My stint as a clerk-typist and combat duty in the New Mexican War. Continue reading →
Life was quite different when I started working in the Law Enforcement Office on SBNM. I cannot remember the date, probably in April or early May. It was a standard 9-5 job with weekends off. We all wore the summer dress uniform of a khaki-colored shirt and trousers. I wore black dress shoes instead of boots. I left the nightstick, holster, white hat, and MP armband in my room. Essentially I was now a clerk-typist. I filled out forms and reports for the higher-ups, I occasionally typed a letter for one of my bosses, and I sometimes cleaned up reports submitted by the desk clerks.
In some ways my new assignment was a demotion. On the police desk Sgt. Bailey left some decisions up to me. Policemen on television are often depicted as disgruntled during such “restricted duty”. I, on the other hand, was happy to erect some pretty clear boundaries on my remaining active-duty time in the military. Besides, I never wanted to be a cop. I was still in law enforcement, but only on the back end.
For me the biggest adjustment was in my golfing schedule. In my new job I could play on weekends if I could find someone with transportation to play with. I could also play at least nine holes in the evening with someone working days or mids, but they might want to start earlier in order to play eighteen. In short, I played a lot less.
Furthermore, when my platoon was working swings, there were three-day periods when I could not hang out with and dine with my friends in the evenings. By this time, however, I knew quite a few people in other platoons. Several of the guys on the second floor of the west wing, which I think housed the fourth platoon, spent as much of their free time with us as they did with the guys with whom they worked.
Another disadvantage was the elimination of hours of free time on the midnight shift. I always brought a book with me, and I usually could get in several hours of reading. I had become one of the base library’s biggest customers.
The disadvantages were more than counterbalanced by the fact that I was able to adopt a regular sleeping schedule. This alone improved my mood immensely. Furthermore, I have never had difficulty keeping myself entertained.
One other huge advantage only became evident after the Air Force took over in July.
Three people were working in the Law Enforcement Office when I arrived. The boss was Captain Huppmann. He was fairly young, perhaps 30, and very enthusiastic. I think that he made all the decisions concerning law enforcement on the base. The base commander, Major General Nye1 (Air Force), did not seem to involve himself in the day-to-day police operations. Perhaps he was busy making plans for the merger that was already in the works.
Although Capt. Huppmann was not a bit shy about bringing questions and work directly to the clerks, Sgt. Edison, whose rank was Sergeant First Class (E7), was usually our direct contact. I am not sure to what extent he influenced policy. My impression was that it was very little.
The other clerk was named Duffy. I don’t remember his first name. Rank for us was irrelevant, but I think that he was an SP4 when I arrived. He had enlisted, which meant that he faced three years of active duty. He entered the Army before I did, but I would get out a lot sooner. He was not an MP; his MOS was clerk-typist. He was a bachelor who lived in the headquarters platoon area. He was from Quincy, MA. I liked him a lot. He was competent and easy to work with.
Duffy and I seldom had social conversations with either Capt. Huppmann or Sgt. Edison. For us it was strictly “Yes, sir’ and “No, sir” (or sergeant) when they were around. They both had separate offices and lived off-base. I never wondered whether they were single or married.
Capt. Huppmann was too enthusiastic about his job to be popular with the guys in the patrolling platoons. Most of them considered him a lifer and, therefore, inimical. I don’t remember him doing anything malicious or stupid.
One time the captain came to the clerks’ area to complain about a call with which he had to deal. It was from a wife of an NCO who lived in the suburban-style housing on the base. She claimed that MP patrols circled around her neighborhood checking out the women who were sunbathing in their yards. Capt. Huppmann thought that the woman’s position was ridiculous and refused to reprimand the MPs. I must admit (here, not to Capt. Huppmann) that I had engaged in this practice before I was transferred to the Law Enforcement Office.
My only clear memory of Sgt. Edison was the time that he came into our area to talk with Duffy and me about something that was bothering him. He ventured the opinion that at least two MPs were using drugs. Duffy and I made neutral responses that neither confirmed nor denied what he said.
After Sarge left our work area, Duffy and I looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and smirked. Everyone who lived in the MP barracks knew that at least half of the guys smoked marijuana regularly. You could smell it in any hallway. I don’t know about other drugs, but a guy whose name escapes me once got so stoned that he shaved his head. This was before Michael Jordan made it cool; the Army actually prohibited the practice.
The University of New Mexico campus was a short drive from the base, and all kinds of drugs were prevalent there. I don’t know much about the guys who lived off-base, but one of them, Randy Hjelm, was in the second platoon with me. He had obviously been stoned every time he reported for duty. Sgt. Bailey could not send him to deal with of anything important.
$.90 at the BX at SBNM in 1971.
I don’t remember much about Duffy. He was younger than I was; he probably enlisted shortly after finishing high schools. I liked working with him, but we did not hang out together. He told me once that he purchased a six-pack of Lone Star after work every Friday. I don’t know how he spent Saturdays and Sundays.
The New Mexican War
For some reason most history textbooks have neglected the New Mexican War. Yes, there was another war going on at the same time. Most of our troops and all of our modern weapons were employed in Vietnam. Yes, the soldiers there were forced to wade through disgusting rice paddies to confront an almost invisible enemy.
Nevertheless, the two pitched battles of the New Mexican War of 1971 deserve more attention, if only for the way that they shaped the values of the valiant men of MPCO SBNM. Furthermore the enemy had dared to trespass on property of Sandia Laboratories the United States government.
The Siege of Sandia Base: Wednesday May 4, 1971, was a typical Albuquerque day—warm, cloudless, and dry with a noticeable wind. I was typing something when someone—I don’t remember who—came breathlessly to the Law Enforcement Office and ordered me to draw a weapon and report to the Day Room. Since the person had a clipboard and had checked my name, I had no choice. I stopped by my room to get my holster, my white hat, and my MP armband. I found a few pieces of notebook paper to attach to my own clipboard. I then joined the rest of my platoon and a bunch of other MPs in the Day Room.
A couple of truckloads of MPs were soon transported to the battlefield. When the trucks stopped, we could see that almost two dozen peace-crazed Ghandiists had taken a stand (actually a sit) across a busy street near Sandia Laboratories. Traffic was at a standstill in both directions. The effect was the same as if a huge bomb had exploded in the middle of the street, except that there was no damage at all, and chanting replaced the deafening boom.
The lifers had somehow determined which of them was in charge. That person ordered us to pick up the protesters and to put them in trucks. I don’t remember who gave the order; a soldier in the heat of battle does not concentrate on who gave orders, only on how best to implement them.
As others rushed to pick up and carry away the limp protestors, I, one of the few MPs not wearing fatigues, walked around and checked imaginary notes on my clipboard. I never touched any of the protestors, but I had the same thought as most of the rest of the MPs: “Those guys look a lot like me twelve months ago, and some of them smell like the MP barracks.” Within a few minutes the protestors were loaded in the truck, and the motorists, most of whom were employees of Sandia Labs, continued about their business.
The demonstration was covered on the front page of both the Albuquerque Journal and the Lobo, the University of New Mexico’s newspaper. The latter is available online here. The article in the Journal was very favorable. It cited a few protestors who affimed that they had been treated with dignity and respect by the MPs. They also said that the guys from the Albuquerque Police Department had been a lot rougher with them.
The brass was very pleased with this outcome. A letter of commendation was written for everyone involved, including me and my clipboard. I got to read the letter when the Army let me carry my own personnel folder to my next duty assignment.
It may seem strange that the MPs turned over the protestors to the APD. SBNM had no facilities at all for detaining people. Kirtland AFB had a jail, but it could not have accommodated so many prisoners. Someone must have made arrangements for the transfer. I don’t know the legalities involved. The event occurred on federally owned land, but the whole base is within the city limits.
The Second Battle of Albuquerque: The first battle of Albuquerque occurred in 1970. It is not considered part of the New Mexican War because the enemy in that skirmish was a bunch of students, and students at colleges nearly everywhere revolted in 1970. The National Guard effectively ended that rebellion by gunning down four of them and injured nine others at Kent State while taking no casualties.
The situation in 1971 was much different. It took place in the 60 percent of Albuquerque that is not SBNM. It was described by Aaron G. Fountain this way:
On June 13, 1971, rioting broke out at Roosevelt Park after police attempted to arrest a young man standing in a crowd of several hundred rowdy youth. A small scuffle escalated into a brawl leading officers to fire upon the crowd, wounding at least nine people. Outraged, nearly 500 youth moved into the downtown area where they overturned cars, shattered windows, looted and severely damaged and destroyed buildings. Police attacked rock- and bottle-throwing protesters with tear gas but were overwhelmed. The New Mexico National Guardsmen came into the city to assist officers. After two days of rioting, the city tallied over $3 million in damages. Shocked by the level of carnage, one journalist of the Albuquerque Journal wrote, “It was something you’d think couldn’t happen in Albuquerque, but it did.”2
Despite the sterling record of MPCO SBNM in breaking the siege in May, the APD did not solicit support from our battle-hardened unit. I know for a fact that our officers were closely following the situation and stood ready to aid them. My buddy Al Williams attended an Albuquerque Dodgers game that day. Lt. Hall also was there. When the two met at the refreshment stand, Lt. Hall assured A.J. that “If it gets too bad, we can probably see the smoke from here.”
Google maps shows that even in 2020 the suburbs on the base (bottom) are separated from the Albuquerque residents (top) by only a few hundred feet of scrub land.
In fact, that evening (or at least one evening in that era) a decision was made to deploy troops around the northern perimeter of the base (the Albuquerque side) to serve as a first line of defense in case the insurgents decided to bring the battle to us again. The main gate was closed, and someone went through the barracks ordering off-duty troops to report in uniform to the Day Room. These guys were then armed with rifles3 or .45 pistols and deployed around the perimeter, mostly in suburban SBNM backyards that were separated from suburban Albuquerque back yards by two or three hundred feet of undeveloped land.
An hour or two later the situation evidently calmed down. Trucks were dispatched to pick up the sentries. They missed one guy, who had to walk back to the PMO the next morning after a long cold night guarding someone’s back yard.
I did not participate in this maneuver. I was alone in my room when someone knocked loudly at the door and announced the deployment. I said nothing, turned off the overhead light, and exited through the window. I then ambled over to the base’s theater and paid $.35 to watch a movie the name and contents of which I do not remember.
1. General Nye died in 2019 at the age of 100. So, he would have been around 52 in 1971.
2. This article is from the Latino USA website. It is posted here.
3. The MP Company had no M-16’s. The only rifles in the armory were World War II-era M-1’s that were used for ceremonial purposes such as firing 21-gun salutes at military funerals. Only a few guys had ever fired one.
I don’t recall much about my first couple of weeks patrolling the base and standing guard duty alongside the other members of the second platoon. I remember that whenever I had to stand guard duty I listened to an FM station on the radio that I had purchased. The good reception was another unexpected benefit of being so close to a major city. When I was at the main gate I made up license numbers to record in the log that no one ever examined. The other two gates got much less traffic. I don’t think that we bothered with logs. The gates may have been locked at night.
The east gate is now called the Eubank Gate. The area around it still looks undeveloped.
Almost no one entered or exited through the east gate for the simple reason that there was nothing beyond the east gate except the scrub land that the natives called (mistakenly, according to Webster) “mesa”. If someone approached from the west you could see them coming when they were still several minutes away.
I have retained a couple of memories of being on patrol with more experienced guys. Once I remarked to my partner that I was disappointed that I had not seen a roadrunner. He quickly responded, “There’s one, and there’s one on the other side of the road.”
As a cartoon aficionado I naturally expected roadrunners to be about the same size as coyotes. They are actually are only about eighteen inches from tail to beak, and a very skinny tail takes up a good portion of that. Furthermore, the ones that hung around our base never had much need to demonstrate their speed.
One guy in our platoon was really short. He was a big Black guy from KC who was scheduled to ETS a few weeks after we arrived. He had already decided to reup, and he requested an assignment in Vietnam. He had already completed one tour there, and he told me that he knew how to make a lot of money there selling drugs. I would say that there was at least a 50-50 chance that he was putting me on, maybe even baiting me. I don’t know why he would have confided to a complete stranger a plan for illegal activity.
He was the only guy in the barracks who had a television in his room. I asked him where he got it. He told me the name of a discount department store near the base. He showed me a clipboard that he had. He claimed that he walked into the store, checked the packing slip on a box for a TV against a piece of paper on his clipboard, picked up the box, put it confidently on his shoulder, and walked out. Once again 50-50, but the clipboard idea could have other applications. I bought one at the BX.
The only other thing that I remember about him is that he really liked Sly and the Family Stone.
“Fix that gig line, soldier.”
The guys that guarded the gates and patrolled the base wore OD fatigues, but the trousers were starched, pressed, and bloused below the knees. The boots and belt buckle had to be polished. In Basic they had made us remove the plastic coating on the brass belt buckle. At SBNM most guys bought a new belt and left the coating on to prevent tarnishing. Some guys even bought patent-leather boots to eliminate the need for shining. They also wore their holsters, armbands, and white MP hats. Indoors the hats were ALWAYS removed. If it was cold, they wore gloves and field jackets. Hands were NEVER allowed in pockets. Of course, if no one was looking, …
I vividly recall one midnight shift that Russ Eakle and I were parked in one of his favorite hiding places near the Officers Club. He had already given a couple of citations for rolling through the stop sign at the end of the club’s driveway. The club was a good distance from any activity. There was seldom any traffic in either direction, and if there had been, the headlights would have been visible a mile away—literally.
Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!
Russ returned to the truck in a bad mood. He said that the officers whom he had ticketed had complained that it was petty for him to issue a ticket. “They should show respect for the badge,” said Russ I made some semi-commiserating noises without mentioning the fact that we did not have badges, just armbands. We then resumed our position again in anticipation of more vehicular crimes. Soon an erratically driven vehicle appeared. The driver was a naval officer with salad on his epaulets. Sitting in the passenger seat was a much younger woman. The car hardly slowed for the stop sign.
Russ turned on the siren and the cherry-top and pulled the vehicle over. He got out of the truck and did his Duke-walk toward the offending vehicle. Russ conversed with the driver for about ten minutes. When he returned to our truck I asked him what he charged the guy with. He said that he let him off with a warning because he had been very polite and respectful.
Try this: “Yes, sir. No, sir. Have you been working out, sir?”
I am quite sure that he was polite and respectful. He was probably afraid that he was going to be written up for driving under the influence, and the police report would probably include the name of the passenger. DUI is a serious offense. Even a ticket for rolling through a stop sign might cause him trouble with his superiors, and he might have a lot of explaining to do to his wife as well.
Russ never did get it. His approach punished people for trivial offenses and allowed those guilty of more serious things to grovel their way out of it. It disgusted me.
I really hated being on patrol, especially with Russ. I did not see how if I could put up with it for the 19+ months that I had left in my hitch. Fortunately I did not need to.
The slide on top is back.
Before we went on duty for the swing shift we lined up in the courtyard behind the PMO for a “guardmount”, an inspection by an officer. Part of the routine was to make sure that nobody’s .45 was already loaded before the clip was inserted. One at a time we would draw our .45 and pull back the slide on the top. The officer would then look inside from the top to make sure there was no bullet in the chamber. He then said “Clear!”, and the guy with the .45 would pull the trigger to return the slide to the forward position.
One time Lt. Hall, second-in-command of the MP Company, was inspecting our patrol. When he had finished examining Al Williams’ pistol, he shouted “Clear!” Al pulled the trigger and his .45 fired. The bullet actually shot the hat off of Lt. Hall’s head! It was mostly the lieutenant’s fault; he apparently didn’t bother to look in A.J.’s .45 very carefully. We all just pretended that nothing happened.
Manzano Base was mostly located underground beneath the mountains in the lower right. Below the mountains is a mileage indicator. The arrow in the top left indicates the main part of SBNM.
One time I was assigned to spend a midnight shift on guard duty at Manzano Base. This assignment was peculiar in two ways. 1) Several miles from anything resembling civilization, it was by far the most desolate and boring assignment. The visible part of the base was surrounded by two high fences, one of which was electrified. By the time that the midnight shift started, no one else was in the facility; at least that was the case on the night that I was there. 2) The entire base was top secret. No one seemed to know what went on there. A top secret clearance was required for the guard that MPCO SBNM supplied at night. The thing was, my clearance had not arrived yet.
The duty itself was not very memorable. In fact, nothing at all happened other than intermittent buzzing sounds from the base. To stay awake I took a few walks around the perimeter of the parking lot gazing at the starlit sky and singing cowboy songs at the top of my voice: “Some boys they go ridin’ the trails just for pleasure …”
I was disappointed that no coyotes joined me. There were lots of roadrunners around here; there must be coyotes, right?
After the shift I went to the mess hall for breakfast. I bought an Albuquerque Journal. On the front page was a story about Manzano Base. It emphasized the secretive nature of the base and the ironclad security. I considered writing a letter to the editor explaining how the reporter had missed his chance because during the night that that issue of the paper went to press Manzano had been guarded by a guy with no clearance at all. I thought better of it.
A group of us was somehow chosen to make a road trip to Santa Fe, the capital and cultural center—it has an opera company!—of New Mexico. A military funeral was being held there, and MPCO SBNM was assigned the task of providing a three-volley salute. This was a very popular duty because it offered a rare opportunity to get off the base, have a free meal at a restaurant, and see a little of Santa Fe. I don’t remember who else was in this group of eight—seven enlisted men to shoot the rifles and a sergeant to tell us when to fire. I am pretty sure that we all wore our regular fatigue uniforms with our MP armbands and white hats.
We took a van. The drive to Santa Fe was a little over sixty miles. During the first half the Sandia mountains were on the right, and the usual desert scenery was on the left. In the second half we began the climb to Santa Fe, which is 7,199 feet above sea level.
General Patton called the M1 Garand “the greatest battle implement ever devised.” Ours probably just needed cleaning.
On the way the sergeant warned us about the M1 rifles, relics from World War II. Because none of us had even seen one of them before, he had to explain how to make them work.
Evidently they were not very reliable. He said that we should not be surprised if the weapon we were holding did not fire. We should just continue with the ceremony. As long as a few of them worked, no one would know the difference.
We arrived at the cemetery only a few minutes before the start of the ceremony. We all lined up a couple of feet apart. The sergeant called the command to take aim. We pointed the rifles into the air at a 45° angle. When he yelled “Fire”, we all pulled our triggers. Four or five rifles worked, including mine. The M1 had a little more kick than an M16. On the second command, only two or three worked. Mine still functioned. The last volley consisted of only one actual shot. It was tempting for the rest of us to yell out “Bang”, but no one did.
We were all very embarrassed. We had no intention of making a mockery of the poor guy’s funeral. We hurried to our van and made a quick getaway. We did not start laughing until we were far enough away that no one could see us.
The only thing that I remember about our lunch on the road was that we all enjoyed it.
My metabolism was not designed for shift work. I had only pulled one all-nighter in four years of college, and that was when a bunch of us were working on the dorm’s homecoming float. I really need at least four or five hours of sleep per night, and it must be at night. By the second night of every midnight shift I was a zombie.
I remember an unfortunate incident at breakfast at the mess hall, which was serve cafeteria-style. They gave me the plate with my omelet, and I placed it on my tray. Then I pushed my tray down to the end and right off onto the floor. I just forgot to grab the other end with my right hand.
On the walk from my room to the PMO on another day I noticed a piece of paper on the bulletin board near the MP Company’s clerical office. It asked if there was anyone in the company who knew how to type. In those days typing was an uncommon skill among guys. Why should they learn how to type? The secretarial pool did that kind of thing. As I recounted here, however, I had taught myself to type in high school, and I was actually pretty proficient at it.
I sought out to the clerk, whose name was Orsini2, and informed him that I knew how to type. He was pleased to hear it and arranged for me to take a typing test the next day.
I was confident that I could handle a job in the military that required typing skills. However, I had never taken a typing test. I was not sure how it would be graded, and I was somewhat worried about a bad habit that I had developed. Typing books prescribe that the thumb should be used to press the space bar. I have always used my right forefinger.
Since I did not bring my typewriter to Albuquerque, I could not practice using my thumb on the space bar. Besides, you can type much faster and more accurately if you pay no attention to what your fingers are doing. A separate part of your brain knows where all the keys are. The best idea is to depend on it. So, I boldly resolved take the test using my usual deviant approach and forget about my thumb.
SP4 Orsini sat me down at a typewriter3 that had some paper already loaded in it. On my left side he placed a sheet of paper that had a few paragraphs of text on it. “Aha”, I thought, “I know this trick.” I moved the paper to my right side, glanced down to make sure that my fingers were properly placed, and typed the first couple of lines. I went at a pretty good clip, and I had not made any mistakes when …
Orsini stopped me. “Thanks” he said. “That’s enough.’ The next day I was told that instead of going on patrol or gate duty, I was to report to Lorenzo Bailey, the Desk Sergeant for the second platoon. Evidently Orsini just wanted to make sure that I did not “hunt and peck”.
My new assignment involved a slightly different uniform. I did not carry a nightstick. The holster for my .45 was attached to a webbed belt. During all of the time that I worked on the desk I never inserted the clip in the pistol. I always kept it in my pocket. No one ever noticed that the handle was empty, or, if they did, they did not care.
The desk sergeant and his assistant(s) used the police radio to dispatch patrols to whatever required attention. Since Sgt. Bailey did not type, the assistant(s) were required to type up incident reports as well as the log of all activity for the shift. Sgt. Bailey’s assistant was Randy Kennedy, who had just been promoted to sergeant himself. Bailey (no one ever called him Lorenzo) needed another assistant because Randy was scheduled to ETS (leave the military) in a short time.
For the guys on the desk the three shifts were quite different. The day shift was almost always busy. Some civilian employees assisted us on patrol, but they were not easy to work with. They were all Mexican-Americans; several were named Gallegos, apparently relatives. They always drove the black and white sedans; they never touched the trucks. They could patrol, but we could hardly use them for anything else. I don’t think that they ever relieved anyone at a gate or escorted a “run” from the commissary or BX to the bank. We never sent them on anything that might require judgment, such as a reported crime or a traffic accident.
We had to let everyone have time for lunch. The most challenging aspect was to make sure that there was sufficient coverage during that period.
The swing shift had two busy times. There was a lot of vehicle traffic when the people from Sandia Laboratories went home between 5 and 6. Later there could be incidents at the two bars, the Officers Club and the NCO Club. Domestic disputes, everyone’s least favorite, could occur near the end of the shift.
Usually we only had two people on the desk for the midnight shifts.
The most challenging was when the ‘Officer of the Day” decided to make a nuisance of himself. At night, when the Base Commander was not readily available, an Officer of the Day was in charge of the base. This assignment rotated around all of the unmarried field-grade officers on the base—Army, Navy, and Air Force.
Most officers dreaded this duty, but one guy relished it, a naval officer named, believe it or not, Lieutenant Commander Commander. Yes, Commander was both his title and his last name; I don’t know if Commander was also his first name. However, I do know that both major (in the Army, Air Force, and Marines) and lieutenant commander (in the Navy and Coast Guard) have the same pay-grade, O-4. So, our Commander Commander had the same rank as Bob Newhart’s Major Major.
Commander Commander liked to inspect the gates. He would call the PMO and ask us to send a car to pick him up. This was the last thing that we wanted. Our most responsible guys were seldom assigned to gate duty, and it was best not to think about what amusements the other guys had brought with them to help kill time.
The second time that Commander Commander did this on our shift, we were ready for him. We sent Charlie Antonelli4 to escort him. Charlie was the shakiest person I have ever met. He was nervous about everything. He always was dressed and ready for duty more than a half hour early. He would then walk up and down the hall asking people if his gig line was straight and his boots were shiny enough. He was always concerned about any of the dozens of rumors that were circulating, and he constantly sought other people’s opinions about them. Charlie was a nice guy, but it did not take long for this to become annoying.
One other important fact needs emphasis. Charlie’s shakiness contributed to his standing as—by far—the worst driver in the platoon, probably the company, and maybe the whole base. Charlie was never allowed to drive a police vehicle. We always found a partner for him, and the partner always drove.
When we got the call from Commander Commander, we sent Charlie to pick up him up. I don’t remember how we got rid of Charlie’s partner. Maybe we claimed that we had a “special project” for him.
Charlie picked up Commander Commander at the Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ), which is where he was staying. Charlie called in on the radio and said that he was en route to the main gate with Commander. About fifteen minutes later Charlie drove his vehicle to the PMO, parked, and came inside. He told us that Commander Commander had told him to pull over to the side of the road. He said that he would walk back to the BOQ. They never even made it to the main gate. We considered it a small victory.
I did not know Randy Kennedy too well. He did not live in the barracks, and he ETSed a short time after our group arrived. However, I became pretty good friends with Sergeant Bailey. He was a lifer, but he was anything but gung ho. I don’t know how long he had been in the service, but at this point it was just a job for him.
I remember that there was an incident that happened just before I started working on the desk. I don’t remember the details of it, but Bailey was worried that he would get in a lot of trouble over it. We were working mids together, and he asked me to type his statement for him. I helped him compose it in a way that emphasized the positive aspects of his involvement. He was very appreciative. He explained that in one of his previous assignments he had been guarding a prisoner and for some reason he used the nightstick on him and caused permanent damage. He had not been punished, but a letter about the incident was in his permanent record. If he had another black mark, he could face some serious discipline. As far as I know, nothing happened to him.
By the way, Bailey was Black, and Kennedy was white. There were quite a few Black guys and some Mexican Americans in the MP Company. I never heard of any racial incidents.
I can remember a few peculiar events when I was working on the desk. Once there was a traffic accident during daylight hours only about a block away from the PMO. We had no patrol vehicles available. So, I abandoned my typewriter and walked over to handle the accident. I brought the forms with me on my clipboard, but it was a very minor incident, and the two parties agreed not to report it. Since it was our policy to give a ticket whenever there was an accident. I was pleased with this resolution.
The only time that I ever gave a ticket was the day that someone way above my pay-grade decided to set up a speed trap on Wyoming St., the main drag. So many cars were caught that they directed them over to the parking lot near the PMO, and they enlisted everyone they could find to write tickets. They only did this once.
During the day the PMO received quite a few telephone calls. Bailey answered most of them, but occasionally he was busy with something. I was required to identify myself: “Provost Marshall’s Office, Private (later specialist) Wavada speaking.” In the pursuit of plausible deniability, I practiced saying this until I could say it as fast as I could say a Hail Mary. My debate training helped. No one ever asked me to repeat my name.
Once I was called upon to investigate a reported crime. A lady called the PMO to report that someone had broken into her house. Sgt. Bailey asked me to drive one of the spare vehicles to her house and fill out a report. She told me that nothing was missing, but sh wanted to show me the door through which the intruder had allegedly entered by breaking a glass panel. There was indeed a broken pane, but the glass was on the outside of the door. It seemed unlikely to me that the miscreant had caused this as he made his escape. He certainly did not enter that way.
The guys on patrol often forgot that anyone with a police-band radio could listen to their transmissions. We had cut to short many conversations that had drifted into taboo topics with “10-21”, which told them to call us on a telephone. It was frustrating when the patrol responded with “What does 10-21 mean? I left my ten series card in my room.”
I was considered very good at typing up incidents using the various forms, especially the traffic accident reports. No brag; just fact. I had two skills that got my work noticed. 1) I could write clear, grammatical declarative sentences with accurate spelling. 2) I had perfected the skill of fitting n+1 letters into n spaces. This latter skill was invaluable. The reports had to be typed, and there could be no scratch-outs. So, if you left a letter out of a word, you had to start over. It was, however, possible to Wite-Out the erroneous word. Then I was sometimes able to key in the corrected version by partially depressing the backspace key while typing each letter so that the spaces between letters were reduced, but the word was still legible.
At some point in May I was removed from my duty as a desk clerk for the second platoon, Instead I started working in the Law Enforcement Office. I still lived in the same room amidst the guys in the second platoon. I don’t remember who replaced me on the police desk, but I do remember that Sgt. Bailey was not happy with this development.
By the time that I assumed my new role I had been promoted to Private First Class. This had nothing to do with my performance. Because such a long time with no new personnel had passed before the five of us arrived, MPCO SBNM had a supply of approved promotions ready to give to the first people who had enough “time in grade”. Because Ned Wilson and I had been promoted at the end of AIT, we both got promoted to PFC before the other guys in our group.
Ned and I also got promoted to SP4 as soon as we were eligible. The number of available SP4 promotions was smaller. I don’t remember exactly when that was, but the rest of the guys had to wait some time before they achieved it. I calculated that I earned several hundred dollars extra, and I owed it all to the lie that I told my platoon sergeant before the “white glove” inspection in AIT.
I never met anyone at either of my two permanent duty assignments who had been promoted as fast as Ned and I were. I only know about the MPs at SBNM, but at Seneca Army Depot I had access to all the personnel files.
1. The Manzano facility was integrated into Kirtland AFB in 1971. Its function has changed, and it is no longer classified. An account of its history can be read here.
2. I did not know it at the time, but the Orsini family in Italy has produced three popes and at least ten cardinals.
3. All the typewriters that I encountered in the Army were manual models. The IBM Selectric had been around for a decade, but I never saw one until in my Army career.
4. I have no way to verify it, but I think that Charlie died in 2020, just as I was beginning this project. The obituary is here.
Climate: New Mexico is a very big state, and most of it is desert. Albuquerque, its largest city and by far the most developed area in the state, averages only 9.5 inches of rain per year! When I arrived in Albuquerque there had been no measurable precipitation in eight months.
On most days it was sunny and windy with very low humidity. One day the wind was blowing so hard on the golf course that balls that had come to a stop on the green were subsequently blown down to the fringe. Rain does not come to New Mexico often, but when it does, it usually arrives via a tremendous storm that deposits copious amounts of water for a short time.
Grass or almost any vegetation can grow there, but it must be watered every day. If not, the land will quickly revert to the desert scrub that people in those days called “mesa’. It was more like very rough sand than dirt. A few native plants can survive in it. Golf balls hit beyond the rough that was watered every day ended up on the mesa. Hitting the ball out of the mesa is possible, but one’s clubs get badly scratched very quickly.
During a storm it becomes evident that some parts of the sand are not packed as tightly as they appeared. Rivulets, called wadis, can suddenly appear out of nowhere. One on the southeast side of Sandia Base was several feet deep, and it appeared repeatedly during my sojourn there. During dry periods the land looked flat.
When I first arrived, I felt that I could understand why pioneers came to New Mexico, but I could not understand why they stopped there. However, by the time that I left I did not find the adjustments as burdensome as they initially seemed. Exercising outdoors required a few precautions to avoid sunburn and dehydration. Since these were necessary all year long, most people became used to them. The big plus was that outdoor events can be planned with little worry of the weather. Home games of the Albuquerque Dodgers are seldom rained out. For me the summer weather was like KC but more so. I did not really experience one, but I suspect that the winters were a good deal milder than those in KC.
Morale: The climate in the Pentagon in 1971 was stormy all year. Morale in the armed forces, especially the Army, was the lowest ever. The War in Vietnam was supposedly “winding down,” and the Army was told that in 1971 and future years fewer troops would be allowed. Early in the year the details of the “Reduction in Force” were still being worked out. Rumors abounded, but a persistent one, which turned out to be true, was that all draftees would have their active duty requirement shortened by from two years to only eighteen months. In addition a lot fewer men (and, of course, no women) were drafted in 1971 than in 1970.
The Army realized that recruitment had become very difficult, and most of the draftees were terrible soldiers. In MP units like ours, half of the enlisted men had as much education as the officers and much more than the NCOs1. Furthermore, these draftees had spent the last several years on college campuses that encouraged freedom of expression, critical thinking, and creativity. No one gave them orders in college, and they resented the Army’s insistence on mindless obedience.
The Army had tried to go a little easier on the recruits. For example, the hated inspections were much less frequent. My friends and I certainly were treated better than enlisted men were a few years earlier. I can’t say that we were very appreciative. We still felt like prisoners.
In the end the Army decided to take the drastic steps of abandoning the draft, releasing draftees from commitments, and starting over with an all-volunteer force. There were a few gung ho guys in MPCO SBNM, but no enlisted man with whom I worked, with the exception perhaps of Russ Eakle, was happy with his condition. For most of us the enemy was Nixon and the stupid federal government. Its proxies were the lifers. Furthermore, reducing the amount of senseless activities aimed at instilling discipline had the unintended effect of provoking resentment in the very guys that had played by the rules that were openly subverted by arrogant newcomers.
An Army colonel described it pretty well. “Today, the NCOs—the lifers—have been made strangers in their own home, the regular service, by the collective malevolence, recalcitrance, and cleverness of college-educated draftees who have outflanked the traditional NCO hierarchy and created a privates’ power structure with more influence on the Army of today than its sergeants major.”2
It was bad. I have always told people that the Army in which I served could not have defeated the Little Sisters of the Poor.
The Army had traditionally engendered cameraderie in its troops by instilling devotion to the unit. Guys did not fight and die for the flag or for some obscure policy goal or even to stop a heinous dictator. They fought for the other guys in their unit because they all had endured hardship together. In contrast, there was no esprit de corps at all in my unit. Nearly all of the enlisted men knew at all times exactly how many days they had left in active duty. They bragged about it to those with higher numbers.
Only a few guys were complete jerks about it. The rest of us did what was necessary to get the job done. However, if someone with a higher rank made us go through hoops for no good reason, we did what we could to make his life miserable.
The Navy, Air Force, and Marines were a little different. The active duty commitment for an enlistee was four years as opposed to the three years required for those who enlisted in the Army and two years for draftees. So, most of the enlistees in the four-year services must have had some interest in either pursuing a military career or an interest in using the service as an aid to a civilian career.
Most guys in the Army have very little contact with people in the other services. SBNM was unusual in that my friends and I dealt with people from other services on a daily basis. We considered all of them as lifers unless there was evidence to the contrary. I considered Dave Madden and Dean Ahrendt, the two Air Force sergeants3 that I worked with after the merger, as regular guys, but to me every other zoomer was a lifer.
Security: What about the hundreds of people who worked in top secret jobs at Sandia Labs? They might as well have been on the moon. We had no dealings with them whatever. We did have to work with a few civilian SBNM employees, but they were special cases with clearly defined rules. They had no authority over us, and we had very little authority over them.
All of the guys in the four police platoons at SBNM had undergone FBI top secret security checks called BIs4. I don’t know about the guys in the other platoons; nobody talked about it. I don’t think that the Security Police on Kirtland required clearances at the time of the merger. For some reason my clearance came later than the ones for the other guys with whom I trained, but I definitely had it long before the merger.
In the ten months I was at the base, we never had any contact with any material that was classified. In theory no one without a clearance was allowed on Manzano Base, but our only duty there was to sit in the guard shack on midnight shifts. If we had needed to respond to an event at Sandia Labs or the Nuclear Weapons School, we might have needed the clearances.
Socializing with the locals: Finally, the proximity of Albuquerque needs to be emphasized. The MPCO building was within easy walking distance of the gate, and on the other side of the gate was Albuquerque. Quite a few guys had cars. When we were not on duty our activities were not restricted. We were allowed to participate in just about everything available in the city that was both the largest city in New Mexico and the home of a major university. Some guys even lived near the campus.
We were NOT, however, part of the community. We all5 had military haircuts. In 1971 we were clearly marked as outsiders at any university event or anything that was aimed at people our age, such as the Jethro Tull/Mott the Hoople concert. I knew of no one who socialized with UNM students or, for that matter, teachers.
1. NCO stands for non-commissioned officer, which in the army essentially means the sergeants. Since it is somewhat unusual for someone to become a sergeant in one’s first hitch, most NCO’s have reupped (no one I knew ever said “reenlisted”) at least once and are therefore considered lifers.
3. The ranks in the Air Force are similar to those of the Army. A sergeant in the Air Force in those days wore three stripes as does a sergeant in the Army. However, the pay-grade of the AF sergeant is E-4; the Army sergeant is an E-5. This seems to have been changed. An E-4 in the Air Force is now called a senior airman. There is no rank called sergeant.
4. BI stands for Background Information. FBI agents were sent supposedly around to interview some of our contacts. No one ever told me or my parents that they talked with an FBI agent about me.
5. The unbelievable exception was Doc Malloy, but to my knowledge he did not hang around with anyone from UNM.
The army allowed us a few days before to transit from Fort Gordon to Sandia Base (SBNM) in Albuquerque. I flew from Augusta to KC and stayed at my parents’ house in Leawood, KS. At the time my sister Jamie was a freshman at Bishop Miege High School. I cannot remember anything that we did. I remember that a photo was taken of me and my dad standing on the patio in back of the house. It is probably in a bag or a box somewhere in our house in Enfield, CT, but I have not seen it in years.
Bob Willems drove his Volkswagen from his house in New Jersey to our house and stayed overnight with us. The next morning we began the 780 mile journey to Albuquerque. Riding with Bob was a big advantage for me. I could easily bring a lot more stuff than I could take on an airplane. I loaded my golf clubs, my set of posters, my stereo with the AR speakers, all of my record albums, and some books.
Bob did all the driving. Since we were required to report on the day after the morning that we left, we were in no great hurry. Nevertheless, we never considered taking the scenic route down from Colorado Springs to Albuquerque. The route we took offered no scenery to speak of. We took I-35 south to Oklahoma City and then I-40 west to Albuquerque. On the drive through Kansas we saw virtually nothing but farms on both sides of the road. Oklahoma was similar, but there were more oil “crickets”. New Mexico was mostly the parched landscape shown in cowboy movies. At least 90 percent of the drive on I-40 was uphill, not steep, but steady. At times Bob’s car seemed to be struggling.
We had a lot of time to converse in the car, but I cannot remember that we conclusively addressed any of the pressing issues of the day. We knew almost nothing about Sandia Base, and so we did not know what to expect when we got there. There was no Internet, of course, and so we had no way to get much information about it in the few days allowed for travel.
Perhaps we should have been alerted by the word “Base”. Most US Army installations are called forts or, less commonly, camps. The other clue was that our orders told us to report to “the MP Company”. Usually a military company is designated with a number as well as a number for the brigade and battalion. Neither the brigade nor the battalion was specified in the orders.
In point of fact, SBNM was not an army base. We later learned that it was run by a separate organization called the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA). It was part of a large military complex that occupied the southeast corner of Albuquerque. Situated between SBNM and the Sunport, Albuquerque’s airport, was Kirtland Air Force Base. Kirtland had everything one would expect in an Air Force base, including runways. No one talked much about the other base, Manzano. It was in the southeast corner, and very secret stuff reportedly transpired there. Policing and a few other things at SBNM were assigned to the Army. The Navy and Air Force had their own assignments.
Why would anyone stay at this horribly overpriced motel in Tucumcari?
We decided to stop for the night at a ma-and-pa motel on Route 66 in Tucumcari, NM, 234 miles east of the base. At one time Tucumcari was rather famous for its motels. When I googled the town in 2020, it still showed a motel sign as the image for the town. We found one that neither of us could believe. We were smart or lucky enough to make our way from the interstate to Route 66. It was lined on both sides with motels with “Vacancy” signs. We picked one of them more or less at random. My recollection is that we only paid $6 to stay the night. They gave us a suite of two rooms with a bathroom that was accessible from both rooms. In the morning they brought a newspaper, coffee, and donuts. What an enchanting welcome to the Land of Enchantment!
The drive to Albuquerque was a little tense. We did not know what to expect. The city lies at the foot of the Sandia Mountains. Its elevation is 5,312 feet, a little higher than Denver. Sandia Peak, 10,679 feet, is just off to the northeast. You never lose your bearings in Albuquerque. If you feel disoriented, just look for Sandia Peak. It is almost always visible. Clouds are rare in New Mexico.
We found our way to the base’s main gate on Wyoming St., which is one of Albuquerque’s principal north-south arteries. I had assumed that SBNM would be a little way out of town. It was not. Residential Albuquerque was right outside the gate. Furthermore the soldier standing guard on the gate, who was wearing an MP arm band, just waved us—and everyone else—through.
Bob parked his car somewhere, and we made our way to the MP Company, where we were warmly welcomed. We learned that the company was horribly understaffed. We were the first group of new people that had arrived there in many months. The guys in some platoons were not allowed to take days off. If anyone got sick or injured, they had big problems. Fortunately a fairly large number of new people arrived within the next few weeks.
Four platoons did all the police work in shifts. A platoon worked the day shift (6:00AM-2:00PM) for three days, then the swing shift (2:00-10:00PM) for three days, then the midnight shift (“mids”: 10:00PM-6:00AM for three days), then three days off. There was also a traffic platoon, a headquarters platoon, and a platoon for guys with special assignments such as security escorts.
Al Williams, who had driven down from Boston in his Toyota, and I were assigned to the second platoon under Sgt. Glenn. Bob and Dave Zimmerman went to other platoons; I don’t remember which ones. In some ways Ned Wilson got the best deal of all. He was assigned to traffic duty, which meant that he worked only in the daytime and had weekends off. He lived with his wife in an apartment that was near the base.
The above image is the part of the former Sandia Base that functioned as a town center. I labeled the old MP building in area #21 with “PMO”. I lived in the west wing of that building and worked in the Provost Marshall’s Office in the center. The similarly shaped building across the courtyard and the tan building on Texas St, were not there in my day, but a much smaller library was. I think that the MP building and the similar building across the courtyard are now dormitories. The Air Force moved the police headquarters to the building labeled #11.
The library was a stone’s throw away. Within a few blocks were the mess hall, the commissary (grocery store), BX (department store), a small gym with all kinds of sporting equipment, the ANAF club for enlisted men and women (weekly bridge games), and a bowling alley. When we arrived a nine-hole golf course far to the south had just been completed well to the south.
This is a military base?
I was astounded to learn that the largest buildings on the base belonged to a private company, Sandia Laboratories. They still do. Its facilities are a few blocks southeast of the above map. Everything done on the base was top secret, and so I may still be prohibited from revealing what they did there. I am allowed to tell you that the building in front of the Sandia Labs complex had a big sign on it that said, “Nuclear Weapons School”. Also, of course, all of the military personnel wore a Defense Nuclear Agency patch on their sleeves.
I did not expect the base to have so many permanent residents. Surrounding the business area depicted above were three nice residential areas. Most of the inhabitants were families of retired military personnel. Few were senior citizens; you could retire from the military after twenty years. So, nearly all of these people were under sixty. There were a lot of children. It felt like a suburb in which Beaver Cleaver would be comfortable.
The base itself was huge. It occupied 47,000 acres, which was over 73 square miles, over 39 percent of the total land area in Albuquerque. This did not include the 3,000 acres each contained by Kirtland AFB and Manzano base. Most of SBNM was several miles south of where we entered and consisted of undeveloped desert.
At some point we were also provided with MP arm bands and patches for our uniforms with the DNA symbol on it. They also gave us a little card with the ten series used on the police radio transmissions at SBNM, a nightstick, a holster with places for both a .45 caliber pistol and the stick, and a white MP hat.
Someone escorted me to my room, which was in the middle of the south side of the first floor on the west wing of the MP Company barracks. From the outside it looked flat, but there were two or three steps to the left of my door. I could hardly believe it. I had a room to myself. The door could even be locked! There was a dresser, a closet, a couple of chairs, a desk, and a bed. It was even air conditioned. By army standards of the sixties it was luxurious.
Everyone who lived on our floor was in the second platoon. When our group moved in there were quite a few empty rooms.
The first night in my room was memorable. About 2:00 in the morning I heard a pounding on my door. I stumbled over to the door. Two guys were there. One, a guy from another platoon named Grandmaison, brought a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. They both had already obviously consumed quite a bit of it. They demanded that I take a couple of tugs on the bottle with them. I had never tasted bourbon before, but I was a little afraid to turn down their offer. They let me go back to sleep a few minutes later. I think that they stopped at Al’s room next.
Al and were I scheduled for duty on the midnight shift the next day. There was no orientation, no handbook, and no training. Before going on duty we had to report to the armorer to check out weapons. We each got one Colt .45 model 1911 and one clip with six bullets. If we faced seven or more bad guys, we would need to depend on the nightstick.
The gate shack looked pretty much liked this.
During the first night I was stationed at the main gate on Wyoming St. My instructions were to wave everyone through. That’s right; in those days Sandia Base was a top secret security base that was almost always open to the public twenty-four hours a day. My instructions had three other components: 1) If an officer in uniform was driving, I was required to turn the wave into a salute. 2) We were supposed to write down license numbers in a log. The guy who drove me out to the gate told me not to worry about it. If I missed one, I should just make up a license number. 3) For other issues I could call the police desk from a phone in the booth.
I guess that I should mention that the gate could be closed and locked. Someone would call to tell the guard to begin that process, which required about ten minutes. Such a call only occurred a couple of times in the ten months that I was at SBNM.
Gate duty on the midnight shift was extremely boring. Cars were few and far between. The only diversion was the police radio. I had only been there for a few minutes when the man at the police desk, Sgt. Lorenzo Bailey, ordered Al and his partner to deal with a domestic dispute. This had a big impact on me. I did not want to deal with things like domestic disputes. This was a military installation. The people who lived here were mostly lifers. Lifers love weapons. I was strongly motivated to do whatever I could to avoid going on patrol. I did not want to get shot, and I definitely was not going to shoot anyone.
Mine was three eggs with ham and Swiss.
At the end of the shift Al, who had stayed on patrol all night, and I walked over to the mess hall for breakfast. Because it was so early, most of the diners were from our platoon. They made omelets to order at breakfast. It was the best meal of the day. To tell the truth, the food at the mess hall was pretty good. Most guys only went out to eat when someone had a craving for Mexican food.
My first time on patrol was, I think, on a day shift with Russ Eakle. Most of the time there was not much to do on patrol. We occasionally had to escort a manager of the BX or commissary to the bank. If someone posted at a gate needed a break, one of the guys on patrol would relieve them. The challenge was to think of something to do for the rest of the time.
I doubt that the real Duke would have specialized in ticketing for such Mickey Mouse offenses.
Russ liked to drive south into the open spaces that were still part of the base. Some horses were fenced in out there. Maybe there was a riding stable. Russ had swiped an apple or two from the mess hall to feed the horses. I just watched.
Russ fancied himself as the John Wayne type. He asked people to call him Duke. He showed me how he liked to give tickets. His specialty was citing drivers for rolling through stop signs. He showed me where he hid the truck so that he could surreptitiously catch the desperados performing these heinous acts. That first day he issued a few tickets using this technique. Then he told me that I should do the next one. I refused; he was not in my chain of command.
I asked someone, maybe Russ, about room inspections. I was told that they never inspected the bedrooms. This was music to a slob’s ears.
After a day or two I began to think about what I would buy with my first E2 paycheck: a rug for the room and a radio for when I had gate duty. The latter was not technically legal, but as long as they were not visible or audible to those driving through, no one objected.
I purchased both of these items. I think that I got the radio at the BX and the rug at a discount department store that AJ or Bob drove me to. When we were not on duty, we were on our own. We could wear civilian clothes and leave the base whenever we wanted.
I had at least a dozen like this one.
Our platoon had two sergeants. The platoon sergeant’s name was Glenn, who was an E6 (staff sergeant). He basically just went through the motions, which was fine with us. The other sergeant was an E5 (plain old sergeant) whose name was Chambers or something like that. He actually supervised the units on patrol. He was both a nice guy and quite competent. He had been stationed for a while in Vietnam, but he was reluctant to talk about it. The only thing that he told us was that MPs were often used as guards for convoys. He was “short”, which meant that he would be getting out of the army1 in a few months.
At the BX I obtained everything that I needed to decorate my room. Within the first week I put up my Russian posters on the walls of my room. The copy of Michelangelo’s centerpiece of the Sistine chapel was on the ceiling over my bed. It was the first thing that I saw when I woke up in the morning (or afternoon if we were working mids).
I bought some green shelving paper and cut out twenty-one letters to put on the wall. I got the idea from Chapter 5 of the book of Daniel, the proverbial writing on the wall. MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN: The days of your kingdom are numbered; your leaders have been weighed and found wanting; your kingdom will be destroyed by the Medes and the Persians.
It was beginning to feel a little like home. One thing was still missing: a table for my stereo and speakers.
At some point in those first few days we met Captain Dean, the Company Commander of MPCO SBNM, and Lt. Hall, who was second in command. There must have also been a First Sergeant, but I don’t remember him. Captain Dean liked to run. He held the company record for the mile, and he was proud of it. His best time was a little over five minutes.
The captain wanted all of us to run a timed mile, and he made sure that we could all attend. We were allowed to wear sneakers and athletic gear. This was a new thing for us; in Basic and AIT we always ran in fatigues and combat boots.
Ned Wilson, Bob Willems, Dave Zimmerman, and I speculated about how much Al Williams would beat the captain’s record by. He was the state of Maine mile champion in college, and his best time was around 4:20. Captain Dean himself held the stopwatch. When he learned of Al’s prowess he was giddy with excitement.
Al ran at a pretty good clip for the first three quarters. He was on pace for a 4:40 mile, which would have been a fair result for someone who had not been able to train rigorously for four months. By then he had lapped the rest of us.
The big question was whether Al would have enough left in the tank for that last quarter-mile. Captain Dean shouted out Al’s time as he finished the third lap. Al waved to him, and then he turned around and ran the last lap backwards, which slowed him down to something close to the speed of the rest of us. As he passed them, he waved cheerfully to the lifers in attendance. Al wasn’t going to give any of them the satisfaction of thinking that he cared about this activity. It was a classy move.
1. This process is called ETS, which stands for Expiration of Term of Service. It can also be used as a verb: “He is ETSing next Thursday.”
From my sophomore year through my senior year I knew the name of every resident of Allen Rumsey House. In the lounge was a large glass-encased photo board with names and room numbers. I studied it often, and in those days I had a quick memory.
AR had about one hundred residents each year, and the annual turnover was at least 30 percent. So, more than three hundred guys lived there while I did. Fifty years later I have forgotten the names of a substantial portion of them. I blame the guys. If they had all become major league ballplayers, or if they had just done more outrageous things, I would probably remember more of them.
I have done fairly thorough Internet searches on all of the following guys, but I did not find anything substantive about many of them.
Staff: The Resident Director (RD) lived in a two-room suite on the first floor near the western door. There was a Resident Advisor (RA) on every floor. The other staff member lived in a two-room suite on the first floor near the eastern door. I am not sure whether this person was considered the Assistant Resident Director or the RA for the first floor.
Andy Something was the RD for my freshman year and, I think, for my sophomore year. My only interaction with him was at the bridge table in his suite. He was a graduate student in “Communication Science”, which was the name of U-M’s academic department that taught about computers.
Jim Krogsrud, better known as “Gritty”, was the RA of the third floor during my freshman year. He also had a staff position during my sophomore year, but I am not sure which one. I think that he was RD for my last two years. He studied some kind of engineering. He was a very good athlete, and he competed for AR in a few sports. I don’t know where he got the nickname. He had it before I arrived.
In 2020 Tom Caughey wrote me that Gritty was a lawyer. In fact I learned that he was now retired from a long career as a public defender. He now lives in Freeland, MI, and works for the Saginaw-Tittabawassee Rivers Contamination Community Advisory Group.
John Dalby was the RA for the fourth floor for two or three years. During my senior year he lived in the first-floor suite on the east side. I think that he was also an engineer. He was the captain of the undefeated A volleyball team. He scouted for new team members from all the new arrivals every year and initiated practices as soon as he had recruited enough guys.
For at least two years Ken Nelson was probably my best friend at AR. He was one year older ahead of me. I think that he was president of the House Council either my freshman or sophomore year. During the summer before my junior year I was very surprised to receive an invitation to his wedding in Niles, MI. He had never mentioned an HTH (hometown honey). I did not attend the nuptials, but I sent a gift.
In my junior year Ken lived in the eastern first-floor staff suite with his obviously pregnant wife. It was a deplorable situation. She was the only female in the dorm (maybe in all of West Quad!). She wasn’t a student. Ken still hung around with the rest of us pretty regularly, but she almost never came out of their suite. I don’t remember what they did for food. Maybe the suite had a kitchen.
After I saw the movie Blow-Up, I casually remarked in the lounge that, in my opinion, it was one of the best movies ever. Ken evidently respected my judgment and took his wife to see it. They both hated it.
I guess that it was not a good date flick.
Eventually Ken’s wife had a miscarriage. Ken graduated at the end of my junior year. I don’t remember seeing him at all when I was a senior. I was not the kind of friend who would have reached out to him.
Roommates: Charlie Delos was my roommate for the second half of freshman year and the entire sophomore year. In freshman year we were in room 315. The next year we moved to the center and across the hall. I think that our room number was 308.
We got along quite well until the day that I accidentally locked him out of the room when he was taking a shower. Charlie was quite angry, but he eventually got over it. I think that he had pretty much forgiven my thoughtlessness when I did it again, this time on purpose.
“Lucy, let me ‘splain.”
The two guys who lived across the hall from us were named Ryland Truax and Tom Cobb. They seemed to study all day and all night. When I left they were both sitting at their desks, and their door was open. As I departed I gave my key to Ryland. I told them to let Charlie get upset for a minute or two and then let him in. They agreed. They dutifully followed the first half of my instruction, but they ignored the part about opening the door for him.
The final straw for Charlie was when I scratched his Country Joe and the Fish album while he was home for a weekend. I apologized and bought him a new one, but he had had enough of me. He moved into an apartment for junior year. I could certainly understand why.
A biographical web page devoted to Charlie is available here.
My roommate for the last two years was a very good-natured guy from Pittsburgh named John Cruickshank. He was small enough to serve as coxswain (the guy who yells the stroke to the other guys but doesn’t actually row) on the crew team (or club or something).
He was a year younger than I was. In his freshman year he roomed with Ken Nelson, during which time he was awarded the name of Cramdrink or Crammy for short. This appellation was bestowed upon him because he was the recipient of far more shower parties (details below) than anyone else in the house. Crammy was addicted to puns, not clever or witty puns, just anything that sounded like what someone else said. He was always warned, but he just could not help himself from committing these execrable offenses. He never complained about the punishment. How could he? This was justice.
For some reason Crammy put up with me. I can’t remember any arguments or frustrating moments at all. We lived in the best non-staff room in AR, 109. It was a suite on the first floor in the corner bordering the passage into the courtyard on the south side. The beds and desks were in separate rooms.
I lost touch with Crammy when I went into the army. At some point in the eighties or nineties I received a phone call out of the blue from a Rumsey resident named, I think, Bob Ortman. He told me that Crammy had been shot and killed in a taxi in Pittsburgh. That is all that I know. I certainly hope that that information was wrong.
Officers: I am embarrassed to report that I remember few of the people with whom I worked. Part of this is due to the fact that the vice-president of the House Council had only one responsibility, to attend the meetings of the Interhouse Council (IHC), an organization hardly ever did anything noteworthy. The secretary took the minutes of the AR councils meetings. I did not need to work much with any of them. I interacted a lot with three guys.
Keith Hartwell, who was one year younger than I was, served as treasurer during my junior year. He lived on the second floor with Ernie Brown. He always had a good handle on how much money we had and how much we still needed to spend. As a result we were able to give a refund to all of the residents at the end of the spring 1969 semester.
I remember the first sentence of my “interview” of Keith Hartwell in the Rumsey Roomers: “Svelte is the word for Keith Hartwell.” I also remember that Keith was a very smooth dancer. I found his Facebook page on the web.
Roger Warren was probably the best social chairman that AR ever had. How he managed to get Stockwell House to serve as sister house for the smallest male dorm on campus I will never understand. Roger was enthusiastic about everything the house did. He also played on the house’s football teams.
Mike Murphy was undoubtedly the best athletic chairman who ever lived in AR. I think that he was one year younger than I was, but He might have been two years younger. We could not have won the overall IM title in 1970 if he had not been our athletic chairman. Not only was he great at inspiring or, if necessary, shaming guys into participating in sports in which they did not excel. He also was such a good athlete that his direct role was important in many events. For example, the scores that he and Bob Carr together earned in the track meets bested the totals produced by most houses.
Athletes: If any athletes resided in AR in my freshman year, I do not remember them. In my junior year two very famous football players, Thom Darden and Bill Taylor lived on the second floor. At AR they were called TD (or Thom) and BT (or Bill). I never heard anyone other that Bob Ufer call the latter Billy. Thom enjoyed an all-pro career as a defensive back with the Cleveland Browns. Bill had a lot of difficulties after he left U-M, but he evidently turned his life around.
I had one significant interaction with them. The football players were apparently given tickets for the home games. Before one of those games TD and BT asked me if anyone was looking for tickets. I happened to know someone who was. I found him and brought him to their room.
At least three other football players stayed in AR that year. Dave Zuccarelli, a high-school all-america running back from Chicago, roomed with quarterback Kevin Casey on the first floor across from the lounge. I did not know Kevin well, but Dave hung around the lounge quite a bit when football season was over, and he played cards there quite a few times.
I was shocked to discover that Dave had died in 2000 at the age of 50. You can read about his career in and out of football here.
The fifth footballer was Bruce Elliott, the son of the legendary U-M quarterback Pete Elliott and nephew of U-M’s football coach Bump Elliott.
U-M football coach Bump Elliott and his nephew Bruce.
Bruce and Thom both played intramural basketball for AR. Thom played on the A team, and he was easily the best player in all of intramurals. We had some other good players, too. I am pretty sure that we won the championship that year.
Bruce was the best player on our B basketball team. We might have won at that level, too. I am not certain.
Jim Burton, the first pitcher to throw a no-hitter for U-M’s baseball team, also resided in AR for several years. I knew him quite well. He was one year younger than I was. He played on quite a few of the house’s athletic teams. He quarterbacked one of the house’s football teams. I actually was on the receiving end of several touchdown passes from him. I remember that he took an anatomy (or some such) course in which they dealt with cadavers. He complained that the obese ones were really gross to work with.
Jim’s quite detailed biography, which includes his death in 2013, can be read here.
In my senior year some freshman swimmers lived in AR. One of them was tall and sleek. The other guy had arms that hung down nearly to his knees. I don’t remember the name of either fellow.
A couple of hockey players from Canada also lived in AR my senior year. They kept to themselves and played a lot of darts and pinochle. My freshman year a hockey player who lived in one of the other houses in WQ caused a minor sensation in the cafeteria. He was a defenseman who was really thickly built. When he ate he bent his face down towards his plate and shoveled the food into his mouth at an incredible rate.
I remember one basketball player from Milwaukee who lived in AR. I don’t remember his name, but he spent a fair amount of time in the lounge. Sometimes he brought a basketball and worked on dribbling.
Others whom I remember by name: Frank Arundel Bell of Bethesda, MD, was two years behind me. As a freshman he approached me to ask for advice on an unusual conundrum that he faced. He was in Navy ROTC. They made him keep his shoes shined. He needed a cotton rag for that purpose. He asked whether I thought it was a “good idea” to cut a piece from the middle of one of the university’s sheets before turning it in.
I paused a moment, feeling some pride that he respected my perspicacity enough to elicit my opinion on the matter, and then replied in the negative. I suggested that he buy a 100 percent cotton tee shirt instead. I am not sure whether he took my advice, but he politely thanked me.
Frank never attended the commissioning ceremony.
Frank was not a fashionista. He wore his Navy uniform when it was required. Otherwise, he always wore black trousers and a light blue or light green short-sleeve shirt. For him it was seldom cold enough for a coat.
Frank’s taste in food was equally simple. He would eat bread, peanut butter, mustard, hamburgers, and pickles. Occasionally, but not often, he would try something else, but he could easily go for a week without deviating from his five basic food groups.
Frank drank pickle juice. I often witnessed him drink a jar of pickle juice without stopping. Later he found out that he could earn money by betting strangers that he could drink the jar in five minutes. He could easily manage it.
He invented an imaginative approach to the sport of water ballooning. I documented it here.
Frank learned to play bridge in the AR lounge. He became quite a good card player. He is now a Sapphire Life Master in the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL). He currently lives in San Antonio. He contacted me when, as a bridge player in New England, he had received promotional materials about an upcoming bridge tournament that I had sent via email.
300 meld!
The Navy had paid Frank’s tuition for his freshman and sophomore years. After two years he was expected to commit to serve as an naval officer when he graduated. Frank declined. He had to sit and listen to various officers scream at him for being coward, a cheat, and a traitor to his country. Nevertheless, he persisted in his refusal. I heard a rumor that he paid a good part of his tuition in his last four semesters by playing pinochle for money with Canadian hockey players.
Ernie Brown roomed with Keith Hartwell. He told me that the best thing about life was dreaming. That is why he loved to sleep. One day long after I graduated I got a phone call in Kansas City from him. He was going to be in town for some kind of event at Unity Village. I don’t remember why, but I was unable to meet up with him, and I then lost touch.
Incidentally, Ernie Brown was the first black guy that I ever made friends with. This occurred at the same time that my debate partner was Alexa Canady just after the explosive summer of 1968.
I did not know Bob Carr too well. He did not look like a great athlete, but he was very fast, and he was the first person whom I ever saw do a back flip.
Tom Caughey was one year younger than I was. He had a 4.0 grade point average in high school. His parents were very distraught when he got a B in freshman year. He roomed with Tom Rigles for—I think—three years. He liked to wear overalls. His mother tried to buy him a pair, but the salesman at the men’s store would not sell them to her because “that was not what the kids were wearing.”
He did not look like a Tom. I had a key to the picture board with names and faces of all of the residents. I replaced his name with a better one, Fred Moron (accent on the second syllable). i don’t know why; it just seemed appropriate.
He surprised me once by telling me that he had a slight crush on Celia Phelan, the president of Stockwell House.
Dr. Caughey’s degree was in Chemistry. He got his doctorate at Wisconsin. I am not surprised; he was smart, and he studied a lot. In 2020 he is VP of Product Development at Inrad Optics in NJ.
Tom Cobb roomed with Ryland Truax right next to Caughey and Rigles. Tom was into studying and the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. The only encounter that I remember with either of them was the second time that I locked Charlie Delos out of our room. The circumstances are detailed above.
Bruce Edwards came from Long Island. He was an important player on the B volleyball team that I captained. I remember him mostly as a big fan of the Mets, whom he called the “Amazin’s”. The Mets upset the Orioles in five games in 1969.
Ken Gluski ran against me for president of the House Council in the spring of 1968. I remember what he looked like, but I cannot recall anything else worth mentioning.
Riegle in the sixties.
Thom Heinrich was a freshman from Flint when I was a senior. He loved politics, and he held strong conservative views. He had worked for Don Riegle’s congressional campaigns in 1966 and 1968, and he considered Riegle a wonderful man. He must have been crushed when Riegle switched parties a few years later.
For some reason Thom really got on my nerves. I think that he was attracted to power, and, since I was the president of AR, he always seemed to want to be around me. It got so annoying that I would occasionally climb out of my window to go to lunch rather than pass by the lounge where he was waiting for me. I called him “The Grippe”.
Larry Hull was, I think, three years younger than I am. Since most guys called him Larry Polack, I was not too surprised when, as we were walking south toward the IM Building, that his family name was not originally Hull. It was something that sounded like shuh HULL ski. The first four or five letters were consonants. I don’t remember much else except that he was a very friendly guy.
Type 3 CRS consists of levitra free sample an abrupt worsening of renal function which is caused when various chronic kidney diseases develop into the end stage. All these acquire able accoutrement on the beastly adjustment of every woman, abating the amore that may appear with menopause, adequate the all-embracing beastly action as able as artlessly acclimation the estrogen as able-bodied as the backdrop of the changeable arrangement of a lady. tadalafil tablets 20mg Vodafone has tonysplate.com cheap sildenafil claimed that Brolly would charge a battery of a smart device within underneath three hours by means of plugging into a USB port in the handle. Uncircumcised men harbor harmful bacteria over their penis foreskin which increases the risk of getting infections like HIV/AIDS. levitra priceJohn LaPrelle was called Raz by everyone. He got this moniker from his penchant for razzle-dazzle plays in our pickup football games. He came to U-M in 1966, as I did, and he lived at AR for all four years. I think that he was an English major; nobody talked about classes. He certainly was not an engineer. I knew him as well as anybody did. He was, to put it mildly, a most unusual fellow.
Raz spent a lot of time in the lounge. He was a big guy, and his fashion taste ran to grunge. He loved to philosophize, and he was equally knowledgeable on all topics. This did not bother me, but it drove many guys crazy. I am not sure whether he played bridge with us or not. He certainly was not one of the best players. When we went to Blimpies he always ordered a triple cheese on a regular (not onion) role.
He attended high school in Chapel Hill, NC, and he knew James Taylor. I should say that he knew of James Taylor before anyone else in the house had heard of him. Wikipedia says that Sweet Baby James only spent one semester at Chapel Hill High, but he was born in 1948, which would put him in the right class. Raz also knew about Jerry Jeff Walker before anyone else did.
One day Raz got out the chess set that resided in the lounge. He challenged anyone to play him. We were playing cards; there were no takers. I was less interested than anyone. I had played a lot of chess when I was in high school, and I had to quit because it gave me insomnia. I had no interest in starting again.
Day after day Raz would talk about how good he was at chess. Finally, I got sick of it. I told him to get the set. We played one game. He was awful; the game only lasted about ten or fifteen minutes. He never brought it up again.
Raz attended most of the House Council meetings, but he never sought any office. He had rather strong opinions about many topics, and, when I was president I had to tell him to shut up a few times. He usually did.
Raz got me in trouble with my parents. My dad had called me at the dorm about something. I was not around, and Charlie must have been in another room and left our door open. Maybe there was a card game somewhere. At any rate Raz answered the phone in a voice in a deliberately effeminate voice. He might have said something rude, too.
I called my dad back as soon as I found out, but he and my mom were so upset that they somehow wangled a flight on my dad’s employer’s private plane to come visit me. The visit actually turned out pretty well. Not only did I get a free dinner at Win Schuler’s, they also brought all my records with them.
One day Raz let slip that his family was somehow involved with followers of Edgar Cayce. I had heard about the “sleeping prophet” who died in 1945, but I knew very little about him. I cannot remember Raz ever bringing this up again. He certainly never evangelized. I did not press him about it. I never quizzed people about their beliefs.
A google search for “John LaPrelle Cayce” yielded a sizeable number of results. On the third item I found the picture shown at right on the website for “The Big House”. There was also a “Contact” email address. When I inquired at that address about Raz, I received an email from Sandy LaPrelle with Raz’s phone number and email address.
Raz responded to the email that I sent him about this project. He wrote that he was currently in rural Virginia. He had done a lot of things over the years including getting married, producing three brilliant children, and becoming a professor of psychology.
Dave Martinov was also in the class of 1970, and he stayed in AR all four years. He is the guy who gave me the nickname KC, which quickly got abbreviated to Case. He was a rabid fan of all of the Chicago professional teams, especially the Blackhawks. He was tall and a very good athlete. He played every year on the football, basketball, and volleyball teams for AR at the A level.
Dave’s roommate, whose name I have forgotten (Vlchek?), was also a Blackhawks fan. They both watched all the hockey games in the game room, often wearing Blackhawks jerseys.
Dave has reportedly retired in the Tampa area.
Jack Matthews lived on the fourth floor when I was a freshman. He may have stayed another year or two. The fourth floor and my third floor were mortal enemies. We did not associate much with the fourth floor guys. I remember only that he really liked Motown music.
What I remember about Dave Nemerovski was that he had a relative in the band named the Long Island Sound, which I discussed here.
Bob Ortman was a quiet guy. I do not remember a lot about him. I think that he was one year behind me. Several decades back he phoned me to tell me about John Cruickshank. I have been unable to locate Bob on the Internet.
Rolf Parta was a couple of years younger than I was. He hung out around the lounge pretty often. He might have played bridge with us. I am pretty sure that he was from Novi. When we lived in Plymouth (1974-77), we sometimes visited a pet store in Northville. The signs on the road gave the mileage to Novi, and when I saw them I would always think of Rolf.
Rolf’s LinkeIn page says that he is an “ex-manager, consultant & author/inventor” who lives in Bradenton, FL. His Facebook page is here.
Heikki Petaisto was an uper, which means that he came from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. People in Ann Arbor called him Henry rather than his real name, which is Finnish. He was always smiling.
Somebody owned this game or one very like it. They also had players for every NHL team, even the Seals.
He played in the table hockey league that someone organized. I don’t remember which team he owned, but they ran roughshod over everyone, especially the California Golden Seals, the team in which I had a 50 percent ownership. I don’t remember what my franchise cost, but it was worth it just to watch and admire Heikki’s hell-bent-for-leather approach to the game. His hands were constantly moving from one lever to another, slamming his players forward and twisting them magically. I don’t know how he did it.
Heikki Petaisto is an uncommon name. I think that he ended up graduating from Michigan Tech and lives in Chino Valley, AZ in 2020.
Peter Petty was, I am pretty sure, the largest student on the U-M campous. He certainly was by far the largest whom I had seen before I attended a WWE wrestling match that featured Andre the Giant. Peter was over 6’10” tall, and he weighed at least 350 pounds. His biggest contribution to the AR athletic championship was his participation in wrestling. I think that most of his wins were forfeits when the opponent first caught sight of him. He made it to the finals, where he was scheduled to face another AR wrestler from Coldwater, MI, whose name I definitely should remember—he was a key player on the B volleyball team that I captained—but I don’t. I don’t think that they held the match.
Peter could grasp a coke machine, which in those days dispensed twelve-ounce bottles, with one hand on either side near the top. He could then rock it back to him a foot or two and then slam it back into the wall. This maneuver would often cause a few coins to appear in the coin return or some bottles to appear in the dispensing area. Occasionally, a bottle would break inside, thereby causing the machine to appear to be bleeding.
One year Peter attempted to participate in varsity football as a walk-on. My recollection is that he quit after a few days. He did not have the demeanor of the jocks who lived in AR.
I found some evidence on the Internet that he has joined Andre in the land of departed giants, but it was not conclusive.
Phil Prygoski was a year older than I. I don’t remember him too well, but I think that he might have been president of the House Council when I was a freshman.
I remember that he said that his family name was changed to Prygoski to make it sound more American. The original version was pronounced shuh ZIT ski, and it started with “Prszcz”. Needless to say, everyone called him Phil Polack.
He became a professor of constitutional law at Western Michigan University. He died in 2019. His Wikipedia page is here.
John Reynolds was, I think, a year behind me. He lived on the other end of the first floor. All that I remember vividly about him was that he delighted in telling a story about an irate parking attendant who once told him, “Get back in dat ho dere!” He meant for John to park his car in the empty spot to which he was pointing.
Tom Rigles was from the ski town of Boyne City. A physics major, he roomed with Tom Caughey. He was a good friend. I “interviewed” him for the Rumsey Roomers. The main motivation was to provide an excuse for a cartoon of “Rigles’ ear” which was almost never visible beneath his mop of hair.
Tom was the slowest bridge player in the world. He also single-handedly ruined one poor female grad student’s study by taking forever to do relatively easy math problems. As a physics major he was expected (by her) to handle them swiftly.
Tom’s greatest contribution to the field of contemporary education was an adaptation of Mr. Spok’s Vulcan Mind Meld. Before an important test he would move his chair near the pillow side of his bed. He then placed the textbook open to the most difficult section. He took off his glasses and placed them on the chair between his pillow and the textbook. He aligned them carefully so that, while he was dreaming, he would be able to view the text through the glasses. He swore that it worked.
Tom once told me that if more people were like me, life would be a lot easier. This was one of the two or three nicest things anyone ever said about me.
I am not sure, but I think that Tom currently lives in Coeur D’Alene, ID.
Kurt Scarbro lived on the third floor. The only thing that I remember clearly is that he thought that Myrna Loy was the most beautiful woman ever. I would certainly rank her in the top 1 or 2 percent.
From references on the Internet I deduce that Kurt must currently live in Maryland. I think that his Facebook page is here.
Mark Skipper was one year behind me. He played on the AR tag football team, and he was a ferocious pass rusher. Nobody could stop him.
I remember that he was known as a real ladies’ man. I never witnessed this, but the legend was that he would spend time on State St. approaching various girls and asking them if they wanted to go out or something in more Saxon terms. Allegedly he seldom struck out and nearly always persuaded one of them to, in the words of Mick Jagger on the Ed Sullivan Show “spend some time together”.
In 2020 Mark is a lawyer in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
I used to attend mass on Sundays at St. Mary’s with Ron Verleger. I never saw anyone else in AR go to church even once.
Ron, known in AR as Ron McDon, was very devoted to his father, who was a builder. After a short time at the big U, Ron met a lot of people who thought that his father’s conservative values were outdated. Ron seemed to have a hard time with this.
He graduated with a degree in business and set up his own contracting company. It still has a website, but it has not been updated in a while. It says that he is 55, but he did not wear diapers when he lived in AR. In 2020 he lives in Lawton, outside of Kalamazoo.
Dave Zuk was my age. He lived across the hall with Paul Stoner when we were freshmen. He stayed in AR for at least a few more years. He studied some kind of engineering, and he has been the Chief Engineer at Michigan Aerospace for fifteen years.
Unless my eyes played horrible tricks on me, he had two sets of two nipples, one over the other.
Memorable Guys; Forgotten Names: The level of bridge in AR was elevated by a couple of guys from Ypsilanti. The one who lived in AR had a Polish name that began with an L. I remembered it for a decade or more, but over the years it has been confused in my mind by Lewonczyk, the name of a family of friends, and Lewandowski, the name of both the guy who worked for Trump and a world-famous soccer player.
The guy who lived in AR tried to get us to play some conventions, but nobody was really interested in taking the time to learn them. At least I wasn’t. I did buy a copy of Howard Schenken’s Big Club book. He talked a few of us into playing in the sanctioned game at the Union once or twice. He also played the piano pretty well.
The other guy from Ypsi was an equally good player. I think that he lived in South Quad, but he spent a great deal of time in our lounge.
I also remember another outsider named Mike Smith who dropped into the lounge to play cards from time to time. I am pretty sure that he belonged to a fraternity, maybe nearby Delta Upsilon. I am fairly certain that he was left-handed, but that is all that I remember.
I have drawn a complete blank on the name of a talented cartoonist who was a great help to me. I enlisted him for Rumsey Rumors. He did some wonderful illustrations that I always featured on the cover page.
We took an anthropology class together during my last semester. He went to all of the lectures, and he let me use his beautiful notes from the class to study for the final. This allowed me to pass a class that I almost never attended. I hope that I thanked him for saving my bacon.
A guy from Kentucky played basketball and other games with us. He was very accurate with a shot that he threw up with both hands from right next to his right ear.
When I was a freshman a guy from Texas, whom everyone naturally called Tex, sometimes ordered a medium-sized pizza delivered to the game room. He had no trouble finishing it by himself. I may have seen someone do something similar later, but at the time this astounded me.
I remember the guys who lived in 312 (next to Dave Zuk and Paul Stoner) during my freshman year. I already mentioned the one named Raphe (short for Raphael), who got a 4.0 in the first semester. His roommate was, if memory serves, very interested in trains, both real ones and models.
It surprises me that I have no recollection at all of the guys who lived in 313, the room next to the one that I lived in.
I remember a guy whose first name was Leonard. Everyone called him Filthy Leonard or Crazy Filth. I can picture him pretty clearly, but I have no solid memories. I have no recollection at all of how he got his nickname. These things just seemed to happen in the dorm.
My last entry requires understanding of spring break in the sixties. Almost all universities scheduled a break from the classes for the same week. Students from all over the country gathered in places like Fort Lauderdale. U-M had no such break. To compensate our classes ended earlier than almost anyone else’s.
Occasionally people from U-M would try to participate in the fun anyway. None of my many close friends had a or car even access to a car. A guy whom I did not know very well and who lived on the second floor of AR evidently did. He got together three or four of his friends (no AR residents) to undertake the trip over a long weekend. Google maps indicates that it is a 1,348 miles from Ann Arbor to Fort Lauderdale. They drove in shifts, stopped only for food and gas, and made it in less than 24 hours. They evidently had a great time and returned to Ann Arbor the following Monday evening. I don’t know any specifics.
The guy with the car enjoyed himself so much in Fort Lauderdale that he tried to assemble a group to go back with him the next weekend. There were no takers. So, he decided to make the trip by himself. He left on Thursday evening and returned to AR late on Monday.
When he reentered AR he did not immediately collapse of exhaustion, and he did not regale his fellow students with tales of fun and mischief in Florida. Instead, he stayed up all night and studied for a test scheduled for Tuesday. He kept his eyes open until just an hour or two before the test. Then he more or less passed out and slept for many hours.
Three people were working in the Law Enforcement Office when I arrived. The boss was Captain Huppmann. He was fairly young, perhaps 30, and very enthusiastic. I think that he made all the decisions concerning law enforcement on the base. The base commander, Major General Nye1 (Air Force), did not seem to involve himself in the day-to-day police operations. Perhaps he was busy making plans for the merger that was already in the works.
Although Capt. Huppmann was not a bit shy about bringing questions and work directly to the clerks, Sgt. Edison, whose rank was Sergeant First Class (E7), was usually our direct contact. I am not sure to what extent he influenced policy. My impression was that it was very little.
The lifers had somehow determined which of them was in charge. That person ordered us to pick up the protesters and to put them in trucks. I don’t remember who gave the order; a soldier in the heat of battle does not concentrate on who gave orders, only on how best to implement them.
The situation in 1971 was much different. It took place in the 60 percent of Albuquerque that is not SBNM. It was described by Aaron G. Fountain this way:
