Spuds - It's the Little Things

One Thanksgiving morning I was assigned "KP" duties by the "boss of me." Among other tasks, one was to peel a dozen potatoes.  Given several options for getting the job done, I selected a plain old paring knife and had at it.

I was soon preoccupied with trying to carve the longest peel possible and my feeble mind began wandering to KP days past...mainly the first.

In the fall of '63, I was seventeen years old and in Air Force basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.  As part of our "training" we would also get picked for various odd jobs on the base.  One night I caught  KP duty at the Air Force's largest hospital, Wilford Hall Medical Center.  My main job was, you guessed it...peeling potatoes and I learned how that night.  It was a pretty good job, just sitting there letting my mind wander as it did again this morning. I also caught delivery duties to the inpatient wards.  We would load up giant carts with hot meals and get to ride elevators to the heights of the grand old center.

We were at it pretty late on those jobs...well past midnight. At the end of our shift, the full-time kitchen staff had pity on us raw recruits and let us each have an ice cream cup.  We worked so hard for that ice cream it still stands out in my mind as the best I have ever had.

Twenty years later, I was an Air Force Medical Service Corps officer stationed in the same area, San Antonio, Texas. I was working for Paul Murrell.  He and I were assisting some 1,200 MSCs with their development and follow-on assignments. One day, at a casual meeting there, a senior Colonel named Keith Curtis looked at me and asked a question in a collegial way;  "Tom, what do you want to do, be Administrator of Wilford Hall (his job) one day?" Considering my previous assignment was as administrator of Malmstom Hospital, I got pretty fired up and my answer was an immediate; "Yes!"  But then after 24 short years; 6 as a medic, 5 as an intelligence specialist and 13 amazing years as a member of the Medical Service Corps, I was sidetracked with curiosity about health care administration in the civil sector and end up serving another career there. Still, to this very day I would like to be Administrator of Wilford Hall (thank you Keith) and still, I would like to peel another potato there.

Twenty-seven years after that meeting (this morning) I pulled the KP assignment once again. I am grateful now, as I was then for those seemingly menial tasks and for all that has transpired in between.

(November '17 update:  The demolition of "Big Willy" is now up for bid.)

(September '23 update:  The demolition of Wilford Hall is near complete.)

For some, life goes on.  For others...it ends.  But the journey...oh, the journey!