keep the moist air from the showers from tarnishing the metal.  It seemed to work!  So finally, one night, I polished every bit of the brightwork and wrapped it all.  This worked perfectly for a few nights.  In the mornings, I'd scour all the fixtures, scrub the deck, and then unwrap the brightwork.  I'd flush the toilet paper down the toilets.  The place sparkled.  The XO and the Sergeant-at-Arms, his escort, found a couple minor discrepancies each morning, but were generally pleased with my work.  I was very pleased.  Until about the fourth or fifth morning after my breakthrough.

I was only about halfway done unwrapping my candystripe-wrapped pipework when I heard the Sergeant's "Attention on deck!"  I was had!  The XO demanded an explanation.  I blubbered through some pitiful excuse and was severely chastised for wasting valuable Government materials.  Needless to say, the word got around and I took a bit of harassment for a few days.

Not long after we arrived on board, the ship got underway for NATO joint exercises in the Atlantic.  We had a large number of VIPs on board.  The press contingent included Hanson Baldwin, the 1957 Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times Military Editor.  While on the quarterdeck watch the day before we departed, I carried a couple of suitcases belonging to Hungarian actress and socialite Eva Gabor, who was also a guest.

We got underway and soon formed up with a couple of cruisers, the Boston and Canberra, and about a dozen destroyers.  It became evident that one purpose of this expedition was to impress our guests with the performance of the Terrier guided missile, an early surface-to-air missile that had been introduced into the fleet in the mid-1950's.

The Terrier launcher

The morning after we departed Norfolk, we took up a station several hundred yards on the starboard quarter of the Canberra.  Dozens of chairs had been set up on the forecastle for the convenience of our guests.  A narrator used the ship's 1-MC announcing system to describe what was about to take place.  The crew of the Canberra, was preparing to launch a small winged drone that would serve as an airborne target.  Once the drone was about ten miles from the ship, it would commence a simulated "attack."  The missile crew, at the ready, would respond by launching a Terrier that would take out the attacker.  What could possibly go wrong?

The first drone was prepared and mounted on a catapult launcher that extended over the port lifeline.  The narrator counted down and the launcher fired.  We could hear the drone's engine faintly as it nosedived into the Atlantic a few hundred yards from the cruiser.  The narrator diplomatically informed us that there had apparently been a malfunction in the drone, but that another was being prepared.

After the second drone was sucessfully launched and on station, we had a brief countdown for the launch of the missile.  At "0" nothing happened.  There was a deafening silence.  "Apparently, there has been a malfunction in the missile.  The crew is evaluating the situation."  While the crew was "evaluating," we were informed that the target drone had run out of fuel and was lost.  After about another hour, we finally saw a successful drone launch, followed by a successful Terrier launch and hit.  The entire display was certainly not the Navy's finest hour.

We returned to Norfolk to drop of the VIPs and immediately went back to sea for about two weeks of NATO joint exercises with Canadian, British, and French vessels.  I rotated through all the ship's departments, completed my workbooks, and thoroughly enjoyed my first experience at sea.  The training we received was well-planned and administered by senior Midshipmen from the Naval Academy.  I was impressed as I returned to Rochester for my sophomore year.

The second Midshipman cruise would take me first to Little Creek, Virginia, for 4 weeks of Marine Corps indoctrination at the Amphibious Base, followed by 4 weeks of Aviation Indoctrination at the Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, Texas.  I dreaded the Marine Corps portion of the summer, as I was not in great physical condition.  I really looked forward to the aviation portion, as my brother was a newly-minted Marine Corps jet pilot, and I had ambitions to take the aviation option when I would be commissioned.

Before we left Rochester, our Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant made sure we were all issued our fatigue uniforms and combat boots for the Little Creek experience.  I took a bus to Norfolk and got a military shuttle to the Little Creek Amphibious Base to report for duty. There were Midshipmen from about twenty-five of the fifty-two NROTC units represented in the arriving throng.  We were assigned to one of eight Midshipman companies residing in a common four-story barracks.  Our company was under the command of a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant and a Marine Major.  We were very fortunate to have superb leadership.  On the first morning as we formed up for quarters, our Sergeant informed us that each week, a "color company" would be selected based on our week's performance.  The reward would be that you'd be excused from the obstacle course portion of the physical training during the ensuing week.  He encouraged us to "bust our asses" to be the color company.

As a result, we worked extra hard and were the color company all four weeks!  The obstacle course training started at 16:00, so my company usually had showered and were at the Officer's Club by 17:00, enjoying the summer weather and having a beer.  The rest of our training was rigorous and physically strenuous, but was superbly planned and managed.  My fears had been for naught.  I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of this experience.

We spent a couple of days with the Marine Recon forces running everywhere we went.  We raced up and down the beach hauling heavy rubber boats on our shoulders.  "At the high carry, Raise Boats!"  But even this strenuous period was extremely well planned and executed.  And you knew that it would soon be over, no matter how sore you might be.

One of the types of landing craft
we used in our successful assault

The final part of our training involved planning and conducting an amphibious assault on "Red Beach."  We had an old World War II Personnel Carrier anchored off the beach.  We spent the night in the very hot cramped quarters of this antiquated APA, then debarked for the beach in equally outdated landing craft (LCMs, LCVPs, and other craft that now exist only in museums).  I had originally been slated to be a boat formation commander.  At the last moment, I learned that my brother's F-8 Crusader squadron was flying up from Beaufort, SC, to participate in our assault.  My Major got me transferred to the aviation management part of our organization so I could be directing aviation assets during the attack.  I got to talk with Willy and his buddies as the attack unfolded.  We successfully took the beach.

The t-34 Mentor

We flew from Little Creek to Corpus, where we learned how disorganized a program could be.  We were housed in WWII-vintage single-story wooden barracks with no air conditioning.  In August, in Texas.  The schedule was in a constant state of flux.  I, at least, could never figure out the overall structure of this training.  But we did get to make few flights.  First, we got a few hours on the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor.  This was a single engine tandem seat basic trainer.  Our pilots were young and energetic, and usually eager to sell us on the aviation path as a career objective.

The F-9F-8T Grumman Cougar trainer

After we had had completed a few hours in the T-34, we got two 1-hour flights in a Grumman F9F-8T, the training 2-seat version of the Navy's F9 Cougar jet fighter.  I remember strapping in the front seat with the pilot behind me.  I could hear his exchange with the crew and the tower over the headphones in my helmet, but I was unaware when he had started the engine.  There was none of the constant vibration we had experienced with the reciprocating engine of the T-34.  Suddenly we were taxiing.  Then, at the end of the runway, he told me to hold on, and in no time we were airborne, and soon thereafter, in vertical climb.  What a fabulous experience.

And so, in what seemed like no time, this summer cruise was over.  I returned from Corpus Christi by hitch hiking.  I have already written about that experience.

Toward the end of my junior year, I ranked third in my NROTC class at Rochester.  This meant that I'd pretty much get my choice of available cruises when the list of cruises arrived.  The list, when it finally arrived, was really interesting.  There were a number of slots for a Great Lakes cruise, 3 billets for submarine cruises (on the existing diesel-powered boats), an Arctic cruise on a Navy-operated icebreaker, 2 billets for a Mediterranean cruise on a destroyer, and various other billets for east-coast ports.  After much consideration, I chose the Med cruise.

In mid-June I reported to the USS James C. Owens (DD-776), a Sumner-class destroyer.  Twenty first-class (senior) Midshipmen were aboard for the voyage across the Atlantic.  Once we arrived in the Med, some of us would be transferred to other ships.  The trip over was uneventful and took about ten days as we engaged in training maneuvers with the other ships in our operations group.  I read James Michener's Hawaii on the way over in my leisure time.  We rotated through various departments much as we had on our first cruise.

The USS R. L. Wilson (DD-847)

When we arrived in the Mediterranean Sea, we proceeded to anchor at Beaulieu, on the French Riviera between Nice and Monte Carlo.  I transferred to the USS R. L. Wilson (DD-847), a Gearing-class destroyer that had been commissioned in March, 1946.  After a brief stay in Beaulieu over the fourth of July holiday, we embarked on carrier operations with USS Wasp.  On board were 10 Midshipmen -- 2 from the Naval Academy and 8 from various NROTC units, including Rochester, Auburn, Villanova, and Iowa State.  I have described this part of my senior cruise in another blog entry.

All three of my cruises were memorable.  They were generally well thought out and taught us much that we would need and use in our future naval careers, regardless how brief or long.  I still find myself recalling much of the wisdom that was an integral part of that training -- "Praise in public; Criticize in private" for example.  I have often thought about how much the non-scholarship NROTC candidates missed by not participating in these Summer exercises.