The Saga of Bob Thoe: A Trilogy: The Second Third

THE SAGA OF BOB THOE

The Second Third

(A Trilogy)

by Bob Thoe

Copyright © 2015 Bob Thoe.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3351-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3352-3 (e)

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.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 08/24/2015

Contents

THE 1950S

SCHOOL’S OUT—BACK TO NAVY LIFE

LABOR LAWS

PILOT OR NAVIGATOR

THERE REALLY IS A SANTA CLAUS

COAST GUARD TO THE RESCUE

JOHN’S ARRIVAL

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH PRAYER

DUTY IN OUR NATIONS CAPITAL

THE TIME MY DAD FLEW THE CAR

TRAFFIC COPS ARE BASICALLY FRIENDLY

TRAFFIC COPS ARE BASICALLY FRIENDLY STILL

THE 1960S

A DRIVERS MISTAKE

AUTOMOBILE TIRES

ANNIE COMES ABOARD

VETERAN OF WARS—HOT & COLD

I LOVE A PARADE

U.S. NAVAL AVIATION

NAVAL RETIREMENT

SQUADRON DEPLOYMENTS

SQUADRON FUN

A BAYLOR EVENT

RANK HATH IT’S PRIVILEGES (RHIP)

AMANDA’S HUMOR

CONNECTICUT BOUND

THE 1970S

BACK TO THE CORNFIELDS

RAISING CHICKENS

A REAL ESTATE MOGUL?

FUN IN THE AIR

KELLY IS MISSING

LADIES WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

MULTI-DIPPING

PUNISHMENTS SHOULD FIT THE CRIME

WINE TASTING

THIS IS FOR THE BIRDS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

This book, The Second Third of the trilogy, The Saga of Bob Thoe, is a compilation of anecdotes and essays about Robert Richard Thoe, written by Robert R. Thoe, both also known as Bob Thoe, and many of his family and friends from 1920 into the year 2014. These essays found in The Second Third, primarily covering the decades from 1950 through 1979, were written for the purpose of enabling future generations emanating from the union of Amanda and Bob Thoe to understand what life was like living during the middle decades of Bob’s life.

Since these have been written over the course of several decades, both first and third person styles have been used—not with intent to confuse the reader, but possibly to break the monotony. It also includes a few chapters by family members which are noted by their bylines at chapter titles. Also included are ink sketches by our son, Scott, a professional artist living in Norway, to illustrate some of the stories.

Hopefully, this Second Third will fulfill this noble goal of portraying lifestyles in this time period along with some well-intentioned humor. It does include stories about family and other friends, which are still within the recovery mode of Bob’s mental archives.

The author sorely wishes he had had such a document to learn what life was like for his great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents during their lifetime. Also a journal or notes throughout this period would have been greatly appreciated by the author to prod his aging memory. Read on, learn about, and enjoy some of the tales about the good ol’ days.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The writer wishes to acknowledge his parents, Irvin L. and Mildred E. Thoe, who are responsible for bringing Bob into this world and for his support until he was ready to leave the comforts of his home and venture into the world. They were responsible for his search for knowledge and skills that led him on his adventures of which some are reported in this trilogy.

Secondly, acknowledgement is given to Bob’s late wife, Amanda Thora (Haugo) Thoe, or is it Thora Amanda (Haugo) Thoe? There’s some confusion here about the details of her christening and birth certificate. Notwithstanding that, she was responsible for Bob’s enjoyment of most of his adult life and the birth of their four children: Bob (Skeeter), Scott, John, and Annie.

Before her affliction with Alzheimer’s Disease, (AD), she gave of herself with all the enthusiasm and humor for which she was famous. Their courtship was short but exciting; consisting of only six dates and six months of separation before marriage. The Great War (WWII) was in full force, and during the first two years of this love affair, there was more communication by mail than by voice. The first 20 years of their 59 plus years of marriage, she served as a Navy Wife, which involved moving hither and yon, including overseas to two foreign countries, usually lugging one to four Navy Juniors (the Navy’s term for kids) by herself! How great it would have been to have had e-mail in those days, or good, inexpensive telephone service, like Skype.

Special acknowledgment of the expertise and labors of Skeeter in final formatting of the text to permit transfer to the publisher hereby is given, or this book may never have been published.

In addition to these people, special recognition is given to Betty Thoe, Scott Thoe for his ink sketches as illustrations for several of the featured activities, John Thoe, Annie Thoe and my writing group friends, especially Jo Burress, and the late Annette Fox, who made suggestions and gave encouragement throughout the years prior to my writing this Saga. Nor do I wish to overlook those friends whose actions inspired many of my stories.

DEDICATION

The writer wishes to dedicate this book, The Second Third, The Saga of Bob Thoe, to his parents, Irvin L. and Mildred E. Thoe for their love and encouragement throughout their term as my living parents and as acknowledged previously.

I also dedicate this book, to my beloved late wife, Amanda Thora Thoe, for all her contributions to my welfare and well being throughout our 59 plus years of our wonderful marriage.

And finally, I dedicate this book to all of my family who have assisted and encouraged me to complete this volume despite many personal hardships and problems. Finally I wish to dedicate this book to the late Annette Fox, and Jo Burress whose actions inspired me to undertake this project while jointly serving in a small writers group we enjoyed.

The 1950s

Squadron Duty

The Nation’s Capital

John’s Arrival

Chapter 1

School’s Out—Back to Navy Life

After two years of intense graduate work at the Naval Post Graduate School and one year at the University of Minnesota School of Engineering, I had reached the light at the end of the tunnel. A Bachelor of Science in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Graduate School and a Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Minnesota to add to the alphabet letters following my name for display at technical meetings, etc.

As a matter of fact, some years later I used these degrees and professional certification alphabet letters as an attempt to attract attention to a scheduled meeting of the North Iowa Chapter of The Life Underwriters Society quarterly meeting at which I was to be the featured speaker. In hopes of instilling some extra interest along with subtle humor, I plotted an eye-catching announcement of my presentation. This needs some explanation as I was attempting to interject some humor along with the general appeal to members to pursue professional education. Let me explain this.

I’m sure the reader is aware of the alphabetic listing of professional designations following a person’s name in a desire to inform people of ones special qualifications. In some cases it almost looks like a label for alphabet soup, and when I listed those I have earned the right to display, I counted myself in that category of immodest braggadocios.

Here is how I listed myself on the forthcoming program announcement. All professional designations are listed in the order which awarded.

Robert (Bob) R. Thoe BS, ENS USN, MTA, LTJG USN, LT USN, BSAE, MSAE, LCDR USN, CLU, ChFC, MSFS. Actually there were a few more of lesser prestige, but in the interest of brevity, are omitted here; this is enough!

At the actual meeting, upon introducing me, the chairperson stated, Most of us are familiar with these designations as listed with the possible exception of the third one of MTA, which is not familiar to me, at least. What does MTA stand for, Bob?

Oh, I explained. MTA stands for ‘Married to Amanda’, and anyone who doesn’t think that was a professional education, doesn’t know Amanda.

With that obvious explanation, I led directly into my presentation of the rewards awaiting ones pursuit of professional education in the assistance available to provide our prospective clients in knowledge of today’s complex supply of financial products. Whew! It is a really complicated field of financial products available in today’s world.

And so with the awarding of the MSAE (Master of Science, Aeronautical Engineering) degree, I left the formal education career and headed back to the real navy.

With my lack of carrier training but past experience in two separate patrol seaplane squadrons, it was natural for the assignment officer to send me to a P5M Mariner patrol squadron, which was the first to receive the navy’s latest and most modern patrol plane.

Like the PBM, it was a twin engine seaplane designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company. It actually was a beautiful plane to fly when everything worked as designed. However, the complexity of it’s components with its shortage of field experience led to many technical failures which limited its capabilities as an effective weapon of war, as well as pure safety in its early years in the fleet.

Those pilots who were previously Patrol Plane Commanders (PPC) of the PBM twin engine seaplane as I was, were ordered to a special pilot training school at the Glenn Martin plant for an intense training course of all the new equipment in the aircraft as well as special training in flying the aircraft by their test pilots so that we would be better able to train the remaining pilots and crew members in the squadron. It included such things as single engine emergencies with landings we conducted whenever the training pilot would simulate a failed engine by chopping off one of the throttles. This training proved invaluable to me as well as my crew on several occasions which usually led to assistance from our friends in the United States Coast Guard.

Chapter 2

Labor Laws

During the 1930s, I entered into the country’s labor force, somewhere around age 10 or 11. Probably my first jobs where I was actually paid hard U.S. cash, was that of mowing lawns. To me this was more fun than pulling weeds in gardens, which I had to do at home and for Grandma Bobo. Of course, Grandma Bobo always paid me for weeding and mowing lawns at her place, but it was in cookies rather than cash; which I actually appreciated more. I seldom spent cash; my cash usually went into my bank savings account; that is until the bank failed in 1931 or possibly 1932.

This instilled a great mistrust of banks within my young beliefs. After all, that bank failure dissolved more than $100 of my savings, which consisted mostly of my Christmas and birthday gifts going back to my first Christmas and first birthday presents of silver dollars from grandparents, uncles, and aunts. It wasn’t until mid-1943 after marriage and heading out to war that I ventured into bank accounts again!

My second venture into the cash labor market was in 1932 at age 12, when I joined a group of kids in the back of a truck to head a few miles out in the country to a newly plowed field to plant tomatoes. There was a sizeable canning factory there in Lake Mills, which at that time canned sweet corn and tomatoes in July and