Here is the first picture of me wearing my Air Force parka. I had to have the Camaro winterized by adding a block heater with a cord. They supplied us with electrical posts at the BOQ parking lot so that, in the middle of winter, the engines of our cars would not freeze, as long as we had a tank or block heater.
In addition, I had them install an interior heater that kept the inside of the car warm, no matter how cold outside.
Unfortunately, during the first four-day blizzard in January 1975, a month after this picture was taken, the plastic base around the gear shift on the center console cracked because of the cold. Our cars were attached to electrical posts at the Wing Building while we were on alert. The interior of my engine was filled with snow. When I opened up the hood, the imprint of the inside of the hood appeared in the snow packed into the engine compartment.
Another guy who had a convertible Corvette had it much worse. With the small cracks between the convertible roof and side windows, with the wind and snow blowing for four consecutive days, the interior of his car was filled with dirty snow. He could not even get into his car until he cleared out the snow.
The temperatures hovered around 100 degrees below zero wind chill. Nothing moved across the entire state of North Dakota. If people broke down and tried to reach lights in the distance, they never made it. A security police team, after their truck broke down, managed to bump into a barn in their search for shelter, fortunately. They felt their way around to the barn door and spent the entire blizzard in the barn.
We had to ration food at our site because it all began to run out with the two teams of security police, two Flight Security Controllers (FSP), a cook, and four crew members to feed for those four days. No relief and no food could come until the storm ended. This was well before we had radios or a small TV set in the LCC. We often just sat on alert and stared for hours at a time or slept fitfully. I had a quarter that I borrowed from my commander, hoping to snag a Coke after we went upstairs at the end of one of our shifts. When I plunked the coin into the Coke machine, the machine ate it. I got no Coke. I stood and stared at the vicious machine and almost started to cry.
Back on base, it was so bad that those in the housing area, if they wanted to share with their neighbors, could not go from front door to front door. They went up through the ceiling and crawled through the attached attics to get back and forth between their duplexes.
Retribution
Between abundance and shortage,
losses and what is regained,
we match the measure of your impatience.
And while we wait
we train
and simulate you have died uncounted times
when any could be your death.
Certain these are causes
turning the keys--
keys rotating to turn this world over
to new orders.
An improving method
blasting off the old, unworthy ways
no longer our way.
When the earth-thick skin
is pierced again with renewed eruptions,
all will be revenge.
No more the mild alteration most never want,
and for those who are so often demanding,
there will be change.
No comments:
Post a Comment