It’s a Small World

It’s a small world. I was working at GBI in the computer/data handling section as lead technician/radar controller. I compared notes with another man working with me about our Navy service.

Both of us had attended the Aviation Electronics training school at Memphis at the same time. We did not know each other, but he was in the next barracks from me and two weeks ahead of me in the training school.

A new engineer came aboard to work with one of the radars. He was fresh out of engineering school and looked very familiar. We compared notes and he had been in the same barracks I was in at Memphis, in the next cubicle, a few weeks behind me in school.

The person who had been in the next cubicle from me and I were sent to a training school at Eleuthera Island. For over a year, I had talked to the radar controller at Eleuthera on the net. My call sign was Gray 3 and his was Gray 4.

I walked into the control center at Eleuthera and met the manager. I asked him about the radar controller. He told me to go to the computer section and visit with him. As I walked into the room, he was signing off from the net as Gray 4 with his back to me.

I said, “Gray 4, this is Gray 3.” He turned around and we both did a double-take. He was another person from the same barracks in Memphis, a few weeks ahead of me in school. Three of us were on Eleuthera Island who had been in the same barracks at Memphis at the same time.

Even more coincidental was something we found out a couple of years later. I transferred to Florida and became a technical writer. The man that was Gray 4 at Eleuthera walked into the office one day. He was going on vacation. I asked him where he was going on vacation.

“I’m going home to Texas,” he said. I asked, “Where?”

He replied, “A small town in west Texas near Abilene.”

I again asked, “What small town near Abilene.”

He said, “A little town that no one ever heard of; Haskell.”

I laughed and said, “We used to beat the socks off Haskell in football. I’m from Anson.” Anson and Haskell are two small towns about 30 miles apart north of Abilene, Texas.

Three of us who transferred from Fort Sill, Oklahoma and went to different island tracking stations ended up on GBI. I went to Grand Bahama Island, Dick went to San Salvador, and Fred went to Fernando de Noronha near Brazil.

A few weeks after I arrived at GBI, Dick was transferred from San Salvador to GBI to work with me. Several months later, Fred was transferred to the telemetry section on GBI. The three of us were together again.

After several months, Fred transferred to Florida as a technical writer. Dick transferred to Cape Canaveral to work in the computer/data handling section. Finally after two years on GBI, I transferred to Florida as a technical writer and rejoined Fred.

Shortly before Fred transferred to Florida, he took vacation in that area. I took Billie back to Oklahoma to have our third child and was going to stop at Cape Canaveral for a week. I would be staying at the Starlite Motel, which is where Fred had stayed and all of us had stayed when we originally came to Florida.

Fred asked me to meet the switchboard operator, Lynda, and tell him what I thought of her. I checked into the Starlite Motel and met Lynda. We ate together in the restaurant each evening. She spent a lot of time asking me questions about Fred. She had flipped out over him.

When I returned to GBI, Fred was the same way. He wanted to know what I thought of her. Fred and Lynda fell head over heels in love. He transferred to Florida and married Lynda.

When I transferred to Florida, we found a house a few blocks from Fred and Lynda. Billie met Lynda and all of us became close friends. A few years later, Fred transferred to North Carolina and then to Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

After another few years I transferred to Goddard, also. Our two families visited frequently while living in Maryland. I spent one year at Goddard before quitting RCA after 12 years in 1968 and returning to Texas.

I visited Fred and Lynda several times over the years when I would be in the Maryland area on a business trip, before we lost touch. I visited with Dick once or twice when on trips to the Melbourne area. I found out recently that he died a few years ago.

Recently I found Lynda in Las Cruces. Fred had quit in 1985 and moved to Las Cruces. In 1988, he died with a massive heart attack. Lynda and the girls still live in the Las Cruces area.