Final Approach: A Flight Through Life

By Chris Adams

This is an autobiographical work describing a young boy growing up in the most humble surroundings where the entire family worked to maintain the most basic lifestyle. He went on to work his way during and after high school in the Texas oil fields in order to enroll in college. With a quest to fly, fly he did with the U.S. Air Force, in B-36 and B-52 bombers during the Cold War, eventually becoming a senior commander, rising to the grade of Major General and Chief of Staff, Strategic Air Command. Recruited out of the Air Force to accept an appointment as Associate Director, Los Alamos Nat'l Laboratory and later becoming a business executive and on to managing the recovery of the degraded local and long-distance communications systems in Post-Cold War Russia onward, creating eleven published works, including this in depth autobiographical personal experience journey, which includes substantial factual historical events. Enjoy!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504914888

Chris Adams

Chris Adams is IIS Program Manager for Microsoft. Chris spends his time building and reviewing technical content for IIS, working with IIS Most Valuable Professionals (MVP), and spear-heading programs to best reach customers for the IIS team. Chris was formally a Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS) engineer, technical lead, and supportability lead for the IIS product and has deep, technical experience in the usage and functionality of IIS 4.0, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, and 7.0. Chris is currently Microsoft certified as a MCP, MCSA, and MCSE.

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© 2015 Chris Adams. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/29/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1489-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1490-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1488-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015908603

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Flight Plan

Special Acknowledgement and Praise

SETTOAC

1 START ENGINES

2 THE WAR YEARS

3 TRANSITION

4 " 64569.png OFF WE GO…

5 SILVER WINGS

6 DEPLOYMENTS

7 PUERTO RICO

8 COURSE CHANGE

9 SOUTHEAST ASIA

10 NEW DIRECTION

11 STAYING THE COURSE

12 FAST TRACK

13 BEYOND THE PYRAMID

14 STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND

15 OUT OF TH’ BLUE

16 LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

17 FORK IN THE ROAD

18 RUSSIA

19 RETIRE IS WHAT OTHERS DO

20 FINAL APPROACH

Flight Log

Special Blessings

Military Awards and Decorations

Memorable Honors

Boards and Councils

I Flew These

Acclaim For My Published Works

Around the World

Encounters

As I recall…

most of this is almost true…

Special Acknowledgement and Praise

To each of those who both greatly and graciously assisted me in creating this work, thank you; even though most of you had no idea that you were involved. It did not take a village, but it took a caring family from which I evolved and onward into the life I lived and family which I was blessed to help create. It also took the inspiration of many friendships developed along the way. I will also acknowledge that attempting to scribe this epoch became an ever-increasing stop and go challenge. As I entered my third year of attempting to complete and wrap up this experiment of recalling a lifetime of adventures and events, I vowed to promptly bring it to a close. I am especially grateful for the encouragement and patience of my wife, Alene, "Lene, as she is known by all of her family, friends and me. With this project, as with the numerous ones before, she permitted me without complaining hover over my laptop for hours and days on end. I also wish to give special adulation and appreciation to Paulette Bridges for once again providing her exceptional editing skills, including the liberal use of the Red Pen" across my valued verbiage as well as her thoughtful suggestions in perfecting this work! My sincere appreciation to Craig Holloway for once again graciously applying his creative and artistic rendering to the cover of this journal; depicting an unfettered view of the runway ahead from the cockpit filled with memories of incredible experiences, a loving family and friends for life. Many Thanks and Blessings to each and every one of you; within and outside these covers!

SETTOAC

In the vernacular of bomber pilot talk, "SETTOAC," is where the mission begins: START ENGINES; TAXI; TAKE OFF; ACCELERATE AND CLIMB…Thereafter, comes the cruise and mission phases and when the mission nears the end, it’s the FINAL APPROACH and successful landing.

It has been a long, interesting and extraordinary flight since takeoff back on that July morning in Shreveport, Louisiana. And, as I attempt to condense my recollections to print, I do not, in any sense wish it to be interpreted as an ego journey. Rather, I desire all of it to be as factual recollections of some exceptional events and joys in my life to be shared with my family and friends; nothing less.

I don’t know exactly what the weather conditions were on that July morning when I took-off. No one bothered to tell me. At any rate, it must have been favorable, because we seemed to have gotten off and running in pretty good shape. The mission thereafter has been exceptional and certainly NOT uneventful in any sense of the word. By no means did I accomplish all of the operational requirements of the flight. Most such missions of life seldom do. But I think we did pretty darned well, encountering the normal challenges with few serious impediments along the way that tested our commitment and confidence to see the mission to a successful conclusion. The cruise phase has been pretty well completed, descent to the local area has been extremely smooth, and we have about arrived at traffic pattern altitude. It is difficult to remember the explicit details of all the experiences through life, so in many instances I will simply rely on the "as I recall theory and presume it happened just about that way."

Approach Control has now passed me over to the Mighty Control Tower in Heaven which in turn has cleared me to land. I have pulled back the throttles, set the flaps, lowered the landing gear and made a leisurely turn onto Final Approach. Hopefully it will be a smooth glide down to the glistening runway ahead, a smooth touchdown and a gentle landing…

I

START ENGINES

So, as it is with life, we begin at birth with engine start. That is where I will begin this saga of my life’s particular mission. The good Lord blessed my beginning with a healthy birth to my beloved Irish-American mother, Arminda Lee Tanner Adams, at 7:00 p.m. on July 8, 1930. Engine start began on the ramp at the North Louisiana Sanitarium in Shreveport, Louisiana. The Crew Chief (attending Physician) was Dr. George B. Dickson. Weighing in at 7 pounds, 8 ounces, there didn’t appear to be any particular physical defects. An average white Anglo Saxon Scotch-Irish male was blessed by being born in the greatest nation on God’s green earth, the United States of America. The logo on my hospital birth certificate read: "Remember thy creator in the days of thy youth."

I was the first born to my mother and father, Christopher Steve Adams, whose marriage to Arminda Lee Tanner had taken place in Vivian, Louisiana on February 16, 1929. My mother was born in Bloomberg, Texas, on January 13, 1910 and was twenty years old at the time of my birth. She was the second oldest of seven children of Alvin Lynn and Laura Tanner. Her mother, Laura, died shortly after the birth of her last child, Keith, who died later at the age of two.

My mother was only twelve when her mother died and being the oldest daughter, took on the onerous responsibilities and chores of caring for the family of five brothers and younger sister. My grandfather, a part-time farmer and oil well rig builder, was away as much as he was home working to provide for the family. The oil boom of the 1920’s and 30’s in Texas and Louisiana created a whole new industry, including building wooden derricks to support the oil drilling rigs, which my grandfather helped build. Steel derricks would eventually come along in the mid-1930’s to replace the wooden structures.

Fraught with the difficulties of growing up with the incredible responsibilities and challenges heaped upon someone so young, my mother managed over the years to ensure that her siblings were clothed as best she could, fed and attended school. Even more remarkable was that she herself not only attended school near full-time, but excelled to the point of graduating as valedictorian of her class. Additionally, this remarkable young girl was also an accomplished athlete and star basketball player.

My father was born on January 4, 1900, in the Eldorado, Arkansas area, ten years older than my mother and the second youngest of twelve children: ten boys and two girls. His father, John William, and mother, Virginia, had migrated to Arkansas from Missouri in search of farmland opportunities. My dad spoke very little about his growing up years except that his family was poor and times were hard. He was too young to enlist in World War I and remained on the farm, dropping out of school after the eighth grade to begin a lifetime of difficult manual labor. I don’t believe that my dad ever felt a moment that was completely free of even the most simple of debts or that he would one day have the opportunity to create a lifestyle he desired and sought for his family. At the end of this tale, I have included herein a family tree of sorts or chronology of my ancestors to the best of my research on both my mother’s and father’s sides of the family.

Named after my father, I became Christopher Steve Adams, Jr. Some many years later, we discovered that my father’s birth certificate actually listed his middle name as Steven, rather than Steve. But too many years had passed and far too many documents bearing my name were already a matter of record to even consider amending either his or my birth certificate. I grew up being called Steve, Jr. during all of my formative years, elementary through high school and on into college. Most of my relatives simply called me "Junior and my mother shortened it to June," which she referred to me all her life. I am still Steve today to all those I grew up with.

My taxi and takeoff began at the height of the Great Depression and proved to be pretty bumpy for my family. I don’t remember much of the nitty gritty details, but I learned later that family moves to find a better way of life, better house in which to live, perhaps just to survive, were frequent. Likewise accelerating into life was under-powered economically and equally challenging. The climb out was little better and fraught with turbulence. At the time of my birth, my dad worked for Gulf Oil Corporation in the Mooringsport-Caddo Lake oilfield region of Northwest Louisiana. The depression soon took its toll on millions within the country, and my parents were no exception. Laid off from work in the Louisiana oil field, my dad joined his brother, Scott, in a small automobile repair shop in Mooringsport. That endeavor quickly proved unable to support two growing families and my parents moved on to Eldorado, Arkansas, where my dad joined another brother, Grover Cleveland, (who we kids soon nicknamed, Doe Doe) and our aunt (Auntie). Dad began working in the oil field with his brother. My sister, Bobbie Jean, was born on June 11, 1932, soon after our arrival in Eldorado as the depression continued to impact our lives. My dad once commented that he considered himself fortunate just to have a job working in the oil field for one dollar a day in those days! Frustrated and desperate, he finally decided to strike out with our family for the small Southeast Texas town of Tomball, some thirty miles northwest of Houston. At the time, Tomball was at the leading edge of an oil boom. There, he found work with the Chevrolet dealership, utilizing the mechanic skills he had learned back in Mooringsport working with his brother, Scott. My brother, Obie Lee, came along after we arrived in Tomball on November 19, 1934.

Obviously, I don’t remember very much, if anything, about the first few years of life, including the Arkansas stint or the move to Texas. As with all of us, we rely on stories passed on by our parents and relatives about how it was back then. I do remember our first Tomball home, a small one-bedroom shotgun clapboard cabin fitted among several others. I was four years old at the time. My earliest recollection of a significant event shortly after moving there was when I was playing in the shallow space between our small cabin complex and the street. There were no sidewalks in Tomball and few paved streets for that matter. Equipped with the only entertainment toys available, a spoon and a tin can or something of the like, I was digging in the sandy dirt that served as a parking space next to the street.

Oblivious to the automobile that I had busily hunkered down behind, I was equally unmindful when the driver of the car got in, closed the door and started the engine. If I did hear him, I must have presumed he would pull out forward onto the street. Wrong! The next thing I vaguely remember, the bumper whacked me in the back of the head and the car rolled over me, fortunately between the wheels. I don’t remember much more about the incident except that I was unharmed except for a few bruises and scratches, and I was told the man who backed over me came back to look in on me a day or so afterward.

A year later, I was enrolled in kindergarten, a highly unusual opportunity for a small town with a population of no more than a thousand. I would learn later that Tomball, in spite of its rural setting, was progressive in many ways—especially secondary education. Tomball was among the few communities and towns in Texas at the time that operated school programs that ran all the way from kindergarten through the twelfth grade.

I recall two humorous incidents as a naïve five-year old kindergartener. On the first day of school, my mother packed a sack lunch for my noontime meal and gave me two nickels to purchase a small bottle of milk and a cookie. I bravely approached the counter and asked for the milk and one cookie. The server said that will be a dime. A dime? I don’t have a dime, I timidly told her and returned to eat my lunch. I was so shook up, I didn’t even dare ask for water. By the time I arrived home that afternoon, the cafeteria supervisor had dropped by our house and told my mother about my not having money for milk. That is what thoughtful people did in small communities in those days. She also told my mother that if we needed some assistance, she would make sure that I would receive milk and snacks. Of course, my proud mother explained to her that I had money, and I received a lesson in terminology before I returned the next day with "two nickels equal a dime!"

The second kindergarten event occurred several weeks after the first. I was outside at recess one morning with all the other kids when I saw my dad across the street apparently working on a stalled automobile. Without giving it a second thought, I ran over to where he was and told him, falsely, that I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home. He obliged and when he finished his work, drove me home in the company pickup. Our failing, his and mine, was in not telling my teacher that I was leaving the school grounds. That was the last time I tried to work that ploy!

On to first grade and Nellen Featherston, my teacher; her son, Jack, would soon become my best friend throughout school and on into college and throughout life. When I recall growing up and beginning school in Tomball, I easily remember the names of every teacher I had from the first grade to graduation. For some apparent ‘good’ reason, they each stuck with me until this day.

Mrs. Loggins was my second grade teacher. About the time I entered second grade, we moved to a somewhat larger home than the shotgun house. It was a three-bedroom located on the corner of Main Street on the east side of town across the railroad tracks. We had two very pleasant neighbors: the Shaw’s on one side and Smiths on the side street to the rear. I recall three, actually four, incidents that occurred during those early days of the second and third grades. One day, I tied a rope high up on the limb of a Sycamore tree for entertainment and Jack Featherston and I tried to out-do one another by seeing how high and far out we could swing. On my last attempt, I gave it a running start, swung around the tree and skidded under Mr. Shaw’s parked car. I banged my head against the running board and ended up with a knot on my forehead the size of an egg. I didn’t tell my mother for fear of worse consequences. I put a wet cloth and ice on the bump and it finally receded, leaving a red whelp which I brushed off as a small bump. The second event during those days was contracting pneumonia. I was truly Ill! I had high fever, couldn’t breathe, a deep cough and a severely sore throat. Dr. Coker diagnosed the problem and promptly wrapped my chest top to bottom with strips of three-inch tape. I could hardly breathe at all then! I remember my mother keeping cool wet cloths on my head day and night. In the end, I survived. Later in my Air Force days, x-rays reflected a small scar on my left lung, but nothing debilitating. All of which meant Dr. Coker’s cure worked. The third event occurred one day when I decided to mimic my Dad, the hunter, by taking out his single-shot .22 caliber rifle from the closet. I knew I was forbidden to even touch the gun, but I did. I was home alone that day. I put a round in the breach and went outside to stalk a bird. While I was walking across the backyard, the gun suddenly discharged. Fortunately, I had it resting on my arm with the barrel pointed toward the ground. Yikes! I couldn’t get that rifle back to the closet fast enough! That was that! The fourth notable event, I recall from those days was the death of my best friend, Jack’s, father. Mr. Featherston owned and operated our local theater ("the picture show, we called it). He had suffered with a head wound for years, dating back to World War I. His death shocked me worse anything I could think of at the time! All I could do was wonder, what if something like that happened to my dad? What would we do? It would kill us all!"

I also recall occasional visitors who would knock on our back door. Living near the busy railroad tracks also brought "hobos" to the neighborhood. They were transient homeless, mostly older, men who travelled the railway routes, living in vacant train cars. They usually walked around the neighborhood, in ones or twos, knock on the backdoor, and ask for something to eat. My mother never failed to give them something to munch on, no matter how sparse our larder was. I never heard of an incident regarding the hobos; break-ins, robberies or assaults. They were always courteous, took their offerings and departed. I doubt that would be the case today.

Mrs. Chambliss was my third grade teacher. During that year, my dad got enough money together to purchase our first automobile, a 1929 four door Chevrolet sedan. The new to us automobile brought an incredible change in my family’s lifestyle! We had been assisted with transportation and our moves by relatives and good friends who were more fortunate and owned automobiles. Until the ’29 Chevvy made its debut, we were a walking-mobile family. Tomball wasn’t that big so walking was the way of life for many. The new wheels provided the opportunity to visit my grandfather, Lynn Tanner and his second wife, Ethyl, in the summers and occasionally at Christmas at their East Texas farm near Bloomberg. I have fond memories of my granddad’s watermelon patch, corn fields, and riding into the small town of Bloomberg in his horse drawn wagon. Crossing over the railroad tracks into the small village from the sandy clay country road, we were greeted by a narrow asphalt main street which didn’t seem to run more than a couple of blocks with a few gravel cross streets cutting across the main strip. I also recall the red brick bank building and no more than half dozen other small businesses: single grocery, hardware, feed, and a dry goods store. That was it.

There were frequent events with large gatherings of family and neighbors at my grandfather’s farm, all coming together for Sunday dinners. These were usually after church mid-day feasts at which all of the adults sat at a large table in the dining room. They also were the first ones served to enjoy the platters of fried chicken, corn on the cob, piles of mashed potatoes, squash and black-eyed peas. The custom held that the children were told to stay outside and play until called in to eat. We were then to be fed after the adults had finished their meal. My ever-caring mother, however, and always without fail, moved ahead of the adult seating and provided us with amply filled plates at a table in the kitchen or on the back porch. We were never forgotten, much less deprived. Roasted and boiled corn on the cob was my favorite—and my downfall. One summer I ate so much corn on the cob and got so sick, I swore off it for several years to come.

I also vividly recall the winter evenings during Christmastime as the sun set and darkness came. The coal oil lamps were lit and the huge fireplace came to life with blast furnace heat. The kids all sat close up to the fire until the heat pushed us farther and farther back. We would alternate turning around to warm our backs and then our feet and legs. Of course, there was no television to watch and seldom a battery powered radio. Electricity didn’t come to the rural East Texas area until well into the 1940’s. During those evenings, we mostly sat around and listened to the adults talk until we were told it was time to go to bed. Bedtime was usually shortly after dark.

We also made summer visits to our Uncle Doe Doe and Auntie, who had moved from Arkansas by that time to Talco in Northeast Texas. Our visits there usually lasted about a month during which my mother and Auntie canned fruit and vegetables—everything from pickles, tomatoes, beans, peaches, various jellies and anything else available that we would enjoy during the winter months. We kids had fun going along on the fruit and vegetable collection excursions. Those memorable and cherished Christmas and summer visits to our grandparents and Auntie and Doe Doe in Talco, lasted for me all the way through my high school days.

Auntie and Doe Doe had one son, John Walter, who had joined the Army just out of high school in the late 1930’s. He was stationed in the Philippines when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and invaded the Philippine Islands. I remember their excruciating anxiety when we visited them in the summer of 1942. They had not heard from him since the war started six months earlier. In all the turmoil, Walter, they called him, had not been listed as missing in action. They couldn’t get any information or word at all on his whereabouts, of even if he was alive. That was not unusual during the months after the war in the Pacific began, but they had not lost hope. Their enduring faith had sustained the both of them. Then one day during that summer visit while we were there, they received a telegram. Walter was safe! He had escaped the invasion of the Philippines and had made his way to Australia and finally to the United States. He arrived home a few days later and all was well. Walter went on to attend officer candidate school, received a commission in the Army, married Ruby Hawthorne, a girl from Talco and enjoyed a satisfying career.

A few years later, after he completed Officer Candidate School, and stationed at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, my sister, Bobbie, and I were invited to visit them. We took the train from Talco and enjoyed a pleasant visit with them on the Army Post. He took me all around the post, introduced me to his staff and so on. I was impressed; it was the first time I had ever been on a military base. I loved the feeling and the orderliness.

I will digress again and describe Tomball, Texas, in more detail, which to this day I proudly call my hometown.

In the early 1800’s, Tomball was originally settled mostly by German immigrants. The area which is now historic Downtown Tomball was originally granted to William H. Hurd, a naval officer, in 1838, following his heroics in the battle for Texas independence. The area began to grow when immigrants found an open, fertile land that received adequate rainfall—perfect conditions for farming and raising cattle. It was not until 1906 that the area began to boom. Railway engineers noticed that the Tomball area was on the boundary between the low hills of Texas and the flat coastal plains of the Gulf, making it an ideal location for a train stop. The Trinity and Brazos Valley Railroad Company, predecessor of the Burlington Rock Island Railway, found that they could load more cargo on each of their rail cars because the topography gently sloped toward the Galveston ports and provided an easier downhill coast. Thomas Henry Ball, an attorney for the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railroad, and later a U.S. Senator, convinced the railroad to run the line right through downtown Tomball. Soon after, people came in droves to this new train stop which headed north from Houston to Ft. Worth. Hotels, boarding houses, saloons and mercantile stores all began to spring up in the area. At first, people called the area Peck, named after a chief civil engineer of the railroad line. Then, on December 2, 1907, the town was officially named Tom Ball in honor of Senator Thomas Ball, the former railroad attorney. Later the name was shortened to one word, Tomball. While the boom of the railroad lasted less than a decade, the oil and gas industry began to grow. Exploration indicated that oil was underneath Tomball, much like that in the Spindletop field near Beaumont. Although early well drilling came up dry, the town remained optimistic for those who dreamed of oil. The true believers continued until they hit a 100-foot gusher of oil on May 27, 1933. The area was immediately flooded with over two dozen oil companies, which drew thousands of workers and boosted the economy like never before. One major player, the Humble Oil Company, struck a deal with the town through which they would provide gas and water free of charge to all residents in exchange for rights to drill on the land. Tomball No. 1, the first oil well drilled within the city, is located downtown, just one block north to avoid incorporation by Houston. "Oil Town, USA" was the feature article about Tomball in CORONET Magazine, April 1946. Tomball was featured again in the September 1946 issue of CORONET. I still have both magazines.

Tomball continued to grow over the years and hit its second major oil boom after World War II. The free gas and water agreement lasted until 1988. In latter years, the entire area saw a shift of Texans migrating from Houston and other areas to the countryside. They were escaping from some of the disagreeable qualities of the city; high taxes, traffic, and crime, but still enjoying the closeness of jobs, culture, and entertainment. The population in the surrounding area soared during the 1970’s from a few thousand to over 85,000 residents, from 2500 or so within the city limits to 5000. As of this writing, the population of Tomball is now over 9,000 within the city and 135,000 residents in the outlying areas, which includes two 4-A high schools and Lone Star College with over 12,000 students. Tomball has continued to maintain its small town, friendly place to live.

My mother was a very devoted and faithful church-going Christian. She took my sister, brother, and me to Sunday school and church every Sunday. We also actively participated in church training school and vacation bible school every summer. I joined the church and was baptized in the First Baptist Church of Tomball when I was eight years old, and my siblings joined me in order. Our faith sustained us through many a difficult time! My sister, brother, and I also enjoyed what I now consider a quality education for the time and kick start into adult life. My sister would go on to graduate from business school in Houston, and my brother graduated from Baylor University.

As I grew older and better informed about my environment, it became easy for me to echo the declaration of many transplants: I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as fast as my parents could get me here!

My family took a brief departure from living in Tomball when my dad accepted a job with the Chevrolet automobile dealership in Conroe, a small city, several times larger than Tomball some twenty miles to the northeast. My dad traded the old Chevrolet for a later model 1934 Chevy. He hired a trailer, loaded up our furniture and household goods, and moved us to a house he had rented in Conroe. It was the summer of 1939, and I was about to enter the fourth grade. The move didn’t seem to initially bother any of us very much. We missed our Tomball friends and classmates, but our dad thought it was the right thing to do in his attempt to make life better for his family. Economic times, however, continued to be difficult. I recall one terribly disheartening Saturday when my mother with the three of us kids in tow, drove to the automobile dealership around noon to meet my dad who always got paid around that time. I remember the somber look on his face as he walked up to the driver’s side of the car. My mother had lowered the window so he could give her some cash to do the weekly grocery shopping.

He smiled weakly, shook his head and said, "It was a bad week, as he handed her his pay envelope. Thirty eight dollars," he said grimly, choking back his dismay.

My mother’s eyes filling with tears asked, "What are we going to do?"

My dad just shrugged, shook his head and walked slowly back into the garage. I felt his desperation in my heart even as a fourth grader. I don’t recall any particular discussion between my parents about money matters. They apparently kept such things pretty much to themselves while continuing to adequately provide for us as best they could. I have no doubt that similar events concerning the shortage of money occurred frequently. I knew that our plight just to survive was extremely difficult, but our parents, with few exceptions, never allowed the circumstances to bear on us kids. The Conroe situation proved to get no better, and in the end, the opportunity sought by my dad there didn’t work out as he expected. After almost a year, he was lured back to Tomball to become the Service Manager of the Chevrolet dealership he had previously left. At least it was a step up! We moved into a rented house and began life once again in the small town we all loved. I finished the fourth grade with Mrs. Essery as my teacher.

Thereafter, the welfare for our family was at least average. There was no particular exceptional social order in Tomball. We all considered, right or wrong, that the president of the bank was the wealthiest person in town followed by the grocery store owners and automobile dealers. If there were any others who might have been considered slightly above the average economic plane it would have been those who lived in the Humble Oil community──Humble Camp──they called it. The employees of the Humble Oil & Refining Company certainly had better incomes, but those kids were never considered any better off than the rest of us. We town kids didn’t think so, and neither did they. That was also true of the banker, grocery store and automobile dealership kids.

With the exception of the brief relocation to Conroe and back, life remained fairly routine through school grades one through six, encountering only a few physical interventions during the early years. Our local physician, Dr. Coker, recommended that I should have my tonsils removed after I had endured a series of bad colds, sore throat episodes and a bout with pneumonia. That seemed to be the normal cure-all of that day. So my parents made arrangements with a doctor in Conroe, and after a brief overnight stay in the hospital, out they came. The follow-up benefit was lots of prescribed ice cream and popsicles. Shortly after I entered the fifth grade, my homeroom teacher, Mr. Mitchell, suggested to my parents that they should have my eyes examined since it appeared to him I was having difficulty reading. So I was off to see an optometrist and a prescription for eye glasses. Then along about the sixth grade, my mother concluded that I was too thin and not able to gain weight, so she took me to a physician in Houston who prescribed a series of Vitamin B shots. As I recall, that particular episode lasted about a year during which my mother drove me into Houston every Saturday for a Vitamin B shot. I have no idea why those inoculations couldn’t have been administered in Tomball! In retrospect, neither do I know how my folks met the financial obligations of those nagging medical expenses either, but they did and with considerable care and pride. It turns out I wore the eye glasses for just over a year and gradually weaned myself from requiring their use. (It would be almost forty years before I required glasses again!)

The annual County Meet brought together competition among local schools in academics and vocational programs. I recall competing in picture memory when I was in the fifth and sixth grades; that amounted to memorizing old world paintings, the artists and the year the work was purportedly completed. I don’t remember how well I did in my competition or much else about it…unimpressed, I suppose?

My parents had encouraged Cub Scouting as soon as I turned nine years old, and I was an eager participant. Cub Scouting and later, the Boy Scout program provided a fun outlet that I got caught up in and enjoyed immensely. The various projects and camping brought welcome entertainment as well as challenges. Two outstanding men of character served in turn as our Scout leaders later on after the Cub days: Mr. E.B. Lowry and Coach Wade Beard. Mr. Lowry was an oil field supervisor, and Coach Beard was our high school football coach. Neither was ever too busy to spend individual time with us. It was that exposure and experience, I suppose, that served to influence me to some degree into pursuing a military career. I took easily to wearing a uniform, the regimentation and discipline. I remember working diligently in the Cub Scout program to complete the progressive requirements from Wolf up through the grades to Lion. When I graduated into Boy Scouts, I continued with the same interest and zeal.

II

THE WAR YEARS

December 7, 1941, is still embedded in my memory. I clearly recall my dad coming into the house late that Sunday afternoon. He had walked the short distance downtown to purchase a bag of hamburgers for our Sunday evening treat. When he came in, he said to us as we gathered around the kitchen table, "I heard on the radio while I was waiting for the hamburgers, that the Japanese bombed the Hawaiian Islands early this morning, and a lot of people were killed."

My mother, sister, brother, and I sat stone silent waiting for him to tell us more about what he had heard. He turned on the radio, and it was blaring the news as fast as the announcer could speak. None of us could respond, and we just listened as we tried to eat our burgers. The full impact would not settle on our family, friends, neighbors, and the Country for days. The next day, our teachers each seemed to have an observation and opinion. There was no television in those days, only the radio and newspapers for news and information. As the days and weeks moved on, I remember being deathly afraid that our dad might be called up to serve in the military. He was 41 years old, almost 42, and likely would not be called, but I prayed each night that he wouldn’t. I had three first cousins who lived in Houston at the time, and they made a brief headline in the Houston newspapers when all three went to the Army recruiting office and joined up together. I often wished that I had kept the picture of the three that was published in the papers. Carl, Jim, and Leonard served throughout World War II and made the Army a career. Eventually I lost track of Carl and Leonard, but I stayed in contact with Jim and his family throughout until his death in 2007. Later in life, we were stationed nearby Jim and his family, and I will get to that later.

In several ways, the war years had a severe personal impact on the Tomball community. First, it drew away most all of the young men from high school age and up; those that didn’t join one of the Military Services on their own were drafted to serve. Many older men stepped forward as well, including one of my classmates, Jimmie Noonan’s dad, who worked for the Burlington Railway Company. Mr. Noonan was an engineer with Burlington and was called up, given a direct commission in the Army and sent to North Africa to assist in building railway lines for transporting military supplies. Another impact was with the large German community in the area I mentioned earlier. The situation never got out of hand, but many in the area questioned our German neighbors’ heritage and potential allegiance to the Nazi cause. Most of the prejudice amounted to slurs, in general, from a few against the fact that so many Germans lived in our community which, by and large, eventually faded away.

Junior high school meant transferring over to the high school building across town. The seventh and eighth grades