B-B-B-Beards and Bootstraps

It was 1972, five years after the "Summer of Love." He was finishing college while on the Air Force Bootstrap* education program (now with a more formal title; Air Force Educational Leave of Absence Program). If you were an enlisted person within one year (now two) of graduation you could apply to attend school full-time to graduate. At the same time you could collect VA financial support for tuition along with your normal active duty pay - a hell of a deal to be certain. Your payback for this support was and still is 3-1. That is, you owed three months of service for every one month you were away.

Chapman University in Orange, California offered extension classes at a lot of military bases. They were eight-week terms year round so a person could knock off a lot of semester hours fast. His turned out to be 54 semester hours in a span of 10 months spread between courses at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, CA and March Air Force Base in Riverside, CA. It was a busy schedule but not too difficult for most.

He was really intrigued by the idea that he wouldn't be wearing a uniform while in school as he had the previous seven years when he enlisted at age 17. That also meant he wouldn't be observed for compliance with Air Force grooming standards. So right off the bat he began letting his hair and beard grow. Julieann, his wife of some four years at the time, tolerated the little kid in him as always.

Hey...it was 1972-73!
Gotta' have hair and lots of it right?!

As he neared the end of his bootstrap time, he was approached by a fellow student at one of his night accounting classes at Norton Air Force Base. The "fellow student" turned out to be an Air Force Major who asked him if he was on active duty. He answered "yes." The Major nodded his head and then moved away.

There was a weird look in that Major's eye that made the bootstrapper* pretty uneasy. He was afraid he would get zapped for growing all that hair against regulations so he devised a plot to escape. He called his accounting professor, a fairly senior enlisted man who was teaching part-time, and told him the story. He then asked the professor if he could skip the second to last accounting class and take the final exam separate from the class. Much to his surprise, his professor agreed and that was that...he never saw the mysterious Major again.

He had a great ten-month beard and bootstrap journey. In the end, he had his degree in hand and returned to duty clean shaven.  Just over a year later he was commissioned** a second lieutenant in the Medical Service Corps...an act that would put his beard growing days on hold until post-retirement in the late '80's.

*The term "bootstrap" in the military sense typically refers to self-help or...pulling yourself up the career ladder by your own bootstraps. In his case it was actually his wife, Julieann. Julieann was the one doing all the pulling although she probably didn't realize it at the time but yup, she was the motivation all right.

**In a serious touch of irony, he went from NCO on Dec 31st 1974 to to 2nd Lt, on Jan 1st 1975...overnight, while driving from Luke AFB, AZ to Mountain Home AFB, ID.  His first assignment, Hospital Squadron Commander where one of his primary responsibilities was to enforce the grooming standards of Air Force Regulation 35-10. 

Work - Getchu Summa That!!!

“Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.” 
― Studs Terkel

I was outside Sacramento's Capital Casino last Friday taking a short walk while on a break from a poker tournament.  Across the side street, they have demolished an old decrepit furniture store and are replacing it with a large parking lot that covers, I would guess, at least two square blocks. They have been working on it for at least a couple of months and must be spending at least a couple million bucks it. When complete, it will accommodate casino patrons and employees. At least, that's the plan.

Right now, we are parking all over the place and Friday, I was parked right near the construction.  So...on my walk I happened to glance at my old Red Sled to check if everything was in order. Right behind, I noticed this mason carefully finishing the top of a brick foundation for one of the many light posts that will be in the lot.  He was using a rectangular trowel and was applying finishing touches slowly with what appeared to be practiced precision.

I decided to walk away but then turned and took a picture of the man at work...

He's there, in the middle, yellow hard hat
with a cloth to shade his neck.  See him?!

Here's the thing...the top of that foundation has to be six and a half to seven feet high.  That means for a hundred(s?) years they will likely be there, it is very possible that no one will ever see the results of his careful work on the top of those light posts.  Yet there he was,  taking care to be sure the finished product was of high quality.

In those moments I was pretty damn impressed, as you can see here.  That, I thought, is something I too could have done for my working life and been pretty satisfied.

Work.  Craftsmanship.  Pride.  Put them all together and in my book (or in this case, in my blog) you have a winner.

A Pot To Piss In

In the curious world of word spinning
There is an idiom that most often concerns being poor
As in having, "a pot to piss in"
If you do, you are okay
If you don't you are broke

That is not what this story is about exactly

No sir this one's about a job
A gathering of like minded folks
Who tried to do right by a bunch of other folks....

And of course...it's about the pot

He was a young Air Force Hospital Administrator
Fairly fresh out of grad school*
But with a lot of experience in hospital trenches
Having roamed the halls of several before
As an Air Force enlisted preventive medicine technician
And three years as junior officer/administrator

Shortly after he and his family arrived at the Montana missile base, he found out one wing of the World War II cantonment style hospital was completely closed.  It had been a 10 bed maternity ward closed a couple years earlier because of a shortage of Air Force OB docs.  He didn't like the idea of Air Force families relying on the small local community hospital for delivery services. It was pretty expensive for the government and it placed the services an unnecessary distance from the husbands and children of the moms-to-be.  His idea was to reopen the suite, staff it with Air Force nurses and technicians and bring in local OB docs on contract as needed.

He successfully campaigned with Strategic Air Command headquarters staff (including Gottlieb, Morgan, Fant, Coleman, Cerha and Geiger) for assistance (read permission) and he was on his way. First, with the kind support of the Chief Nurse, Fred McDowell at another SAC base, he was loaned a young nurse with solid OB background to serve as project manager. Captain Ann White would keep everyone on track for preparing the hospital facilities to once again accept expectant moms.

Right out of the gate, he could tell Ann was detail oriented, energetic and knew exactly what needed to be done.  He pulled together a main team consisting of the hospital plant manager; Morris Davis, the logistics or supply MSC; Richard Rognehough, Ann and himself.  The team would be augmented by the hospital chief medical officer and nurse as needed.

Ann prepared the "to-do" list for the team, they planned regular status meetings and they were off and running. Activities ran the gamut from painting walls, sterilizing and ordering equipment to arranging staff.  On one occasion, Ann even had the entire team sharing vacuum duties in the ward ventilator shafts..."Its gotta' be done in order to limit the risk of contamination guys so get your heads in there (literally) and get it done.  And don't forget to wear face masks." He didn't forget. The team, dressed in grubbies, gathered at the hospital on a Saturday morning and got the job done.

There were some contentious sessions at their team meetings though. In fact, as time wore on, he began calling it "the pissing contest." It was a terrific team but they didn't all have the same ideas about how to get from point A to point B. At the end of their meetings, he took to closing with; "Okay, next pissing contest will be on ___day at 8 right here in my office.  Be there or be square."

Engraved vintage Vollrath (maybe) 89150 Stainless Steel
Military Issue Male Urinal w/ Handle

In the end they were successful and sometime later, Ann collaborated with the team to present him with an old stainless steel container, a relic from the pre-plastic disposable days.  Yes folks, it was a male urinal engraved with these precious words; "Captain Tom Campbell, Pissing Contest Today, Be There or Be Square."

Today, over 30 years later, that pot holds a place of honor in his office as a reminder of great days with great people.  It also guarantees he will forever have a "pot to piss in" in the classic sense of the phrase.

Epilogue: Ann was the real driver on this once she got into it.  We all just ended up standing back and obeying orders.  She later left the Air Force and attended Columbia University where she got her PhD. I still hear from her once in a while and about her latest adventures.  She is one of my heros.

*See "Grad School Kicked His Ass"