Staying Alive—The Life and Times of an American Baby Boomer Part 2: The Serendipitous ’70S

STAYING ALIVE

The Life and Times of an

American Baby Boomer

Part 2

The Serendipitous ’70s

by

Gene Baumgaertner

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© Copyright 2011 Gene Baumgaertner.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

DISCLAIMER

This book is a work of fiction. Still, historical events are accurately depicted. Some aspects of personal events have actually occurred, but have been fictionalized, as have the characters. Any resemblance of the characters to real persons, living or dead, is purely unintentional and unnervingly coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America.

isbn: 978-1-4669-0255-8 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-0256-5 (hc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-0257-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011961007

Trafford rev. 11/28/2011

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Contents

DEDICATION

RECOGNITION

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Appendix

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to all of those persons

who recognize someone in this book . . .

And to these fellow survivors:

Bonita Louise Baumgaertner Mesler

John Louis Baumgaertner

Judith Veronica Baumgaertner Hook

John Anthony Lollo

Gerard Charles Kaiser

Joan Anne Borne Kaiser

John Edward Morris

Carol Ann Wiencek Morris

John Hugh Breslin

RECOGNITION

Poems by Gene Baumgaertner

Chapter 1

The Iron Alley Cat

Chapter 2

Two Children of December

Chapter 3

Sometimes You Get the Bear

Chapter 4

On Campus Morals

Come Gently

Chapter 5

In the Black Pit of Despair

Chapter 6

I Stand in Elation

Chapter 7

The Sun Drops . . . Your Mind Stops

Chapter 8

Once We Walked

Chapter 9

When I Pray

Need You, If I

Chapter 10

My Love Had Shining Bright Eyes

Editing

And I would like to add a special thanks to my editor,

Kathy Anne Baumgaertner for her time, dedication, and patience.

CHAPTER ONE

STILL TRYING TO GET

OUR BEARINGS

Reprising 1969

The Games People Play

The summer before my senior year at the University of Maryland, I took a job with the Maryland State Roads Commission (SRC)—which within a couple of years would become the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA). I was hired as a Summer Technical Assistant. I worked in the field, but reported to the District 3 Office (serving Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties). During the course of the summer I was assigned to a number of roadway construction projects. My primary function at each construction site was to report to the SRC’s Construction Inspection Manager (CIM), and serve as one of his construction inspectors. My assignments were varied, undemanding, and generally interesting.

My first assignment at my first project site was to follow the concrete contractor around, and make sure that he didn’t deviate from the construction drawings. Early each morning I’d start work in the project trailer, drinking coffee and socializing with the other inspectors. Most were full-time SRC employees. Most were what (at the time) I thought of as Country guys, or red-necks. I’d worked with red-necks in the past, during my short stint at UPS, and generally found them to be friendly and at least superficially non-judgmental.

At the SRC, most didn’t seem to have a problem with working with a college student—that is, working with someone well above the educational level of the majority of them. All were pretty friendly. And if they played jokes on me, or occasionally hazed me, it was more because I was the new guy on the team, the greenie, the tenderfoot, and not for any other discernable reasons.

Each morning in the project trailer, we’d first look at the schedules for the contractors, which told us what each contractor planned to do that day. Then we all huddled around the construction plans (there were multiple sets), examining in minute detail how each of our contractors was expected to perform. My contractor was laying concrete monolithic medians, and related curb and gutter. So I’d check to see if he was going to pour continuous four foot medians, or transitional medians from four to eight feet, or curb and gutter. Then I’d check the stations (locations) where the work would be done, for example, from Station 68+12 to Station 72+62… that is, starting at Station 68+12, he’d be doing 450 feet of whatever was both called for in the plans and scheduled for that day. I’d also check the specifications, just to remind myself of the exact dimensions that the contractor’s crews were supposed to be abiding by.

After that, I’d spend the day with tape measure and notepad in hand, making sure that the contractor formed up the work to the desired length, width, depth, radius of curvature, etc., and started and ended in the correct locations. I’d follow the contractor’s supervisor around like a shadow, observing his every command. I’d also watch the various crews, as they went through their various labors. Occasionally, I’d pull out my tape measure, and measure this and that, making sure they were according to plan and specification. Once you got used to it, the job was fun, mildly rewarding, and gave you a sense of purpose—and a decent paycheck.

It was also healthy, being outdoors all day. Over the course of the summer, my hair turned blond, and my skin bronzed to the best tan that I would likely ever achieve. And, as I was to find, laid down the basis for actinic keratosis (pre-cancerous skin lesions) that would develop some thirty years later.

Typically, after a day or two of setting up forms for pouring concrete, the following day was spent pouring and working the concrete. Usually before any concrete was poured, my boss, the SRC’s CIM, would drive up to the work site in his pick-up truck and walk the line of forms, checking to make sure that everything was in order. It was one thing to leave the day-to-day details to a Summer Technical Assistant, but quite another to let concrete harden in the wrong place.

So the CIM would make one more thorough check to make sure the State wasn’t about to lose a lot of money. During this procedure, the contractor’s supervisor and I would walk by his side, and answer his questions. Sometimes after he’d cleared the work, he’d shake my hand (re-affirming my authority, always necessary to keep the contractors from running roughshod over the poor summer help), and drive away. Sometimes he’d stay all day, watching me and the contractor’s crews at work, checking the quality of the concrete, and observing me doing my tests.

Once we had the CIM’s approval, the concrete trucks would be called, and soon there would be six or eight trucks lined up, waiting to pour their loads. While the cement crews poured the concrete, and began finishing the surfaces, I had my own work to do. I’d check the tickets, and keep a sharp eye on the pouring concrete, confirming by sight the consistency of the mixtures—neither too runny nor too stiff. But I’d also take periodic slump tests, a more precise way of assuring that the concrete had been mixed with the proper amounts of cement, aggregate, sand, and water. (There was also an SRC inspector at the concrete plant, and his job was specifically to assure the correct amounts of the ingredients, including the air-entraining admixtures… things that I could only approximate or guess at in the field.) Finally, about once an hour, at random times, I’d have some concrete set aside and I’d cast concrete cylinders, exactly according to procedure, that would set in the field, and then be taken to the SRC lab for testing. These tests were to assure that the concrete was of the specified strength.

Three days after I had cast them, I’d collect all the cylinders that I had prepared, and take them to the storage bin next to the project trailer. Here, I’d strip them of their cylindrical cardboard forms. In magic marker I’d write upon them the project number, the stations where I had created them, and an alpha-numeric code for proper identification, once they went to the lab. Then, before I placed them in the storage bin and covered them with damp cloths, I added my own unique identifier to each one. This latter wasn’t a requirement, just something that an overly active mind felt compelled to do. After they had sat in the storage bin another week, they’d be collected by a lab technician, who drove from project site to project site gathering up cylinders, and who then took them to the lab for testing.

On each cylinder, just for the heck of it, I’d write some identifying phrase, which I never repeated, and thus over time coming up with new ones really taxed my imagination. I’d write such things as A rose by any other name, or Let them eat cake, or Let the sunshine in, or A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse, or Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, or No, I am Sparticus, or Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, or Vene, Vidi, Vici, or The die is cast. I didn’t think this trifle mattered, and I was sure that no one even noticed, or cared about the superfluous phrases that I was adding to the test cylinders. For weeks nobody said boo about it. And once they were tested, which was a destructive test to see how much load they could carry, the cylinders would be gone anyway.

It was just a summer job, and perhaps it all sounds more complicated than it really was. Mostly, my assignments were not too demanding, and I generally had fun. Only occasionally did I think about the fact that many of my friends had already graduated from college, and were now pursuing real careers… and making a helluva lot more money than I was. Everyone, that is, but John Latella, who also had more semesters to go before graduating, and Jack Fitzhugh, who was in Army graduate school (OCS, or Officer Candidate School), which he was finding was not to his liking.

But most of the time I didn’t think about the fact that I should have been only one semester from graduation… instead of some uncertain number of semesters. Most of the time I was pre-occupied with the here-and-now, and was not overly concerned with the future. I loved the summer job in the sun, which required some utilization of that lump above my shoulders, and at least peripherally made use of my college education. I had plenty of time in the evenings for boozing with the guys, or making out with my honey. So why worry about the future?

Then one morning, while I was sitting in the back of the project trailer drinking coffee and plotting out my day’s assignments, Reds O’Rourke, the lab technician who came around twice a week to collect the properly-aged concrete cylinders, stopped by and joined our boss, the CIM, for a cup of coffee. They were in the front of the trailer, and although my back was to them, they were only twelve or fifteen feet away, and I could hear everything they said. At first, the subject of their conversation was mundane enough, and I barely listened to them.

Eventually they got around to SRC gossip, and finally Reds said, Oh, you’re never gonna believe this one.

Almost everyone turned at least their partial attention to Reds. Since he traveled from trailer to trailer, as well as to the lab and the central office, his gossip tended to be both interesting and up-to-date.

What’s that? said the CIM.

Well, there’s quite a flap going on at the central lab right now.

Really. What about?

Turns out the Chief Engineer stopped by the lab the other day, and happened to notice that someone has been writing graffiti on the concrete cylinders.

Hearing the words lab, and concrete cylinders, my interest picked up, as concrete cylinders seemed to be my life these days. Hearing the word graffiti also caught my attention, and tickled a hint of warning in the recesses of my mind.

Graffiti? asked one of the senior inspectors. What do you mean?

Oh, I don’t know. Apparently someone had been writing little messages on the test cylinders. I never really noticed. Hell, I handle a hundred a day. But the Chief Engineer was really upset.

Uh, oh, I thought to myself. This doesn’t sound good. But I didn’t turn around. I sat very still, like I was examining the contract documents. However, now I was fully alert, and listening to every word, every voice inflection, every nuance that came from the front of the trailer.

Upset?

Angry is more like it. I understand he was stalking around in a tirade, yelling about defacing state property. Saying someone’s ass was on the line.

Wow, said another inspector. I didn’t think the Chief Engineer could get angry. Everyone says he’s a pussy cat.

You don’t get to be Chief Engineer if you’re a pussy cat, another inspector noted.

Believe me, he was mad, said Reds. He said that someone was going to lose his job over this. Maybe several someones.

By now, that little tickle in the back of my mind had evolved into a sharp sting. The back of my neck was prickling, and sweat was forming on my forehead. This was hitting too close to home. Graffiti? What could they mean? Surely they weren’t talking about the innocent stuff I was writing. Heck… for the most part, those were just famous phrases.

What do you mean? asked my CIM, a hint of alarm insinuating itself into his voice.

Well, they’re looking for the culprit right now. They think it’s some low level inspector. Possibly a summer intern. He’ll get fired for sure. Then maybe the project’s CIM might get into trouble too… for not catching it and stopping it before it got this far. But they’re only talking about a fine for him.

A fine? asked one of the other inspectors.

Yeah… five hundred dollars.

Five hundred dollars? said our CIM. Damn.

Yeah, and maybe a thousand dollars for the inspector that’s been doing this.

A thousand dollars? Double damn, said another of the senior inspectors.

For defacing state property.

I visibly gulped, but still I refused to turn around and face the discussion. A thousand dollar fine for defacing state property? They had to be kidding… this couldn’t be real.

But will they ever catch him?

Sure they will. They’re looking for him right now. Hell, all they have to do is match the project numbers on the cylinders with the correct job site. Oh, they’ll catch him. If not today, then they’ll have him by tomorrow. Someone at the lab is putting one of those demolished cylinders together right now… it’s a lot like a jigsaw puzzle. But they’ll put one together enough to be able to read the project number off of it… then they’ll know where to look.

There was a long period of silence, as everyone in the trailer absorbed this. I felt eyes on my back. The hairs on the back of my neck were sticking straight out. My heart was actually thundering in my chest. This couldn’t be me they’re talking about. It’s got to be something far more significant.

Finally our CIM asked, and his voice sounded very ominous, Well, what exactly is this graffiti that we’re talking about?

Oh, said Reds, Dirty stuff… like cursing and stuff.

Curse words? asked my CIM.

Oh thank God, I said to myself. It isn’t me they’re talking about. It’s some poor idiot who’s been writing curse words on the cylinders. In my relief, I almost turned around and smiled. But then Reds added…

Yeah, you know… like ‘damn’ . . . and ‘hell’ . . . and phallic references.

‘Damn’ and ‘hell’? echoed my CIM, probably thinking that these words didn’t sound too bad.

Phallic references? asked the inspector sitting next to me, who had swivelled around and was watching Reds.

Me. I had slunk down a little, but I still kept my back to the front of the trailer. I was beginning to suspect that I was in a world of trouble. And maybe I had gotten my CIM in trouble too.

Yeah… let me think… strange stuff, like a code or something… let’s see… oh yeah, something like ‘dam the torpedo’ and ‘the fury of hell’ . . . stuff like that.

Yeah. Torpedo. I get it, said one of the other inspectors, chuckling. The guy must be a pervert, talking about his torpedo like that.

Dam the torpedo? asked another. That’s a strange way to talk about ‘it’.

I swallowed hard. I was wondering if I could quietly slink out of the trailer’s back door unobserved.

They don’t know who it is? asked my CIM.

Not yet. But they’ll get him… just a matter of time. Poor bastard, it would be better for everyone if he just turned himself in. There was a pause, then he innocently added, Who does your cylinders anyway?

There was another long pause.

Oh shit, I thought to myself. I guess this is it. I guess I better turn myself in.

I slowly swivelled in my chair. As my gaze fell upon my boss, I realized that every one in the trailer was looking at me. There was not a smile or a kind look upon any face present. I could feel a drop of sweat running down my forehead and on to my cheek.

Suddenly, the inspector sitting next to me could contain himself no longer. A chuckle that transformed into a guffaw escaped from his lips. I looked at him, and he was beaming brightly. I turned back to the CIM and Reds… they were smiling broadly.

Got ya, said Reds as he beamed at me, and the entire trailer erupted into laughter.

I was so giddy from relief that I laughed too. When the laughter subsided, I finally said, And got me good…

*     *     *     *     *

Goin’ Up Country

Sometime during the summer, Little White, my flower-power Chevy Biscayne, finally gave up the ghost. I don’t know why, I wasn’t mis-treating it… perhaps it’s time had come. Anyway, to allow me to keep commuting to school, my father bought me a new used-car, a Chevrolet Corvair Monza. It looked really sharp, and was probably the best looking car I had up until that time. It was light metallic blue, with the engine in the rear. I loved that little car. But over time it would develop an oil leak of epic proportions—a real gusher that evolved into a leak like an un-capped oil well.

It started out as a minor problem. It seemed to have a tiny but persistent oil leak. In response, I had to add a quart of oil to the engine about once a month. Over time, the persistent oil leak grew and grew, leaving embarrassing puddles of oil wherever I parked the car. Near the end of its life, I was putting a new quart of oil into the Corvair every other day.

Thank goodness that some forms of transportation are built to higher standards, and will perform well enough to carry passengers as far as the Moon and back.

The summer of 1969 was punctuated with an event unlike any other in history. It was the culmination of the effort prompted by a 1961 statement made by President John F. Kennedy before Congress: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

Throughout the 1960’s, a variety of missions tested the Apollo spacecraft and its launching vehicle, the Saturn V—rocket tests, abort tests, unmanned flight tests (Apollo 4, 5, and 6), low Earth orbit missions (Apollo 7 and Apollo 9), and lunar orbit missions (Apollo 8 and Apollo 10). Finally, the time had come to fulfill President Kennedy’s mission statement.

At 9:30 AM on Wednesday morning, July 16, a Saturn V rocket launched Apollo 11 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It rose majestically into the sky, leaving a billowing plume trailing behind it. Twelve minutes later, Apollo 11 had entered orbit. After one and a half orbits around the Earth, the Saturn’s stage three pushed Apollo 11 into a trajectory towards the Moon. About thirty minutes after that, the command/service vehicle separated from the third stage of the Saturn V rocket, turned around, and docked with the lunar module which was still protected inside stage three. It extracted the lunar module, righted itself, and headed for the Earth’s solitary natural satellite. The crew was composed of Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module (CM) Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module (LM) Pilot Edwin Buzz Aldrin.

Most of the Country, in fact much of the world, watched that event, either that Wednesday morning, or as it was repeated on the evening news for days afterward. For the next week, my family and I huddled around the TV set every time we could. We watched the launch multiple times. We listened avidly to each news broadcast, as Apollo 11 raced towards the Moon. We waited expectantly, hoping for success, praying against failure.

In the early afternoon of Saturday, July 19, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon, and fired its service propulsion engine to slow down and enter lunar orbit. Thirty lunar orbits followed, as the crew observed the lunar surface, marveled at sights few other humans had ever seen, and examined their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility.

On Sunday, July 20, the lunar module, Eagle, separated from the command vehicle, Columbia, and began its descent towards the lunar surface. Michael Collins as CM Pilot stayed behind in Columbia and watched the descent. By now the entire world was riveted to the ongoing drama. Even Jack Fitzhugh, in OCS at Ft. Benning down in Georgia, had been given TV privileges so that he and his classmates could follow the historic event.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin approached the lunar surface in the Eagle. Armstrong and Aldrin found that they were 4 seconds early in their scheduled trajectory, and weren’t going to land exactly where they thought they would. As they approached the surface, Armstrong saw that the computer was going to land them in a boulder-strewn area. He took partial control away from the computer, and as Aldrin hastily called out navigation data, as well as rapid-fire altitude and velocity readings, Armstrong directed the Eagle to a smoother landing area. The Eagle settled with about 25 seconds of fuel remaining, far less than originally planned. After Armstrong and Aldrin finished the landing sequence, Armstrong uttered the first of several historic phrases: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

Back on Earth, in Bowie, Maryland, my family and I stayed pretty close to the TV all day. Although the astronauts were supposed to sleep before leaving the LM, they were too excited to do so. So they planned to get out and walk on the Moon before the end of the day. At about 10:39 PM EDT, Neil Armstrong opened the LM’s hatch. He had a difficult time getting out of the hatch. It had been newly redesigned to be smaller and stronger, but apparently no one had thought to ascertain if the astronauts Portable Life Support Systems (their space suits) would fit through the new opening. They barely did. It took Armstrong over ten minutes to work his way through the narrowed hatch.

After a pause, Armstrong began his descent down the little ladder attached to one of the landing struts. As he descended, he activated a TV camera. The transmission was not compatible with commercial TV, and the unclear and ghostly images had to be re-transmitted, losing clarity in the process. (Somewhat ironically, the transmissions were received more clearly in Australia than in the U.S.) At 10:56 PM, Armstrong’s left foot touched down on the LM footpad, and the toe of his boot brushed against lunar material.

Back in Bowie, we all held our breath… all of us… mom, dad, me, Belle, Jack, and Jill. Some 600 million other people were watching along with us, and I expect that many of them were also holding their breath.

Armstrong stood on the LM’s footpad and surveyed the Moon’s surface. He described the lunar coating as fine and almost like a powder. Finally, Neil Armstrong stepped off of the LM’s footpad and into history—he was the first person to set foot on another astronomical body. He uttered the words, fuzzy and indistinct, that were heard around the world—That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind. (Fortunately, clearer recordings of that historic statement were preserved, and you can now hear them better than we did that fateful evening.)

Pandemonium erupted in the Baker’s family room at that moment. We all jumped up and cheered. Many wiped tears from their eyes—those who would admit to tears. It was a proud moment for the U.S.—the U.S. had won the Space Race . . . and a prouder moment for Mankind—We had achieved the seemingly impossible.

Now all we had to do was get both men safely off the Moon, and all three safely home. We thanked God for the successful achievement, and prayed for the safe return of the men.

Neil Armstrong took photos of the LM for study back on Earth… he collected a quick contingency sample of lunar soil… he removed the TV camera from the LM, made a panoramic sweep of the Moon, and set it up on a tripod about 35 feet from the LM.

Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface, and tested ways to walk on the Moon—walking, skipping, loping, and two-footed kangaroo hops. Loping became the preferred method of movement. Loping in one-sixth of the Earth’s gravity turned out to be easier than in the simulations, but one still had to be careful—the fine lunar soil was very slippery.

The two astronauts deployed lunar experimental packages. They collected soil and rocks. They took more photographs. They planted a U.S. flag on the lunar surface. They then talked to President Nixon on a telephone-radio—Nixon would call it the most historic phone call ever made from the White House.

Armstrong and Aldrin also left a plaque attached to the ladder of the LM. It showed the Western and Eastern hemispheres of the Earth, and held the inscription: "Here Men From The Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We Came in Peace For All Mankind."

The following day, one of the guys at work brought in a TV set, and we plugged it into the construction trailer’s electrical system. It was just an old black-and-white, but there wasn’t much color up there on the Moon anyway. Although we all tried to work, we all found reasons to hang around the trailer most of the day. Around 2 PM on Monday afternoon, the Eagle lifted off from the Moon, using part of the LM as its own launching pad. It rendezvoused with Columbia at 7:41 PM EDT on Monday, July 21, and Armstrong and Aldrin re-entered the CM. Then the Eagle was jettisoned into lunar orbit.

Columbia returned to Earth on July 24, just before dawn. Late in the morning, it splashed down about 1,440 miles east of Wake Island, and about 15 miles from the recovery ship, USS Hornet. Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were instant heroes. Once they were safely aboard the Hornet, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The U.S. would send six more Apollo missions to the Moon. Five would successfully land on the Moon, bring back many pounds of soil and rock, undertake more and more lunar experiments, test exotic-looking lunar vehicles, and cause the world to marvel. One, Apollo 13, wouldn’t land on the Moon, and instead would become a testament to man’s courage, ingenuity, perseverance… and luck.

Even so, the world grew blasé. Apollo missions seemed to become routine… except for Apollo 13. When the program came to an end, cancelled earlier than anticipated due to budget constraints, none of us seemed to think much about it.

I recall a statement that was made at the height of the Apollo program. It was stated that after that program, man would not return to the Moon for 150 years. At the time, that seemed preposterous. Of course we would go back to the Moon. Man was a curious creature who must always explore and investigate. That’s how we learned… why we advanced. Of course we’d go back to the Moon… and soon… maybe not the following year, but surely in a decade… or two.

Now, after the passage of some four decades, I begin to wonder about the possible truth of that prophetic statement. I hope it does not come true.

*     *     *     *     *

Hell Hath No Fury

Also that summer, either late July or early August, John and Terry Latella moved out of their apartment in New Carrollton. Their lease had expired, and they didn’t want to commit to another year. Soon their lives were to change dramatically. John’s number was about to be called up, and he managed to avoid going to Vietnam by joining the Air National Guard. In the meantime, as an interim fix, John and Terry moved up to Great Neck, New York, to live with John’s parents.

In mid-August, Hurricane Camille appeared on the scene. It formed, quickly gained strength as it crossed the Caribbean, and on August 17, it struck the U.S.’s Gulf Coast near Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian, Mississippi. It was the second of three catastrophic Category 5 Hurricanes ever to strike the U.S. during the course of the twentieth century. The first Category 5 was the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, and the third would be 1992’s Hurricane Andrew.

Hurricane Camille made landfall with a pressure of 905 mbar. At the time, that was the lowest pressure ever recorded by a reconnaissance aircraft, and the second lowest of the ten worst U.S. landfall hurricanes recorded—the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane was the lowest, and the 2005’s Katrina was the third lowest. At landfall, Camille had an estimated wind speed of 190 mph—one of only four landfall hurricanes ever to reach such sustained wind speeds. Wind speeds likely gusted well over 200 mph, but no one will ever know since the wind forces of Camille were so powerful they destroyed all of the wind measuring devices in its path. Camille had an official storm surge of 24 feet (second only to Katrina), but some estimates place the storm surge at 28 feet. Unfortunately, Camille destroyed the structure from which the 28 feet had been measured, so there was no post-storm confirmation of the event.

Camille was a smaller hurricane than Katrina, which helped account for its smaller storm surge. It’s small size also allowed New Orleans to dodge the bullet one more time. Yet, if measured by maximum sustained wind speeds, Camille was the strongest landfall cyclone, worldwide, ever recorded.

Camille flattened everything standing along the Mississippi coast, and dropped about 10 inches of ran. It forced the Mississippi River to flow backwards for 125 miles, and the river further backed up another 120 miles. Moving quickly northwesterly, Camille rapidly weakened as it progressed inland, thus not dropping prodigious amounts of rain. Within twelve hours, it had weakened to Tropical Storm status. And as it then turned north, and then northeasterly, it further weakened to a Tropical Depression. By August 18, it had turned east and traveled the entire length of Kentucky.

As Hurricane Camille approached, I and my family hunkered down in Bowie, Maryland. I know that most of my friends and their families were doing the same in their own homes. By the evening of August 18, every grocery store in Maryland, Northern Virginia, and Washington, DC, had been stripped of milk, bread, and toilet paper… just like before every other hurricane, blizzard, or major storm that had ever approached the Baltimore-Washington region. I could understand the psychology behind stocking up on milk and bread, but I never could understand the panic-buying of toilet paper.

What did this say about the Baltimore-Washington region? Did many households constantly live on the verge of running out of toilet paper? Did people think that the effects of a major storm would keep them from returning to the grocery stores for weeks at a time? Or did folks in the Baltimore-Washington region use an excessive amount of toilet paper during major climatological events? It’s a mystery that may never be explained.

I remember my sister-in-law, Eli Whitehall, telling me years later about a similar event that she experienced in Wilmington, NC. She was at that time living in Winston-Salem, NC, and whenever a major storm was imminent, the grocery store shelves in Winston-Salem were quickly emptied of milk and bread—but not toilet paper.

During the major blizzard that hit Wilmington, NC in late 1989, Eli Whitehall happened to be visiting her sister and brother-in-law, Terri and Mike Upson. Snow started falling on December 22, but although this promised to be Wilmington, NC’s first White Christmas on record, not much fell on that particular day. The next day, Eli drove from Winston-Salem to Wilmington in blizzard conditions, and counted herself lucky that she had made it to Wilmington at all. Most native North Carolinians don’t have a clue about how to drive in the snow, and with the first hint of a snowflake most immediately drive off the roadway and into a drainage ditch—okay, that was supposed to be a joke… yes, and I know, a gross exaggeration.

Ten inches of snow had fallen by the time Eli got to Terri and Mike’s house. Five more inches would fall on Christmas Eve. With the temperatures remaining below freezing, Wilmington NC, saw its first White Christmas since Europeans first arrived on the continent.

When Eli arrived at the Upson’s, she was exhausted. It had been a nerve-wracking trip. She wanted nothing better to do than sit in front of the fireplace, and drink hot cocoa. When she mentioned hot cocoa to Terri, her sister announced that they had to go to the grocery store for milk and bread.

Eli tried to talk Terri out of it… she voiced the opinion that there was not likely to be any milk and bread left on the shelves. Judging from past experience in Winston-Salem, Eli knew that all the milk and bread had been bought up the day before, and all the shelves would be bare. But Terri was determined to go, and stock up not only on milk and bread, but pasta and spaghetti sauce, and maybe some Hostess Twinkies and Fig Newtons… oh, and some butter, sugar, and hot cocoa mix.

If they must go, Eli suggested that she drive, as she felt like a veteran after driving through ten inches of newly falling snow. She asked to take Mike’s four-wheel drive. Mike and Terri agreed, and soon Eli and Terri were facing the hazards of driving in ten inches of snow. Fortunately, the grocery store was only a few short miles away.

It was a harrowing journey, but not the subject of this story. When Eli and Terri finally got to the grocery store, Eli was in for several surprises. First, the milk and bread aisles were completely stocked, and it looked like no one had touched them at all. Terri and Eli collected what they needed, and headed for the checkout. As they passed the beer and wine aisle, however, Eli noticed that it had been stripped clean of every bottle and can in the store. It was like a tornado had gone through and swooped up everything. Next she passed the junk-food aisle. Again, there was not a single bag of potato chips, doritos, fritos, cheese-its, or the like left. She impulsively walked down the bare, lonely aisle, marveling at the differences in priorities between Winston-Salem and Wilmington. As she casually inspected the empty aisle, she found that only a single bag of pretzels, slightly torn, remained behind. She snatched up her slightly tattered prize and put it in the cart.

It took Eli only a few moments to realize that in a college town (University of North Carolina—Wilmington), no one cares about such mundane things as milk and bread… no sane college student would party with milk and bread… they’re more interested in the important staples of college life—beer, wine, pretzels, and chips.

But I digress. Although Camille was no longer a hurricane, it dropped a deluge of rain on West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland during the evening and night of August 19 (John and Terri Latella’s anniversary), and into the following day. The greatest rainfall was in western Virginia, where between 12 and 20 inches of rain fell (some areas reported over 30 inches). There were flash-floods in the mountains and valleys of western Virginia, causing mud-slides and mud-avalanches, washing out roads and bridges, and adding to the hurricane’s death-toll. Most who died in Virginia did so not by drowning, but instead from blunt-force trauma to the head, caused by rock-slides. Late on August 20, Camille moved off the coast of the U.S., and back into the Atlantic from which it had first been spawned.

Camille had been responsible for killing 259 people, and caused $1.42 billion in damages in 1969 dollars (it was the tenth costliest Atlantic hurricane recorded—Katrina being the third costliest).

*     *     *     *     *

Back in the Grind

In late August, I technically entered my second semester Senior Year at the University of Maryland. But I was a far cry from having only two semesters left in school—engineering usually takes four and a half years, three Senior semesters. Chronologically (considering the semester I dropped out of school), I was more like a first semester Senior. But if one counted the credits that I needed to graduate, I was more like a second semester Junior. It was a bit too depressing to think about—how long it would take me to graduate. So I just called myself a Senior, and accepted the fact that I’d be a Senior for four or five more semesters.

That semester, Autumn of ‘69, I repeated Transportation Engineering, and also took Soils’ Mechanics, Electrical Engineering, Math for Engineers, and Calculus IV… the latter two being my seventh and eighth math courses in college.

By my second or third week in school, John Latella was near San Antonio, Texas, Jerry Prinz was in Schenectady, New York, Tom McCrory was in Baltimore, Maryland, Jack Fitzhugh was at An Loc, Vietnam, and John Fitzmorris was back from Nam and in northern Virginia.

John Latella had joined the Air National Guard in early September to avoid being drafted into the army. He was soon whisked off to Lackland Air Force Base, near San Antonio, Texas. Terry stayed behind in Great Neck, looking after baby Marko. John spent six weeks in San Antonio doing basic training. After that, he was assigned to Keesler AFB near Biloxi, MS.

It didn’t take John long to realize that the Air Force wasn’t all that friendly, that basic training was a bear, and that the hallowed halls of the U of M seemed like nirvana compared with what he was putting up with. John knew he was far, far from wife, family, and friends, and he was miserable.

Jerry Prinz was in Schenectady, NY, working in the auditing department of a large defense contractor called Megadyne Global. He had graduated from the University of Richmond in May. By then he already had a job offer from Megadyne, and they wanted him to start in June. Jerry told them he couldn’t, as he had family issues to deal with. In fact, there were no family issues. He just wanted to have one last summer to himself, knowing it would be the last full summer he’d have free for decades. Soon he’d enter the real, adult world, and vacations would be two weeks long, not the whole summer. No wonder some kids never want to grow up.

Since John and I had summer jobs down in Maryland, Jerry spent much of his last summer up in Great Neck hanging around with Ras Vladovitch, or as we knew him, the Geebs. They spent many days, and most evenings together, sampling the free life of the young and unattached. The Geebs was a strange dude, and although interesting and appealing most of the time, on occasion he could be motivated by an aggravating streak of self-interest.

One of the Geebs’ claims to fame was his ability to squirt a thin jet of beer between his two front teeth. Over the years, he had perfected this to an art-form, where he could rapid fire multiple foot-long jets for a distance of almost ten feet, and individually hit each of a row of shot glasses with uncanny accuracy. The Geebs liked to use this ability in bars to play practical jokes on the other patrons. He would squirt a single foot long jet at an individual five or six feet