Greg and the Statue of Liberty

The top on the ferry, the middle the Statue en route, and then me standing on the base of the Statue.  After the climb all of the way to the top, my calves were sore for days.

 

As I mentioned, I must have left NYC for Binghamton and then back to Minot.  Pat and Sandra would change residences in the winter and move to Florida.  I lost track of them after that.  This was, of course, the era of land lines only, so when someone moved and shut off phone service, you could not keep track of them as easily.

 

I don't know whether they continued working for TWA after the strike or if they stayed with TWA until even after it was bought up by American Airlines.

While I was able to find Beth and Den Zito on Face book, though she has not responded to my friend request over the past week, I doubt it Pat would be involved with a social network like Face book.

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Pat Byrne & Greg atop the Chrysler Building, 1976

As you can see, Pat was having no part of getting his picture taken atop the Chrysler Building.  We had stopped at a local record chain where, as usual, I made a few purchases, including The Cyrkle's first album that was previously out of print.  (I'd worn out my first copy of the vinyl record.)

 

We also stopped at a Pickwick bookstore where I bought Paul Fussell's THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY.

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Pat Byrne & Greg at Rockefeller Center

I pretended to be setting the focus for the shot of me and quickly snapped the top picture of Pat at Rockefeller Center--you can see he's not posed to have his picture taken.  He took the bottom one.

 

Sandra always marvelled at living in New York City, or at least nearby NYC.  One night when we were returning to their place late, she was able to stop in a grocery store in the city and purchase some pasta for supper that night.  She exclaimed how convenient it was and how you could get almost anything, regardless of the hour.  We had pasta, and also for the first time for me, artichokes.

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Greg at the UN, 1975 or '76

We spent some time at the United Nations building.  I bought a U.S. flag, a U.N. flag, and a flag of the U.S.S.R. in the gift shop.

 

In those days I also collected albums by the Soviet Army Chorus and Band on Angel Records.  Being a missile officer, while also studying Russian and Soviet history for my Humanities Master's Degree at Cal State Dominguez Hills, I might have come under suspicion.  Especially in today's super paranoid era.

 

As you can see, with Pat taking many of the pictures using my camera, I did not lack for photographs of myself in NYC.  In fact, I had to cheat a bit to actually get a picture of Pat Byrne.  I don't have any of Sandra from the visit.

 

I always wondered what happened with the two of them later when TWA went on strike for a period of time.  Sandra was in a plane crash at the Rome airport.  The plane broke apart upon landing, but fortunately no fire broke out.  However, as they extricated themselves from the wreckage, she said that while standing around, with herself and a few others with aviation fuel on the clothes, some of the more stunned passengers automatically started to light up cigarettes.  She told me over the phone that she and the rest of the crew had to yell at them to put their cigarettes out.  

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Greg in NYC in 1975 or 1976

My trip to New York City to spend a week with Pat Byrne and his girlfriend, Sandra, could have taken place in 1973, before I joined the Air Force.  It could also have taken place in 1975 or 1976, but at the moment I am not so sure which year it was. 

 

All I do remember for certain was that the two of them were living on Long Island, not far from JFK where they both flew out of for TWA on their international routes, especially during the peak summer season.

 

What I do know for certain is that I took a TWA 707 non-stop from LAX to Newark, which was a really stupid thing to do.  Pat and I corresponded by mail in those days, whenever those days were.  I had asked him which New York area airport I should fly into.  He probably told me either LaGuardia or JFK, just not to fly into Newark.  I, of course, misremembered his instructions and had my ticket made for Newark.

 

At LAX, I arrived early and the agent actually sent my suitcase on the JFK flight, which was the flight I ought to have been on.  However, being a good friend, Pat dutifully drove all of the way from Long Island to Newark airport and picked me up in Sandra's car.  We had to stop on the way at JFK; and there, in front of baggage claim, sat my lone suitcase, having arrived well before I did.

 

The two of them were wonderful hosts.  Either Sandra and Pat, or Pat alone, took me on the subways everywhere:  I had chocolate mousse for the first time at a restaurant in Greenwhich Village.  We took in a Broadway show, SHERLOCK HOLMES, although A CHORUS LINE had opened a few months before and just down the block, though tickets were too hard to come by the day we were there.

 

Looking up A CHORUS LINE confirms that the trip was either in 1975 or 1976, when A CHORUS LINE was on Broadway.  All I can imagine was that I flew from LAX to NYC after spending some time with my mom in California first.  During that same trip, I must have then flown to Binghamton, NY, to visit Den and Beth Zito.  Perhaps I flew there on Mohawk Airlines--I simply do not recall the flight or the airline.  When that visit ended, I must have flown back to Minot because I do recall looking in both locations for Dahlquist DQ-10 speakers, speakers I would later acquire and which appear in later photographs.

 

Pat and I also went to the top of the World Trade Center.  A few of the other places we visited are in later pictures.

More scenes around Cooperstown and the flight home

The lake in Cooperstown and fall leaves.  The bottom picture must have been of my flight back to Minot.

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Near the Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY

The parking lot and steps near the HOF in Cooperstown, NY.

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In front of the Baseball Hall of Fame

In front of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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Den and Greg at Baseball HOF

The obelisk is probably to honor baseball players who were veterans.

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More photos of Den and Beth at Baseball Hall of Fame

More pictures in the Hall of Fame.

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Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY

We all spent the afternoon at the Hall of Fame.

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Picnic in the park, Binghamton, NY

We had a picnic in a park, and obviously went for a walk down a country lane.

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Visiting the Zito's, 1975, Binghamton, NY

Before that extensive trip in November of 1977, I undertook a less ambitious trip back East in 1975.  It might have been late summer or early fall, or, more likely, in early spring of that year.

This was well before Eric was born.  If Beth was pregnant, she wasn't showing.

Den had left the Marines after his two years were up.  He had gotten a job with Frito-Lay.  The reason they were in Binghamton, NY, was because that was the Frito-Lay training facility, I think.

The top photograph is of Den with his reliable red Fiat.  The other two are pictures of the countryside around Binghamton.

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Eric Zito's first Christmas, December 1975

Given that Eric looks at least two years old in those Thanksgiving pictures from November of 1977, this must have been their Christmas card from 1975.

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The Liberty Bell, November 1977, Philadelphia, PA

The top picture of me standing beside the Liberty Bell confirms that this lengthy trip took place in November of 1977 rather than 1976 or 1978. 

The glass enclosure for the Liberty Bell was built across the lawn from Independence Hall for the crowds that turned up for the Bi-centennial of the nation celebrations in 1976.  But they left it up for quite some time after that year.  Had this been 1976, we would have had a tough time and a long line to deal with to see this.  But this being a year later, the crowds had diminished considerably.

The bottom photograph is of a fountain not far from Independence Hall.

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Two views of Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA, November 1977

I was colder in Philadelphia, PA, in November than I felt in Minot, ND.  Part of it was being near water.  With the cold wind blowing off the river, the bitter cold seemed to blow right through me.

Back from Thanksgiving with his family, David Zito took me on a tour of the city.  Except for the cold, I had a wonderful time.

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Two more people mover pics, Morgantown, WVA, 1977

Two more pictures of the Morgantown, WVA, people mover.

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Morgantown, WVA, automated people mover

OK, I neglected to include these photographs from the Morgantown, WVA, visit to Chuck Gover.  These people movers ferried students from one part of the campus to another.  Chuck told me about stories in the beginning of the people mover when someone would be taken to the barn and locked in when the cars decided it was the end of the day and needed to return to storage for the night.

In my one photo album, I added that this was 1978.  I seriously doubt if that is correct.  In the fall of 1978, I was at the Academy and did not make such a November trip.  A couple of Philadelphia pictures yet to come lead me to believe that this lengthy trip was in the fall of 1977 for a couple of reasons that will soon become clear.

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Den and Eric Zito, Thanksgiving 1977

Eric is about to score a touchdown in the picture on the left.  Indoors in the picture on the right.

Hard for me to believe that all of these kids that my friends were having in the mid-1970's are now nearing 40 years old.

The time does go by fast.

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Den Zito, David Zito and Dennis' son Eric, Thanksgiving 1977

After leaving Morgantown aboard the twin-engine Beechcraft for Pittsburgh, I flew on to Philadelphia, PA.  David Zito picked me up at the airport.  The next day we drove to Dennis and Beth Zito's house for Thanksgiving.  Dennis has grown a moustache and fathered a son, Eric.

We were playing Nerf football in the backyard before dinner.  That's when I met Den and David's parents.

Like so many of my contemporaries, I imagine that their parents are now gone.  So many of them are.

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Looking down from the Overlook, and the mystery sign

The top photograph is of the river far below the Overlook.

I know now, but I did not know then what rappelling was.  I always think of the Jefferson Airplane lyric when I see that picture, "We're doing things that haven't got a name yet."  Of course, this was prohibiting something that had a name, though I had no idea what it was.

I told Chuck on this trip that I had read about this Renault Dauphin that was found at the bottom of a New York lake.  When it was dredged up, and discovered to have had very low mileage, after an investigation, it was found to have been newly owned by a family of four that had gone on a trip after purchasing the car, run off the highway, and all had drown at the bottom of that lake, where their corpses had remained since 1960.

I then kidded Chuck, "Yeah, they found out that the passengers were actually Judge Crater, Emelia Earhart, Ambrose Bierce, and Glenn Miller."  His eyes widened, then I continued,  "In the trunk, they also found Jimmy Hoffa's body in a bag."  He looked at me for a moment as if he was almost ready to believe me then burst into laughter when he realized that I was definitely joking about the five famous individuals in history who had vanished mysteriously. 

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Overlook in the hills of West Virginia, outside of Morgantown

Not too many sights in and around Morgantown, but this overlook was picturesque.  I see how many times I was photographed with that warm coat.  In Minot, of course, I always wore my parka.  But that coat was sufficient for winter anywhere else.

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Chuck Gover in Morgantown, WVA, circa 1977

I had been Chuck's sponsor in Minot when he finished missile training at Vandenberg AFB.  He decided to live downtown rather than in the BOQ after arriving.  We used to see movies in the theater in Minot.  One day we saw a film and spent the late afternoon at the local Pizza Hut.  Chuck ordered beer, and the young waitress carded us.  I was probably 27 at the time and thought that was a compliment.

Like Tim McConnell and others, Chuck took advantage of the early-out program and returned to Morgantown where he had graduated from college.  He found a job with the U.S. Geological Survey there and worked at that job into the early 2000's.  That's the last I heard from him.  We played phone tag a few times and then stopped trying to reach one another.

In the 1980's, I would visit him and his wife, and the three of us toured Antietam and Gettysburg when I was going through my Civil War phase.  I had always wanted to see Falling Water, not too far from Morgantown into Pennsylvania, but I never did put that trip together.

Chuck was big on classic cars and ocean liners, especially the Titanic.  I would send him a Titanic T-shirt from the Maritime Museum in San Pedro. 

The toughest part of being stationed anywhere in the Air Force for any length of time was to say goodbye to people who had become such good friends.  Dave Morris, Chuck Gover, Tim McConnell, Mike Durr.  If our being in our 20's was the highlight of our lives, we lived a significant part of those years together in Minot.  It may have been just a Cold War instead of WWI or WWII or Korea or Vietnam, but they were significant times and our jobs seemed important.

Marine OCS, Quantico, Virginia

I still feel that I am running there.
Not like this thinking war at Minot,
easy to neglect.

Stranger still
locations return me
to admiring us again.

A uniform never losing our youth
when resigning admits we are adults.

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Chuck Gover in Morgantown, WVA, 1977

On the Morgantown leg of the lengthy trip, in the top photograph, I am pretending to carry a football in the old Mountaineer stadium, which was replaced by the current stadium.  Chuck lived in a rented house here; but after he married, he and his wife lived in another one just down the block from the new Mountaineer stadium that replaced the one above.

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Darryl & wife & pets at IU, 1977 trip

I seem not to have taken too many pictures when I was in Bloomington, IN, visiting Darryl Butler, his wife, and their pets on the Indiana leg of that lengthy trip.  These two and one of just the cat asleep on the couch are all that I can find.

Again, I am only speculating that I took the trip in the fall of 1977.  It could have been in the fall of 1976.

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Missile Misses, warming up before a game, circa 1978

The spring of 1978 was when both Lawler's left Minot.  Both were solid, steady players.  And, of course, in the spring of 1978, I was counting down to when I would leave Minot in June.

The floor of the gym is new.  At some point, probably in 1977, pipes burst and totally destroyed by warping the beautiful wooden floor of the gym that we had known since we arrived.  For quite some time, before they could get the funds, this part of the gym complex was closed.  They'd opened up another wing, so at least that was available for use.

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Missile Misses at Dairy Queen in Minot, circa 1977

This was a later team of Missile Misses, probably 1977.  Mike and I must have treated them to ice cream at the Minot Dairy Queen.  For those crews going to the 740th Strategic Missile Squadron sites of Alpha through Echo, south of Minot, they would pass by this Dairy Queen in the morning.

Over the years, I was at every Launch Control Center in the squadron except Charlie, Hotel and Mike because they were the command LCC's for each squadron, requiring special training to man those capsules.  But I was at all of the others at least once in my 235 tours on alert at Minot AFB.

Mike Durr is in the middle picture in the top row.  Jan Lawler, often the team's best player, is second from the left in the top row of all three pictures.  Debbie Durr, Christie Durr, Sally Miller and I comprise the bottom row.

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Missile Misses, Wives Volleyball team, Nov. 1976

Mike Durr recruited me to help him coach the Missile Misses, Wives Volleyball team.  Someone also wrote on the back:

3rd place fall season. Volleyball tournament.

Coach Mike Durr
Coach Greg Sanchez
Shane Steeby, Jan Lawler,
Debbie Durr, Angela Crawford,
Sally Miller, Madelyn Robinson

Sally Miller was the next door neighbor of the Durrs, whose name I could not remember earlier.  Jan Lawler was Brian Lawler's wife.  He played on the men's team for most of the years we were at Minot.

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More pictures of 91st Ops Volleyball teams

The upper photograph is of the volleyball team.  Actually, Jake Gladden, my third deputy, is second from the right in the middle row, wearing the glasses.

The bottom picture is a slide of the team on the court during a match.

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742nd Squadron members in their Crew Blues

The top is a picture of Tim Sholtis, my third crew commander at Minot.  I don't have any pictures of Bill Graham or Dan Gurganus, my first two crew commanders.

The squadron took these pictures of us to hang on the squadron crew board so that anyone coming into the squadron could see what we looked like and who was crewed with whom.

The next pair of photos are of my first two deputies after I upgraded to crew commander, the second being Pat "PJ" Johnson.  I don't have a picture of my third deputy, Jake Gladden.

The next picture is of my favorite Squadron Commander, Lt. Colonel Glaser.

The next pair are of Steve Schurr and Mike Durr, two of my best friends at Minot.

The bottom photo is my squadron crew blue photograph that hung up for all of the four plus years I was stationed at Minot in the 742nd Strategic Missile Squadron.

When anyone left, and the squadron was going to toss out his picture, I saved it.

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742nd Strategic Missile Squadron in front of the 91st Strategic Missile Wing building

Taking a break from that long trip, this is a photograph of my squadron, taken in front of the Wing Building.  The three missiles squadrons were located in the basement, through those main doors and down the stairs. 

Using a magnifying glass, I found myself in the fourth row from the left, second person in from the back row.   Our squadron commander was my favorite during my entire time at Minot.  During his tenure, I made my reputation at Minot. 

As a deputy with Captain Bill Graham, I got one Qualified (Q) and one Highly Qualified (HQ) rating on our two Standboard evaluations.  (The Standboard evaluator did not like Bill and talked him into getting a major error on our first check ride in the missile trainer.  I was occupied doing something else with the Standboard deputy and should not have been given the error but got it anyway.)  With Captain Dan Gurganus, I also got one Q rating and another HQ rating.  With Captain Tim Sholtis, I got a third HQ rating as a Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander (DMCCC).

Then I upgraded to a Missile Combat Crew Commander (MCCC) as a 1st Lieutenant.  I was paired with a second Lieutenant out of Vandenberg.  We got two HQ ratings together.  My next deputy was 2nd Lieutenant Pat Johnson, and we also got another HQ rating.  I was finally paired with 2nd Lieutenant Jake Gladden and we got my final HQ rating.  At that time then, I had seven HQ ratings and two Q ratings as a deputy and commander, which was second best in the entire Wing t the time.  I never had a "bust" during a check ride. 

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Greg in the St. Louis Arch, 1977

The top photo Dave took of me inside the top of the Arch.  The bottom photograph I took of barges on the Mississippi River below the Arch.

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Dave Morris at a mural under the St. Louis Arch, 1977

This is one of the last of the color slides.

Dave Morris was my stereo equipment and record album buddy who lived in the former two-man room BOQ.  However, as with so many of my friends in Minot, the time would inevitably come when they transferred from Minot to somewhere else, or left the Air Force entirely, like Tim McConnell.

Dave got a new assignment outside of St. Louis, MO.  Another friend, Chuck Gover, left the Air Force and returned to Morgantown, West Virginia.  Darryl Butler was then attending graduate school at the University of Indiana in Bloomington.  David Zito was living near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, having left the Air Force.  Dennis and Beth Zito were not far away in New York, having gotten out of the Marine Corps.

I decided to undertake an insane trip to meet up with all of them on one big swing east in the fall; and then I would end up in California, to visit mom.  When I bought the ticket at the Minot Airport, I recall that it came to approximately $728.00.

I flew on a North Central DC-9-30 from Minot to Fargo, ND, and then on to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

From there, I caught an Ozark Airlines DC-9 to St. Louis.  The plane may have stopped in Des Moines, Iowa, en route.

I spent a couple of days with Dave Morris, exploring St. Louis, where we went up to the top of the Arch.  We also saw the film DAMNATION ALLEY, about a post-nuclear-war United States.

Unfortunately, my ticket was incorrect as to when my TWA flight to Indianapolis, Indiana, was to take off, the time having changed since my ticket was issued several weeks earlier.  When I checked in at the front counter, the woman did not impress upon me the need to immediately run to my gate to catch the flight, which was to connect with a puddle jumper to Bloomington.  Dave and I said goodbye, but I took my time walking to the departure gate, only to see my TWA flight disappearing in the early morning darkness for the runway, having pulled away from the gate only moments before.

I had to catch a later TWA flight, but there was then no connection in Indianapolis to Bloomington.  I called Darryl, who reluctantly agreed to drive to Indianapolis to pick me up later that day, that being a Saturday during an Indiana-Purdue college football game, and he was worried about the traffic.

We actually missed any football traffic, fortunately.  I spent a couple of days there, visiting him and his wife.  We played pickup basketball at the field house and walked the campus, much of which I would see later in the film, BREAKING AWAY.

From Indianapolis, I caught an American Airlines BAC-111 that stopped at Canton-Akron before proceeding on to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

When my twin-engine commuter flight approached the Morgantown airport, merely a top of a mountain sheered off with a runway paved upon that sheered off peak, the rain and wind were so strong that we definitely crabbed almost sideways onto the runway for the landing.  Chuck Gover informed me that a similar commuter plane crashed when it tried to land in similar conditions on another West Virginia mountaintop airport.

My commuter flight back to Pittsburgh was cancelled, with a twin four-seater Beechcraft substitute for the return flight.  We landed amid a few jumbo jets, taxiing around us, making us look even more dwarfish.  While sitting in the airport, awaiting my next flight, a plane from Denver, CO, disgorged a huge number of Academy cadets.

From Pittsburgh, I took a Northwest 727-200 to Philadelphia, to meet up with David Zito.  We toured Philadelphia, seeing all of the major sites there after having Thanksgiving with the entire Zito family, meeting Den and David's father and mother.  Their dad showed me his leg and the war wound that he got from WWII that still seeped all of those years later.

Unfortunately, the long fall trip finally caught up with me; and I started to come down with a terrible cold--the dampness of Philadelphia feeling even worse than the dry cold of North Dakota.  I took whatever medications I could find in the Philadelphia airport before boarding my American Airlines 727-200 flight for LAX via Dallas, Texas.  I felt miserable and hated being so sick and potentially spreading my germs to my fellow passengers on this packed aircraft.  I think I even had the middle seat in the row, making my flight even more uncomfortable for everyone around me.

When we landed in Dallas, I saw a parked Concorde as we taxied toward the terminal.  Not long after that, we departed for LAX, where mom picked me up at the airport.  I was happy to be able to stay with her for several days and recover from my cold before I had to return to Minot.

I took a Continental DC-10 to Denver.  Unfortunately, the Frontier flight to Minot had been cancelled.  I was put on another 737-200 Frontier flight to Fargo, North Dakota, instead, where I caught another North Central DC-9-30, into Minot.  I had been gone for almost three weeks, having been to, or through, 14 or more airports and almost that many cities. 

Two more Arch slides follow before I return to photographs of my final two years at Minot, 1976-1978.

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Darryl, his dog and me at Christmas, likely 1975

Darryl Butler was still living in Riverside, CA.  I usually visited him on each of my trips to Southern California when I was in the Air Force in Minot. 

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Dad, Willene, Lorri, Mark (Ann's husband), Ann and Me in Garden Grove, CA

We visited dad and Willene, and I had my camera. 

Top picture:  Mark, Willene, Ann, Lorri, me and dad.

Bottom picture:  Lorri, Mark, Ann.

Usually we visited them at Christmas, but I see no decorations anywhere, so it must have been some other time of the year.

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Ann and Uncle Robert at Disneyland on a rainy day

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Mom and Greg at the Huntington Gardens.

                               

The top picture is of mom at the Huntington Library. The second is mom and me standing on the Japanese bridge in the Japanese gardens.  The third is another picture of the Japanese bridge reflected in the water.  In later years, the red color was removed and the bridge was a natural color wood.

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