Dow Airplane Patch

I arrived at Dow Airplane Patch in Oct and the ground stayed bare right up to Xmas. I thought I'd see my first green Xmas. Xmas Eve it started snowing and by morning there was six inches of snow on the ground. What a relief, I was spared the horrors of a Xmas without snow!! I spent two winters there and kept hearing stories about the huge amounts of snow that they would get. One story I heard was about was how people were hearing a noise when walking on one spot on a path. When the snow went down, they saw that they had been walking over a car buried in a snowdrift. I thought the winters I spent there were rather mild compared to what I was used to.

One of my memories is that when we had a squadron party they would fill the back of a pickup with ice and cans of beer. Too bad the beer wasn't of a quality to make it drinkable. Black Label beer was one that I could not choke down when sober. Once I was drunk I could drink Black Label. Narraganset beer would slide down my throat just barely. It seemed like those were the only choices, maybe the officers got better stuff, but I don't know. Anywho, we got the cheapest beers.

I learned many things while there. I learned how to work on aircraft (F-101B & F-101F and T-33's). I learned that prejudice is a two-way street. The most prejudiced guy I ever met was a black guy that I worked with. He hated whites with a passion. Also working in the shop was another black guy who would do whatever he could to help you out and it didn't matter whether you were white or black. One day the two of them were razzing me and saying that where I was from they still thought blacks were nightfighters. I slowly looked over both of them and then said, "Say, you guys would be good in the dark."