Wednesday, July 26, 2006
The Pole in the Hole
(3)
Somebody in the USAF took the 'recommended assignment' seriously and we were ordered to SAC Headquarters at Offutt AFB, Nebraska. We rented a small house in Plattsmouth and I strung up an antenna for my radio. My job at Offutt was to help maintain the ATC radar equipment (ATC = Air Traffic Control) consisting of a search radar and a precision approach radar. The job was much more interesting than the one in Salina and consisted mostly of preventive maintenance (mister tap-tap is alternating between tapping (boom) on the floor or wall to my upper left and to my upper right) and performance checks and alignments, and included a rotating shift.
One of my co-workers, an airman named Bachman, obviously disliked me right from the beginning, and may have been a Jew suffering from serious penis envy. Bachman was the only name I remember from that otherwise unremarkable group: 'Friends you remember; enemies you remember more.' Of course I would not associate 'Bachman' and 'Jew' until many years later in Denver. I had always wondered why (among others) Bachman disliked me, and even today 'Jewish penis envy' (or 'tribal penis envy') seems the most likely reason.
Six months or so after moving into the house in Plattsmouth the Air Force ordered me to move again, this time 'to on-base housing'. I resisted the idea but they insisted. After we moved in, I again strung up my short wave antenna, this time to a pole planted in a hole I had dug. This infuriated some dumbass colonel who called me into his office, chewed me out, then ordered me to remove the pole and fill in the hole. I complied, of course, but my popularity (boom) had obviously taken a downturn.
Somebody in the USAF took the 'recommended assignment' seriously and we were ordered to SAC Headquarters at Offutt AFB, Nebraska. We rented a small house in Plattsmouth and I strung up an antenna for my radio. My job at Offutt was to help maintain the ATC radar equipment (ATC = Air Traffic Control) consisting of a search radar and a precision approach radar. The job was much more interesting than the one in Salina and consisted mostly of preventive maintenance (mister tap-tap is alternating between tapping (boom) on the floor or wall to my upper left and to my upper right) and performance checks and alignments, and included a rotating shift.
One of my co-workers, an airman named Bachman, obviously disliked me right from the beginning, and may have been a Jew suffering from serious penis envy. Bachman was the only name I remember from that otherwise unremarkable group: 'Friends you remember; enemies you remember more.' Of course I would not associate 'Bachman' and 'Jew' until many years later in Denver. I had always wondered why (among others) Bachman disliked me, and even today 'Jewish penis envy' (or 'tribal penis envy') seems the most likely reason.
Six months or so after moving into the house in Plattsmouth the Air Force ordered me to move again, this time 'to on-base housing'. I resisted the idea but they insisted. After we moved in, I again strung up my short wave antenna, this time to a pole planted in a hole I had dug. This infuriated some dumbass colonel who called me into his office, chewed me out, then ordered me to remove the pole and fill in the hole. I complied, of course, but my popularity (boom) had obviously taken a downturn.
