BEB Update
For unfamiliar readers, Bruce Breeding was my PhD student office mate back at UH in the early-mid-80's and my best friend since that time. Bruce suffered 2 strokes at the beginning of June, the second a massive one at the hospital in the aftermath of the initial one.Well, a few more details emerges from spouse Susan's almost daily posts:
- Bruce had been working as a CFO (Chief Financial Officer). Susan didn't specify where, but I had known he had a long-standing interest in nonprofits. A quick Google search showed a link to Divine Street Ministries in Austin. It also showed (like me) Bruce had earned bachelor and master's math degrees, in his case at Rice. I was mildly surprised because I had expected to see accounting degrees because I'm fairly sure he had his CPA by the time we met. For some odd reason, he lists his 2 UH degrees in "information systems and accounting" Technically we got degrees in "management information systems", in a department fused with production logistics, not accounting. Accounting was a separate department. Now I do know that there were a couple of faculty who specialized in EDP auditing, and I recall for some reason when I chose accounting for a minor, they wouldn't let me take EDP auditing courses; I ended up having to take the same ballbuster graduate auditing course the traditional accounting students took prior to sitting for the exam. I don't doubt that Bruce had a strong accounting minor, but we had the same MIS dissertation chair (Scamell) and his dissertation title did not seem to be an accounting topic (maybe I'm wrong). I'm not sure; maybe when he left Murray State after 7 years, he resurrected his old career as a CPA. I had thought, though, he was specializing more in IT services for smaller companies. Maybe he transitioned to a controller/CFO role and wanted to stress his accounting credentials from UH. It just struck me as odd. I don't doubt his accounting credentials (internal, EDP, etc.), which went far further than his CPA. I think I counted at least 6 or 7 certifications on the wall of his home when he invited me over to dinner.
- For some reason I had inferred that Bruce was a Baptist (I think in part there are a lot of Baptists in Texas with blue laws and he's a teetotaler), but it seems he's a Presbyterian. In part that became clear by Susan's choice of church for Bruce's first service off-site since the strokes. Also, the above link makes reference to his being a business manager for a Presbyterian church.
- We now know better what happens when Bruce's Dallas rehabilitation stay runs out of insurance in a couple of weeks. Apparently Medicare will cover 3 weeks at a skilled nursing facility in his home area of Ausin. It seems he'll move back home around the holiday season. I'm not sure if they need to make any accommodations, e.g., for a wheelchair. He's increasing his walking range with a walker but he still relies on his wheelchair for rest.
- Apparently the stroke took half his eyesight in both eyes, a permanent condition. It also seems he suffers from sleep apnea, which may not be related to the stroke.
- Bruce is still hampered by nausea; he does occasionally express frustration and complain when he thinks therapists are unrealistic in their expectations. He also has a bit of stubbornness and perfectionism (which sometimes works to his advantage and work ethic), characteristics we both share.
A Blast From the Past
I recently got a Facebook friends request from someone whose name rang a bell from the distant past. Now I'm literally sitting on dozens of requests. In part that has to certain positions I've had with security considerations, like government contracting. I really don't know the vast majority of people who try to friend me and haven't vetted them; I really filter what I do and say on social media (I don't even identify a recent employer; almost no one in my own family know what I do for a living or who I work for), but I am well-aware of the risks of social engineering and potential compromising conversations so it's simply a preemptive move to minimize the risks. (That being said, what I do is fairly plain vanilla DBA work. A relevant security risk would be things like disclosing vulnerabilities, like unpatched software, passwords, ports, etc., things I have never discussed from any past employer, including the private sector--and never will.)
I generally don't discuss friends and family in my blogs (Bruce is an exception, and in part this had to do with spouse Susan's request to spread his prayer circle). So in my discussions below, I'll mask the given names of my contacts.
Familiar readers may know some of the following context relevant to my discussion here. I went to the University of Texas as a 19-year-old OLL graduate, with a goal of earning a PhD in math from a name school. (There was a second-tier Louisiana university that had essentially offered me a full-ride fellowship, and believe me, I would often second-guess "the road not taken".)
I have an uncanny knack to find myself in politically untenable positions. I needed a stipend to swing expenses. I was a teaching assistant; in essence, I was one of two assigned to a professor for freshman calculus classes. I think the class met for lecture by the professor 3 days a week, and on the off-days there were basically calculus problem study sessions we conducted. I think the students earned 4 semester hours.
UT had invited an East-European Ohio State professor G. Freud as a visiting professor. They NEVER should have assigned him to a freshman calculus course; that was a fucked-up decision of the highest order. It wasn't just his thick accented English (recip(e) row-culls or NATURE-ull numbers). One anecdote I recall he just started filling up some 6 or so blackboards with equations; no one knew what the hell he was doing, the students were just blindly rewriting equations in their notebooks. In the middle of the last board, he had a brain fart of some kind and forgot where he was going with all this. He desperately turned to me for help in getting back on track, but I didn't have a clue. It wasn't like he explained himself before jotting down equations.
It wasn't just hard to follow lectures. He had an unconventional grading scheme; he would give out tests with 4 questions, one of which was optional. You needed one right for a C, 2 for a B, 3 for an A. And these problems weren't like the ones I went over in the labs--and I had no clue what he would ask for on the exams so it wasn't like I could prepare them for what was coming. Oh, and the kicker: it wouldn't be enough to get an A average on tests; he required you to pass an oral exam to get an A. And I heard one story where he said he had to give the student "too much help" on the oral exam, so the student had to settle for a B.
For me, the watershed moment of the course was when the best student in the course, a coed, after the second or third exam, literally threw her exam in my face. (I would later hear she scored straight 100's in the second semester course under a different professor. Which is another thing--I don't think they had plans to have Freud teach the follow-up course. If they did, I seriously doubt they could have filled it, because no one who went through the class would EVER knowingly take it from him.)
So this is a long preface to describe a set-up, and I don't know to this day what motivated Jeff, the other T.A. It was evil incarnate, probably meant to capitalize from setting me up as the fall guy. Jeff came to me (not vice-versa), saying his students were on the verge of mutiny, that we needed to have a come-to-Jesus moment with Freud on the fact he wasn't connecting with the class. I remember being very wary of how Freud would react; who am I, a first-semester grad student, to challenge a professor? If the students wanted to vent, why aren't they going to the department chair, the Dean of Student Affairs, whatever? I was basically seen by the students as guilty by association anyway. But I realized Jeff was right; if Freud was in fact clueless about not getting across to the students, it was our responsibility to give him that unpleasant feedback, although I suspected I was in a no-win situation because the students had no way of knowing what I was saying or doing in their behalf and I doubt even if they did, it wouldn't help me out very much.
So I reluctantly agreed, and we met with Freud. How do we start off? Jeff basically tells me to take the lead. And so I start summarizing the feedback I had been hearing from students; Freud has a horrified look on his face, in utter disbelief. At some point, Freud turns to Jeff and pleadingly asks, "Jeff, is this true?"
And that's when Jeff betrayed me and the students. "Oh, I've heard a couple of bad comments. But there are a few chronic complainers in any class. And that's what you have going on here." BULLSHIT! You lying son of a bitch! You came to me, Judas; I didn't come to you. Why the hell are you kissing Freud's ass? Why did you set me up? What's in it for you?
So Freud, appeased by Jeff's words, turns to me and starts attacking me for my "lies", my "sabotage" of his efforts. It's not the end of it. He lodges a complaint with the chair of the math department. I get called to a meeting, where the chair reads me the riot act, reminds me of my insignificant role in the math department and issues threats if I continue the error of my ways. There is zero tolerance from him to hear the substance of Freud's failed teaching performance and legitimate student complaints.
That wasn't the end of it. Freud actually stalked me. He followed me one day to my graduate real analysis course and literally started badmouthing me to my professor. I was in hell.
The next semester wasn't as bad, but I did mishandle one thing. I never found calculus word problems that difficult. I've sometimes related this anecdote. The other TA was a coed. I lost a few students to her study sessions, bur I heard some feedback that she had to rely on the teacher solution book to solve word problems in class. I said, "So why are you guys going there?"; he says, "Dude! Have you seen her [very attractive]. Who would you rather look at at 8 AM in the morning?"
One day I finish writing out one problem solution and ritually asked if anyone had any questions. As I started on the next problem, this older guy, probably as old or older than my Dad, loudly speaks out, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I didn't understand a single word he said," I don't know if he was just having a bad day, didn't get enough sleep or what, but I couldn't get him to focus on a single step of the solution--he simply was verbalizing frustration. The university really doesn't teach you how to deal with these kind of events. So finally, struggling to get control of the class, I reminded him attendance of the study session was optional. He promptly walked out and maybe up to half of the class, one at a time over the next few minutes. Well, that wasn't good. This time somehow the department seemed to respond to this or other student complaints doing a mid-semester (vs. typical end-of-semester) teaching evaluations, including the professor. I don't think that helped my case for stipend renewal, but given the explicit threats from the department chair in the fall, I already knew my stipend was at risk.
I think at some point in the late spring semester, the stipend renewals were announced, and I didn't get one. Jeff, of course, did--if there was ever anyone who deserved having his ass kicked, it was he. But for me, it really killed my ambition to earn a PhD because I couldn't afford to attend school without a financial aid package. So I made a decision to salvage my Master's; I did land a modest grader's job for a number theory course but still needed to beg for a $500 loan from my reluctant maternal grandfather (There's a soap opera behind that, beyond the scope of this post.) The odd thing about that is I had just mailed off a complimentary copy of my thesis to Grandfather when he passed.
Of course, I had to focus on my job search once I earned my first Master's and basically UT didn't do a damn thing to help. So as an Air Force brat, I explored my options. Long story short, they were floating the idea of training me as a meteorologist; I would start by earning graduate degree(s) at Texas A&M. I had to go through a selection pool but had been assured it was a formality. Long story short, I didn't make the first selection. The recruiters said not to worry; the USAF mostly focused on pilot candidates on the first selection pool after graduation; surely they would pick me in the next pool in 6 weeks--or else they would have to wait another 6 months for me to reenter the candidate selection pool. Well, as you may have guessed, I got passed over a second time. (In an ironic twist, one of my nephews recently successfully defended his meteorology Master's thesis from Texas A&M.)
At this point, I began to panic. There were a number of unemployed mathematicians on the market. In hindsight, I should have minored in computer science, like most of my colleagues, but I stubbornly insisted on my first love, philosophy; I had double-majored in math & philosophy at OLL; at the time it made sense because philosophy is a typical major for a prospective Catholic priest, but after dating in college, I wasn't ready to make the necessary commitment to celibacy. One typical career path was to teach at a community college, but Austin Community College didn't even acknowledge my query.
I had moved into a coop down "the Drag" in Austin, just off campus, which allowed me to leave frugally in exchange for designated work activities (meal assistance, dishwashing, whatever). My folks had given me a small check as a graduation present, mostly because they didn't want me coming back home. My Dad barely made ends meet as an NCO raising a large family, and two siblings had already started college. I found myself getting kicked out of the placement center for not being a currently registered student. In desperation, I resurrected the idea of earning high school math teaching credentials and tried to get a financial aid package to re-enroll at Texas, but I needed a family financial statement if my folks had claimed me as a dependent the prior year (never mind the fact they never contributed a dime for my expenses as a college student). My folks had no interest in "enabling" my being a "professional student". I argued that the university already had it on file because of my chem-e major little brother being enrolled there, but the university bureaucrat dismissed that, arguing it would violate my brother's "data privacy"; what kind of bureaucratic bullshit is this excuse? So if the UT alumni wonder why they haven't gotten a lot of donations over the years, read this segment carefully; I was treated like crap from the get-go.
At some point, someone suggested to me that the Navy also employs mathematicians and I should check it out. Now this requires a little background. This was when Admiral Rickover headed the nuclear Navy (submarines run on nuclear power and/or armed with missiles, etc.) He had a record of telling Congress every year he personally interviewed all the officers in the nuclear Navy. He was also a cultish figure, known for giving unconventional interviews. My favorite Rickover story I had heard was he told the interviewee to do something that would piss him off. So the story goes the guy saw a framed picture of Rickover's wife on his desk, so he took the frame, put it on the floor, and stomped his foot through it. The story goes that they physically had to restrain Rickover from going after the applicant. No word on whether the candidate was selected, but mission accomplished.
I remember sweating my own interview; what was he going to ask? Some oddball math question? I'm getting briefed on the map to his office, the protocols, etc. I had no idea what to expect. He immediately starts in on my wardrobe. I didn't own a lot of suits, dress shirts and ties. I thought I was wearing a nice turtleneck (at the time these were in style), suitcoat, shoes, etc. Like "how dare you show up here without wearing a suit and tie?" Among other things, in all the briefings I had going to the meeting, there had been no discussion of wardrobe. I guess if I were to interview at IBM, I would have known a suit and tie. I stammered back a response I didn't own any. He's outraged and incredulously asks, "WELL, COULD YOU BORROW ONE?" At some point, he dismisses me abruptly like, "I'm done with you!" And I left, feeling somehow lost the job before the interview even got started. Who knows? Maybe he wanted to see how I responded to getting screamed at.
Now additional context: the Navy has had a nuclear power school in the Orlando area; there are separate tracks for enlisted and officers who are designated to serve in the nuclear Navy. These were deeply structured courses, to the point if I called in sick, someone else could fill in with the same lecture, and if I taught some calculus concepts, it could get used say in a follow-up physics class later that same day.
Technically these teaching positions could/should be staffed by contractors. But Rickover for some reason liked having direct control of resources like instructors than indirect control through contracts. These were basically single 4-year appointments in the Navy. Apparently they liked to recruit a fresh group of instructors straight out of graduate school. I was initially assigned to the enlisted math track. What I didn't know at the time is there is a training sequence for instructors, with a capstone certification lecture before the CEO of the school. The CEO had been displeased with the immediately prior enlisted math certification lectures and gave "Wilbur Gaines" a chewing-out over the lack of preparation. So when I came in where Gaines was in the process of retooling his training protocol and his hostile attitude from day 1 was "I'm not going to get lectured over you!" Damn! It's bad timing, just like when I got assigned to Freud.
So I was due to join the Navy at the start of the year. And in the closing weeks of the year, I got a notice from the Air Force asking if I was still available and a note Austin Community College wanted to talk to me. Too little, too late!
I was initially assigned to 3 weeks or so of Officer Indoctrination School in Newport, RI. I won't go too much into specifics, but among other things, we had to walk patrols at night in the residence halls. What I also remember is there was a freak snowstorm like 67 inches around Providence a few days before my flight to Orlando. And there was one of my first tastes with dealing with the military bureaucracy: the message was that if we were delayed getting to our duty stations, it would be charged against our annual leave. (I did manage to get out in time.)
Now once I got to Orlando, a few things were clear: for one thing, there were no BOQ's (on-base housing). This meant a couple of things: I needed to get an apartment off-base, and I needed a car. My first and closest friend, one of my immediate predecessors, was "Josh". He helped me get settled; I ended up buying a GM XXX, which I think a yeoman was selling which had been used by his wife. It was sort of a mess, with balding tires and drank oil like crazy. I think I paid about $500 but probably traded it in 2 or 3 years later on a new Ford compact. I also got my first drivers license in Florida. (My Dad wouldn't let me get one because his insurance agent had shown hoe much his rates would go up. He wouldn't even let me drive his car in an empty lot. I also had failed one driving test in Austin, and it started raining; I was driving an unfamiliar car and was slow finding the wipers. To this day, the first thing I check out in a car is the wipers.) I still ran into other issues, like JC Penney had cancelled a bed I bought on credit. Now I had to be the safest credit risk in the world, because if you're in the military, you can get into deep shit not paying your bills, but I guess Penney's decided I wasn't a worthy risk. The funniest thing was while in college, I could have bought a bed, no problem. So to this day I've bought little from Penney's.)
Josh was a great friend, but he had certain comic-tragic quirks. He was prematurely balding and thought he was too ugly to attract women the old-fashioned way. So he did certain things a good Catholic boy like me would never dream of doing and there were risks (like STDs) in pursuing certain choices. And one night after we went to dinner (and he was driving), he insisted in taking me to a strip joint. When I balked, he threatened to dump me off in the center of Orlando, so I went with the flow. He would at times call me, complaining certain women he wanted to "date" wouldn't come when he wanted but like at 2 PM on Sundays. Another time he would call and tell me something, and I would tell him, "Jeez, Josh. You need to protect yourself. You don't want to go to a Navy doctor over that."
Part of the problem was 150 of the instructors were maybe 90% male, and there wasn't a good way to meet single women, like Navy nurses, at least on base. The Officers Club was mostly a hangout for retirees and the like. There were a few ladies in the math instructor section. One was Cynthia, a pretty blond, who was happily dating Jack; they were openly affectionate with each other, holding hands and kissing each other, and I think a lot of us were just jealous. We figured it was almost a cinch they were get married. Julia wasn't attached, bur the story was that she was gay. She LOVED DisneyWorld and offered to accompany me on my first visit. Very nice lady; she offered me some spare furniture of sorts in the aftermath of the Penney's issue. There was a tall blonde (her given name escapes me, but she wasn't my type at all) who was dating Daniel and she was constantly mirroring him except maybe his chewing on a toothpick. By mirroring him, I meant like if he crossed his legs, she would do the same, or she might echo his "of course" with her own. It came across as a little creepy.
Then there was Lucille, She was sweet, pretty, and friendly with a positive disposition; it was almost like she's known you all your life and she's interested in what you have to say. Her hair was curly and dark. I mean, I had the wildest crush on her. Josh told me, "Cool your jets, dude. She's married." She was a traditional Jew (which wouldn't have bothered me at all); she was married to a very strange dude who was rumored to do things like lock her out of their house for God knows what reason.
One other physical feature that had absolutely nothing to do with my crush, which had more to do with her personality and beauty. There was a slight bulge at her chest. And I wouldn't say I've seen this a lot, maybe a handful of times where a woman seems to find her bra uncomfortable and may may rotate her shoulders and chest trying to find a more comfortable position. But a military blouse, etc., is not very flattering to one's figure.
So one day I went to one of the gang's social events, and when I arrive, Lucille is playing pool in this low-cut halter top down to her waist showing deep cleavage, especially while bending over making shots. I remember wondering what kind of industrial-strength bra could contain those and minimize their appearance. I've always been self-conscious about anything I said about women's breasts, worried about a prospective girlfriend's reaction to any comments about whether they are "too big" or "too small".by family members. In fact,, I don't know the bra sizes of past girlfriends. Most have had small to medium builds but sexiness had more to do with interpersonal fit than specific attributes.
[I would later experience a reverse type Lucille incident at UH in a couple of QMS (sratistics) classes. The first was an MBA core course. It's hard to describe but there were a lot of seats in class and I sat in a right/center/front section without any nearby occupied seat. So one day this seemingly shapely coed right next to me walks so close to me I nearly bumped my head into her left boob getting up from my chair. She was grunting and rolling her shoulders like her bra was killing her. She tried to strike up a conversation as I left class, so it was clear to me she was interested. I mumbled something about needing to get to my next class. I guess she took it as a rejection and didn't try again. I think a less aggressive approach might have worked.
Of all things, we would meet in a doctoral-level research design course. But she and I never really talked until final exam day. Now to explain I'm a left-hander and there is one left-handed desk in the class, normally at the front of class. I search for where the desk is, and she's got her legs propped up on the seat. I don't have an issue with her doing the final in comfort, but it was no coincidence she used the only left-handed desk in class vs. all the right-handed desks around her. I took back my chair, and she didn't really object. But not before I noted she was not wearing a bra and wearing a sheer black top that showed every inch of long breasts reaching around her waist, at least triple the size you would ever find in Playboy. It must have taken 10 minutes before I could clear my head of that image and focus on the final. I think I saw her one time after that in passing and she was wearing the biggest diamond I've ever seen on her left hand. Good for her.]
Anyway, one day Lucille came to work without her trademark curls, hair straightened up, still very attractive. So I protest her losing her curls, and I can tell Lucille is enjoying the attention. Josh then says, "Lucille, don't pay attention to Ron. I think your hair is perfect just as it is." Lucille is now glowing, loving every bit of this. I later said, "Josh, why are you scoring points at my expense. You yourself told me she is married." Josh almost prophetically said, "Dude! Who knows: maybe she'll divorce one day."
I ran into issues with Wilbur Gaines, in particular at one point in Orlando's humidity developing a severe infection in my inner ear affecting my balance, almost close to blacking out. I was given some prescriptions, I don't recall, antibiotics or whatever and told to tell Gaines to assign me to light desk duty. Gaines, I'm convinced, thought I was trying to get out of studying for a qualifying exam in reactor physics or whatever and refused the doctor's instructions. I gave him the doctor's contact information, but he refused. "The only way you're getting out of this is to get a 24-hour bed chit." And then he mockingly says, "Maybe I should pull an instructor out of class so you won't get into an accident on the way back to the clinic." You can't say, "Fuck you!" to a superior officer. I didn't care if I drove into a tree on the way back; I didn't want to deal with his mocking bullshit. So I got back to the clinic, and the doctor protested, "I don't write 24-hour bed chits for this condition. Didn't you tell him what I said about assigning you to light desk duty?" I told him what Gaines told me and gave him Gaines' contact information. He finally gave me the chit. Gaines was pissed when I returned with the chit, but there was nothing he could do about it.
The school and I came to an agreement over the coming weeks the situation wasn't working out and I got my honorable discharge. On the way out, I served for the JAG office at Orlando, having to do stuff like getting statements from a company whose vehicle had been side-swiped by a government vehicle, losing a driver side mirror. I found myself getting called a goddamn bureaucrat, etc. But I met and fell in love with this petite Italian American \yeoman, Alicia. She, unfortunately, was in a relationship with a married civil servant on the West Coast.
When I found myself back on the market, there weren't any openings in the Florida area. I attached a job inquiry to my audit premium payment in San Antonio, and it turned out they had a trainee position for APL, a heavily mathematically-notated programming language developed by IBM. A year later, I moved to Houston for a similar time-sharing position and started my MBA part-time the following year.
Bad timing of sorts. At some time after I moved from Florida, Lucille divorced her oddball husband and apparently ended up dating most of my friends. (I would like to think she would have dated me, too.) And of all things, yes, Josh and Lucille got married. I was invited to the wedding. I really wasn't sure given my limited budget, I wanted to spend the money for a flight, hotel, and car. Alicia called up one Saturday morning (like 6 AM) [she sounded a little drunk, to be honest], encouraging me to make the trip, promising to put me up and to be my date for the wedding (but wouldn't go to the reception for whatever the reason). I jumped at the chance.
It was like the gang celebrated me back like a conquering hero. The only downside is someone pranked for God knows what reason Lucille's beautiful black Mustang, getting Limburger cheese into the ventilation system. Some side notes: Alicia eventually broke up with that bastard on the West Coast and married a South Carolina farmer--I got an invitation postmarked after the date. Josh and Lucille had two daughters and the last I heard were living in Maine.
So that sets up my recent Facebook friends request from someone who seems to be Jack. At first I thought it was another unsolicited request, and keep in mind I hadn't heard from most of these folks since the Carter Administration. I went to his Facebook page but I didn't see a biography of the type: "Happily marred to YYY since yyyy." I saw a woman with him in a few photos; she didn't have Cynthia's bright blond hair, but who knows? Maybe she dyed her hair. I don't see any photos of the old gang. He does mention being a Navy vet, but doesn't mention NPS. (Now I didn't review his posts in detail.)
So I cautiously send him a message: "Did you serve at NPS with Cynthia, Josh, Lucille? I seem to recall that you introduced me to the music of the Zombie's."
He messages back, "Yup. And you were driving a GM XXX." (I don't discuss details because I have some account security questions tied to those.) BINGO!
So I ask, "Did you and Cynthia ever get married?"
"Dude! My wife saw that question! Nope, Cynthia and I split up [the year after Josh's wedding]. She married some dude, and they moved to Hawaii where she taught at some university; she recently became widowed. As for me, I pursued a career as an actuary, and I met my wife along the way."
I bring up Josh and Lucille. I think I got one final card or message from Lucille several years back, no mention of Josh. That didn't seem a good omen.
"Yeah, they got divorced; it's sad to see that happen to one's old friends." He also mentioned that he lost track with Julia some time back.
I remember my old best friend Josh, seeing what happened to me, shaking his head and saying, "Ron, the Navy shit on you." These people I've mentioned, with one or 2 obvious exceptions, were among the best people I've met in my lifetime. I would do almost anything for them.
I generally don't discuss friends and family in my blogs (Bruce is an exception, and in part this had to do with spouse Susan's request to spread his prayer circle). So in my discussions below, I'll mask the given names of my contacts.
Familiar readers may know some of the following context relevant to my discussion here. I went to the University of Texas as a 19-year-old OLL graduate, with a goal of earning a PhD in math from a name school. (There was a second-tier Louisiana university that had essentially offered me a full-ride fellowship, and believe me, I would often second-guess "the road not taken".)
I have an uncanny knack to find myself in politically untenable positions. I needed a stipend to swing expenses. I was a teaching assistant; in essence, I was one of two assigned to a professor for freshman calculus classes. I think the class met for lecture by the professor 3 days a week, and on the off-days there were basically calculus problem study sessions we conducted. I think the students earned 4 semester hours.
UT had invited an East-European Ohio State professor G. Freud as a visiting professor. They NEVER should have assigned him to a freshman calculus course; that was a fucked-up decision of the highest order. It wasn't just his thick accented English (recip(e) row-culls or NATURE-ull numbers). One anecdote I recall he just started filling up some 6 or so blackboards with equations; no one knew what the hell he was doing, the students were just blindly rewriting equations in their notebooks. In the middle of the last board, he had a brain fart of some kind and forgot where he was going with all this. He desperately turned to me for help in getting back on track, but I didn't have a clue. It wasn't like he explained himself before jotting down equations.
It wasn't just hard to follow lectures. He had an unconventional grading scheme; he would give out tests with 4 questions, one of which was optional. You needed one right for a C, 2 for a B, 3 for an A. And these problems weren't like the ones I went over in the labs--and I had no clue what he would ask for on the exams so it wasn't like I could prepare them for what was coming. Oh, and the kicker: it wouldn't be enough to get an A average on tests; he required you to pass an oral exam to get an A. And I heard one story where he said he had to give the student "too much help" on the oral exam, so the student had to settle for a B.
For me, the watershed moment of the course was when the best student in the course, a coed, after the second or third exam, literally threw her exam in my face. (I would later hear she scored straight 100's in the second semester course under a different professor. Which is another thing--I don't think they had plans to have Freud teach the follow-up course. If they did, I seriously doubt they could have filled it, because no one who went through the class would EVER knowingly take it from him.)
So this is a long preface to describe a set-up, and I don't know to this day what motivated Jeff, the other T.A. It was evil incarnate, probably meant to capitalize from setting me up as the fall guy. Jeff came to me (not vice-versa), saying his students were on the verge of mutiny, that we needed to have a come-to-Jesus moment with Freud on the fact he wasn't connecting with the class. I remember being very wary of how Freud would react; who am I, a first-semester grad student, to challenge a professor? If the students wanted to vent, why aren't they going to the department chair, the Dean of Student Affairs, whatever? I was basically seen by the students as guilty by association anyway. But I realized Jeff was right; if Freud was in fact clueless about not getting across to the students, it was our responsibility to give him that unpleasant feedback, although I suspected I was in a no-win situation because the students had no way of knowing what I was saying or doing in their behalf and I doubt even if they did, it wouldn't help me out very much.
So I reluctantly agreed, and we met with Freud. How do we start off? Jeff basically tells me to take the lead. And so I start summarizing the feedback I had been hearing from students; Freud has a horrified look on his face, in utter disbelief. At some point, Freud turns to Jeff and pleadingly asks, "Jeff, is this true?"
And that's when Jeff betrayed me and the students. "Oh, I've heard a couple of bad comments. But there are a few chronic complainers in any class. And that's what you have going on here." BULLSHIT! You lying son of a bitch! You came to me, Judas; I didn't come to you. Why the hell are you kissing Freud's ass? Why did you set me up? What's in it for you?
So Freud, appeased by Jeff's words, turns to me and starts attacking me for my "lies", my "sabotage" of his efforts. It's not the end of it. He lodges a complaint with the chair of the math department. I get called to a meeting, where the chair reads me the riot act, reminds me of my insignificant role in the math department and issues threats if I continue the error of my ways. There is zero tolerance from him to hear the substance of Freud's failed teaching performance and legitimate student complaints.
That wasn't the end of it. Freud actually stalked me. He followed me one day to my graduate real analysis course and literally started badmouthing me to my professor. I was in hell.
The next semester wasn't as bad, but I did mishandle one thing. I never found calculus word problems that difficult. I've sometimes related this anecdote. The other TA was a coed. I lost a few students to her study sessions, bur I heard some feedback that she had to rely on the teacher solution book to solve word problems in class. I said, "So why are you guys going there?"; he says, "Dude! Have you seen her [very attractive]. Who would you rather look at at 8 AM in the morning?"
One day I finish writing out one problem solution and ritually asked if anyone had any questions. As I started on the next problem, this older guy, probably as old or older than my Dad, loudly speaks out, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I didn't understand a single word he said," I don't know if he was just having a bad day, didn't get enough sleep or what, but I couldn't get him to focus on a single step of the solution--he simply was verbalizing frustration. The university really doesn't teach you how to deal with these kind of events. So finally, struggling to get control of the class, I reminded him attendance of the study session was optional. He promptly walked out and maybe up to half of the class, one at a time over the next few minutes. Well, that wasn't good. This time somehow the department seemed to respond to this or other student complaints doing a mid-semester (vs. typical end-of-semester) teaching evaluations, including the professor. I don't think that helped my case for stipend renewal, but given the explicit threats from the department chair in the fall, I already knew my stipend was at risk.
I think at some point in the late spring semester, the stipend renewals were announced, and I didn't get one. Jeff, of course, did--if there was ever anyone who deserved having his ass kicked, it was he. But for me, it really killed my ambition to earn a PhD because I couldn't afford to attend school without a financial aid package. So I made a decision to salvage my Master's; I did land a modest grader's job for a number theory course but still needed to beg for a $500 loan from my reluctant maternal grandfather (There's a soap opera behind that, beyond the scope of this post.) The odd thing about that is I had just mailed off a complimentary copy of my thesis to Grandfather when he passed.
Of course, I had to focus on my job search once I earned my first Master's and basically UT didn't do a damn thing to help. So as an Air Force brat, I explored my options. Long story short, they were floating the idea of training me as a meteorologist; I would start by earning graduate degree(s) at Texas A&M. I had to go through a selection pool but had been assured it was a formality. Long story short, I didn't make the first selection. The recruiters said not to worry; the USAF mostly focused on pilot candidates on the first selection pool after graduation; surely they would pick me in the next pool in 6 weeks--or else they would have to wait another 6 months for me to reenter the candidate selection pool. Well, as you may have guessed, I got passed over a second time. (In an ironic twist, one of my nephews recently successfully defended his meteorology Master's thesis from Texas A&M.)
At this point, I began to panic. There were a number of unemployed mathematicians on the market. In hindsight, I should have minored in computer science, like most of my colleagues, but I stubbornly insisted on my first love, philosophy; I had double-majored in math & philosophy at OLL; at the time it made sense because philosophy is a typical major for a prospective Catholic priest, but after dating in college, I wasn't ready to make the necessary commitment to celibacy. One typical career path was to teach at a community college, but Austin Community College didn't even acknowledge my query.
I had moved into a coop down "the Drag" in Austin, just off campus, which allowed me to leave frugally in exchange for designated work activities (meal assistance, dishwashing, whatever). My folks had given me a small check as a graduation present, mostly because they didn't want me coming back home. My Dad barely made ends meet as an NCO raising a large family, and two siblings had already started college. I found myself getting kicked out of the placement center for not being a currently registered student. In desperation, I resurrected the idea of earning high school math teaching credentials and tried to get a financial aid package to re-enroll at Texas, but I needed a family financial statement if my folks had claimed me as a dependent the prior year (never mind the fact they never contributed a dime for my expenses as a college student). My folks had no interest in "enabling" my being a "professional student". I argued that the university already had it on file because of my chem-e major little brother being enrolled there, but the university bureaucrat dismissed that, arguing it would violate my brother's "data privacy"; what kind of bureaucratic bullshit is this excuse? So if the UT alumni wonder why they haven't gotten a lot of donations over the years, read this segment carefully; I was treated like crap from the get-go.
At some point, someone suggested to me that the Navy also employs mathematicians and I should check it out. Now this requires a little background. This was when Admiral Rickover headed the nuclear Navy (submarines run on nuclear power and/or armed with missiles, etc.) He had a record of telling Congress every year he personally interviewed all the officers in the nuclear Navy. He was also a cultish figure, known for giving unconventional interviews. My favorite Rickover story I had heard was he told the interviewee to do something that would piss him off. So the story goes the guy saw a framed picture of Rickover's wife on his desk, so he took the frame, put it on the floor, and stomped his foot through it. The story goes that they physically had to restrain Rickover from going after the applicant. No word on whether the candidate was selected, but mission accomplished.
I remember sweating my own interview; what was he going to ask? Some oddball math question? I'm getting briefed on the map to his office, the protocols, etc. I had no idea what to expect. He immediately starts in on my wardrobe. I didn't own a lot of suits, dress shirts and ties. I thought I was wearing a nice turtleneck (at the time these were in style), suitcoat, shoes, etc. Like "how dare you show up here without wearing a suit and tie?" Among other things, in all the briefings I had going to the meeting, there had been no discussion of wardrobe. I guess if I were to interview at IBM, I would have known a suit and tie. I stammered back a response I didn't own any. He's outraged and incredulously asks, "WELL, COULD YOU BORROW ONE?" At some point, he dismisses me abruptly like, "I'm done with you!" And I left, feeling somehow lost the job before the interview even got started. Who knows? Maybe he wanted to see how I responded to getting screamed at.
Now additional context: the Navy has had a nuclear power school in the Orlando area; there are separate tracks for enlisted and officers who are designated to serve in the nuclear Navy. These were deeply structured courses, to the point if I called in sick, someone else could fill in with the same lecture, and if I taught some calculus concepts, it could get used say in a follow-up physics class later that same day.
Technically these teaching positions could/should be staffed by contractors. But Rickover for some reason liked having direct control of resources like instructors than indirect control through contracts. These were basically single 4-year appointments in the Navy. Apparently they liked to recruit a fresh group of instructors straight out of graduate school. I was initially assigned to the enlisted math track. What I didn't know at the time is there is a training sequence for instructors, with a capstone certification lecture before the CEO of the school. The CEO had been displeased with the immediately prior enlisted math certification lectures and gave "Wilbur Gaines" a chewing-out over the lack of preparation. So when I came in where Gaines was in the process of retooling his training protocol and his hostile attitude from day 1 was "I'm not going to get lectured over you!" Damn! It's bad timing, just like when I got assigned to Freud.
So I was due to join the Navy at the start of the year. And in the closing weeks of the year, I got a notice from the Air Force asking if I was still available and a note Austin Community College wanted to talk to me. Too little, too late!
I was initially assigned to 3 weeks or so of Officer Indoctrination School in Newport, RI. I won't go too much into specifics, but among other things, we had to walk patrols at night in the residence halls. What I also remember is there was a freak snowstorm like 67 inches around Providence a few days before my flight to Orlando. And there was one of my first tastes with dealing with the military bureaucracy: the message was that if we were delayed getting to our duty stations, it would be charged against our annual leave. (I did manage to get out in time.)
Now once I got to Orlando, a few things were clear: for one thing, there were no BOQ's (on-base housing). This meant a couple of things: I needed to get an apartment off-base, and I needed a car. My first and closest friend, one of my immediate predecessors, was "Josh". He helped me get settled; I ended up buying a GM XXX, which I think a yeoman was selling which had been used by his wife. It was sort of a mess, with balding tires and drank oil like crazy. I think I paid about $500 but probably traded it in 2 or 3 years later on a new Ford compact. I also got my first drivers license in Florida. (My Dad wouldn't let me get one because his insurance agent had shown hoe much his rates would go up. He wouldn't even let me drive his car in an empty lot. I also had failed one driving test in Austin, and it started raining; I was driving an unfamiliar car and was slow finding the wipers. To this day, the first thing I check out in a car is the wipers.) I still ran into other issues, like JC Penney had cancelled a bed I bought on credit. Now I had to be the safest credit risk in the world, because if you're in the military, you can get into deep shit not paying your bills, but I guess Penney's decided I wasn't a worthy risk. The funniest thing was while in college, I could have bought a bed, no problem. So to this day I've bought little from Penney's.)
Josh was a great friend, but he had certain comic-tragic quirks. He was prematurely balding and thought he was too ugly to attract women the old-fashioned way. So he did certain things a good Catholic boy like me would never dream of doing and there were risks (like STDs) in pursuing certain choices. And one night after we went to dinner (and he was driving), he insisted in taking me to a strip joint. When I balked, he threatened to dump me off in the center of Orlando, so I went with the flow. He would at times call me, complaining certain women he wanted to "date" wouldn't come when he wanted but like at 2 PM on Sundays. Another time he would call and tell me something, and I would tell him, "Jeez, Josh. You need to protect yourself. You don't want to go to a Navy doctor over that."
Part of the problem was 150 of the instructors were maybe 90% male, and there wasn't a good way to meet single women, like Navy nurses, at least on base. The Officers Club was mostly a hangout for retirees and the like. There were a few ladies in the math instructor section. One was Cynthia, a pretty blond, who was happily dating Jack; they were openly affectionate with each other, holding hands and kissing each other, and I think a lot of us were just jealous. We figured it was almost a cinch they were get married. Julia wasn't attached, bur the story was that she was gay. She LOVED DisneyWorld and offered to accompany me on my first visit. Very nice lady; she offered me some spare furniture of sorts in the aftermath of the Penney's issue. There was a tall blonde (her given name escapes me, but she wasn't my type at all) who was dating Daniel and she was constantly mirroring him except maybe his chewing on a toothpick. By mirroring him, I meant like if he crossed his legs, she would do the same, or she might echo his "of course" with her own. It came across as a little creepy.
Then there was Lucille, She was sweet, pretty, and friendly with a positive disposition; it was almost like she's known you all your life and she's interested in what you have to say. Her hair was curly and dark. I mean, I had the wildest crush on her. Josh told me, "Cool your jets, dude. She's married." She was a traditional Jew (which wouldn't have bothered me at all); she was married to a very strange dude who was rumored to do things like lock her out of their house for God knows what reason.
One other physical feature that had absolutely nothing to do with my crush, which had more to do with her personality and beauty. There was a slight bulge at her chest. And I wouldn't say I've seen this a lot, maybe a handful of times where a woman seems to find her bra uncomfortable and may may rotate her shoulders and chest trying to find a more comfortable position. But a military blouse, etc., is not very flattering to one's figure.
So one day I went to one of the gang's social events, and when I arrive, Lucille is playing pool in this low-cut halter top down to her waist showing deep cleavage, especially while bending over making shots. I remember wondering what kind of industrial-strength bra could contain those and minimize their appearance. I've always been self-conscious about anything I said about women's breasts, worried about a prospective girlfriend's reaction to any comments about whether they are "too big" or "too small".by family members. In fact,, I don't know the bra sizes of past girlfriends. Most have had small to medium builds but sexiness had more to do with interpersonal fit than specific attributes.
[I would later experience a reverse type Lucille incident at UH in a couple of QMS (sratistics) classes. The first was an MBA core course. It's hard to describe but there were a lot of seats in class and I sat in a right/center/front section without any nearby occupied seat. So one day this seemingly shapely coed right next to me walks so close to me I nearly bumped my head into her left boob getting up from my chair. She was grunting and rolling her shoulders like her bra was killing her. She tried to strike up a conversation as I left class, so it was clear to me she was interested. I mumbled something about needing to get to my next class. I guess she took it as a rejection and didn't try again. I think a less aggressive approach might have worked.
Of all things, we would meet in a doctoral-level research design course. But she and I never really talked until final exam day. Now to explain I'm a left-hander and there is one left-handed desk in the class, normally at the front of class. I search for where the desk is, and she's got her legs propped up on the seat. I don't have an issue with her doing the final in comfort, but it was no coincidence she used the only left-handed desk in class vs. all the right-handed desks around her. I took back my chair, and she didn't really object. But not before I noted she was not wearing a bra and wearing a sheer black top that showed every inch of long breasts reaching around her waist, at least triple the size you would ever find in Playboy. It must have taken 10 minutes before I could clear my head of that image and focus on the final. I think I saw her one time after that in passing and she was wearing the biggest diamond I've ever seen on her left hand. Good for her.]
Anyway, one day Lucille came to work without her trademark curls, hair straightened up, still very attractive. So I protest her losing her curls, and I can tell Lucille is enjoying the attention. Josh then says, "Lucille, don't pay attention to Ron. I think your hair is perfect just as it is." Lucille is now glowing, loving every bit of this. I later said, "Josh, why are you scoring points at my expense. You yourself told me she is married." Josh almost prophetically said, "Dude! Who knows: maybe she'll divorce one day."
I ran into issues with Wilbur Gaines, in particular at one point in Orlando's humidity developing a severe infection in my inner ear affecting my balance, almost close to blacking out. I was given some prescriptions, I don't recall, antibiotics or whatever and told to tell Gaines to assign me to light desk duty. Gaines, I'm convinced, thought I was trying to get out of studying for a qualifying exam in reactor physics or whatever and refused the doctor's instructions. I gave him the doctor's contact information, but he refused. "The only way you're getting out of this is to get a 24-hour bed chit." And then he mockingly says, "Maybe I should pull an instructor out of class so you won't get into an accident on the way back to the clinic." You can't say, "Fuck you!" to a superior officer. I didn't care if I drove into a tree on the way back; I didn't want to deal with his mocking bullshit. So I got back to the clinic, and the doctor protested, "I don't write 24-hour bed chits for this condition. Didn't you tell him what I said about assigning you to light desk duty?" I told him what Gaines told me and gave him Gaines' contact information. He finally gave me the chit. Gaines was pissed when I returned with the chit, but there was nothing he could do about it.
The school and I came to an agreement over the coming weeks the situation wasn't working out and I got my honorable discharge. On the way out, I served for the JAG office at Orlando, having to do stuff like getting statements from a company whose vehicle had been side-swiped by a government vehicle, losing a driver side mirror. I found myself getting called a goddamn bureaucrat, etc. But I met and fell in love with this petite Italian American \yeoman, Alicia. She, unfortunately, was in a relationship with a married civil servant on the West Coast.
When I found myself back on the market, there weren't any openings in the Florida area. I attached a job inquiry to my audit premium payment in San Antonio, and it turned out they had a trainee position for APL, a heavily mathematically-notated programming language developed by IBM. A year later, I moved to Houston for a similar time-sharing position and started my MBA part-time the following year.
Bad timing of sorts. At some time after I moved from Florida, Lucille divorced her oddball husband and apparently ended up dating most of my friends. (I would like to think she would have dated me, too.) And of all things, yes, Josh and Lucille got married. I was invited to the wedding. I really wasn't sure given my limited budget, I wanted to spend the money for a flight, hotel, and car. Alicia called up one Saturday morning (like 6 AM) [she sounded a little drunk, to be honest], encouraging me to make the trip, promising to put me up and to be my date for the wedding (but wouldn't go to the reception for whatever the reason). I jumped at the chance.
It was like the gang celebrated me back like a conquering hero. The only downside is someone pranked for God knows what reason Lucille's beautiful black Mustang, getting Limburger cheese into the ventilation system. Some side notes: Alicia eventually broke up with that bastard on the West Coast and married a South Carolina farmer--I got an invitation postmarked after the date. Josh and Lucille had two daughters and the last I heard were living in Maine.
So that sets up my recent Facebook friends request from someone who seems to be Jack. At first I thought it was another unsolicited request, and keep in mind I hadn't heard from most of these folks since the Carter Administration. I went to his Facebook page but I didn't see a biography of the type: "Happily marred to YYY since yyyy." I saw a woman with him in a few photos; she didn't have Cynthia's bright blond hair, but who knows? Maybe she dyed her hair. I don't see any photos of the old gang. He does mention being a Navy vet, but doesn't mention NPS. (Now I didn't review his posts in detail.)
So I cautiously send him a message: "Did you serve at NPS with Cynthia, Josh, Lucille? I seem to recall that you introduced me to the music of the Zombie's."
He messages back, "Yup. And you were driving a GM XXX." (I don't discuss details because I have some account security questions tied to those.) BINGO!
So I ask, "Did you and Cynthia ever get married?"
"Dude! My wife saw that question! Nope, Cynthia and I split up [the year after Josh's wedding]. She married some dude, and they moved to Hawaii where she taught at some university; she recently became widowed. As for me, I pursued a career as an actuary, and I met my wife along the way."
I bring up Josh and Lucille. I think I got one final card or message from Lucille several years back, no mention of Josh. That didn't seem a good omen.
"Yeah, they got divorced; it's sad to see that happen to one's old friends." He also mentioned that he lost track with Julia some time back.
I remember my old best friend Josh, seeing what happened to me, shaking his head and saying, "Ron, the Navy shit on you." These people I've mentioned, with one or 2 obvious exceptions, were among the best people I've met in my lifetime. I would do almost anything for them.
