From: Don
Willis
Sent: August 06, 2004
To: Bill Adler
Subject: The White Sands Era: 1956-1959
Chapter 5
My sisters, my parents and I arrived in El Paso in January, 1956,
after about a month of traveling from Bordeaux. We were very tired
of traveling. During that time, I missed school, and Merry, as usual,
tutored me. I remember when we got to White Sands Proving Ground,
as it was called in these days, and checked into temporary housing
in a building facetiously called “Kings Row.” It was constructed
of wood, with those gray exterior shingles found on all post WW-II
army buildings. There was a small porch. It was extraordinarily dreary.
It was one building, not Quonset huts as I had in France. We lived
out of our suitcases for about a month and I missed my toys. There
was absolutely nothing to do at night except read; lighting was awful.
I made paper airplanes and glued little paper bombs on the wings,
escaping the realities. Going to school was a blessing.
Then the big blizzard hit. White Sands was a desert outpost, about
50 miles (I thought) from civilization; Las Cruces, New Mexico, over
the Organ Mountains pass. El Paso, to the south, was a little bit
further, on what was called the war road. It was actually developed
during WW II. During the blizzard, we were confined to Kings Row;
no school. It was terribly drafty and very cold. We were isolated
for perhaps a week. I remember that time as a period of extreme cabin
fever.
Merry and Carole had to take the army bus to Las Cruces, to school.
Carole was a senior, and Merry was in the 8th grade. The schools were
actually run by the New Mexico educational system. My school, on base,
was run by a very old (I thought at the time) man, with a very short
crew cut, named John Hoover. Mr. Hoover’s widow as still alive
in well in 2001.
Towards the end of February, we moved into regular temporary housing,
called Wherry housing, on F Street. This was a stucco 3-bedroom house
and we stayed there until April, when we moved to permanent housing,
very similar, on Aerobee Street. I remember moving into the F Street
house; everything smelled freshly painted. My parents had a few things
to unpack that we had in France, but most of the household furnishings
had been in storage since 1952. I was especially intrigued by the
mahogany Everett grand piano that Madame had won in a piano music
contest in Nebraska. I had my own small poster bed. In each short
poster there was a spot to stick a marble in each top, which I used
to do frequently. I also had my own fold-down dresser/desktop. The
desktop had a fold-down to write on, and there were a few cubbyholes
to stick stuff in. It was dark brown. There was a swamp cooler on
the top of the house to provide a semblance of cooling in the summertime.
I remember the things that came from France were in very large wooden
crates, called an overseas crates; don’t know what happened to
the wood. Mayflower Moving brought everything out to WSPG. Each cardboard
box, government issued apparently, had a small Mayflower sticker on
it, with a number. We kept some of those boxes for storage, and I
remember seeing some of them made it even to El Paso in 1962. I remember
many kitchen utensils and fragile stuff was packed in shredded paper,
called excelsior, and, even in some cases, in wooden shavings, within
large boxes. It was all so exciting to me.
The house was at the edge of the family housing section for field
grade officers. To the west was raw land, formerly belonging to the
Cox Family, an old ranching family well established in southern New
Mexico. The Cox’s, as I understand now, basically had most of
their extensive ranch land virtually confiscated by the U.S. Army
at the beginning of WW II. The Cox’s owned most of the land on
the west side of the Tularosa Basin (the valley between the Organ
Mountains and the Sacramento Mountains, to the east). The Lea Family
owned much of the land on the east side of the Tularosa Basin. For
decades thereafter, the Cox’s feuded with the U.S. government
over rights. Dad had some dealings with the Cox family, and we generally
didn’t mention the Cox name at home.
I was fascinated with the desert, particularly with the small dunes
and the millions (I thought) of snake holes. There was some new residential
housing construction going up just west of the house, and a friend
of mine and I used to buy rolls and rolls of pistol caps, use them
as fuses, and light them in snake holes-seeing what we might blow
out. I ran out of money to buy the caps, and Madame figured out, probably
pretty quickly, where I got extra spending money-her change purse.
I fessed up, and had to do extra chores and not have an allowance
for a while. I think it was 5 or 6 dollars. I learned-crime does not
pay.
Just about every Saturday, we would go to Las Cruces or El Paso. Las
Cruces was small, primitive; the main drag downtown wasn’t even
paved in places. We basically quit going to Las Cruces, going to El
Paso exclusively. In those days, stores weren’t open on Sundays.
Perishable foods were old and of very poor quality at the commissary
at white sands, so we got most dairy items and produce at the civilian
grocery stores, I think, usually the Safeway. There was a Safeway
in a strip center on the northeast side of El Paso, and it was always
our last stop before heading back on the war road to White Sands.
After a month or so of this blowing caps everywhere, I believe my
parents figured out I needed additional diversions. So, one Saturday,
they bought Merry and me new Sears’s bicycles. I had a red one,
with a tank, and Merry had a girl’s bike, blue. I had never ridden
before, and I was NOT going to learn with training wheels. So, Dad
put me on the bike; it was like saddling up to a giant horse for me.
It didn’t have a kick stand. He pushed me on my way, and I sort
of kind of pedaled and steered, until I fell off, and skinned the
shit out of my legs, arms, and hands, for a couple of weeks. Then,
I was ready to solo. Everything was fine, riding on those enormously
wide streets at WSPG, until a HUGE (I thought) black dog started chasing
me. I panicked, the dog nipped me, scratched me, and I fell off the
bike, bleeding from enormous gashes in all my organs from the viscous
dog, or so I thought. I’ve been scared of dogs chasing me on
bikes ever since.
Deserts and bikes don’t mix. There are goat heads, part of some
desert plant, that seem to be attracted to bike tires. I would spend
hours picking those things out of the tires, then my clothes, and
then my body. I had a flat every day it seemed. Since I didn’t
have a kickstand, I would plop the bike down, and sand also seemed
to be attracted to every piece of the bike. Dad was very patient and
fixed the tires and tubes. He got a kickstand and put it on. But,
there was another unexpected desert attribute: strong, relentless
spring desert winds, which, coupled with the sand, did sandblasting
damage to the bike. Also, the wind would knock the bike off the kickstand,
into the sand. I quickly learned to bike to school and would bike
home for a quick lunch. There were lots of opportunities for the WSPG
desert to slowly destroy a bike. So, Dad made a wooden bike stand
for two bikes, painted it white, and he solved the problem of the
bikes falling down during each windstorm. Dad got tired of fixing
the tubes, and got heavy-duty tires and tubes. Those didn’t stand
up much better, and he then got tube fixer, to put in the new tubes,
before you pumped them up. He eventually showed me how to change bike
wheels and fix tires, and he retired from the bike business at that
point.
In April, we moved to our permanent housing on Aerobee Street. It
was “Colonel’s row,”, so the house, still stucco, was
a little larger and there were some fairly good-sized pecan trees.
There was a detached one-car garage. It was a little further to school
and the central part of the base then the F street house, but it was
fine.
I believe that my Dad’s mother came down from California somehow,
probably from Denver. For whatever reason, after school one day, we
all got in the Buick and drove up to Truth or Consequences, a little
town near the Rio Grande, maybe 80 miles north of Las Cruces. Truth
or Consequences had a neat old history. It was formerly called Hot
Springs, and people came I think in the 1900’s and 1910’s
for “the treatment.” The springs dried up, and the town
with it. There was a radio show called Truth or Consequences, and
the gimmick was that if a town changed their name to “Truth or
Consequences” for a certain amount of time, that town would get
all kinds of goodies. Well, Hot Springs, New Mexico went for it-and
kept the name.
T & C was a miserable little town-kind of dusty, I think. There
was a little train station, and that was where we met Grandma Willis.
She stayed with us at Aerobee for a few days, then Madame and Dad
took her over to Alamogordo, where she caught the train back to wherever
she was from. At that time there was tension with Grandma Willis,
and I never understood it. I don’t remember her ever visiting
any other time. I don’t believe any contact was made with her
after that or with the family. I believe she died a couple of years
later. Dad never talked about his family, or his many brothers, his
sister, or anything else related. I don’t even remember seeing
any photos or old movies of any of them. Merry and I concluded early
on that there must have been some falling out or separation way back.
WSPG was a great place for a kid in the 1950’s. We were very
isolated, in our own little world, far removed from whatever was going
on in the rest of the world. In the summer time, we had the officer’s
club swimming pool to go to. Merry and Carole and I would bike down
to it, every weekday except Monday (cleaning day?). First, I would
watch them play tennis until it got too hot, then we would all spend
the rest of the day at the swimming pool. During my first summer,
I didn’t know how to swim. There was a raised platform, I believe
it was supported by treated wood, in the pool. Around the platform
was a wooden railing; I believe the water was perhaps 6 inches deep.
The ultimate baby’s pool! I first went in there. Then it dawned
on me that this wasn’t for me, and I learned to kick, and then
dog paddle, then crawl in the pool. There was a tall diving board
with two levels; I believe the top one was probably a 10 meter board.
I remember jumping off that top board a couple of times in a rare
moment of dare-deviling.
In the wintertime, there were fewer diversions, particularly during
the snowstorms. In the spring, and in late summer, there would be
enormous sandstorms, which lasted hours and sometimes more than a
day. Sand would get into everything. We had a small library, where
I learned to check out books. The library was in a small Quonset hut.
One time I biked down there and a sandstorm came up. I couldn’t
bike to get home, but managed to walk home with sand in every orifice.
I was panicked that the wind had blown my bicycle to Mexico! Dad later
rescued it.
During one or two winters, I did things at the craft center, a hobby
center mainly for enlisted personnel, but officers kids (especially
Colonel’s kids!) could use some of the facilities. I did some
pottery, hand-painting it blue, then trying to fire it in an oven.
It didn’t work, or I lost interest, so I did some soldering of
circuit boards. We had bits of pieces of circuit boards, diodes, and
capacitors. This was pre-transistor stuff. All the pieces came from
spent rocket circuitry. We assembled them, tested them, then put them
in the junk pile. That got old also. The last craft I did was to make
model airplanes out of balsa wood. We got junk balsa wood, hand carved
it, assembled it, and hoped it would glide. The soldiers did the same
thing, but they got to put motors on their models.
The big hot spot on the base was the Dairy King (not Dairy Queen).
It was a hamburger joint, not a drive in. The ice cream wasn’t
great, and whenever we went to El Paso or Las Cruces, we would stop
at the Dairy Queen or the Tastee Freeze. By 1958 or 1959, when we
went to downtown El Paso, Dad and I would go to the Kresge’s
dime store and get a root beer float. There were 3 dime stores in
downtown El Paso and two big department stores, the White House and
the Popular Dry Goods Company. The department stores were small local
chains, and they are all gone none. The “girls” would go
one way, and us “boys” would go to the dime stores, or occasionally
to other stores. There was some sort of discount appliance place,
sort of like a warehouse store, I think, where Dad bought his electric
Smith Corona typewriter. Sometimes I’d buy some Reeds “life
savers” at the dime store. I was always intrigued by the stuff
at the checkout counter. Occasionally I would buy a plastic model
kit and/or some model paint/glue. Yes, I sniffed the glue a couple
of times-but didn’t really like the smell of it. I tasted it
once, and it kind of burned my tongue.
Then, we would all meet at the department store, usually the White
House. Once in a while, I would get to buy a Hardy Boys book at the
White House. Merry would read the Nancy Drew series of books, and
she would occasionally get one there also.
Speaking of books, my taste in books at the very small post library
were kid’s non-fiction. At some point I learned about Tom Swift,
Jr. Books, which were at about the same reading difficulty as the
Hardy Boys books. Tom Swift, Jr. were more science-related. Late at
WSMR or early on at Fort Myer, I obtained some of Bob’s original
Tom Swift books-which were along the same genre but really quaint.
I never had a late or misplaced book. There was a small school library,
but I never really checked out anything in school libraries.
Dad was Staff Engineer during his entire stay. This was a very senior
position, and involved supervising construction of rocket testing
facilities as well as assembly places and auxiliary items; it also
included supervising construction of new housing, etc. Later on, in
1958 and 1959, he traveled a great deal by military and civilian planes.
Sometimes he would fly on a one-engine Piper, owned by a local senior
officer, out of the small airfield at WSPG to Biggs Air Field, by
El Paso. From there he would fly to Washington D.C. and also to southern
Florida. In southern Florida, he would go to various sites in the
Caribbean, later associated with Cape Canaveral. I used to ask him
what he did down in the Caribbean, and he told me he couldn’t
say. He collected the postcards distributed by the various airlines
in those days and gave them to me when he returned; he was typically
gone for a week or more at a time. His office was on the second floor
of the Base Headquarters, one of the few (at that time) two story
brick buildings on the base. I was in it only a couple of times. I
remember it smelled faintly of cigarette smoke. Most of the base was
strictly off-limits to civilians.
Once I had graduated past riding in the main part of the base and
the residential areas, Merry and I would explore further out. Merry
and I would bike due south of the Aerobee house, where new residential
construction was going up, and past the small airfield. At the base
of the Organ Mountains, we would park our bikes and wander up the
hiking trail in the canyon. A ways up there was an abandoned gold
mine, and further up, another one. They, in retrospect, were extremely
dangerous. We went to the upper gold mine a couple of times. Apparently,
the last time we did it, the Military Police (MP’s) found out
about it and notified Dad. Was he pissed! I think we were grounded
for a while and never went back up there. Further north and west of
that location, really due west of the Wherry housing area, high up
in the Organ Mountains, there was something shiny and reflective that
would reflect when the sun was just right. I remember that sight for
years. Dad told us that some scouts had hiked up there a few years
back and had left some camping gear, probably mirrors and maybe utensils,
which reflected. Then, in 2001, I contacted the White Sands Missile
Range Old-Timers site and was told it was the wreckage of a plane
crash; that three planes in all had crashed into the Organ Mountains.
Carole was a lost soul at WSPG. She was at the age where she needed
to be somewhere for a while to make friends, and she was miserable
at Las Cruces High. When she graduated, she was beside herself with
boredom; there was nobody there of her age and interests. I remember
her talking on the U.S.-army owned telephone in the house, with the
adjacent doors closed-talking and talking; probably to other girls,
commiserating about her terrible life. And then, Madame would “encourage”
her to get off the phone. To Merry and me, the telephone was always
something used only for emergencies and receiving bad news-way into
the 1990’s. I believe that Dad probably arranged for Carole to
get a civil service job as a low-grade clerk at WSPG. In shear boredom
and frustration, Carole would wander off and bike off to distant places,
including “C Station”-a really restricted launching site.
Carole got caught down there by the MP’s one time, and escorted
back, with stern warnings.
It was then decided (Madame?) that Carole needed some additional seasoning,
so she was sent to Switzerland, for “finishing school.”
She wanted to be an interpreter, I believe. I remember she was sent
off with a year’s supply of clothes, wearing layers and layers
of stuff she couldn’t pack. I remember it was a big deal. We
watched her take off in a giant (it seemed) DC-6 or Constellation.
Apparently, something happened. I remember my parents having closed
door, whispered conversations that Merry and I weren’t privy
to. Then, Carole came home. She was pretty quickly shipped off to
Denver University in Denver in the fall of 1958. Years later, in 2001,
after Madame’s death, Carole and Merry and I were talking about
old times, and I learned the story of how Carole escaped the Catholic
boarding school in Switzerland, got to Italy with a girl friend, fell
in love with a “European Prince” (figuratively), and was
eventually picked up by the Catholic sisters in southern Germany,
taken back to the Interlaken area, and quickly shipped back to the
U.S.A. But, I’ll leave all the details to Carole. It was one
of those fascinating stories you only hear about much, much later.
There was one other set of whispered conversations that Merry and
I weren’t privy too, but that it involved Bob. Bob was of course
Winslow Robert Willis, my brother, 12 years younger than I was. I
last I had heard of him was when we returned from Bordeaux and stopped
in the Daytona Beach area. Mother and Dad saw him, I think. Merry
probably baby-sitted with me to make sure I did my school work. But
there were some sort of troubled conversations about him at while
we were at WSPG. Many years later, in the late 90’s, Merry and
I asked Madame about it. Madame told us that Dad had been contacted
by an army Chaplain at WSMR, and was told that Bob wanted to get married
to a Catholic and, of course, was going to have to convert to Catholicism.
Of course this was anathema to Dad and Madame, and they refused. The
army chaplain at least raised his eyebrows about Dad’s response
and, reading between the lines, some sort of record of Dad’s
response was inserted into Dad’s personnel file. I always felt
that something happened late at WSMR to Dad’s career, and that
that entry may have been the deciding factor in Dad not being promoted
to Brigadier General. Dad went to some advanced Engineering Command
school at Fort Belvoir while we were at WSMR, as if he was being groomed
for bigger things.
I vaguely remember when Dad received the Army Commendation Medal at
WSMR. It was apparently a big event and many photos were taken. Occasionally,
General Maderis would come to the base to get an update, particularly
after Sputnik. Dad would be stressed out during those visits. In the
post-Sputnik area, WSMR was considered a very major and important
army installation and the commanding officer was a major general,
General Laidlaw. The No. 2 person was the chief of staff, a colonel.
Dad was one of the senior officers, on Laidlaw’s staff. There
was also a Chief Scientist, a very Jewish German named Dr. Titelbaum.
One time Dad invited several visiting generals, including Lieutenant
General Emerson Itschner, Chief of Engineers, to the house for lunch.
I don’t know what Madame fixed for them. I don’t think I
even knew they were coming (it wasn’t my business). I had come
home for lunch before them, had lunch, then went to the bathroom to
do my thing. I never could use the school bathrooms! I vividly remember
somebody knocking loudly and abruptly on the bathroom door, and I
hollered “Don’t come in-I’m in here!.” In a minute
I had finished my interrupted thing, and I was shocked to see this
man with all the stars (6 of them) on his uniform. I was introduced
to him as Lieutenant General so-and-so, Chief of Engineers. It was
my first introduction to a general and I was suitably impressed and
awed. For years I sought and loved to meet Important Officers.
I become acquainted with one of the great American institutions, the
fad. The first one was the sack dress, which all the teen girls had
to have right now. I remember Merry had one, and it was horrible.
During one of my early school years, the thing to do was to either
make or wear stick pins. The stickpins were made of straight pins
and were decorated with flexible colored plastic strips, maybe 1/8
inch thick and 1/2 inch long. The two ends of plastic strips were
inserted into the top and middle of the straight pin. Between the
two strips, you inserted all sorts of tiny, colored plastic balls
and other things with holes in them. Then, you put them on the stitches
of your omnipresent baseball cap bill. Students were either builders
or wearers. I was a builder, and we would compete with each other
to see who could make the gaudiest pin decoration. The few folks at
the top of the pyramid were the wholesalers who sold you the stuff
to make the pins.
I think the prices of the completed pins went from 1 or 2 cents to
maybe 18 or 25 cents for the most elaborate designs. Then, suddenly,
the fad was gone.
Academically, my school years at White Sands were pretty uneventful.
I remember we had one field trip to White Sands National Monument,
where it was terribly hot, and I got really sunburned. Otherwise,
there were absolutely no field trips for us. At the school, we knew
that all the students rotated out every 3 years or less, but that
it was possible for a friend at a previous army posting might show
up at one of your postings. Indeed, that happened with two twins,
Ted (forgot the other name) McWhorter.
I believe I always biked home from school for lunch; it was maybe
a 5-8 minute ride. Madame would have lunch ready for me. Invariably,
it was monotonous: a salad with lettuce, a dollop of cottage cheese,
and a prune or fruit cocktail on it, and a couple of pieces of sliced
bananas. Madame was obsessed with bananas-she ate one every day of
her life I think, up until she died. I always liked them, but by the
time I was 40 or so, they gave me diarrhea. And of course, now I can’t
eat them because they have far too much potassium. I would have a
sandwich-peanut butter and cheese, or lunch meat or cheese, a few
chips, and a glass of milk. In cold weather I would have a bowl of
Campbells’s soup. I had graduated away from the nasty dagwood
sandwiches that I created in France, and away from the Tomato soup
and crackers, usually.
If dinner wasn’t a chicken pot pie, it was invariably sliced
roast beef and German fried potatoes, or Spaghetti with a really strange
tomato-based sauce containing green peas! We never had lentils. We
had lots of corn-quite a bit of corn on the cob. Dad could really
go through that corn like a seasoned corn husker! We sometimes had
a baked ham, with cloves and a sauce on it. One of the worst items
was a salad that contained sliced apples (fine), but bananas, oranges,
prunes, marshmallows, pineapples, and nuts! Ugh! Breakfast on cold
days was creme of wheat with raisins, or various cereals. And-the
usual prune! When Tang came out, we had lots of that. On weekends,
we would have bacon and eggs sometimes. Dad would make pancakes, usually
buckwheat ones on special Sundays. Even more rarely, he would make
square waffles with an ancient waffle iron. Occasionally Madame would
make biscuits from the kit-probably Pillsbury-with an added twist-she
would put pecans and karo syrup on top of it. They were incredibly
sticky and clung to your teeth forever. We had quite a few cakes and
some really dried up brownies with nuts in them. The one dessert I
really liked was something called Peach Kuchen-must have been a German
or Dutch item. It was a peach pie with some kind of graham cracker
crust and brown sugar on it-we would have it maybe once a year. I
remember it was broken and he got it fixed somewhere in El Paso. In
season, we would have grape fruits sometimes and freshly squeezed
orange juice. One of my little jobs was to either cut or squeeze the
oranges. Milk was almost always the powdered variety, since milk soured
very quickly at WSPG. I think it wasn’t refrigerated in transit
like it should have been. I think I got most of my diary items from
cottage cheese, and the remainder from cheddar cheese and ice cream.
Merry and particularly Carole, I think from the Switzerland days,
were big cheese fans. We always had ice cream-and sometimes ice cream
treats around. The one baking thing I would help with was to mash
a fork in two different directions on crunchy peanut butter cookies.
Those always seemed to be around.
Christmas was never a big time for gifts. Birthdays were the Big Event.
I would get the good stuff for birthdays. I always had a round double
layer cake-I was always asked what flavor; I usually said (I think)
chocolate frosting on lemon or white cake. The cake would be served
on the round music box/cake stand that Madame got while we were in
Switzerland one time. It played Happy Birthday and was dark brown,
with typical Swiss floral decorations painted on it. I loved that
music box. Carole got it when I was in college, I think. I believe
I occasionally got a few dollars from Grandma Bagley for my birthday,
and occasionally some from my parents. I didn’t see that money,
but it always went into two different savings accounts-one in Phoenix
at Arizona Savings and Loan, and one at El Paso Savings and Loan.
I think Dad had some idea of possibly retiring in Phoenix, and he
put quite a bit of savings in that bank. In the late 50’s or
early 60’s, the bank failed and went into receivership. Eventually,
perhaps after 10 years or so, he got back all that he had paid in,
plus a tiny bit more. The failure of several savings and loans left
an impact on me to this day-to make sure you don’t keep all your
eggs in one basket and diversify, diversify, diversify. I cashed in
both accounts after I bought the Moorhead Drive house, sometime in
the mid-70’s.
Later on at WSMR, Merry made me a cake one spring or summer day. She
was trying to be exotic and made it with deep blue frosting-I think
the white cake mix was also dyed a deep, putrid blue. It tasted ok-but
it was really ghastly looking.
For many years, I kept a list of all my major classmates, then kept
it in a diary I had at A & M when I was a freshman. I started
it when I was in France. At A & M, in that terrible January 1965,
somebody got it and destroyed it. A part of my past was lost. I never
again kept such a list. I remember my two best friends at WSPG were
Wayne Erickson and Alex Gordon. We weren’t allowed to consort
with enlisted families’ kids. Alex Gordon left in early spring,
1959 and I really missed him. His dad, I believe he was a major or
light colonel, was transferred to Jefferson City, Missouri, and Alex
sent me several postcards; and that was it. For several years before
that, we had a little unofficial club, eventually called the Universal
World, a futuristic sci-fi environment, and that was my major social
axis. On Saturdays, we always went out of town, either to El Paso,
the Sacramento Mountains, or (rarely) Las Cruces. Interestingly, we
never went to Juarez, Mexico. Sundays were reserved for getting up
late, having a big breakfast, and going to church. Sunday afternoons,
we were mostly on our own. We didn’t have a dog at White Sands;
that probably upset Carole a great deal also. She always had a dog
or two. I think White Sands was rough on dogs with all the snakes
and larger critters; I’m sure there were coyotes and other creatures.
One time Alex thought it would be good if I had a pet, so he arranged
for me to raise some tadpoles into guppies. He gave me a jar with
some water in it. I put it in the garage on a back shelf and promptly
forgot about it. A few weeks later, I think, I remembered it, and
looked for my friends, who were by then floating in a nasty, smelly,
dark, syrupy morass. That was my last attempt at raising a pet.
When the wind and the sand were not blowing around, White Sands was
beautiful. The skies were forever deep blue and the stars were close
at hand. Sunrises were great and the sunsets were awesome. I started
borrowing Dad’s binoculars and Merry and I would spend hours
outside in the summer, looking at the stars and (later) looking for
satellites. I became a bit interested in astronomy, and when we went
to California, I talked my parents into going to Wilson Observatory,
outside Pasadena, and Palomar Observatory, just north of San Diego.
I was absolutely fascinated by those large telescopes. I never had
a telescope of my own. I then decided I wanted a camera, and I didn’t
want to wait until my birthday or Christmas to get one. I saved up
some coupons from a notebook paper supplier (Nifty brand), got a hold
of a coupon catalogue, and scrumptiously ordered a REAL camera, for
coupons and, I think, a buck. That was when my weekly allowance was
35-50 cents. It came to me the same Saturday afternoon Merry and I
got busted for going to the forbidden gold mine. My parents thought
I wasted my money, but I loved that cheap pos. I took some black and
white photos of Alex, and Merry, which I still have .
Some Saturdays, we didn’t go to El Paso for whatever reason.
Then, I got to go, about 10 AM, to the Saturday matinees at the base
theatre. The theatre was huge (I thought), and the back two rows had
white cloth covers on the seat backs. These seats were reserved for
officers and their children. That, of course, was where we sat when
we went to movies as a family, which was pretty often. But on matinees,
I got to sit wherever I wanted-the closer to the screen, the better.
The matinees were 15 cents, 25 cents when I was 12. Hours of cheap
entertainment, mostly cartoons, three stooges, and the like. There
were also some old black and white serials, which I think might have
lasted 12-20 minutes each. I think, we used to go to the movies every
Monday and Thursday, when the movies changed. At the matinees, I would
load up on junk candy. On Monday and Thursday nights, we always got
unbuttered popcorn.
It was WSPG that I became aware of myself in some ways. I learned
that I was physically awkward. I wanted so badly to play baseball.
Dad got me on a little league team with some difficulty, called the
hawks (I think he pulled rank). We wore wool uniforms, which were
unbearable in the summer heat. I was put way out in an insignificant
place in outfield since I couldn’t catch a ball. I also couldn’t
hit a ball, and was called the strikeout king by the opposing team
players, in most instances. I was mortified. The team didn’t
do that great, collectively. I remember once, late in the season (probably
early August!) where I actually hit the ball, and everybody was collectively
shocked. I almost made it to first base; I couldn’t run either.
I was, politely referred to as husky or stocky. I remember we had
a season finale banquet, which was something I’d never participated
in before-with a whole bunch of boys (some of enlisted parents!),
grabbing for as many hotdogs and potato chips and sodas as they could
have.
It never dawned on to me that my problem was caused by my eyesight.
My eyes got progressively worse. I euphemistically had “weak
eyes” and had to sit in the front of each class . years later,
I realized I couldn’t play baseball because I couldn’t see
the ball. I had received a basketball and a hoop at the Christmas
Party on the S.S. America, and I don’t believe it ever used it
once. During the spring and summer before I played little league,
dad would take me out near the house and we would pitch and throw.
I loved it. Then I graduated to attempting to catch fly balls. One
was too high, and I couldn’t see it coming down. It landed right
above one of my eyebrows. Dad took me to the emergency room of the
base clinic, then did a couple of stitches, but I never wanted to
catch fly balls again.
I believe that after that disastrous baseball season, I retreated
into my inner self. While Madame gave her piano lessons, I played
with plastic models, blocks, and stuff. I had two kinds of blocks-wooden
and a pre-Lego plastic block set which I think were pretty valuable
in those days. I still have the plastic blocks, at least most of them.
I augmented those toys with electrical box knock-outs, which I got
while “inspecting” the new housing construction just south
of the house with Dad. That was my early version of quality time.
Dad, probably for a transition time from work and to stay away from
Madame, probably thought of it first-we would take a 30-45 minute
walk every evening in the summertime to look at the changes on the
housing. I was intrigued-from the moving of sand, to the assembly
of wooden foundation structures, to the pouring of concrete, laying
of lines and assembly of wooden frame-all through until the house
was finished. One house, really deluxe, was the new Commanding General’s
residence. I used to collect the 22-caliber shell casings that somehow
were used; I think to shoot in nails. Once in a while one of the shell
casings would not be empty, and I would husband those casings separately.
But the thing which really intrigued me were the electrical panels,
particularly the main junction boxes, which were finished in some
kind of coated metal. I used to collect the knockouts of the various
electrical panels and really treasured the ones from the main junction
boxes. Alas, they all “disappeared” along with my wooden
blocks when we left for Fort Myer.
I became vaguely aware of girls. My first beau was Penny Steiner,
a girl with a brown ponytail. I don’t think she ever regarded
me as her beaux. I actually had a fistfight with another boy, my age;
I think he was the son of an enlisted family, so he didn’t count,
of course. We traded punches in the stomach and I think we both were
mentally more hurt than physically damaged; and we broke it up. In
the fall of 1958, I took ballroom and square dancing, to improve my
social skills. The dances were typical-I spent most of my time trying
to distance myself from any females. But, eventually, I summed up
enough courage to ask a girl to go to one of the dances. She lived
right down the street; she was a light colonel’s daughter, so
she was socially acceptable. I forgot her first name; her last name
was Barnes. She had a brother, I think he was a bit older, named Tim.
I do remember she was really homely. I remember the real class I displayed
in asking her out, a few days before the dance: did she have a date?
No. Was she planning to go to the dance? Yes, probably. Did she want
to go with me? OK, not convincingly. I remember Madame or Merry getting
a corsage for her; I didn’t have the pizzazz or skills to put
it on her dress. I was really dressed well-I had my fabulously expensive
and good-looking dazzlingly white sport coat. I believe her parents
drove us to the school auditorium, where the dance was held, and my
dad drove us home. No kissing or terrible stuff like that.
Sometime in my last year at WSPG, either in the fall of 1958 or the
spring of 1959, the school nurse summoned me. I had seen her several
times before, because of my “weak eyes.” Earlier in the
school year, I had a programmed physical examination-hearing, eyes,
review of shots, etc. The nurse said she wanted me to see a speech
therapist/counselor, who occasionally came over from the Las Cruces
School District offices. The therapist called me out from a class,
into the hall, and asked me to talk, listened to me carefully, then
asked me to groove my tongue. I couldn’t. It was then that I
learned that I had a speech impediment, a lisp. Nobody had ever said
anything about it. For the rest of the school year, and for the next
year at Kenmore Junior High in Arlington, I got to do speech exercises.
I never could groove my tongue. Somewhere, at some time, the lisp
disappeared. But, for several years thereafter from that awareness,
I spoke very little.
At White Sands I learned to play the piano. I was fascinated with
Madame’s Everett. It was a baby grand, with a mahogany finish.
It had real ivory keys, of which some had worn quite a bit. I believe
that as soon as we moved to Aerobee, Mother started having piano lessons,
and had students over ever school afternoon except Fridays. She had
a couple of adult students, who would come over a couple of nights
a week. She staged the lessons so that when I came home from school,
the lessons would start, and often would go to perhaps 6 or 6:30.
During that time Merry and I were banned to our bedrooms. Ever since
France, I always had my own bedroom. We were ordered to be very quiet.
I would play with my blocks and my plastic war ships and planes, which
I had started building from Revell kits, probably beginning in 1956.
I still had this fascination with small fires, and would light very
tiny fires in some of my plastic (never wooden blocks) warships. Unfortunately,
the tiny fires had a habit of smoldering, melting some of the plastic,
and giving off a stench. I don’t remember at what time Dad would
get home. Often, Merry and I would have Swanson Chicken Pot Pies.
We thought these were something really special and wonderful!
Madame, at one time, probably had 35 students. She had several piano
recitals on Saturdays; I believe these were always in the spring.
They were big deals. I think Merry had to type out many program lists
for one of those recitals. There was a big discussion on what I should
wear to one of the recitals, and my parents decided I would be coolest
and most debonair in a very light (almost bright white) cream wool
sport coat. They paid quite a bit for it at Dunlop’s, a department
store in Las Cruces (and also El Paso). I was very proud of that coat,
and actually wore it on special occasions for 2 years.
I tried very hard to compete with Merry on the piano; but she was
so much better than I was. She was so sophisticated. I remember there
was an announcement in the newspaper about Carole going to finishing
school in Switzerland. A photo attached showed her in a flowing 1950’s
dress by the Everett. Or, was that Merry in the dress?
Classic bad moment: At the last Spring Recital, which would have been
1959, I was scheduled to play some piece and toward the middle, I
froze and forgot. I didn’t panic, but very calmly, in front of
the “thousands” of students and proud parents, turned and
said, “what shall I do now, Mother?” I forgot her answer,
but I regrouped, started where I left off, and finished the piece.
I’m not sure of the name of the piece, but I think it was “The
Caliph of Baghdad.”
I always thought that Madame enjoyed teaching piano music, but, more
importantly, it gave her a chance to earn some bucks all to herself.
In 2000, looking at the various tax records, I noticed that she meticulously
(or Dad?) documented her earnings-and took lots of business deductions.
She made a fair amount of money with the teaching. By 1958, she was
able to buy a new Steinway grand. She bought it at the El Paso Music
Company, which was the exclusive (of course) dealer for Steinways
in El Paso and the surrounding area. I wasn’t invited to be in
on the evaluation and transaction. I remember it was delivered in
August, and there was a terrific thunderstorm just before the company
delivered the piano. I don’t remember what happened to the Everett.
The Steinway was beautiful and wonderful, and it silently encouraged
me to play and play! But, progress was very, very slow for me for
years to come. Merry, though she probably didn’t know it, also
encouraged me, as I silently competed with her. I remember one time,
fairly early on, when she played the piano with the Las Cruces High
School Band, probably in a Spring Concert. She played “Pictures
of an Exhibition”, and I was entranced!
In the summer of 1956, Dad was doing something to the Buick and managed
to catch his thumb in the driver’s seat door. I believe he lost
his fingernail for some time. Whatever, it was the last straw. A couple
of weeks later, we went looking at new Cadillac's, both in Las Cruces
and El Paso. He quickly bought a blue (of course!) sedan de ville.
It was unbelievably luxurious and had wonderful air-conditioning.
The air-conditioner, I believe, might have been in the trunk, and
there were flexible glass tubes on each side of the back of the rear
seat. There were separate air-conditioning vents above each rear side
window. It had power windows, and was huge to me. I remember kids
at school were amazed at that car; it was the only one on base. For
years, I don’t remember anyone else having a car with cool, cool
air-conditioning! My parents always had Cadillacs after that.
I remember that after the great blizzard of early 1956, it was very,
very dry. I remember that Christmas, we all went to Florida in the
great New Cadillac. We took the road to Carlsbad, passed through West
Texas, and drove on the new Texas Turnpike between Fort Worth and
Dallas. It was so terribly bone dry and ugly, riding through southern
New Mexico and West Texas. I remember we by-passed New Orleans and
rode on some red-dirt main roads in Louisiana and Mississippi. I believe
our destination was St. Petersburg, Florida, where Dad was checking
up on his rent house. He never had good luck with that venture.
It had been dry all year in New Mexico, also. There was a large, long-lasting
forest fire in the Sacramento Mountains, east of Alamogordo. The fire
was covering large tracts in spots around Cloudcroft and Ruidoso.
I remember seeing the smoke all the way to the house, which was probably
90 air miles away. The troops from White Sands Proving Ground were
dispatched (or volunteered!) to help fight the fires and Dad had to
go up there occasionally to check up on some things. The fires, of
course, were eventually put out. I remember seeing the miles and miles
of scarred land, for several decades afterwards; even into the 90’s.
Later during the Summer of 1956, it was so hot at White Sands that
on certain Saturday mornings, we would go up to Cloudcroft. There
was an artesian spring on the highway up there, and we would fill
up our Scotch (plaid, not whiskey) Coleman cooler. Then, Madame or
someone would make Cherry cool-aid, and we would sip it up there in
the mountains. It was like a different world-much cooler, trees, very
placid. Merry and I (and probably Carole, earlier on), would hike,
mainly in an area just south of Cloudcroft. Then, we would regroup
and cook hot-dogs and marshmallows at the campsite. I learned to whittle
sticks there. We would delay as long as possible before heading back
down to the hot desert. Those were long, great days! We also discovered
Ruidoso, which was a bit further and more developed. There was a city
park on the main drag at Ruidoso. The park had a municipal swimming
pool and picnic sites. Hiking wasn’t quite as rustic in Ruidoso.
I remember we would hike (and splash around at the pool sometimes)
until we were famished. Then, we’d have the requisite hot dogs.
Often in the afternoon, a rainstorm would come up. One time, it rained
when we just finished up the dogs, got back in the car-and we all
fell asleep! Us kids didn’t mind the heat, but Madame apparently
really suffered from it.
Christmas, 1956, was the last year we went to Florida for a number
of years. We would have a little Christmas Tree at the house before
we left for our big annual vacation trip. We used to drive over to
Phoenix. Dad thought about retiring in Phoenix; I don’t think
Madame was too keen on it. I remember we would go over there and stay
at a big motel on Central Avenue, just west of downtown Phoenix. The
kids would have one room to themselves and it was great! We had a
swimming pool with diving/jumping board, a TV, and cubed ice. The
TV’s were black and white, and sometimes you had to pay a quarter
an hour to watch them. Merry and I would have pillow fights and sometimes
stay up, very late, watching TV. We never had TV at the house, so
this was our chance to watch the westerns, etc. I think my favorite
show was Sergeant Bilko and No Time for Sergeants. Once in a while,
we would stay up long enough, to midnight-and watch the TV station
sign off. The station would announce they were going off the air,
the national anthem was played with the flag in the background, and
then the TV station signal logo would come on. It was kind of like
a modified Greek cross. I remember once in a while, like on the last
day before we went home, we would forget to turn off the TV (if it
was a deluxe non-quarter unit!). We would have to get up real early
those mornings, and I remember sometimes we would see that stupid
cross on the TV first thing!
In Phoenix, Merry and Madame did their own thing-which was probably
shopping. Dad and I would do things together for the first time, such
as going to travel trailer shows. One time we all went to some kind
of home show in an exclusive neighborhood-probably the Camelback Mountain
area. This area was pretty new then. I remember the houses were all
decorated, and one of them, the top-of the line, apparently, even
had a swimming pool. I was amazed! I think that house went for the
enormous amount of 25,500 dollars. I thought, I wonder if I could
have, in my wildest dreams, such a place...
Arizona was pretty rustic back then. I had a fascination with dams.
The first dam I got to examine up close was Coolidge Dam, an old dam
in southeast Arizona, built I think in the late teens or early 20’s.
We went on all the standard tourist sites over there. One of the most
adventurous was riding along the Apache Trail, by the Superstition
Mountains. This was an old Indian trail and lead to a National Park
(Tonto?) and another dam, Roosevelt Dam-I believe named for Teddy,
not Franklin. That trail was a dirt road, one way, hanging onto the
side of a cliff, overlooking (I thought) miles and miles straight
down. I always sat on the right rear seat; Merry always sat of the
left. I think that came from that event, where I got to look straight
down. I was terrified. We never made it to the Grand Canyon or Las
Vegas while we were at White Sands.
On the way into Phoenix, we always entered through Mesa and Tempe,
just east of town. Mesa was full of orange and date groves, and we
always stocked up on fresh oranges and dates when we got there, and
sometimes as we were leaving. I would eat dates until I was sick.
We used to get gas at a local chain called Blakley’s, which had
a big rocket as a logo. When you got a certain amount of gallons of
gas, you were entitled to one free blakley’s glass, which came
in various sizes. I didn’t know it at the time, but the sizes
included old-fashioned glasses, larger glasses, and highball glasses.
The glasses were of thin frosted glass and each kind had a different
cactus on it. The “name of the game” was to collect the
complete set of glasses in each size. I loved those tall (highball)
glasses; we used them for special before-bed drinks, such as root
beer fizzies and ice cream floats. The glasses made it to Fort Myer,
Fort Belvoir, and El Paso. After Madame died, I spied 3 lonely highball
glasses left-I returned them to Houston.
Either once or twice we went to La Jolla, a resort area just north
of San Diego, for Christmas. It was a wonderful, restful place. We
always stayed at the La Jolla Shores, a two-story motel overlooking
a bay that lead to the Pacific. It was a small place and had a small
pool. In the evening, the fog would roll in from the Pacific, and
Merry and I would be swimming in the cozy heated pool, sticking our
head out into that cold, cold, fog. We didn’t want to get out
of the pool, knowing it would be very chilly. We would wrap towels
around and dash as fast as possible back to the rooms. La Jolla was
a very deluxe place, even in those days. We discovered a spot called
La Jolla Cove, a little set of coves right over the Pacific. We went
to Balboa Park and Coronado Island, the big naval station in San Diego.
We never went to Tijuana or Juarez while we were at White Sands.
Then there was our trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, one fall. I was taking
some art class in school, and somehow, maybe because of my Dad The
Colonel, I was told, or led to understand, that one of my creations
was a finalist at the school and was entered into the county art fair
in Las Cruces. I remember the creation very clearly. It was a crayon
drawing of a passenger ship, at night. For a number of months, I was
fascinated by ships and sketched out mostly war ships and other ships
on the seas. In this particular drawing, it was very dark at sea,
with some stars and the moon glowing. Many of the ship lights and
portholes were illuminated. I had crayoned the sea as a very dark
Prussian or midnight blue and was very proud of my work. I remember
we went to the county fair-my first experiences with cowboy stuff;
it was like a different world to me; and I remember seeing my drawing.
Then, things got confused. Somehow, I was lead to believe (or I wanted
to believe) that my work had drawn a prize and was entered into the
New Mexico State Fair, in Albuquerque. So, in a few weeks, we trekked
up there. We didn’t see it up there and I got confused a bit.
After returning to my school, I repeatedly asked my art teacher where
my work was, and I eventually found out that it wasn’t entered
at all at the State Fair. I was more scared of what my parents would
think about it-convincing them that we just had to go to the State
Fair, then being disappointed in not getting any awards. I never told
them until after Dad passed away, and I told Madame on one of my visits
to El Paso. I never entered any other works in any event...
**********
Of course the business at WSPG was rockets. I remember early on seeing
in the brilliant blue sky the white trails of rockets. I would hear
the distant boom of the launch, then maybe 20 or 30 seconds later
you would see the white trails. Sometimes you would see several sets
of trails, where on missile was launched to shoot down another. Rarely
you would see a bright flash in the sky, then another, softer boom,
where a missile had exploded for whatever reason. The missile
sites were maybe 10-15 miles away, towards the east and the middle
of the Tularosa basin. Sometimes when we returned from Cloudcroft
or Ruidoso on highway 70, we would be stopped by MP’s for 30-45
minutes, during a launch “window” when the missiles might
over fly.
The rocket motors were tested on a massive fixed concrete platform
called the static test site. There were several almost next to each
other, by the base of the Organ Mountains, maybe 1-2 miles southeast
of the Aerobee house. When they fired up the motors, particularly
the later, larger ones, there would be a really loud window-shaking
boom, followed by some smoke. Once in a while one of the rocket motors
would blow up at the site-then it was really a window-shaker. I remember
one event for years later and even wrote a short story about it at
Kenmore Junior High in Arlington, Virginia. I remember the teacher
returned it to me, skeptically asking me if it was a real or imagined
event. I told her in no uncertain terms that it was very real. I received
an A- on that story, I remember.
Me and my friends’ imaginations had to run a bit wild with the
rocket stuff, of course; and several of us created a club of mostly
boys, with several offshoots. We had one imaginary space club, which
was supposedly based on Jupiter, for example. Wayne Erickson , Alex
Gordon and I were the main leaders of the groups. I think Alex Gordon
started the first group, which was called the United Worlds. I have
notes that at one time, there were 42 kids in school associated with
either the United Worlds or the United Universe. I had drawn some
objects, including one of the fantasized United Universe Headquarters,
complete with rocket launchers on the roof. I still have that drawing.
Just before I left, I assigned all the United Universe “assets”
(whatever they might have been) to Wayne Erickson. And, we had real
tiffs involving the offshoots, which seemed serious at the time.
Of course we didn’t have a TV there. I don’t remember anyone
having television there-probably reception was terrible. Sometime
in 1956 or early 1957, I received a crystal radio kit, and I put it
together. On good reception nights, I could pick up the Las Cruces
AM (only band in those days) radio station. I think I also picked
up some telemetry on it, though. We had the WSPG weekly newspaper
and we had the El Paso Herald-Tribune, the evening paper, delivered.
Receiving the evening paper was one of the delineations between blue
color and white color workers; only laborers and sergeant's families
read the morning paper, or so I was led to believe.
In the evening, after supper and after the piano lessons had stopped,
we usually listened on the Philco radio/phonograph for the evening
news. The Philco was a radio inside a “Danish” blond furniture
set that Mom and Dad bought when we moved into Aerobee. It was probably
the ultimate in furniture fashion, was very blond, and came with two
matching end tables and a coffee table. That furniture survived until
at least my days in Galveston.
On October 9, 1957, we heard on the Philco that the Russians had launched
Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. We were terrified
that the Russians had beat us to it, since we had been working, with
deliberate speed during the International Geophysical Year (1957 or
1958) to launch the first satellite using the Navy/Vanguard launching
platform. I remember the big rush to speed up the launch of the Vanguard,
and the very embarrassing fiasco of its launch, where it lifted literally
4 feet off the earth and crashed and burned at that point.
I remember that practically overnight, the atmosphere at WSPG changed.
Even the base name was changed to WSMR, White Sands Missile Range,
as if we didn’t have anything else to prove. School classes were
slanted quickly to science and math. Many more scientists, engineers,
construction workers, and all kinds of people were shipped to WSMR.
There was an area near the base headquarters called the technical
area, consisting of very tightly guarded and fenced off buildings.
Dad said they were assembly plants and testing laboratories. The tech
area was greatly enlarged. Brand new and very large launching pads,
with very tall moving gantries were built. When we first reached WSPG,
the rockets were Corporal and the larger Sergeant missiles, derived
from the V-2. The Nike family of defensive weapons (such as the Nike
Ajax and Hercules) were built. The navy had their Aerobees, and the
army later developed their Hawk missile. But with Sputnik, the army,
under Major General Maderis and his scientific counterpart, Dr. Werner
von Braun, began to develop a new line of missiles that lead to Intermediate-Range
Ballistic Missiles-the precursor to today’s Intercontinental
Ballistic Missiles (ICBM’s). This early line of larger missiles
that could go higher were the Redstone and the Jupiter, the Jupiter-C,
and eventually the Saturn.
Dad was involved at WSMR with the development of the Redstone. A large
gantry, with a caged elevator on the side of the gantry, was one of
the trademarks. I was utterly fascinated with that gantry, and somehow
Dad got me on it. I was escorted into the caged elevator, and up we
went. I recall that the elevator was pretty small-maybe held 4 people,
and the cage was pretty open. It seemed that the elevator went to
the heavens, and I was terrified. I remember that ride for years.
Dad received several gorgeous photographs of the Redstone Gantry and
had them in the Rainbow Circle house for years. I eventually ended
up with them.
Life got a little more stressed at WSMR after Sputnik. Dad was gone
more, and the base was much busier. I remember that a larger static
test site was built, I guess for the Redstone family.
By 1959, Dad was going up to northern New Mexico and elsewhere to
supervise the construction of missile target sites. One of the sites
was nearby, about 1 mile north of highway 70, maybe 2-4 miles west
of the entrance to the base. This particular site consisted of maybe
4 2-story wood and red brick houses, constructed in the American Colonial
style. They were built in inside, but not finished-not painted, for
example To me, they looked very oddly out of place in the middle of
the desert. There was no landscaping or other things-just these four
houses arranged around a mythical circle. Dad and I drove up there
one weekend morning, and I was amazed that such a thing was built,
just to test the effects of a missile blast. Dad didn’t really
say anything. Dad did say, later, that the test was “successful.”
He didn’t elaborate.
There were few parades or other typical army displays at WSMR. Armed
Forces Day was a big deal, and there were distant missile firings
for that. There was an old missile display near the base headquarters
and the entrance to the headquarters area. I remember when we got
to WSPG, there were only a few exhibits; as time progressed, there
were many additions. I remember we used to see size comparisons of
the U.S. versus Russian missiles, and we were terrified.
By 1959, it was apparent that Dad was not going to get promoted and
would be retiring in 1962, when he had 30 years service in the army.
It was traditional for regular, senior officers to get their choice
of their last duty station, and Dad had wanted Washington. But something
happened. He apparently thought that when he said Washington, as an
Engineer, that meant he wanted and would get Fort Belvoir. Someone
in army personnel thought he would want the cushiest position in Washington-and
at that moment, it was Post Engineer for Fort Myer, the army show
place fort. So, that’s where we were going. I was terribly excited
to be going to the Washington D.C. area, with all the history there.
So the process of phasing out WSMR started. Alex Gordon, my best friend,
left about a month earlier, moving to Missouri. I was beside myself;
rationalizing that my stay was about to end. I turned over all my
space club stuff to Wayne Erickson. Don’t know what happened
to him. I got one letter and one set of post cards from Alex, from
Jefferson, Missouri, and that was the last I ever heard from him or
anyone else from WSMR.
Carole had enrolled in the University of Denver, Colorado, the previous
September. We drove up to get her going in September 1958; it was
my first trip to Colorado. Of course, Madame had long, deep roots
in Colorado Springs; I remember we went to the Royal Gorge, Central
City, Manitou Springs, and Denver. On our way to Fort Myer, we stopped
by Denver and then headed to Arlington in April. We reached Arlington
around the middle of April, and stayed in a 2-story apartment building,
on civilian ground, in Arlington for few days, until we moved into
the south post of Fort Myer on April 25, 1959. We had reached civilization!
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