I am posting 4 short stories today.  1.  Making the Pain Go Away.  2.  Lip Reading and the Echo.  3.  Stephanie, The Runaway (1985).  4.  That's Why We Are Boss.  I think that you will enjoy them.

MAKING THE PAIN GO AWAY.  When my two daughters were very young, as with all children, they would fall and scrape their knees or incur some other such injury.  Well, they would always run to their mother because mothers know best in these kinds of situations.  After Sylvia had bandaged them up, they would usually still be crying, and she would tell them to go see their father.  They would come to me with tears in their eyes.  I would tell them that I would make them forget the pain and even laugh.  They would look at me in disbelief, and the crying would get worse.  I would sit them on my knees and tell them that it was very important to not laugh.  I would repeat this instruction again to be sure that they understood it.  Then, I would make a complete fool of myself by using my hands in some witch doctor motions over the wound, and I would howl like a wolf baying to the moon.  They would look at me in disbelief.  In almost every instance, they would laugh at me because I looked so stupid.  I would then tell them that they were laughing and had broken the spell, and I would have to start over.  By this time, they were begging me to stop.  But they had forgotten their hurt.  It worked every time.

LIP READING AND THE ECHO.  I have a very annoying ability.  When someone is speaking to me face-to-face, I can read their lips and repeat what they are saying a fraction of a second after they say it.  You must trust me when I say that this is annoying.  Whenever I was in a mirthful mood, I would practice this trick on my daughters.  They would get so frustrated at me and beg me to stop.  Of course, I would repeat their plea to stop as soon as it was made.  They often got so frustrated with me that they would run from the room screaming, and I would be right behind them echoing their screams.

STEPHANIE, THE RUNAWAY (1985).  When Stephanie, my youngest daughter, was in middle school, her friends started to become more important to her than her parents.  As a result, her school grades began suffering.  We were on her case for this almost constantly.  One day after work, I found a note from Stephanie in our mailbox.  Stephanie said in her note that we did not appreciate her and she had left to live with people that did.  Stephanie had run away from home.  After Sylvia and I had read the note, it took about 20 seconds for us to figure out where She had run off to.  We got into our car and drove the 5 minutes to her friend’s house where we knew she would now be living.  I went up to the front door and rang the bell.  Stephanie’s friend opened the door.  She looked very nervous as I asked for Stephanie.  When she didn’t say anything, I said in a stern voice, “Look!  Get Stephanie out here”!  Stephanie came sheepishly to the front door.  I immediately picked her up, carried her to the car, and threw her into the back seat through an open window.  We drove back home chastising her the whole way.
Stephanie maintains that she has never seen me so mad.  In truth, I never really got angry in those days, and I thought the whole incident was funny.  I had a difficult time to keep from laughing at it all.
I have a side story that I have to tell.  When I was a young boy, about 9, I told my mother that I was going to leave home.  She looked at me and said, “Oh, really?  Here, let me help you”.  My mother proceeded to get a small suitcase, pack it with my clothes, then usher me to the front door.  She pushed me, along with my suitcase, out the door onto our tenement’s third floor landing.  She said something like “Call me when you get to where you are going.  I want to know you are safe”.  She went back inside and locked the door.  I stood there for awhile assessing my situation.  As I remember, it was cold outside, and my mother had “forgotten” to give me a coat.  It wasn’t too long afterward that I rang the bell, apologized to my mother, and went back inside where it was warm.

​THAT’S WHY WE ARE BOSS (1982).  This story is one that has stayed with Monica, Stephanie, and me for almost 40 years.  It started when we were living in Hawaii, and it was 1982.  We were trying to come up with some unique science fair project for Monica.  She chose the topic of comparing the efficiency of various insulations. After we had discussed different ways to show how insulations work, we began designing the experiment.  When we finished building the test box, she tested several different types of commercial insulations as well as an insulation panel she had made out of cardboard and newspaper.  She then compiled the results and submitted her project for judging.  Monica won the top award for her project.  When it was over, I announced to her and Stephanie the following, “A monkey couldn’t have thought of that”.  Then, after a short pause, I said, “That’s why we are boss”.
To this day, whenever any one of us comes up with some innovative, clever way to solve a problem, she or I will say, “A monkey couldn’t have thought of that”.  And we will all say in unison, “That’s why we are boss”.  And we all howl with laughter.  

I am posting 4 vignettes today.  Tokyo, Japan Customs Incident (1966) and Silly Goose (1982).  In reading the first story, please try to put yourself in my shoes.  I was trying to go through Japanese customs in Tokyo, and I was carrying with me 3 fiberglass cases, each of which contained what looked like a bomb.  I couldn't speak Japanese, and the custom agent(s) couldn't speak English.  I had just had a 17

TOKYO, JAPAN CUSTOMS INCIDENT (1966).  The following incident occurred about a year before I reported to the USS Banner.  We were conducting a survey in the Sea of Japan, and I needed to bring several bathythermographs (BTs) with me to the ship I would be boarding (Figure 24).  BTs were used to provide a temperature profile through the shallow water column.  BTs were carried in small fiberglass containers which looked like baby coffins.  I had 3 of them with me at the time.  I got into the customs line with my luggage and the 3 BT boxes.  When my turn came, I opened the boxes, and you can imagine what the customs agent thought when he saw the BT pictured below.
The Japanese agent just looked at me and laughed as only the Japanese can do.  He thought that it must be a bomb of some sort.  He spoke no English, and I spoke no Japanese.  I tried to explain what it was but to no avail.  He bowed to me politely and told me to wait by holding his hand up to me.  He disappeared for a moment then showed up with another gentleman that was wearing an ID badge.  They both looked at the BT and were laughing.  They would periodically look at me and bow.  They left and came back with a third official who had a badge larger than the second one.  They tried to talk to me, but that didn’t work.  They took me aside so that other passengers could go through customs.  A fourth agent joined us who had an even larger badge.  He spoke some English, but imagine trying to explain what a BT was to someone who only understood a little English.
Finally, a distinguished Japanese gentleman (A passenger, I believe) approached me and said in perfect English, “I have been watching what has been going on.  Perhaps I could help”.  I was very grateful, and I explained what the bomb-looking device was for.  He seemed to understand, and he began talking to the now 4 customs agents.  As he explained, they would look at me, laugh, and then bow.  Finally, they came to me, signaled that I could close the boxes, and that I could proceed to the street.
The whole incident took about an hour.  I had been travelling for about 17 hours to get to Japan.  I was very tired, and I still had to hail a taxi and drive the hour’s trip to Yokosuka.  I don’t know what my Japanese passenger “angel” had told the customs agents, but it worked, and I was finally on my way.

SILLY GOOSE (1982).  In 1982, a very popular TV show began airing called “Cheers”.  It was about the happenings in a bar in Boston named Cheers and starred Ted Danson as Sam and Shelley Long as the waitress named Diane.  Diane was a snobbish sort, and she often bugged the other workers and customers by her speech and other mannerisms.  Our family would watch the show religiously.  On one particular episode, Diane said to Sam, “Oh Sam.  You are such a silly goose”.  Later in the show, Diane asked Sam what he had against her.  Sam said, “For one thing you say crazy things like “Silly Goose””.  Well my wife and I and my two daughters, Monica and Stephanie, all thought that this was really funny.  From that time on, whenever any of us does something dumb, we say to that person, “Oh, Dad (or whoever), You’re such a silly goose”.

Figure 24.  A Bathythermograph (BT).  A BT Is About 3 Feet Long

I am posting 2 stories today.  The first is titled "New York Customs Incident (1963)."  This story shows how naive I was at 22 years of age.  The second story is titled "My Buick Skylark Drenched With Bird Doo (1966)".  This story is one that I would like to forget but my kids refuse to let me. 

NEW YORK CUSTOMS INCIDENT (1963).  In September 1963, I had just completed my first oceanographic cruise with NAVOCEANO.  This had been my first trip out of the country, and I was very naïve about the process of custom’s inspection of luggage when returning to the U.S.  During the cruise in the Norwegian Sea, I was asked to return quickly to Washington for another cruise in the Caribbean Sea.  I was asked to bring as many oceanographic “messengers” with me for use during the upcoming cruise.  Figure 21 below shows a messenger hanging below a Nansen bottle.  The purpose of a messenger is to “trip” the next Nansen bottle on the oceanographic wire.  The messenger slides down the wire and strikes a trigger at the top of the Nansen bottle.  The bottle then flips over and captures a water sample.  At the same time, the thermometers attached to the bottle reverse (or flip upside down), thereby capturing the temperature of the water at that depth.  The messenger then hits a lever at the bottom of the bottle holding the bottom attached messenger (shown in the figure) which is released and continues down the wire to the next Nansen bottle.
The purpose of including this involved description is to show that these stainless-steel messengers were necessary to conduct an oceanographic station. We had a shortage of them; hence, I was asked to bring about 12 back with me.
In New York, when I reached my customs agent, I was asked to open my suitcase for inspection.  When I did, the messengers were on the top of my clothing and in plain sight.  Although it is difficult to see in Figure 21 below, the messenger is attached to the Nansen bottle by a 3-inch-long wire with a loop in it.  The customs agent gingerly picked up one of the messengers and began to touch this wire.  I said loudly “Don’t touch that”!  The customs agent, in a panic, flipped the messenger into the air, and it fell back into my suitcase.  He looked at me with panic in his eyes.  Well, I thought that all this was quite funny, and I had a big grin on my face.  The agent did not share my humor.  He asked me what the messenger was, and I explained it to him.  He then proceeded to empty the entire contents of my suitcase, pushed it all aside, even onto the floor and then said “Next”.  I had to repack my suitcase with all my dirty underwear in front of all the other people waiting patiently in line.  I had the first laugh, but he certainly had the last.
Needless to say, I didn’t pull any more dumb stunts like that with customs again.

MY BUICK SKYLARK DRENCHED WITH BIRD DOO (1966).  I finally replaced my beloved 1958 Austin Healy Sprite in late 1965.  I got a 1966 Buick Skylark Gran Sport.  It was the Buick version of the mid-1960’s so-called “Muscle Cars”.  Pontiac had its famed GTO, Chevy had its SS, and Oldsmobile had its 442.  My friends nicknamed my car the “Batmobile”.  It was all black, inside and out.  Figure 22 below is a photo of  my Buick Skylark Gran Sport.  Not too long after getting this car, I took Sylvia to a movie in Washington, D.C.  Well, unlike the “date from hell” described earlier, I found a parking spot on the street not far from the theater.  After the movie let out, we walked to the car only to see that I had parked the car under a near-dead tree.  Hundreds of large birds were roosting in the tree, and they had recently fed on some kind of purple berries.  They were doing what birds do.  They were all pooping onto my nice, new, shiny black car.  The car was almost totally covered with purple bird doo.  In those days, I had to unlock the car with a key. And when Sylvia tried to get in, she was hit by several sharpshooting birds.  When I got into the car, I realized that I could not see out of the windshield because it was covered by the purple mess.  I tried to clean off the windshield with the washers, but this only smeared the doo and made it worse.  I’m not sure how I made it back to our apartment, because I had to lower my side window and drive back with my head out the window so I could see.
        When we arrived back home, Sylvia found about 5 purple bird bombs in her hair.  She was not happy.  The next day, I cleaned off the windshield as best I could and went to work.  On the way home, I stopped at a car wash place.  I remember that the automated car wash did not get the car clean, and it had to be scrubbed by hand.  The workers complained loudly as they cleaned the car.  I  was very embarrassed when I got into the car and relieved when I drove away.

Again, I will post 2 short stories of humorous events that took place in my life.  The first is part of the very first date that I had with my future wife, Sylvia.  She has told me numerous times that she can't understand why she went out with me a second time after what happened in my story entitled "Snowing In the Sprite."  The second story is one of my daughter Stephanie's favorites, entitled "The Joker."

SNOWING IN THE SPRITE (1964).  In the winter of 1964, I met my future wife, Sylvia Stone.  She had just moved into an apartment on the floor above me.  The first time we met, she knocked on my door and just walked into my apartment.  She was surprised to see me, because she had expected to see my roommate whom she had met earlier.  She wanted to borrow something.  She was a little embarrassed, plus, she had her hair in curlers and generally looked a mess.  She apologized and made a hasty retreat.  We really met a few days later in the laundry room of the apartment complex.  We both wanted to use the dryer, so I suggested that we dry our clothes together and save money.  I like to say that we washed our underwear together, because I found some of hers mixed in with my clothes later on.
A few days later, some of the NAVOCEANO guys were having a little party, and we needed some girls to be there.  In the mornings, Sylvia would wait in the foyer for her ride to work.  I went down to the door and asked her and her roommate, Billi Jo, who was with her, if they would like to go.  They both said yes.  So, it wasn’t a date since I had asked both of them.  In fact, Sylvia drove to the party with two other guys.
That night, after the party, Sylvia and Billi Jo went back to the apartment with me.  We all piled into my Austin Healy Sprite.  Billi Jo sat in the passenger’s seat and Sylvia was between us on the car’s drive shaft hump.  The Sprite is a 2-person roadster.  She was not too comfortable.  And, as luck would have it, snow began to fall.  Soon, it was snowing in the cockpit of the car.  Sylvia said, “What kind of a car do you have here?”  I was a little embarrassed, and I tried to explain as she was being blanketed with snow.
A few weeks before the party, I returned from a trip to Bermuda and discovered that the convertible top to the Sprite had been slashed by vandals.  I located a business that replaced convertible tops, and I had the top replaced.  The original top had a rubber gasket along the part that attached to the top of the windshield.  They did not replace this gasket.  The snow was riding up the windshield and through the space where the gasket should have been.  Hence, it was snowing in my car.  Again I had not started off well in establishing a relationship with a girl.
When I tell this story and Sylvia is listening, she always adds that she doesn’t know why she married me.  She thought that I was a klutz with a crazy car, and she always seems to add that she thought I was a cheapskate because I asked her to pay for her share for use of the clothes dryer when we dried our clothes together.  She maintains that it was only one little piece of underwear that got caught up in my clothes.  That is not what I remember.

THE JOKER (1982).  I had not planned to include this story and had not included it in my original outline.  But my daughter, Stephanie, insisted that I do.  She said that what happened to me here was one of the funniest memories of our 2 years in Hawaii.  So, here it is.
It was 1982, and I was fairly new at my position as Environmental Advisor to ADM Kauderer.  Since I was flying on military helicopters, I was required to take survival training in event of a crash at sea.  To fulfill this requirement, I was bussed, along with about 15 military guys, to a rather large swimming pool at a seemingly abandoned base in the mountains of Oahu.  We drove through the unmanned security gate, and when we did, the smell of chlorine was strong.  When we gathered around the swimming pool, we were told that all the in-water tests had to be done wearing our full suite of flight gear.  This included the flight suit, helmet, gloves, and, boots.  I felt like, you’ve got to be kidding.  Also, I realized that the strong odor of chlorine that I noticed earlier was from the pool.  It reeked of chlorine.  We were pushed into the pool and told to swim 2 laps to warm up.  When I finished the laps, I was already exhausted because of all the extra weight I was wearing.  However, I was not allowed to touch the side of the pool.  I was instructed on how to use my helmet as a “flotation device”.  I used more energy trying to use my helmet than I would have doing the dead man’s float.  They ran us through a bunch of simulated drills, one of which almost killed me.  The helicopter had crashed, and burning oil was blazing on top of the water.  We had to swim about 3 strokes underwater, come up to just below the surface, use our hands to splash the water (and hopefully clear the surface of the burning oil), break the surface, take a deep breath, go back under, and repeat the process for the entire length of the pool.  I knew that I was going to drown.  What kept me going was that several of the young stud military kids had already asked for help and asked to get out of the pool.  I don’t know how I did it, but I survived.  We were finally allowed to get out of the pool and get dressed.
I had a scheduled appointment with the admiral later that afternoon, and the instructors knew about this.  They had promised that they would get me back to the base in time for my meeting.  However, we were getting short of time, and we had to hurry to get dressed for the bus ride back.
When I entered the admiral’s waiting room, I noticed that everyone was looking at me very strangely.  No one said a word to me.  When the admiral was ready for me, I was asked in.  I noticed that he looked at me and had a little grin on his face.  When our meeting was over, he shook my hand and shook his head.
As I was leaving the outer room, the yeoman (secretary) said, “Dr. Tooma, can I ask you a question”?  I said, “Sure, go ahead”.  He asked, “Are you in a play or something”?  I said, “No. Why”?  He said, “Your hair is a bright green”.  I said, “What”!  I ran into the bathroom to look in a mirror.  To my horror, my white hair was now a neon green.  I looked like the Joker in a campy Batman movie. No wonder the admiral was shaking his head.  I was so embarrassed.
When I got home, Sylvia and the kids looked at me and laughed uncontrollably.  They asked me how my hair turned so green.  I told them about the chlorine-laced pool. 
It took me several days of hair washings to get the green out.  It took several weeks before my family stopped teasing me about it.

​

I will post 2 short stories today.  One I call "Departing the USS Banner" and the other I call "The 'West Side Story' Story".

DEPARTING THE USS BANNER (1967).  I have another USS Banner story to tell, and it is my favorite one.  As a spy ship, the Banner had a military officer onboard in charge of all intelligence gathering operations.  The Banner also carried a contingent of marines that were ostensibly on board to protect the ship from what happened to the USS Pueblo (boarding and capturing).  The curious thing to me was that these marines were all fluent in Russian and worked in the classified area of the ship; which was off-limits to me.  Therefore, I knew that their primary reason for being on the ship was not to repel boarders.  Even though I had a Top Secret clearance, I had not been briefed into the spy mission program.  However, it was very easy to determine what was going on.  The intelligence officer would speak in Russian when I was in the officer’s wardroom.  And as is usually the case, the enlisted people did not care for their superior officer.  This was especially true for the marines who reported to the intelligence officer. 
During the second 3-week deployment to the operating area off Vladivostok, Russia, the marines and I concocted a plan to play a joke on the intelligence officer when I debarked the ship to go home.  My mission would be over, and it was not likely that I would ever see him again.   We developed a short speech that I would deliver to the intelligence officer in Russian as I left the ship.  The marines coached me on how to say this speech with the proper dialects.  I memorized it, and they kept coaching me to get inflections right, etc.   The speech went something like this.  “Goodbye, my friend.  It was great sailing with you, and I hope our paths will cross again”.
Debarkation day came, and it was time for me to leave.  And as promised, the intelligence officer was on the quarterdeck. With  my suitcase and briefcase in hand, I prepared to debark the Banner.  I noticed that a bunch of the marines were in the area or looking down from a higher deck.  When I reached him, I put my suitcase down and shook his hand.  As I shook his hand I gave my speech.  I then picked up my suitcase and briefcase and walked down the gangplank.  I never looked back, and I never found out what his reaction was to my words.
To me, the interesting part of this whole experience was that he had talked in my presence about things above my “need to know”.  Now I am talking to him in a way that says that I may be fluent in Russian as well, and I probably understood what he had been saying all along.  From what I know about the intelligence community is that they often evaluate performances by using fellow officers to see how they perform their job (read that as, they spy on each other).

THE “WEST SIDE STORY” STORY (1961).  The next story takes us back to my Sigma Nu fraternity days at the University of Rhode Island.  The movie “West Side Story” was in the theaters at that time and was immensely popular.  In fact, lines stretched around the block to get in to see it.  Eddie Anderson and I went to see the movie.  You may remember my friend Eddie from the Fart and Burp story I posted earlier.  West Side Story was, essentially, a remake of Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet” only held in New York City’s west side which was rife with all kinds of ethnic gangs, notably Puerto Rican ones.  In the famous balcony scene, Tony goes to Maria’s home and climbs up to the balcony to be with her.  While they are holding hands and whispering sweet nothings to one another, Maria’s father calls to her.  She looks inside from the balcony and says to Tony, “I can’t stay.  Go quickly”.  Tony says to her, “I’m not afraid”.  Maria looks at Tony and says, “Oh, but they are strict with me.  Please”.  They lovingly look into each other’s eyes, and holding hands, they begin to sing a version of the movie’s most famous song, “Tonight”.  They sing together, “Goodnight, goodnight.  Sleep tight, and when you dream, dream of me, tonight”.
Remember this balcony scene as I tell you the next important part of this story.  The fraternity rooms at URI did not have beds in them.  They were for studying, not sleeping.  Instead, all the fraternity brothers slept in the attic, which we called the deck.  The deck had many double bunks.  Another rule URI had was that the deck windows had to be open, even in winter.  It was not uncommon for those sleeping near open windows to wake up in the morning covered with snow.  The deck was a sleeping place for tired men, and not too much tomfoolery went on there.  That is until Eddie and I appeared on the scene.
After seeing the “West Side Story” movie, we devised a devilish plan.  We waited until there was a night when most of the guys went to bed at about the same time.  Once in bed, in the darkness,  Eddie said aloud, “Maria” doing his best to imitate Maria’s father calling her.  I then said in Maria’s voice, “I can’t stay.  Go quickly”.  Eddie then imitated Tony and said, “I’m not Afraid”.  Then I said, “Oh, but they are strict with me.  Please”.  Then we both began singing the Goodnight song.  Well, this did not go over too well with the guys trying to go to sleep; especially since neither Eddie nor I had good singing voices.  They boo’d and hiss’d and told us to shut up.  Well we did, until the next night, when we repeated the performance only Eddie and I switched roles.  The reaction from the guys was even more violent than the previous night.  We repeated the scene about a week later.  The fourth time we did this, to our surprise, when we got to the “Goodnight” song, all the brothers began singing along with us.  The deck was full of song that night.
One other point on this story is that almost every night, there was another song going on.  It was a song of 40 or 50 guys passing gas.  You know, farting.  This is probably the reason that the university rulers required that the windows be open; so that the resulting gas could be swept away by the wind.  Oh, by this time, Eddie and I knew how to spell fart (Read the "Fart and Burp Chart Story" posted earlier).

Well, that's enough of my feeble attempts to impress girls.  In today's post, I relate a couple of harrowing experiences I had during my professional career.  They don't fall into the Near Death Experiences I posted earlier, but they were scare nonetheless.  The first story tells of when I was reporting to the spy ship the USS BANNER.  I gave a near death story earlier when I was on the BANNER.  This story is entitled "Reporting to the BANNER".  The second story is about when 3 of us strayed into a highly classified area in Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Alaska.  It is entitled "Eielson Air Force Base.  Try tp [it yourselves in my shoes as you read these stories.

​REPORTING TO THE USS BANNER (1967).  I gave my near-death experience in Chapter 3 when the Banner was rammed by a Soviet ship.  But I did have a couple of interesting things happen to me during that particular trip.  The first happened when I initially reported to the Banner to begin the mission.
As I said earlier, the Banner, originally a light cargo ship, had been converted to a state-of-the-art surveillance or spy ship.  NAVOCEANO was providing the cover story for its presence as an oceanographic research vessel.  I was reporting on board for its third mission in the Sea of Japan.  Because of its nefarious mission, the ship was berthed at the remotest pier of the US Naval Base in Yokosuka, Japan.  I flew to Tokyo and took a taxi for the fairly long ride to Yokosuka.  Once in Yokosuka, I had to switch taxis to one that was allowed on the naval base. Once on the base, we drove for quite a while to get to the pier where the Banner was berthed. Then the taxi driver stopped his vehicle suddenly and told me that he was not allowed to go any farther.  I saw the Banner at the far end of the pier, and I began the long trek to it with a suitcase and a briefcase in hand.  It was evening, and it was dark.  When I was about a 100 yards from the ship, 3 or 4 marines came out of nowhere, pushed me against a fence, put a gun to my head, and asked me my business.  I told them that I was an oceanographer for the navy and had orders to report onboard.  Despite the rifle they had pointed at me, the marines were very courteous in the way they talked to me.  They asked to see my orders.  When satisfied, they escorted me to the Banner and introduced me to the Quartermaster of the deck.  When the quartermaster acknowledged that they were expecting me, the marines apologized for the “inconvenience” and left.
I always thought that this experience was amusing, but I must say, it was a little disconcerting to have a marine pointing his gun at me.
EIELSON AIRFORCE BASE.  I am not sure when the Eielson Airforce base incident occurred, but it happened a few years after the Banner incident given above.  I was now involved in Arctic Ocean research, probably around 1961 or 1962.  As you will see, what happened is remarkably similar to the Banner story above.  At the time of year that we were at the Eielson base in Fairbanks, AK, it was dark and very cold.  We were experiencing maintenance problems with our aircraft because of the cold weather conditions, and it had been moved to a hanger for repairs.  We, Dick Ketchum, Dr. David Amstutz, and I, were wandering around the base trying to locate the hanger where our aircraft was being housed.  We were lost, and suddenly, we were challenged by several marines.  They pushed us to the ground on our faces and aimed guns to the back of our heads.  We were asked why we were wandering around a restricted area at night.  We explained who we were and told them that we did not know we were in a restricted area.  They let us up and escorted us away.
We never found out why a restricted area was not fenced off and how we could accidentally wander into it.  We did find out why the area was restricted and why we were treated so harshly.  It housed the high-altitude U-2 spy planes that were operating over the Soviet Union.  In 1960, Francis Gary Powers, working for the CIA, was shot down by the Soviet Union a year or two before we were accosted by the marines that night.

If you read my earlier post "My Date With Betty", you probably think that I am a real klutz when it comes to girls.  Well, you ain't read nothin yet.  Wait until you read today's post below, entitled "Date From Hell".

​DATE FROM HELL (1964).  I know that we all have had dates that we would like to forget.  I have had 2.  If you think that the date with Betty was bad, wait ‘til you read about what I call “A Date From Hell”.
The date was February 1964.  I had been in the Washington, D.C. area for about 7 months.  I met a girl, Mary Fran, living in an apartment on the floor above me.  I asked her to go to a movie with me, and she said yes.  As I mentioned, it was February and perhaps the coldest day of the winter so far.  I had picked out the movie “Man’s Favorite Sport” starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day playing at the Lowes Palace.  During our drive to the movie in my now infamous Austin Healy Sprite, we froze to death because of the poor heater in the car.  I had a good idea of where the movie theater was, but I was still unfamiliar with the D.C. area.  I got lost.  I drove around for quite awhile before I asked for directions to Lowes.  When we found the theater, I had to park several streets away.  We froze as we walked to the theater.  When we approached the theater, I noticed that the marquis said the movie playing was “The Victors” starring George Peppard and Eli Wallach.  Then I looked further, and the theater was the Lowes Embassy, not the Palace.  I had brought Mary Fran to the wrong theater.  She tried to rescue me from this embarrassing situation by telling me that she had wanted to see “The Victors”.  But it had started 45 minutes ago and was about half over.  We decided to find the Lowes Palace where “Man’s Favorite Sport” would be starting in a few minutes.  We got directions from the ticket lady and sped to my car.  When I got into the Sprite, I noticed that my vision was blocked by something on the windshield.  When I retrieved it, I realized that it was a ticket for parking illegally.  How embarrassing.
I tried to follow the ticket lady’s directions to the Lowes Palace, but I got lost again.  Soon, by luck, we passed the Lowes Palace.  Not wanting to look for a street parking spot, and not wanting to get another ticket, I drove into a nearby parking lot and left the car at valet for them to park.  We again braved the freezing cold weather (about 15 degrees F) and walked to the theater.  The movie had already started but only 15 minutes earlier.  I bought tickets for the loge area.  Somehow the theater had a maze of fabric-lined passageways, and I got lost in the theater.  Without going up one stair, we ended up in the balcony and not in the loge.  We were lucky enough to find empty seats, and we began watching the movie.  It must have been funny because everyone in the theater was laughing but Mary Fran and me.
When the movie was over, we went to retrieve the Sprite from the parking lot.  Well, the National Theater had just let out from a play, and the valet area was packed with ladies in fur coats and gentlemen in tuxedos.  One by one, huge luxury cars were driving down the ramp for the patrons waiting for their cars.  Finally, my little Sprite arrived, and people were laughing out loud at the sight.  To make matters worse, this huge 6’3” guy got out of my car making a big deal at how difficult it was to get out of this little car.  The embarrassing laughter got louder.  Another valet attendant went over to the passenger’s side of the car to open the door for Mary Fran.  But the Sprite was designed with no door handles on the exterior of the car.  To open the door, you had to reach under the flexible, plastic, side window, grab the handle and lift up.  He did not know how to do this.  I went over and opened the door myself.  The laughter was deafening.  I drove out of the parking lot and headed home down Pennsylvania Avenue.
At this point, Mary Fran dropped the bomb and told me that she was too old for me.  Well, if I didn’t know before, I knew now that this relationship wasn’t going anywhere soon.  As we motored down Pennsylvania Avenue, we reached Constitution Avenue where it intersects with Pennsylvania Avenue at the National Museum of Art.  I began to change one lane to the right, and my steering broke.  It was like I had a hula hoop in my hand.  The steering wheel just spun around and around and the tires did not turn.  I applied the brakes, hit the curb, and the car came to a stop as it stalled.  The Sprite was blocking half the lane.  At 11:30PM on Pennsylvania Avenue and Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., the traffic is extremely heavy.  In about 30 seconds, traffic was backed up as far as the eye could see.  Motorists were shaking their fists at me (or worse) and yelling at me to get a real car.
I got out of the car and lifted the hood to see what I could do.  Meanwhile, the “little old lady” that I was with said she would get a taxi, get her car, and come back for me.  As I poked around under the hood, I noticed a round metal collar laying at the base of the steering mechanism.  I lifted this collar up and forced it into place.  I reached into the car, turned the steering wheel, and the wheels moved.  I quickly tried to get Mary Fran’s attention, but all I saw was the taxi door closing, and it sped away.  I was able to maneuver the car from the traffic lane and onto a shoulder.  I was now not blocking traffic.  I froze to death for almost an hour while waiting for my old lady friend, Mary Fran, to return and rescue me.
Mary Fran followed me to be sure I got home safely and didn’t get lost again.  I felt about 2-feet tall and 6 years of age.  The steering was very loose, but we got back to our apartment building safely.  I walked her to her door, but I didn’t even try to kiss her good night.  If I did, I probably would have poked her eye out with my big nose.
When I got in bed a few minutes later, I relived the night many times over.  I just couldn’t believe so many bad things could happen to me in about 4- to 5-hours of time.  I didn’t know it then, but the next day I noticed all my car’s glass lenses in the back had been broken in the National Theater’s parking lot.  I had to get my steering mechanism fixed, I had to replace all my rear light lenses, and I had a ticket to pay. 
Although Mary Fran and I never went out again, we remained friends.  We often talked about our date.  She told me that she thought I was the biggest clown she had ever gone out with and that she thought it all was very funny.  Personally, I failed to see the humor of it all.