Dating match maker
On Saturday and Sunday evenings guests could eat at the mess hall on the missile-tracking base. I could eat any meal there, but had to pay for Billie eating at the mess hall, although the kids ate free.
Our first day on GBI was Saturday, so we walked the mile to the base for dinner that evening since our car would not arrive for about two weeks. After dinner, we went to the club and watched the outdoor movie before walking home. Each night we had a movie shown on an outdoor screen next to the club.
There were benches to sit on during the movie. If it rained lightly, we sat through the rain. If it rained a little harder, we stood under the overhangs from the roof of the club and watched the movie. We bought beer or bar drinks in the club for 25 cents.
After the movie, Billie and I walked the mile back to our house. Bill and Terry were asleep by the time we headed home and had to be carried. We went to the movie almost every night during our stay on GBI. It was hard to keep an old car running, so we walked much of the time. Later, when Billie was pregnant with our third child, I carried both Bill and Terry asleep on my shoulder as we walked back home after a movie.
The house was overrun with mice and palmetto bugs (big roaches or water bugs). We set two mouse traps that first night. Within minutes, both had snapped. I waited a few minutes and took them outside. I then reset the traps. For the next hour, I emptied the traps every few minutes. I finally gave up and went to sleep after emptying the traps about ten times. It took us a week to get the mice all caught and make the place livable.
We landed on Saturday and I went to work before daylight on Monday. Our car had not arrived, so I walked the mile to the base. We had so many missile launches and delays that I didn’t get back home until Wednesday afternoon. What a way to break Billie into downrange life. Sometimes we went to work and would go around the clock for many hours.
The longest stretch I remember working was 60 straight hours. I did catnap in my chair at times and we either had box lunches or took turns going to the mess hall to eat. During my two years on GBI, we averaged about 60 hours a week on the job, but did not receive overtime pay. We were paid a 30-percent bonus for being out of the country and the bonus was supposed to cover everything, including overtime.
We had lizards all around, outside the house. One had a cut off tail, so was recognizable. He lived under a flat stone on the entryway walk. We killed palmetto bugs all the time. Each morning Billie would sweep the dead bugs out of our place. When she would begin sweeping, the lizard with the cut off tail would come out from under the stone and wait for her to sweep them out to him. He had a feast each day from what she swept out.
We also had sand fleas. At least most people called them sand fleas, but they could fly. They were so small that they could come through the screen wire. Their bite was more like a flea. Most of the time they stayed on the sandy beach near the ocean, but now and then they would come to the house, which was only 100 yards from high tide mark.
We never saw any snakes, so the big sand pile, our yard, was a great playground for the two children. At low tide, my wife could take them into the ocean and let them play in shallow pools of water. The sandy yard was a great place for them to play.
We learned quickly that living with a kerosene lamp didn’t provide much light for reading at night. I ordered two Aladdin kerosene lamps. These lamps had a mantle and provided the equivalent light of a 60-watt bulb. They also put out quite a bit of heat, so were handy during the winter for keeping the house warm.
Billie was the eighth wife at the base of about 300 men and eight women. Amazingly, most of the men were very nice and courteous around the women. They enjoyed having the few women and children there because they missed their families. Most wives would not live under the conditions that Billie accepted.
One family lived just outside the gate in a trailer put there sometime in the past by a contractor. It had electricity and water connected from the base. The rest of us had wells and had to use either kerosene lamps or a generator for electricity.
Some of the people with generators, had an electric pump on their well. They had a black barrel and a silver barrel mounted on the roof that they would pump full of water. The black barrel was plumbed into a hot water faucet and the silver barrel connected to the cold water line. Water from the black barrel would get quite hot and the water from the silver barrel was somewhat cooler.
Our telephone wiremen strung a twisted pair of wire to my place for a base telephone, but I had to provide my own instrument, which I ordered by mail order from a surplus outfit. With the telephone, if I was home and needed, someone could call me.
Ed “Tiger” Jones came on board as base manager shortly after I arrived at GBI. The first time I met him was a weird experience. During a launch, Tiger would come into Central Control and sometimes when there was a problem, would crowd close looking over people’s shoulders.
We had a problem with a piece of equipment during a countdown. I was hectically working on the problem. I was bent over the problem equipment and as I stepped back, I stepped on someone’s foot and bumped into them. I cut loose with a string of cuss words and told them to get out of my way. I looked around and it was a stranger to me. The person walked away without saying a word. Someone else told me that it was Tiger Jones.
I thought I might be in trouble, but after the launch, Tiger Jones came to see me, introduced himself and apologized for getting in my way. He and I clashed a few times during my stay at GBI, but we remained on friendly terms anyway. He found out I was a little outspoken, but he accepted that, most of the time.
Shortly after Tiger Jones took over as base manager, one of the people living off base got drunk one evening and questioned Tiger about the one trailer having electricity and the rest of us not. Tiger cut off the power and water to the trailer just outside the gate and said that the base did not support having families downrange. He also ordered that the telephones be cut off.
A few days later, I received a call at work from his staff clerk that Tiger was writing a directive that men with families off base could spend weekends and evenings with their families, but would have to sleep on base during the week because everyone was on call at all times and without telephones, they had to be on base to be reachable. I went to Dave Donaldson, our RCA Instrumentation Manager, and told him what I had been told.
Dave then told me that Tiger had the authority to make everyone sleep on base. I suggested to Dave that if Tiger put that order into effect, he would have to “bunk check” me to see if I was on base at bedtime. If he intended to bunk check married people, he should also bunk check every man on base, otherwise it would be discrimination. Dave laughed and left the office to go see Tiger. When he came back, the order had been torn up. If we were at home and needed, they would send someone out to tell us.
My oldest son was about 3 years old when I took him in with me one Sunday when I needed to troubleshoot a problem with a plotting board. I had to have the problem fixed for a launch early Monday morning.
I turned on the board and the problem was still showing. I pulled out the suspect octal-base, large electron tube. It was pretty warm, but not extremely hot. I plugged in a new tube and heard my son, behind me, gasp.
I looked around and he was just laying down the hot tube. He had seen me handle it, picked it up in his little hands and discovered it was hot. He did not drop it but laid it down carefully. It was not quite hot enough to actually burn him, thank goodness.
The nearest grocery store and gas station were 30 miles away at Freeport. This was before the gambling casino was built. There wasn't much at Freeport at that time. Westend was 50 or 60 miles away, but there was a hotel at Westend (later bought by Jack Tar) where we went for an evening out sometimes.
We had a native woman, nicknamed CC, that baby sat with our kids a lot of evenings. We paid her 35 cents an hour for babysitting. If we went to Westend for an evening out, CC would get the kids to bed and go to bed in our bed. When we came home, I would wake her up and take her home.
CC was prone to drink. One night we came home and found her passed out drunk. The kids were in bed asleep but the two Aladdin lamps had needed adjusting, which they did occasionally, and were totally smoked up. I stormed at CC as I took her home and told her she could not babysit for us again.
CC loved our kids and considered them her own grandkids. A couple of days after taking her home, her boss at the base came to me and said CC would not come to work. He had been to her place and she said that I had kicked her out and would not let her come back, therefore, was sitting home staying drunk. She was normally a great worker and the base wanted her back. I visited her and told her she could continue babysitting for us, but if I ever caught her drinking at our place again, she would never see the kids again. That resolved the issue.
Sometimes when I would be working late, CC would come by the house and tell Billie to go to the movie. She would stay with the kids for no charge, which I normally ignored and paid her anyway. CC was just like family to us.
CC later wanted to come back to the states with us, since she considered the kids her grandkids. She said all we had to do was to provide a place to sleep, food to eat, clothes, and a little whiskey. She said she would live with us and wouldn't use any money. I did not feel that we could bring a person that was not a relative to live with us, work for us and not pay her. I sure could not afford to pay a full time servant.
Again, CC went home and began drinking. She would not go to work. Her boss came to me again and I again visited with her and finally convinced her to go back to work. We thought the world of CC. I saw her and visited with her a few times as I traveled to GBI during subsequent years. CC had been doing maid duty in the first barracks I was in when I went to GBI. She probably worked in every barracks or other buildings at some time during her career at GBI.
Copyright © Jerry Blackerby 2009