Military Service

As described in “Life and Teaching”, Sept, 1992, my military service began in July, 1942, when I joined the U.S. Air Force as an aviation cadet at the University of Chicago. I arrived in Chicago by train from Junction City, Wisconsin in early July and went to the Windermere Hotel, near Lake Shore Drive on the south side of Chicago. There were about 150 cadets in the class to which I was assigned. All of us had completed our Bachelor’s Degrees before being accepted in the Aviation Cadet Program. Our task was to learn weather observation and forecasting and to achieve the rank of Second Lieutenant in approximately 10 months. Classes were held at the Institute of meteorology at the University of Chicago. Our instructors were academicians in meteorology who had been assembled to train prospective meteorologists for the U.S. Air Force.

The officer in charge of our group was Captain William Starbuck, a short, feisty, infantry officer. To a naïve young private, he was very intimidating, but fortunately I didn’t have much direct contact with him. For the first month or so, we spent much time marching and drilling, marching and drilling on the football field. The captain selected a few cadets to act in his behalf to lead the drilling and marching in platoons. I enjoyed the drilling to some extent as long as I was not called upon to give orders. The rest of the day was given over to keeping our rooms ready for instant inspection, writing letters, eating, and general “B S ing”

Soon classes started and we were hurtled into a busy schedule of study, classes, tests, drilling, map drawing, eating and sleeping. On weekends we were provided with transportation to several USO clubs in the area, and were given free time to use as we wished. After a month or so, the whole contingent was moved into the International House on the U of Chicago campus. Here we had separate rooms, shared with a roommate, a lounge, game rooms, and other amenities. Not a bad life for a “Private”!

In January, brother Bob also was admitted to the aviation cadet program. While he was in a later class, he went through essentially the same routines as I did. We saw each other occasionally, shared letters from home (Our parents were faithful letter-writers), and compared notes. Brother Charles was now out of high school and was helping Dad and Mother on the farm in Wisconsin. Bob’s stay at the University of Chicago was interrupted in the spring of 1943, when he transferred to a flight training school in Murfreesburo, Tennessee. From that point on, he was in pilot training and trained at several air bases in the south, including Biloxi, Mississippi and others. He spent the war years in the States ferrying aircraft from one part of the U.S. to another. The faculty of the University of Chicago who were involved in the aviation cadet program in many cases were world-renowned meteorologists. Among these was Dr. Carl Gustav Rossby, a Scandinavian who was famous for his theory of “long waves in the westerly’s” which helped to explain the cyclical nature of storms crossing the middle latitudes. His ideas led to the discovery of the “Jet Stream” during World War II.

Another professor was Dr. Herbert Riehl, a Native of Germany, who taught us Dynamic Meteorology. This was a very mathematical subject and made use of differential equations to describe the movements of air under different conditions of temperature, pressure, and relative humidity. In addition to the difficulty of the course, Professor Riehl’s English was fractured and hard to understand. His was probably my most difficult course. Another well known professor was Dr. Horace Byers, a synoptic meteorologist. (This means someone who is interested in the daily weather changes, forecasting the weather a few days in advance, and keeping track of the day-by-day changes at the surface and aloft) his was a very practical course because it dealt directly with the kinds of problems and tasks each of us would face when we were stationed at an air field forecasting for flights across mountains, oceans, and continents.

A laboratory was held every day in which we studied weather charts, drew weather maps, drew isobars, plotted data on the nearly 200 stations in the United States, and made forecasts based on the maps we had drawn. This was a most interesting class and very practical. A young lady in the class, not an aviation cadet, but a civilian student, studied all the same classes as the cadets did. Many years later, I was interested to read that she had married the instructor, Horace Byers. After some years, she divorced him and married Robert Simpson, The couple then became very interested in tropical cyclones and hurricanes and wrote several articles in meteorology journals about their findings. They flew across the Atlantic and Pacific several times and photographed the clouds. One I remember showed that in the tropics, clouds often formed in “streets”, long rows of clouds in a line for thousands of miles.

Sometime in November or December, all of my class assembled outdoors near Harper Hall and had a group picture taken. I still have a copy of that photograph. I can probably remember only about 10 percent of the individuals at this time. (or less!)

As with any group of boisterous young men, there is always a lot of camaraderie that develops in their free time. Some were good story tellers and availed themselves of a willing audience very often. The stories would not fit in a polite company, but formed one of my most memorable experiences. Hearing this varied group of young men, black, white, or yellow, from all corners of the United States, tell their stories in dialect and with gestures and drama, made for some uproarious occasions.

At Christmas time, most of the cadets went to their respective homes, as I did. However, a few stayed around the University of Chicago or took just short breaks. Those who stayed formed a group and had an informal group picture taken. I suppose Bob and I both spent a couple of weeks at home, eating home cooked meals and helping out with the firewood making and other chores.

In May’43, my class had finished its concentrated course was ready to graduate. I invited my parents to come to Chicago for the graduation. Dorothee was also invited to attend. When my parents arrived in Chicago, they were to call me so that I could give them instruction as to how to get to the International House and the graduation ceremonies which were held in the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. Not being familiar with city telephone systems, since we did not have a telephone on the farm in Wisconsin, they misdialed and were unable to get me. It all worked out OK and they finally arrived at the International House on time, and had a chance to meet Dorothee – the first occasion for this event. All but a few of the 150 cadets got their commissions and diplomas for completing the program successfully. After the ceremonies, all of the new offices were issued officer uniforms and were given about $600 in a cash allowance to get them to their duty assignment. My assignment was at Marfa, Texas, at an air force training base. I was to be the full time meteorologist in charge of the weather station there. This was a base that trained pilots for twin-engine aircraft. The base was located in southwest Texas about 50 miles from the Mexican border just east of the Pecos Mountains.

The very first day of my duty assignment, a thunderstorm dropped copious hail, about ¾ inch in diameter. Unfortunately, about 90 planes, AT-17’s, were caught in the hail storm while tethered on the field. The hail punctured the wings and fuselages of these canvas-covered planes and made them inoperable. An entire class of pilots-in-training had to be sent to Roswell, New Mexico to complete their training. What an auspicious beginning for a new meteorologist on the air base!

I had one of two occasions to fly with the pilots from the air base, and benefited from the low altitude flights through the various cloud layers that I was supposed to be forecasting.

The weather was generally quite fair, the climate was dry in west Texas, and the skies were usually clear with good visibility. On one occasion, I decided to fly in a small plane that was making a triangular route from Marfa to Chihuahua to San Antonio and return to Marfa. This took the better part of a day considering the slow progress of the AT-17’s and the distances involved – about 1000 miles. We stopped in San Antonio for lunch and refueling. The trip was uneventful but instructive for me because it was my first glimpse of the endless, dry, cactus and arroyo-filled landscape below us, partly in Texas and partly in Mexico.

After about two months at Marfa, I received orders to report to Camp Anza, California (near Riverside), to be equipped and prepared for an overseas assignment. This was exciting news because it would give promise of “really getting into the war” and contributing my small bit as a weather officer. On the appointed day, I took a bus to Alpine, Texas, where I boarded a train for California. It was a sleeper, as I recall (my first such experience), and our route took us through Gallup, New Mexico. This had meaning to me because Dorothee had told me3 that she spent some time in Gallup and visited the Navajo Indian tribes there.

After a day and a night, I arrived in Riverside, California where I was met and transported by bus to Camp Anza. To my surprise, I met several of my classmates from the University of Chicago Aviation Cadet program with whom I had taken classes the previous winter. We had a happy reunion and of course were terribly curious as to where our overseas assignment would take us.

Our stay at Camp Anza was about three weeks, as I recall. This gave us a chance to see Los Angeles, Hollywood, Riverside, and other nearby cities. Of course we spent much of the time getting outfitted for overseas, including new uniforms, shoes, insignia, getting shots, signing payroll documents, taking out insurance, and a dozen other routine tasks.

This reminds me of something that took place when I was at Marfa. Our pay as an officer was good so I made some purchases I ordinarily would not have made (I was a pretty frugal sort!). One of these was a wristwatch that cost about $50, quite a lot for those days, but I figured I would need a good watch for my duties as a weather officer. The watch was a wind-up type (quartz-crystals and tiny batteries were not common then), and it had a luminous dial. It really worked well, was visible at all hours of night or day and kept good time. I wore this watch through my entire period in the service, and in fact wore it for about 30 years after I returned to teaching. An interesting event happened with this watch many years after I was out of the service. I took it off my wrist on a particularly hot day and hung it over the shift lever in my car while I went to work for several hours. The sun beat down on the front seat of my car all day and when I returned in the evening, my watch was still in place but all the radioactive material on the hands and number of the dial had sort of melted and run down the face of the dial. I took the watch to a jeweler who replaced the dial and presumably had painted the luminous dial as I instructed him. But later I discovered that he had carefully painted all the numbers, 1 – 12, but had forgotten to paint the hands of the watch. So now I have a watch that still runs but is useless as a luminous dial because of that oversight! Well, I use the watch in my classes when I wish to demonstrate radioactivity with a Geiger counter. It really sets the instrument off! Such radioactive dials are outlawed now.

Finally the day of embarkation came for our trip overseas. My recollections of the trip across the Pacific Ocean are described in the next section.

Shipping Overseas

There were about 5000 troops – enlisted men and officers, who boarded the Hermitage in Los Angeles Harbor for the trip overseas. None of us had a clear idea of where we were headed, except that it made sense that it was somewhere in Asia or the South Pacific. We soon began our trip and settled into a routine that was to last about 45 days. We headed in a southwesterly direction in relatively calm seas. Officers had cabins shared with one or two roommates. Enlisted men had bunks in the hold, about four bunks high, and it appeared to be quite crowded. They also had their own eating facilities, apart from the officer’s mess. It seemed a bit unfair, but that seems to be the established benefits of rank in the military services.

Officers were assigned duties as O.D.’s (Officers of the day). This meant spending a 24 hour period with the enlisted men, censoring their mail, checking on the general conditions, and taking care of any emergencies that might develop. I think there were lifeboat drills to attend t, also. The mail censoring at first seemed to be routine duty, but as it wore on, it became rather onerous and tedious. It was our task to clip out of letters any references to location or possible destination. There of course was a lot of speculation as to where we were going and no one had any solid information, so it was mostly rumors. If the Japanese had any access to this kind of information, it probably would have misled them enough to shorten the war!

I was not particularly bothered by seasickness, even after we got well away from land where the great ocean swells set up a rhythmic pitch and roll to the ship’s motion. I think the enlisted men in the hold had a tougher time, mainly because of the gradual accumulation of unpleasant smells of food, diesel fuel, and human bodies packed together. Showers were available and I think were periodically enforced but still the atmosphere became rather fetid after a while.

But no one suffered greatly on the trip. There was plenty of food, reading matter, crap games, and bull sessions to keep everyone occupied most of the time. Lots of letters were written with the expectation that they would be mailed at the first port of call. No mail was received, of course, and those men (there were no women on board, to my knowledge) who had personal problems or expectations when they left the mainland had to wait until they arrived at their destination to receive any word of their disposition.

The weather gradually became warmer as we sailed southward. About twenty days after embarkation we reached the equator. For those of us who were experiencing the crossing of the equator for the first time, a special initiation was in store. This consisted of tricks and pranks played on us by the “seasoned” crew. A canvas slide was rigged up and we had to slide down it into a tank of saltwater, while being deluged with sea water along the way. At the end, we had to “drink” a foul mixture of some concoction. There was a lot of hilarity and good humor, and a lot of fun was had by all – the perpetrators and the victims alike. At the end we received a document that said we were members of the Davy Jones Society and entitled to all the privileges attached thereto. What those were, I never found out!

Our first stop was in Wellington, New Zealand. Our reason for traveling so far south was because of the danger of Japanese submarines in the South Atlantic. The Japanese had succeeded in capturing most of the islands of the South Pacific and were threatening Australia. While the U.S. was gradually halting their advance and even turning them back after the Battle of Midway, there was still danger of troopship sinking’s at the hands of Japanese submarines. We traveled under blackout conditions most of the trip but encountered no sightings of submarines to my knowledge.

Wellington is a medium sized city on the west coast of one of the New Zealand islands. Our stop was very brief but we were able to disembark for a day. Several of us decided to explore a park in the city, located up on a moderate hill. We engaged a taxicab which was powered by charcoal (gasoline was in short supply, or perhaps unobtainable at that time). We learned that charcoal-powered cabs were lacking in power and at one point were asked to get out of the cab and help push it up to the top of the hill.

Our next stage in the trip was to round the island of Tasmania, which is south of New Zealand and Australia. At latitude of about 45 degrees South in August, the temperature was quite cold, and watching the waves from the deck of the ship and counting the porpoises, of which there were plentiful, was an enjoyable but brisk experience. There were also many flying fish and some with some kind of luminescence that made the ocean look fascinating at night.

Temperatures warmed up a bit as we traveled northward toward Perth, Australia, on the west coast. We stopped there also for a couple of days and had a chance to explore the city. Perth looked much the same as any U.S. city with many pedestrians on the streets – all of whom were friendly to us but spoke in a rather unrecognizable form of English – at least to our ears.

Our next stint was through the Indian Ocean to the city of Bombay, India. There we stopped several days and waited for transshipment to another ship – a British vessel that was to take us to Karachi, India. At that time, Karachi was an Indian city. It is now part of Pakistan, and is located at about latitude 30 North, I would guess.

Shipping Overseas India Stint

Our stay in Karachi lasted about three weeks, as I recall. We stayed in rather open barracks or tents. Our washing facilities were outside, and I remember shaving with a safety razor at a long trough with running water. I don’t remember the food but I expect it was army fare and served us very well.

One incident I recall was an effort to pass the time and relieve the boredom until our train was ready to leave. A number of us decided to rent a boat and go out fishing on the Arabian Sea. Everything went as arranged, except the gentile swells in the ocean brought on a headache and nausea for me. So I didn’t enjoy the day and I don’t even remember whether anyone of the group caught any fish. I spent the entire day lying on the bottom of the flat-bottomed boat and the other passengers picked their way over me as they moved around.

At last we were ready to board the train for our trip eastward. It was an interesting trip and the whole thing lasted about two weeks. We went northward for several hundred miles, then turned eastward and followed the valley of the Ganges River until we got to near Calcutta. Officers had what were termed “sleeping cars” which were simply regular cars with hard wooden benches along the side on which one could lie down, using clothing for pillows and blankets. Food was served at mealtimes by stopping the train on a siding and the quartermaster corps set up soup kettles, stoves, tables, and tin ware for us to eat on. I imagine the cooks purchased food from the natives in the villages to supplement the army fare. At any rate, we suffered no hardships and enjoyed the ever-changing scenery in route, from plains to mountains and river valleys as we progressed on our route.

When we arrived near Calcutta, we needed to cross the Ganges River in order to head northeastward toward Assam Province where we were to be stationed. We did this by transferring all our belongings to a number of ferries which took us across the river. From the ferries, we put all our belongings on board a narrow gauge railroad and proceeded up the tracks. Accommodations were about the same as before. We saw lots of animals such as monkeys of different kinds, working elephants, and birds. We kept looking for tigers but failed to see any. Children constantly begged for “baksheesh” through the open windows of the train whenever it slowed down. All in all the trip was interesting and not too uncomfortable. We made one stop at a British rest comp where we could take showers and get rested up.

Our destination was in extreme northeast Assam province at a town called Dibrugarh near the airbase of Mohanbari where we were to be stationed. This was a jumping off place for Army Transport Command planes bound for China, carrying oil and supplies for the armies of Chiang Kai-Shek in Yunnan Province, China.

We were put up in doubled-walled tents, with wooden floors. While it rained a bit, the tents were dry and comfortable. Two officers shared a tent and had a “bearer”, an Indian civilian who brought us water, swept the floors, made our beds, and ran errands. I remember our orders to the bearer were always “Jaldhi, jaldhi”, which meant “Faster, faster”. Not a very charitable order, to say the least, for our hardworking bearer. I learned one Hindu phrase which I now remember. It was “Ap ka nam ka hai”, which means “what is your name”. I remember using this phrase on David several years later, after he had spent three years in Nepal in the Peace Corps. I remember my surprise when He answered “David Trowbridge”. So there must have been a close similarity between the languages spoken in Nepal and in India.

Our airbase was set among tea plantations, and walking to work every day was a pleasant experience. It seems the tea could be harvested continuously by patient tea leaf pickers who bent over the waist-high bushes and picked the tenderest, smallest leaves for their collecting bags. Workers around the air field performed their ablutions in the morning by taking showers under waist-high water faucets by squatting on their haunches under their grimy cloth wrap which constituted their main article of clothing. They brushed their teeth vigorously by breaking off a tea bush branch and using that with water as a toothbrush. Our duties at the airbase were to prepare maps and charts, make forecasts of the weather, and convey our knowledge of the route conditions over the “hump” to the pilots as they readied themselves for their flight. Their cargo consisted of oil drums, medical supplies, food, clothing, weapons, ammunition, and other necessities for the Chinese armies in the field in China. At this time, the Japanese had conquered nearly all of central and southern China. The Chinese armies under Chiang Kai-Shek were ensconced in the western mountains near Chengtu and Kunming and were defending themselves against the advancing Japanese. The “Burma Road” was being constructed through the Himalayas in northern Burma, but it would be many months before it was completed. The “Hump Route” was the only viable way of supplying the Chinese armies during this period. So I guess our services in that effort were worthwhile.

My officer roommate was Clayton Pohley, an intelligent and energetic meteorology officer. We lived together in the tent described earlier and had a good relationship. We took jeep trips to another nearby airbase at Chabua on some occasions. These were exciting because of the uncertain connecting roads (trails really). Driving them at night by the light of the moon – our only illumination except for the headlights of the jeep – was a hair-raising adventure. Fortunately we were in a safe area without any enemy troops within a thousand miles of us.

The climate was cool but not frigid during the winter of 1943-44. Our tents were confortable. I don’t remember what kind of heat we had but it probably was charcoal braziers. As I recall, I spent quite a bit of time at the weather station, our work place - and since the station was on 24 hour a day operation, each of the officers and men had a rotating work schedule so quite a few nights were spent on duty at the station. Before our arrival at the air base, the weather station had been operated by enlisted men with a staff sergeant in charge. This staff sergeant had been there perhaps only nine months or so, but to our view, this seemed like a lifetime. Consequently we looked at him with awe and reverence. He was surely one of the “old timers”. The rotation system back to the States which was designed to keep up morale and provide a steady turnover of personnel was designed around a “point system”. Each month counted for so many points until the required number was obtained and the officer or enlisted man could then look forward to being returned to the States, and thenceforth being reassigned to some other duty. So a great deal of conversation was spent in discussing one’s earned points and one’s prospects of going home.

Life in Mohanbari was pleasant and not overly strenuous. We were able to go into town (Dibrugarh) for sightseeing and shopping for whatever was interesting and available. I remember one trip in which we saw a group of service men gathered around a native who was performing some kind of service for the curious service men. Upon closer inspection, we learned that the Indian was removing small pebbles, about the size of a small pea, from the ears of the occupant who was seated in a chair like a dental chair. Of course, a small fee was charged. We were perplexed as to how one could have an earful of small pebbles that needed to be removed. There was the possibility, of course, that the “operator” put the pebbles in himself, before removing them!

All officers carried 45 caliber automatic pistols as side arms, even though we were not in a combat area, I remember I carried mine with pride and as a matter of course would put it on when dressing for work in my uniform. However, I never had to use it. But one evening, while working at the weather station, all of us heard a rather low, moaning noise coming from some distance away. The immediate explanation for this sound was “wolves”! On thinking back, this was ridiculous, because to my knowledge, no wolves were even found in that part of the world. I am embarrassed now by what steps I took on that occasion. As ranking officer on duty I deemed it my duty to investigate this strange sound, and so had an enlisted man drive me in the station jeep out into the darkness, toward the moaning sound. As we drove toward a wooded area, it seemed the sound became louder. I ordered the driver to stop and I alighted from the jeep, pointed my pistol in the direction of the sound and fired. (This was the only bullet ever fired from my pistol while it was in my possession!) Needless to say, it was a stupid thing to do and I shudder to think what the repercussions would have been for me if by chance I had hit something. At any rate, we then climbed back into the jeep and returned to the weather station – keeping mum about what had transpired. As I remember the sound stopped after the incident – for what reasons, I will never know. Perhaps the sudden firing of a gun discouraged whoever or whatever was making the noise and he? it? She? Gracefully retired for the night!

Mohanbari, India and Chengkung, China

I stayed at Mohanbari air base for nine months, from September, 1943 to June, 1944. I enjoyed the work there and felt this was a good place to serve out my service time in the Air Force. By this time I had accumulated ten points and could look forward to being rotated when I had accumulated fifteen more, or a total of 25 points, as I recall. The work was interesting and I had made some good friends among the weather men and the pilots. Of course, I was in a rather secure position, different from the pilots and air crews who had to brave the weather over the hump as they flew at 20,000 to 30,000 feet above those formidable mountains. Thunderstorms were wild and vicious, especially as spring and summer arrived, because it was then that the seasonal monsoon flow reached northern India and the rising air over the 25,000 foot mountains produced much rain, ice, violent vertical drafts and towering thunderstorms. Some thunderstorm clouds reached 50-60 thousand feet in height, much too high to be flown over by the C-46’s and C87’s that were the designated carriers of supplies over the hump. Frequently, planes were lost under these conditions. Crews would bail out of the floundering planes in the tall thunderstorms and parachute to the ground. All was not well, however, even if they reached the ground safely, because there were “headhunters” in the Naga Hills in Burma, who would capture the downed crews and turn them over to the Japanese. Many crews escaped this fate, however, and made their way slowly through the jungles back to their air base in India. Occasionally, a crew member would reappear at the Mohanbari air base, usually with a long beard, bedraggled uniform, and deficient about twenty pounds in weight. He would then be restored to health in a few weeks and be sent out again on another delivery mission. Such was the life of an Air Transport pilot!

One of the personnel at the air base where I was stationed had brought a small, two row button accordion with him from the States. I was surprised and delighted to learn of this, because I had learned to play such an instrument in my teens, and actually had a similar instrument back home in Milladore, Wisconsin. He let me play it in our leisure time. I think I could play it better than he could. My repertoire was only polkas and fast waltzes, and I forget what kinds of songs he played. At any rate, we enjoyed each other’s company and shared interest in the accordion. I remember one day in a philosophical mood, he told me that I would probably withstand the rigors of army life and come out without losing my sanity, because I could always resort to playing the accordion for entertainment! For whatever it was worth, this bit of ruminating was comforting.

In late May, 1944, I received orders to transfer to Chengkung, China, to perform my duties at a weather station there. This was at an air base designed for receiving the goods and materials transported over the hump to supply the Chinese armies in the region. So I said goodbye to my friends in India and flew across the hump to my new assignment. It was an unexciting flight on that particular day, for which I was grateful. I was able to see at a distance some of the highest mountain peaks in the world to the north of our route, including Mt. Everest, K-2 and others. Arriving in Chengjung, I met two Air Force officers, one in the weather service as I was, and the other in the quartermaster corps of the Army Transport Command. The first was Lt. Morse, a friendly and likeable man who would be working with me in the weather station. The other was Lt. McQuistion, a classmate from the Chicago Aviation Cadet program, from which I graduated. He, however, had been assigned to a Quartermaster unit, because the supply of weathermen by now had exceeded the demand. Both of these officers were pleasant to be around and we shared many hours of conversation and socializing. I remember one of these conversations. It is funny how certain things stick in the mind. We were talking about golf. I related how my cousin Clifford and I would play golf in the cow pastures at our farm in Milladore, using homemade clubs and pebbles for golf balls. But I pronounced the word ”gulf “ instead of “golf”, and McQuistion took me to task – playfully. I wondered why I used that pronunciation and decided it was the way my mother pronounced it. Another word he kidded me about was “anyhow” which I pronounced “ennahow”, which I am sure is the way Mother pronounced it at home. I have often wondered why people were able to pinpoint my location of birth and upbringing – because I was just sure that Midwesterners had an unaffected speech without any accent whatever!

Our work at Chengkung was uneventful – no air raids, no sounds of firing, nothing that would give any indication a war was going on. We went into the city of Kunming on occasion and had a taste of Chinese food, using chopsitcks to eat it with. On our way into the city we saw an airfield runway being built, to accommodate even larger planes than the C-46’s. Perhaps it was in anticipation of the B-29’s which were coming into production at that time. These planes were to be stationed at Chengtu, an air base several hundred miles to the north of our location in Yunnan Province. The thing that interested us about the airfield construction was that all the work was done by hand by Chinese peasants carrying “yo-yo” sticks over their backs. These were balanced poles with a basket at each end of the pole and carried over the shoulder. The load consisted of small and large rocks, dirt, and other materials needed in construction of the air field. Thousands of workers – men and women – made up the work force. Some were carrying babies on their backs as well as the heavy yoyo. I didn’t see any tools larger that a pick or shovel for the entire job. Yet in time the work got done, the flat runway materialized and soon planes were landing on it.

Other observations of a less pleasant nature were also experienced. One day a number of propeller planes were warming up on the runway near our weather station (there were no jets at that time). Workmen on the field were doing their various tasks. One unobservant workman walked into the spinning propeller blade of a plane. No need to describe what happened to him!

Most of the occupants of the barracks where I lived spent their weekends in Kunming – fulfilling their needs as it were. I would observe them upon their return from town in the lavatory using prophylactics and other measures to clean up after their night out. Various nasty ailments were common among those who were a little careless in their horizontal entertainments. Being the naive person that I was at that time, these observations were more perplexing and educational than stimulating to me.

I remember that one day each month was significant in that it was payday. As a first lieutenant, I was receiving a few hundred dollars a month – I forget the exact amount. I had allocated most of this to the purchase of savings bonds and a portion to be sent to a bank account in the States. I reserved a small amount for my needs but it wasn’t much as most everything was taken care of. No food to buy, no rent to pay, no car to drive. Nothing to spend my money on as I didn’t play poker or shoot craps. So during my 29 months in overseas service, I acquired a small nest egg, around $6,000, which I used to buy a car and a small house in Wisconsin Rapids after my discharge from the service. Some fellows did much better than that, not from frugal savings so much as from lucky poker winnings. It seemed the usual pattern, more common among the enlisted men than among the officers, I think, was to take your pay on payday, immediately get into a poker game and take your chances on winning more of losing what you had been paid for the month. Some were good at it and made loot. Others were on a perpetual losing streak and a day or so after payday would be broke and would have to borrow money for even small items like toothpaste, cigarettes, etc.

Our food at the air force mess was acceptable army fare and we thrived on it. As in India, foodstuffs were purchased from the local population to supplement the regular army rations. In one instance, this resulted in a strange ingredient occurring in beans served at table; we found numerous little pebbles about bean size in the bean soup and other bean dishes. This resulted, they told us, from purchasing beans at the local market and paying for them by weight, Of course the local farmers wanted as much weight as possible so added a certain portion of pebbles to add weight. Not too harmful, except for the crunching sound of a chipped tooth when eating our meals!

Pilots who found themselves ordered to fly Chinese recruits from place to place in southwestern China were usually none to happy. At the altitudes they had to fly to avoid the mountainous terrain, and without oxygen for passengers, many of the soldiers got sick and threw up their rice and vegetable meals in the confined space of the cargo planes. This of course made a horrible stench and caused lots of grief in cleanup after the flight was over.

My stay at Chengkung lasted about twelve months. Time seemed to pass quickly, and the problems of forecasting weather with very limited reporting stations were rather perplexing. Mainly we were concerned with return trips to India for the transport planes. Since there was a steady train of incoming flights that were delivering supplies to China, the best information we received was from the pilots themselves who had just traversed the hump. Other reports came by short wave radio from a few reporting stations in Tibet, Manchuria, and Mongolia. Thinking back, it seems impossible that we were able to give any accurate forecasts to the pilots at all. But air movements do have a pattern to them, and I guess we relied more on common sense than anything else.

In June, 1945, I received orders to proceed to Yankai, China to take over the operation of a weather station there. This was at a small air field with about fifty fighter bombers whose missions took them over southeastern China, near the coast along the China Sea. The reason for these missions was to bomb the railroad which the Japanese had constructed and were using to bring supplies southward to their troops in Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore. It was a vital supply line and to stop or hamper the transport of goods along this railroad was an important objective for the Allies in the China-Burma-India Theater.

Our task as weather forecasters was to supply weather information to the fighter-bomber pilots flying these missions. Our source of weather data was sparse, but fortunately the area was to the east of our location and since weather patterns move from west to east, we at least were able to predict with some certainty that the weather we had at present would soon arrive two or three hundred miles to the east of us. Also, we were not plagued to the same extent with large thunderstorms as we were when dealing with hump flights. An additional danger, however, was our closer proximity to Japanese forces and the possibility that aircraft or even invading forces might strike as far west as Yankai. Nothing like this happened, probably because the Japanese were reaching the end of their expansionist period and were beginning to feel the power of the pacific Fleet and Allied forces taking back the islands which had been lost to Japan earlier in the war. As a matter of fact, the Allies were on the offensive in their goal to invade Okinawa and possibly even the home islands of Japan. So the Japanese armies were stretched to their limit and weren’t very active in southeast China at this time.

The two months of my stay in Yankai passed quickly, and early in August, 1945, we received the astounding news that the Allies had dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. This news raised the spirits of all the personnel at the air base and we began to wonder how long the Japanese would be able to hold out. We didn’t have to wait long to find out, because in about three days – around August 9, 1945, the announcement was made that the Japanese had surrendered. Their long and treacherous war plans came to an end and the Allies were victorious. Preparations were soon made to accept their surrender in Tokyo Harbor on board the U.S.S. Missouri with General MacArthur conducting the activities. Following this a long period of occupation of the islands of Japan took place. I was not involved in this because after the war was over, there was a great rush to discharge all servicemen, and I had accumulated sufficient “points” to be among the first to return to the States. Of course, I had to supervise closing down the weather station and accounting for supplies, equipment, and other materials in the station. This took about two weeks. Then I had orders to travel to Calcutta and so flew there over a southern route that did not take us over any mountains. I stayed in a British officer’s club near Calcutta for a couple of weeks before being transferred to Karachi. There I boarded a ship that was bound for the States. I was pleased to find that some of my acquaintances from my Chicago training were also returning to the States on the same ship. The name of our ship was the Conte Biancamano, an Italian ship of about 10,000 tons.

We spent our time playing cards and performing certain duties related to our rank, but the trip was much more relaxing than our original trip from Los Angeles to Karachi. Since the war was over, we didn’t have to worry about enemy submarines, blackouts were not required, and we could generally enjoy a leisurely ride home.

We traveled through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. This in itself was an interesting experience. The trip through the canal took about a day and we could observe the life along the canal in the daylight. After the passage, we navigated the Mediterranean and were able to see the Grecian isles. I remember one joke told on shipboard as we sighted white mountain peaks. Someone said, ”Isn’t that Greece?” Someone else answered, “No, that is just snow on the mountains”

At the western end of the Mediterranean, we passed Gibraltar, a fascinating sight. Many years later, I recall our view of the “Rock of Gibraltar” whenever I see the ad for Prudential Life Insurance, which uses the “Rock” as their logo.

Our trip across the Atlantic to Newport Beach, where we docked was uneventful. This was October and the sea was calm. We disembarked and quickly went our separate ways by train and plane to our final destinations. I traveled by train from New Jersey to Chicago, where I received my discharge papers, and I suppose any money that was owed me. My first stop after that was to see Dorothee at her home on Belmont Street in Chicago. Our correspondence during my overseas stint had culminated in our engagement to be married, so we went to a jeweler and picked out a ring to celebrate the occasion. I remember Dorothee’s mother was interested in seeing for certain that a ring had been purchased, as this meant I was serious in planning to marry her daughter.

I then went by train to Junction City, Wisconsin, where my folks picked me up and I was home at last. This was approximately December 6th, so I had made it home for Christmas. The family was all in good health and busy operating the dairy farm in Milladore. Charles was helping with the farm work and it was easy to settle into farm chores, winter firewood making, and other farm routines again. I am having trouble recalling about Bob, but I think he had married before the war was over and was living with his wife, Ardis. They lived in the “little” house on the farm for a while, and he worked for a lumber company in Milladore and Rudolph, Wisconsin.

Dorothee came to visit me at the farm at Christmas time and met my parents – not for the first time because she had met them a few years earlier when I graduated from cadet school in Chicago. She brought with her two items as presents for me. One item was a pair of “modern” wooden skis and the other was a pair of “modern” boots to ski in. I suppose they were the latest thing in ski equipment in those days but they are certainly relics now. I still have the boots, they still fit, and I use them on occasion for rough outdoor work. In those days, we used rough leather straps on the skis. When we moved to Colorado and started to ski the mountains, we outfitted ourselves with “bear trap” bindings that one clamped his boots into. David, Tom and Edith all used this type until we finally invested in some decent ski equipment.

Dorothee was interested in our horses at the farm. One, old grey Dick, was a gentle creature and we used to ride him for cultivating corn, etc. One day she went for a ride on Dick, no saddle, just bareback. He started to jog down the hill and she kept slipping farther and farther off until one foot was touching the ground and the other was still on old Dick’s back. Lucky she had long legs so she could manage those acrobatics! I finally caught up with the horse and stopped him and everything was ok.

Back to Teaching

During the Christmas vacation after my discharge from the service, I began to consider applying for a teaching job. This was in December of 1945 and January of 1946. Because there had been a shortage of teacher candidates during the war, many positions were open, even though this was in the middle of the school year. In a short time, I learned of a 7th-8th grade position in the elementary school in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. I interviewed for it and was accepted. While I would have preferred a high school position, I was glad to get started again at the grade level in which I had had previous experience before I went into the service. I taught all the subjects of the 7th and 8th grades. The children were sons and daughters of rather wealthy parents who worked in Chicago or Milwaukee and commuted by car or train to their work. The children were rather unruly and spoiled. I didn’t find it a very enjoyable teaching situation, except for the good friends I made among the faculty of the elementary and high schools who taught in the same or nearby buildings. One of these was Sheridan Ellsworth who taught other sections in the elementary school. Sheridan was blind in one eye but it did not seem to hamper him in the slightest degree. His wife, Lucille, was an amateur painter, who did an oil painting of the lake shore of Lake Geneva and gave it to us. We still treasure it, because it brings back memories of the beautiful lake setting.

Dorothee and I were married on August 31, 1946, in the Belmont Methodist Church in Chicago, Illinois, All of her family and most of my family attended the wedding. My best man was my brother, Charles, who escorted Dorothee’s sister, Elfriede. My cousin, Herbert Koerner also stood up escorting Dorothee’s sister Hildegard. Dorothee’s father, Karl Kohring also attended, and her mother, Charlotte Kohring and sisters Charlotte and Trudy, attended, as well as her brothers Paul, Heinz, and Oswald. My mother and father attended along with uncle and aunt George and Ella Uhlig, aunt Marie Trester. Several other aunts, uncles and cousins were in attendance. After the reception, which was a smorgasbord dinner, Dorothee and I went to the Edgewater Beach Hotel along Lake Michigan, where we had what was designated as the “bridal suite”. The next day we spent the day with an army buddy and his wife who had come to Chicago on a vacation. They were Dick and Harriet Sweeney from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. We had the opportunity to visit them several years later and kept in contact by Christmas cards, etc. for many years. They visited us in Greeley, Colorado on at least one occasion.

On the Monday following the wedding, Dorothee and I hooked a U-Haul trailer to our 1941 Plymouth and drove to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where I had accepted another year’s appointment as 8th grade teacher. We moved into an upstairs apartment owned by Mrs. Cook. I started teaching that very week, and continued throughout the fall semester. While I enjoyed my job, my real desire was to move into a high school position, for which my training had best prepared me. So I began to look for a high school job and soon learned of a position at Lincoln High School in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. I met with Mr. Floyd Smith, the superintendent of Schools at Wisconsin Rapids, and he offered me a contract to begin in January, 1947.

We moved to Wisconsin Rapids during the winter vacation and rented an upstairs apartment near the Wisconsin River. I began my teaching at Lincoln High School the second semester and taught physics and senior science. These were my favorite subjects and I enjoyed my new job. The high school had an enrolment of about 1200 students, had lots of activities, a good basketball team and football team, and other sports. I developed friendships with John Nelson (History and American Government), Howard Junkman (Math), “Duke” Hornigold (Chemistry), Aaron Ritchay (Principal), “Jake” Jacobson (English) and other faculty members.

In June, 1947, Dorothee and I purchased a small house on 8th St. South, about two miles from my school. We paid cash for it from my army savings, and had enough left over to buy the furniture as well. The total cost – house and furniture – came to $3,000. Then in the summer of 1947, we decided we needed to enlarge the house so borrowed $2,500 from the Wood County Bank and proceeded to build a 12 foot addition on the east end of the house, install a bathroom, a coal burning furnace, and a water system. This improved our quality of life and just in time – because on August 31, 1947, our first son, David was born.

In December, 1949, our second son, Tom, was born and in November, 1951 our daughter, Edith, was born. We had good neighbors at 3400 8th St. South whom we keep in contact with even today. Phyllis and Harold Sultze, who still live in the same house as then, Margaret and Don Clement (Don passed away in 1991), and Don and “Bunny” Hall. They had children about the ages of our three so it was an enjoyable neighborhood to live in.

We enjoyed our 7 ½ years in Wisconsin Rapids and in 1954, decided to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I could begin work on a doctorate in science education. The events of my teaching career have been described in an earlier document entitled “Life and Teaching” written in 1990.

Special assignments.

Case Institute

During the course of fifty years of teaching there were many opportunities to engage in special studies, teaching stints, and institutes related to my teaching duties. The first of these occurred in 1949, when I applied for and received a General Electric Scholarship for High School Physics Teachers. This was held in Cleveland, Ohio, at Case Institute of Applied Sciences.

About fifty physics teachers attended this institute. Its purpose was to upgrade the knowledge and teaching skills of high school teachers at a time when physics enrolments were dropping and the preparation of physics teachers was declining. Many more physics teachers were teaching the subject with minimal training. Large corporations like the General Electric Company recognized the need to insure a supply of well-educated students who could enter their work force and have at least the basic understandings and learning skills to perform their tasks adequately. So their strategy was to upgrade the science teachers as a first step.

We lived in dorms at the Case Institute campus and had renowned college physics teachers and General Electric scientists give lecturers, do demonstrations, and conduct field trips for the group of teachers. The institute lasted six weeks, and all expenses were paid by General Electric Company. The experience was very interesting and worthwhile. Dorothee stayed in Wisconsin Rapids with our son, David, who was almost two years old at that time. At the conclusion of the course, Dorothee drove with David to Cleveland and we traveled home together, stopping to visit Henry and Ruthann Brack who lived in Richmond, Indiana. They also had their first child, Susan. We had a nice visit, and I was subjected to a few “Henry: pranks. (He was a consummate practical joker). One was to serve me at the dinner table with a fork that unexpectedly would fold in the middle after a portion of food was put on it. Then he would berate me for my clumsiness. Ruthann had to be in on this as well. A second trick was to offer me a drink of lemonade in a glass that had tiny unnoticeable holes around the lip edge. Of course, most of the liquid dribbled down my shirt front when I attempted to drink. Again, Henry called my attention to how messy I was when drinking. We all had an uproarious time and I immediately began plotting my revenge for the time when they would visit us in Wisconsin Rapids. That opportunity never came, unfortunately. Henry was a junior high school teacher and taught in the same school his entire career. He and Ruthann retired to Florida, and Henry died in 1990.

At the institute in Cleveland, one professor, Dr. Richard Sutton, made an impact on me with his enthusiastic demonstrations. Dr. Sutton was from Haverford College and was known as the “jumping professor” because of his enthusiastic performances at the front of the room, on top of the demonstration desk, and other places. I learned many valuable physics demonstrations which I used repeatedly in my own teaching, thereafter. I still use them, as a matter of fact.

Another incident I recall was a night time astronomy lecture by a noted astronomer .After an hour of being enthralled with his profound knowledge and stellar presentation, we were asked if we had any questions. No one felt bold enough to put forth a question to this erudite man, until finally one timid soul asked him, “How do you fix your flashlight so you can point an arrow to the screen?”!!. The rest of us could have died with mortification at the foolishness and inanity of this question. To bother a noted scientist with such a question was the height of stupidity, we felt.

Being a rather naïve young man, I was somewhat upset with the other students living in the dorm with the GE group. They lived on the third floor and we lived on the first floor in our respective rooms. At night, we repeatedly heard the “tap-tap-tap” of high heeled shoes ascending the stairways to the boys’ rooms. After a period, the downward “tap-tap-tap” of high heeled shoes would be heard again. Even I in my innocence could imagine what was taking place. I engineered a meeting of our group with the boys on the third floor and we complained about the situation, even intimating a report to the higher-ups if it didn’t stop. It came to a halt, at least for the rest of the summer so we were satisfied. (I can’t imagine how I gathered enough courage to bring this up at the time, much less to organize a meeting to discuss it. Must have been braver in my younger days!)

Bowdoin College

The second opportunity for a summer institute occurred in 1959 when I was teaching at the University of Michigan, and was working on my dissertation for the Ph.D. degree. I chose to compare the objectives of the Physical Science Study Committee course on high school physics, which was then being developed by the National Science Foundation, with the objectives of traditional high school physics as it was being taught in the schools of the U.S. To acquaint myself more fully with the PSSC course, I applied for a summer institute at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Main, in the summer of 1959. I was accepted and traveled to Maine for a six week course. My roommate there was a German high school teacher from Munich, Germany. I learned a lot from him about the educational system in Germany, and the standards for high school physics teaching there. Needless to say, I was impressed with their rigor. I was also impressed with the quiet, effective performance of his electric shaver whereas my American made shaver wheezed and clunked along, making a fearsome racket. I began to appreciate German workmanship – at least on electric shavers!

The course was very instructive and I obtained the needed information for my dissertation – at least that which pertained to PSSC physics. Also met a lot of new friends whom I would subsequently call upon for information, etc. One relaxing event was a clambake on the beach one evening with clams fixed the way easterners do it. Very delicious and tasty.

The Triple – T Project

In 1969, I applied for a one year leave to participate in a project at New York University, dealing with teaching of elementary science and preparing materials for that level. The condition was that I was to form a team of three persons, myself as science educator, a science content person, and a middle school teacher., I selected John Gapter, Biology professor at UNC as the college person, and Leon Ukens, a junior high science teacher to represent the middle grades. In the case of Dr. Gapter, he was able only to get a leave of absence for two quarters from UNC, so I invited Dr. Ivo Lindaue to consider going to New York the third quarter of the year. It worked out great, and I think I can take some credit in the fact that both the college people became knowledgeable and concerned about the plight of elementary science teacher preparation, and subsequently held workshops, wrote grant proposal, and taught courses to pre-service elementary teachers at UNC after their return. As for Leon Ukens, he subsequently went back to New York University and secured his doctorate in science education there. He now teaches at a university in Towson, MD and has contributed significantly to science education in the U.S. through his NSTA committee work, chairing conventions, writing, and the like. So I think I gave him the needed professional boost at the right time to make him a productive professional in science education in the country.

It was a pleasant year in New York City. The culture shock, coming from Greeley, Colorado, was significant. Edith had graduated from high school in 1969 and she went grudgingly with us to New Your. She was leaving her boyfriend behind. However, after a month or so, she found she liked the excitement of New York City, obtained a job as a telephone operator for a year, worked as a model, and fell in love with the environment. She is still there – 25 years later. Howard had finished the 6th grade in Greeley, so he entered the 7th grade in New York City at P.S. 77 in the center of Manhattan. Dorothee obtained a job as a substitute teacher in a school nearby and completed her first year of teaching amid the rigors of New York City public schools. Both survived their experiences very well. Edie worked as a telephone operator. Tom and David were both in college those years.

During the year in New York City, we lived in two different locations, both near Washington Square. We lived first on the 21dst floor of a high rise apartment building where the nighttime view of the City was spectacular. The arrangement with the owner of the apartment was to “house-sit” his dwelling for six months while he toured Europe. In the second semester we had a similar arrangement with another professor from New York University. Dorothee is very resourceful in making these kinds of arrangements.

At one point in the year, we arranged to invite several other science educators and college professors to a conference on elementary science teaching. The National Science Foundation paid for this. The year passed quickly and was a productive experience. Howard got to know city life, totally different from life in Greeley. Edith decided during the year to pursue art education at New York University and stayed on four years to complete her B.A. degree. By that time, she was so enamored with the City that she could not have been convinced to return to a small town like Greeley. Dorothee and I, however, were glad to return to our university haunts in Colorado, but were glad of the opportunity to see a different environment and life style.

President of NSTA

In 1975, I took the office of president of the National Science Teachers Association. Upon conferring with the administration of UNC, it was decided that I could take a leave of absence from UNC for a year to move to Washington, DA where I could perform my duties a s president “on the scene” rather than trying to function through innumerable airplane trips to the capitol. Again, we were fortunate to find a family in Falls Church, Virginia, that would let us live in their house for a year while they did research or other work in the southern part of the United States. So we moved to Falls Church in August, 1973. Howard was now a junior in high school and attended the high school in Falls Church.

My responsibilities as president of NSTA were many and varied. I traveled to many conventions throughout the U.S., made many, many friends, presided at a national convention in Chicago, conducted many meetings of the NSTA board of Directors, worked for the National Science Foundation for two months, and enjoyed all of it immensely.

The highlight of our year came in January, 1974, when Dorothee and I traveled to Leeds, England, where I gave the Macmillan Lecture on Science Education, and was hosted by the British Association of Science Educators. It happened to be in the midst of a national coal strike in England, so we experienced a few cold rooms and cold water showers in our lodgings. We also had the opportunity to travel to Trowbridge and Taunton, England where we found evidence of our family forebears in both of these towns.

From London, Dorothee and I took a train to Trowbridge in southwestern England. We toured the town of about 50,000 but found little evidence of any direct ancestors. We were guided by the genealogy, which I have in my possession, called “The History of the Trowbridge Family in America”. We took a few pictures and boarded the train again for Taunton, a bit further down the line. We arrived in Taunton in the evening and looked for a hotel in which to stay. After some searching, we located a pub and inn and sought out the manager. We found a lady who agreed to let us stay for the night and we made preparations to eat and retire. After getting comfortably in bed, we began to hear music and loud noises from the floor below. After a bit, we decided it was too early to retire anyway, so we dressed again and went downstairs, where we found a dance going on with plenty of drinks and revelry. So we joined in, made a few new friends, and were suddenly surprised to find the music and dancing stopped promptly at 10:00 pm. This was their policy on weekend nights, so we gratefully went back to bed and had a good night’s sleep.

The next day, we had breakfast and began to tour the city of Taunton – I would guess a city of 100,000 people. With our genealogy knowledge and some old photographs of two churches that bad been attended by our forebears in the 1600’s, we decided to attend the church service, since it was a Sunday morning. We arrived late but sat through about half of the service before it was finished. Then we introduced ourselves and asked about the story of one Thomas Trowbridge having bequeathed a sum of money to the parish in the 1600’s. They said, “Oh, Yes. We have a plaque in the narthex commemorating this bequest. We will show it to you”. So we were led to the narthex, and sure enough, on one wall was a plaque about five feet tall and two feet wide that noted that Thomas Trowbridge in 1620 had contributed the earnings from his properties to the parish in perpetuity. This plaque is pictured in our genealogy so we knew we had the right one. They told us the proceeds of this bequest were still being distributed annually to poor members of the parish. What a record! More than 370 years of continuity!

At this point, I decided to take a picture of the plaque. To get a good view, I stepped up on a nearby bench and pointed my camera – a single lens reflex type. I pressed the button and – Wham! My right eve was blinded, with black spots appearing and reappearing before it. What happened? Upon inspection, I discovered I had put the flashbulb in backwards, facing my eye, instead of the plaque. I corrected the problem and took another good one.

This was the Mary Magdelene church of the Church of England. We decided to walk to another church, a short distance away, which was also mentioned in the genealogy. We arrived there after the service was over, but found in the sanctuary an old, bent-over man, who was putting things away after the service. Turned out he was the rector and after making our introductions, he asked our business. But before we could respond, he pointed to his chest on which there was a small amplifier, attached to ear plugs in his ears. He meant to inform us to speak into the amplifier, which we did. So we said, “Our name is Trowbridge. We have come from the United States to locate the place from which our forebears came to the colonies in 1637”. He said, “Oh, your are Trowbridges. You must be a prolific family. There have been many Trowbridges come to visit us in Taunton. Some of them were even carrying big books with the history of their family in them!” He of course was referring to the genealogy I have mentioned above. There were only 100 copies of that document publish in 1908, so they must have gotten distributed pretty widely in the U.S.

We wanted to take pictures of our trip to Taunton, so carried our camera and made 25 or 30 snaps of various locations. It was late afternoon when the film was filled (I thought), but I found when I started to rewind it that it had never been attached to the winder and we hadn’t gotten a single picture all day! The sun was bright, so we rushed to a “chemist” and bought a new film, and started the process all over again, We rushed about the city and retook the scenes as best we could remember them. Again we filled the roll and this time it was successful, and we got a nice bunch of pictures at last.

After my talk at Leeds, which was well received, Dorothee and I returned to the States and our home in Falls Church. As we flew over Newfoundland, I saw from the plane window a large swath cut in the forest below – perhaps a half mile wide, which to this day I do not know the reason for it. It was too wide for a firebreak, and too straight to be a natural topographic feature. Guess I’ll have to go back and look at it again! It reminds me that at one time after the first trip of the Beatles to the United States, someone asked them, “How did you find America?” They replied, “Easy, We just turned left at Newfoundland!”

In the spring of 1974, our national convention of NSTA was held in Chicago, divided between the Blackstone and the Hilton hotels. Eighteen months of preparation had gone into this convention. My program chairman was Earl Sargent, a professor at Tulsa University, and a former student of mine at UNC. More than 6,000 persons attended this convention – small by today’s standards in which 18 – 20,000 people might attend a national convention. My mother attended, Edith, Howard, and David attended, and several Chicago relatives as well. Our immediate family had the presidential suite in the Hilton Hotel – quite impressive for country hicks like ourselves. At one point, Bob Silber, then executive secretary of NSTA invited me to attend a breakfast meeting of some of his “friends” who wanted to plan some future activities. I fell in with his plan and roused myself early to go to the “breakfast”. As we opened the door from the elevator to the dining room, a great cheer went up and all my former Greeley students plus many other friends were all ready to give me a “roast”. What a surprise! I was completely taken in. At one point, Jay Hackett said he would like to play a tape of all the “words of wisdom I had uttered during my year as president”. He started the tape and we all listened intently. Not a sound came out! Which of course was the whole point.

David delivered a paper entitled “Science Teaching on the Top of the World”, which was an account of his three years in the Peace Corps in Nepal. The attendance was meager – mostly his relatives.

My year ended in July at the Board meeting held in Colorado Springs. My successor as president was Dr. Jim Rutherford, former head of Science Education at New York University. Jim and I have been good friends for many years, both before and after my year as president. At the handing over of the gavel, Jim told a story about me. He said that “Les is a very sensitive person. To illustrate how sensitive he is, I wanted to relate how I drove by his house last week and he was out in the yard playing with a penguin. I said to him he should probably take the penguin to the zoo. Les replied, “I did take him to the zoo. He liked it and next week he wants to go to the ball game!”

Sabbatical in Taiwan – 1977

Our university at this time made it possible for faculty to apply for a one – quarter sabbatical leave at full pay each five years. I applied and chose to take the fall quarter, 1977. I made plans to travel throughout the United States and visit other institutions with science education programs to gain ideas of directions we might take in our own department. This was approved by the administration.

In July, 1977, I received a visit from a Taiwan educator, Dr. Guo, Chorng Gee. He was visiting science education departments in the United States and wished to talk with me, as chairman of Science Education at UNC. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned that he was searching for someone to come to his college in Taiwan, the Taiwan Provincial College of Education, located at Changhua City. I told him I would be interested in an invitation and he agreed to initiate the request at the National Science Council in Taipei.

In a month, all the paper work was done, and Dorothee and I made plans to go to Changhua in September, 1977, for one quarter of teaching. I was to be assigned as Special Chair in the Department of Science and Mathematics Education, and would be paid 18,000 NT dollars per month (approximately $450), plus receiving housing and round trip air fare for Dorothee and myself. My tasks were to team-teach a college level physics course with a Chinese professor, as well as to give a series of seminars on science education for the faculty of the College.

While in Changhua, we lived in a faculty apartment on the campus. It was spacious and comfortable. There was a small stream in front of the apartment called the “Black Dragon” river. There were other faculty members close by, including Dr. Guo and his family, who lived next door. We cooked our own meals as there were frequent vendors of vegetables and fruits who came by the apartment. The city was only about a mile through back streets where Dorothee could purchase other food items.

The faculty and other Chinese friends we met were very congenial and helpful. My classes went well, and we enjoyed the semester, which ended shortly after Christmas. A highlight of our stay in Changhua was a bus trip around the entire island of Taiwan, taken in November, as the students who were preparing to become teachers, were given an orientation trip to familiarize them with the schools into which they were going. Dorothee and I thus learned a great deal about the island, the lakes, the mountains and the scenic places.

A faculty member at the college, Darmin Chiang, invited us to spend a weekend at Tainan, the oldest city in Taiwan. It is located on the west coast on the Formosa Strait, which separates Taiwan from mainland China. This was an interesting experience as we visited several Confucius temples. Confucius was a revered teacher, born about 550 B.C. His moral teachings became a part of the religion of China, although Confucianism is not considered one of the world’s religions, Tainan was first settled by the Portuguese.

When we arrive at Changhua, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that an American couple, Ron Mertz and Pam Devoe, were also assigned to teach at the Provincial College. Ron was an instructor in Guidance and Pam was a doctoral student in anthropology, gathering data for her dissertation. We got to be good friends, went shopping and “restauranting” together, and enjoyed each other’s company. We have kept in touch with them through the years and have visited them at their home in St. Louis. They have also visited us in Colorado – as recently as the summer of 1994.

At the end of December, it was time to return to the U.S. so Dorothee and I decided we would purchase out own tickets on the train to Taipei, where we would board a plane for the States. This would relieve our Taiwan friends from the responsibility of escorting us back to Taipei – a trip of at least three hours one way. So we surreptitiously engaged a taxi to take us to the train station and were waiting for the train. When we discovered our colleagues from the college had somehow gotten wind of our departure. They engaged a van and came to the railroad station to see us off! Even the president of the college was among them. It happened to be raining gently as we waited for the train, and the college president said, “See, even the skies are crying because you are leaving us”! What a people!!

We arrived back in the U.S. about January 1st, in time to make plans for a trip to Wisconsin on February 3 to help celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday.

Assignment in Guam

While this account is a bit out of sequence, I shall nevertheless describe our interesting experience in Guam in the summer of 1967. At that time we had a student, Jack Fletcher, in our Science Education Department at UNC. He was on a two year assignment in Guam and was attending classes at UNC – either midway through his contract or perhaps before beginning a second stint. He invited our family to Guam to conduct classes for elementary teachers on the island. The significant fact about this was that the entire family was invited, not just myself.

At this time, David was 19, in his first year at Reed College. Tom was a junior at the Lab School, Edie was a sophomore at the Lab School, and Howard was in the 4th grade at the Lab school. An ideal time to go on a family trip! The Fletchers had two children about the age of Howard.

Since summers for David were an important time to earn money for college, leaving for a summer in Guam posed a problem. However, the president of the University of Guam, Tony Yamashita – a former student at UNC, arranged to have David work in the Chemistry department at the university, so this solved the problem of earnings for the summer.

Our first trip over the pacific was interesting but uneventful. We stopped at Wake Island for refueling – a small, treeless spot of soil with an airport and a filling station! This island played an important role in World War II as a refueling stop as well. When we arrived in Guam, the Fletchers met us and informed us that the best way to overcome jet lag was to immediately go for a tour of the island and stay awake until the normal bedtime arrived. We did this in a dazed “zombi-like” state but it worked and we recovered in quick order.

Assignment in Guam Continued

My work in Guam consisted of teaching a science workshop for elementary teachers of Guam schools. I had good facilities, good students, and good climate. As a territory of the U.S., Guamanians spoke good English so language was not a problem. The island is about 50 miles long and about 10 miles wide. It was occupied by the Japanese during World War II and was liberated by the Americans in 1945. Its latitude is about 15 degrees North so it is tropical and under the influence of the trade wind belt, constantly blowing from the northeast.

There were a few good beaches for swimming and snorkeling. Tom and David both learned to scuba dive while they were there. There were some dangerous rip tides on the east side of the island so caution was necessary.

The city of Agana is the capital city and was a bustling place even then. It has grown larger and has many good tourist hotels now, I understand. We had the good fortune of having the use of a car while there so could shop and sightsee at will. David was driving then and on one occasion was diverted by a pretty, bikini-clad girl on the sidewalk. As a consequence, he bumped the car ahead of him and suffered some damage to our car – a leaky radiator and some other damage. It cost a few hundred dollars to repair and undoubtedly was a learning experience for David.

One of the students in my class painted a watercolor painting of a portion of the ocean beach near our home and presented the painting to us when we left. We treasure this memento of our summer in Guam.

In the summer of 1967, during our sojourn in Guam, my Dad died in Wisconsin. Brother Charles called me in Guam and we decided I would not fly back for the funeral because of the time and distance. I was midway through the workshop at that time. While it was unavoidable, I regret not being able to return home and to assist with the funeral arrangements, provide a measure of comfort for my mother, and say my last goodbyes to my father.

At the end of the six week workshop, David and I decided to go to Japan for a few days. Dorothee, Tom, Edith, and Howard arranged to go to Saipan, a nearby island for a vacation. They were lucky in finding a family that would put them up for a short time and they enjoyed making new friends and seeing family life in Saipan. They made the trip to Saipan in a small cargo freighter and enjoyed the new experience.

David and I flew to Tokyo where we stayed in a Japanese style hotel. We did some sightseeing and enjoyed meeting many Japanese who were very interested in us because they wanted to practice their rudimentary English. We took a trip to Osaka by the “bullet train” which travels more than 100 miles per hour across its route. On our return, we stopped at Mount Fuji, where we made a climb of the volcanic peak during the night, starting at about 9pm There were many Japanese tourists making the climb also. The night was cool and David wasn’t adequately dressed for cool weather. On seeing his shivering, one of the Japanese dug in his knapsack and brought out a warm jacket for David’s use. What hospitality!

The exertion, the altitude, and the night climb brought on a headache and stomach upset for me. After upchucking my dinner I felt better and continued the climb. We were well above the stratus clouds and it was a moonlit night so it was a beautiful sight. We arrived at the summit before sunrise and found that there is a Shinto shrine at the top which is the residence of several monks. It is their custom to proceed to the rim of the crater in their robes just before sunrise, sit down, and exhort the sun to come up. Amazingly, it does so every day with great regularity.

On completing our visit to Japan, David and I flew to Honolulu where we rejoined Dorothee and the other children, and heard about their interesting experiences in Saipan. Our summer experiences as a family were remembered in slides and photos and we still look back at them to reminisce occasionally.

These experiences would not be complete without relating a fishing trip that Dorothee and I had at the invitation of the Vern Hagens, fellow faculty member at the University of Guam. The Hagens had a powerboat and we took a short trip out to sea looking for tuna. To locate the fish, it was customary to watch for circling birds who were feeding on small fish that were being chased by the larger tuna. When such a flock was spotted, the powerboat would take off at high speed for the area and put out its fishing poles. Dorothee was handed one of the poles and in a short time she had a strike, and with some effort pulled in a 75 pound tuna! What a surprise! It happened a few minutes later as well, and we went back to shore the proud possessors of two large tuna fish. We cleaned them and put them in the refrigerator (had to remove all the trays to do it). We served fresh tuna to all the neighbors and friends that night.

Second Trip to Taiwan – November, 1983

I was invited to give a talk at the First Annual Asian Conference on Science Education in Taipei. I was teaching at Texas A & M in College Station during the fall of 1983. I prepared my speech and had the secretary in my office send it to the officials in Taipei. Unfortunately, I failed to specify that it should be sent AIR MAIL, and consequently it went by surface mail which took two months. I could not understand the repeated requests from Taipei for a copy of my talk, as it was to be printed along with others before the date of the conference in November. At any rate, Dorothee and I arrived in Taipei and stayed at the Ambassador Hotel. The meetings were held on the main campus of the National Taiwan Normal University, nearby.

About 200 participants from several Asian countries and from the U.S. attended the conference. At least two science educators, friends of mine from the University of Iowa, were there on their first trip to Taiwan. As a diversion, the entire group was flown to Hualein on the east coast and from there transported by bus along the cross-island highway to Taroko Gorge, a magnificent natural feature about 1000 feet deep. The entire trip was interesting and much enjoyed.

Third trip to Taiwan – August, 1984

Arrangements were made for a longer stay in Taiwan in the academic year of 1984-85, when I was appointed to a Special Chair in the Physics Department of National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei. My duties were to teach a course on methods of teaching science and a course on evaluating student performance in science classes. My students were all seniors at the university and were planning to teach physics in the Taiwan schools the following year. They wrote and read English quite well, but were a bit reluctant to speak it, because of lack of prior opportunities. I prepared for classes by photocopying chapters from my methods book and having them read the materials before class. Then we had a “discussion”, such as it was, and I showed many demonstrations that I customarily used in my classes in the U.S. The system worked well and the students did good work.

We lived in a university apartment at the main campus. It had three bedrooms, a small kitchen, a bathroom, and a small balcony. The apartment was on the second floor of the building. John Cappo, our step grandson from New York, accompanied us on the trip so we were glad for a third bedroom. John enrolled in Mandarin classes at the university and did amazingly well. He bought a motorcycle, a common form of transportation in the city, and soon knew enough Chinese so he could order our food, buy our propane tanks for the kitchen, and give directions to the taxi drivers.

The location of the physics department was about a half mile from our residence at the Roosevelt Road Campus. I customarily walked the distance morning and night and enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the busy city streets, vendors, shops, and traffic. The latter was of every description – cars, taxis, trucks (three and four wheeled), motorcycles, bicycles, buses, and horse drawn carts. One day in walking home from my office, I saw a Chinese lady with her little boy, about 2 years old, slowly climbing the steps of the overpass to get across the busy street. At each step, she would say to her son “one”, “two”, “three”, “four”, etc. At the top of the stairs, I congratulated her on starting to teach her son English at such an early age. She said, “Oh, we don’t live here. My husband is a missionary and we live in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We’re here to learn Chinese”!

Another American couple, Hugh McCalley and his wife, lived near us and he taught economics at National Taiwan University, the sister university, which was larger than NTNU, and which was in the same vicinity. We had many restaurant meals together and enjoyed their company. On Halloween Dorothee decided to have a party for several friends at our apartment, Halloween is an unfamiliar holiday to the Chinese, so I “boned” up on its origins so I could explain it to our guests. Dorothee provided face masks for each guest and we had a good time with parlor games, taking pictures, etc. and finishing with refreshments. In addition to my duties in the physics department, my friend, Ouyang, arranged several speaking engagements for me at schools around the island. He usually served as my translator. I would slowly and carefully say a few words in English relating to the topic, and then Ouyang would translate. His translation would go on and on, so that I was never sure whether he was embellishing my speech or whether it really took that many words to explain the concepts in Chinese!

We again had an opportunity to travel around the entire island by bus at the end of the year, as the students were provided their traditional orientation trip in preparation for next year’s teaching. Students are guaranteed a job when they complete their studies but are required to teach at least two years after graduation from college. John went with us on the trip, all paid for by the school. Unfortunately, he became ill and didn’t enjoy the trip as much as he might have. The students were very solicitous of him and did everything they could to cure his ailment. At one point he went to a doctor who gave him a shot. As he told it afterward, the shot syringe looked as if it was meant for a horse!

There was a small shop on the campus where I taught and I enjoyed going there for coffee and refreshments in the middle of the morning. I talked them into making a special cup of coffee for me in a small vacuum type coffee maker. It made good coffee, and that together with some delicious date or fig cakes made a very satisfying mid-morning break.

I learned of a Kiwanis Club at the China Hotel shortly after arriving. I decided to attend their Thursday evening meetings and took John with me. It was an English speaking club and they had several good programs. The members especially enjoyed John, who never failed to appear in a coat and tie, well dressed, smiling and congenial. He had learned enough Chinese so that he was able to converse with them a bit, and they were very impressed with my “grandson”. In contrast to the common appearance of other unkempt and raged (the adolescent style, I guess), John made a very good impression, and Dorothee and I were proud of him.

During our year in Taipei, we learned that our house renter in Greeley had moved out. Jim Dech, who was watching over the house for us called us and told us the news. It seemed best that Dorothee go back to Greeley during the Christmas break and get a new renter for the house. Since I was working on revising our methods textbook for its fifth edition, I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to go to Seattle and work in the University of Washington library. So we went separate ways and rejoined in Seattle about two weeks later as we were planning to return to Taiwan for the second semester.

Fourth Trip to Taiwan

I had an invitation from Sung Jae Pak, a former doctoral student of mine from Korea, to come to Seoul and give a talk to several members of the Seoul University faculty. So we obtained tickets for Seoul and traveled there on our way back to Taiwan. We stayed at a fine hotel, the Hyatt Regency, and spent a few days traveling to other parts of South Korea. It was cold in January but we were comfortable. A visit to Pak’s residence was a pleasure as we met his parents who lived with him and had a fine traditional Korean meal at his home. Many homes are heated by a large coal furnace in the living quarters which vents heat under the floors of the house. Consequently the floors are always comfortable – where everyone sits, eats, and sleeps. Very little furniture in the rooms. The air in the room seemed chilly – especially the higher one stood up!

The second semester in Taipei was uneventful, except for several more trips, speeches, and good food. I finished my courses on schedule and proceeded to write my final report of the year’s activities. I had access to an Apple computer so the task was easy. I had copies of all my talks so I included those. I finished up all my work by mid-July so began to wonder whether I might apply to return to the U.S. a month early. My contract really was to run until September. This would give me time to apply for a teaching position in the U.S. Accomplishing this from the distance of Taiwan was not practical and unsuccessful.

So we returned to the U.S. in early August and found everything satisfactory at our house. But I did not succeed in getting a teaching job for 1985-86. However, I was collecting PERA and Social Security so had enough to live on. It was a good year to travel, so we purchased airline tickets from Eastern Airlines called “Get up and Go”, with which we could fly every week if we desired, for one total pre-paid price.

In the spring of 1986, I applied for the position of director of the newly formed Math and Science Teaching Center at UNC. After interviews and other rigamarole, I was informed that I “did not qualify for the position”. I asked for reasons why I did not qualify, and was told by the dean of Arts and Sciences that such information was not available. This incensed Dorothee to the point where she took direct action. She confronted the vice president and the president of the university and finally got the V.P. to agree to a meeting with me, the affirmative action officer, and Dorothee. When we arrived at his office, he told me that there was nothing he could do – that this was a dean’s decision. But he said, “If you will come back at 5:00 P.M. tomorrow, I will have a letter for you”. I assumed it would be an explanation of why I did not qualify. Instead, it was a letter of re-employment at the University! Because I had already signed a contract to teach at the University of Northern Iowa for the 1986-87 school year, the offer was extended to the fall of 1987. So it was that I got my job at the university back after a four year hiatus, at the same salary with benefits and other status. I was the only faculty member of the group of 47 that lost their jobs in 1983, to ever get my job back!

Trip to Saudi Arabia – Spring 1989

During the twenty year period in which our Science Education Department at UNC flourished, we had a large number of foreign students who worked on masters and doctoral degrees. Among these were twelve students from Saudi Arabia who arrived over a ten year period, completed their work, and returned to their country to assume positions in education at college and university levels. In the spring of 1989, I was invited by one of these former students who now held a prominent position in the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia, to give a talk on “Trends in Physics Teaching in the U.S.” Because another former student, Roy Unruh, from the University of Northern Iowa, had developed some materials for IBM to be used in computer instruction, I obtained some disks from him and took them with me to show to the Saudis. I worked up a speech of about 40 minutes on physics teaching trends, and flew to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

I was met by one or two of my former students and escorted to a plush hotel, I think the Hyatt, where I met another speaker for the seminar, a mathematics educator from Scotland. He and I became good friends and enjoyed the amenities provided by the Hyatt Hotel during our stay. One which I remember was the food spread out on a buffet table in the lobby, which was open and stocked 24 hours a day. So any time during the day or night, we were able to help ourselves to fruit, hot and cold food, drinks, and desserts. This was available for all meals and there was no standard sit-down restaurant at which one could order from a menu. Needless to say, we indulged freely.

My talk went well and was well received. The participants, who were university teachers from every city in Saudi Arabia as well as several adjoining countries in the Persian Gulf area, were also interested in the IBM materials I had to show. The mathematics educator gave an interesting talk which seemed to harmonize quite well with the philosophy of teaching that I had outlined.

During my stay, I was invited to dinner at one of my former student’s home. My new Scottish friend was also invited, since he had no other contacts in Riyadh, and he accepted gratefully. We arrived for a roast lamb dinner which was prepared by several of the wives of the students and which was delicious. Interestingly, we never were introduced to any of the women, because of the customs of the culture, but I was aware that they existed at dinner time as a lady’s hand protruded through a partially open door as she passed the enormous platter of whole roast lamb through it to be taken to the table. I say “table” but in fact it was a beautiful table cloth spread upon the floor with cushions all about for people to sit cross-legged while they ate. Table service was provided for the “foreigners” but the Saudis ate with their hands. Drinks were large bottles of coca-cola placed strategically at each place.

After dinner, we toured the palatial home of one of the former students, an example of luxury at its finest, enabled of course by the enormous quantity of oil money that was flowing into the country at that time.

On another day, the two “westerners” were shown King Faisal University in Riyadh, a brand new institution, built from “sand” up within the past five years. It was complete with laboratories, classrooms, administrative buildings, dormitories, and every needed facility for a large, modern university. Two of my former students taught in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and I was asked to give a short talk to the faculty of that department.

Another former student conducted me on a tour of Riyadh, particularly to the shopping center. His purpose was to show me a modern shopping mall. It consisted of three levels – not physical structures, but in terms of price levels and elaborate-ness. The first was a series of stalls of the typical Middle East market type. The second was comparable to our common, everyday shopping malls in the U.S. The third was a “super-mall” with high priced shops and boutiques. The shoppers consisted mostly of women dressed in their traditional “chadors”, or long black robes with veiled head-wear. Because the women are not to associate with men outside their own family, as I walked with my friend down the long corridors, a woman would see me some distance away and immediately cover her entire face with the veil, peering through a tiny slit for her eyes.

During my short stay in Saudi Arabia, I was able to see all twelve of my former students, most of them at the dinner described earlier, but also during my seminar in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. On my flight home, we made a stop in Jeddah, on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, located on the Red Sea. While sitting in the airport waiting for my next flight, I noticed a familiar figure sitting across from me. It was another of my students, who had traveled to Bangkok and was on his way back to Riyadh. We talked briefly and recalled events in Greeley while he was a student there. So it was that I got to see all of my former students who had graduated from our science education program at UNC.

My return to the states was uneventful. I stopped in New York to see Bob and Edie for one night, and showed off my checkered headpiece and headband that was given to me by Salim Kurnas, my former student. The trip was a total pleasure and I hope to have the opportunity to travel back to Saudi Arabia sometime in the future.

Fifth trip to Taiwan – February 1994

During the summer of 1993, I taught for three weeks in Cedar Falls, Iowa, at the University of Northern Iowa. My students were all teachers from Taiwan who were working on a masters degree in science education. My course was Educational Research Methods. At that time, I was invited to come to Taiwan in February, 1994, to teach a course on Methods of Middle School Science Teaching. Dorothee went with me and we had an enjoyable time. We taught at a school in the southern part of the island where the temperature was quite mild, even in February. The hotel we lived in was light and airy and very comfortable. We had a chance to visit several parks on the southern coast of Taiwan. Twenty-four students attended this class and we all had an enjoyable time.

At the conclusion of our course, we traveled to Bangkok, Thailand for two days where we were entertained by two former students, and met another former student, Therachai, of the early ‘60’s who is now in a high level position in the Ministry of Education. Five of us had dinner together at a nice restaurant. We visited several temples and historic sites in Bangokok. We were asked if we wanted to go to a vegetable market, using the water taxi that plied the river. We agreed and went to the dock. While there we met two policemen who were friendly and engaged in conversation. A powerboat came down the river and the policemen waved to the driver, a friend of theirs. He stopped at the dock and asked if we wanted a ride. Dorothee, our host, and I agreed with reluctance but told the driver to go slow as we didn’t want to bounce and slam up the river at high speed.

We took off up the river and soon were tearing along at about 30 miles an hour, it seemed. We made waves and even nearly upset a small fishing boat nearby. The fisherman was disgusted and threw a pail of water at us.

On leaving Bangkok, we flew to Tokyo, but were delayed 5 hours because of a snowstorm in Japan. But we then flew to Honolulu and onward to Maui, where we spent two days. The weather was rainy but mild. We returned to Greeley safely and found everything in good order.

Sixth Trip to Taiwan – February, 1995

In the summer of 1994, I spent three weeks in Cedar Falls, Iowa, teaching a course on “Trends in Science Education” to Taiwan students who were in the masters degree program in science education. Upon completion of that course, I was asked by Drs. Ouyang and McCalley if I would be interested in teaching in Taiwan in February, 1995 to several of the group who were interested in going beyond the masters degree. The course would be “Teaching Science to Gifted and Talented Students”. I of course accepted with pleasure and on January 28, Dorothee and I embarked on the trip across the Pacific. We stopped three nights in Honolulu and enjoyed swimming on Waikiki beach two days. Another day we took the 80 cent round island bus trip and enjoyed the scenery. It was a day when the surf on the north coast was high and wild. Several of the beaches were closed because of the danger, but the sights were spectacular.

We met four Iowa persons in Taipei, Mr. and Mrs. Roy Unruh, Dave McCalley, and Virginia Hash, who were also there to teach short course during the lunar New Year vacation period. We were taken to the Maple Village Hotel about 8 miles from Taipei, where we taught our classes, had our food and lodging and enjoyed beautiful resort surroundings.

The two weeks passed swiftly and we all had an enjoyable time. The hotel even prepared western style breakfasts for us every morning. On one day we took a bus trip to the northeast coast of Taiwan where we enjoyed good scenery, fresh sea food, and good company. After the course was over, Dorothee and I flew from Taipei to San Francisco, then to Seattle, where we had short visits with Tom and Dave’s families, before returning to Colorado. A pleasant event occurred in which Dr. Ouyang invited us back for a final course in February of 1996. This will complete the series and the program will come to an end in the summer of 1996.

Consulting in Cairo, Egypt – April, 1994

In February, 1994, I was asked by the Educational Development Center in Washington, D.C. whether I would be interested in going to Cairo for two months to work on developing curriculum for elementary schools in Egypt. I decided that I really wasn’t qualified to work on curriculums in any areas besides science so I declined the invitation. At that point, EDC clarified for me that I would be assisting in writing teachers’ guides only, and since I had experience in writing such guides, I reconsidered and agreed to go to Cairo. Dorothee, of course, was delighted at my change of mind. She is ready to travel anywhere at any time!

On April 10, Dorothee and I flew to London and thence to Cairo. We had been supplied with economy class tickets, but when we arrived in Denver to embark on the first leg of our flight, we were informed that the flight was oversold - and would we mind being upgraded to first class! We of course didn’t mind the idea at all, so had the luxury of flying in first class accommodations from Denver to Gatwick airport in London, England. This is a nine hour flight so we appreciated the upgrade. From London to Cairo, a 4 hour flight, we flew on Egypt Air Lines in regular economy seats.

An interesting feature in our seats was a small TV screen on which the location and progress of our flight across the country and the ocean was constantly displayed in the form of a small image of ta plane and the land masses or oceans over which we were traveling. Thus we were able to keep track of our progress and estimate our time of arrival. We landed at Gatwick Airport on schedule and spent a night in a hotel at the Heathrow Airport, where we would emplane for Cairo the next day.

Our arrival in Cairo took place on schedule – about 8:30 P.M. We were met there by Dr. Atkinson, the Chief of Party for our group of consultants. He with his cab driver took us to the Nile Hilton Hotel where we were to be lodged for the two month period. This luxury hotel is situated on the east bank of the Nile River in downtown Cairo, a beautiful location with a perfect view of the Nile activity during the day and night. We were situated on the 7th floor of the hotel.

My work for the Curriculum Center began the very next day. A short ride on the subway, a short walk to the office, and we were in business. Our task, we were informed by Dr. Atkinson, was not to write a teacher’s guides but to assist the staff of the curriculum center in doing so – thus to give them an investment of their own efforts in the work. Our work week was six days – Saturday through Thursday. Friday was a regular day off according to Islamic custom. Our work day was from 9 to 3:30. It turned out that there were several official holidays during the period, so it wasn’t so strenuous after all.

I met several officials and staff members. Two regular staff were non-Egyptians – one a Briton who was an experienced publisher, and the other an American lady with computer skills. They had long term contracts and had been in Cairo a couple of years. One other short term consultant was there when I arrived, but soon after, several others arrived. All in all, six consultants appeared during the two month period, with somewhat overlapping assignments. So we got to enjoy each other’s company and had many social gatherings and sightseeing trips.

My thrust to get things started, was to have meetings with small groups of subject matter persons who were responsible for ultimately writing the teacher’s guides that we planned. There were science, mathematics, social studies, Arabic language, religion, agriculture, home economics, and industrial arts. During the course of 8 weeks, I had 23 meetings with these groups. I had brought with me several books for various grade levels representing teacher’s guides in science, mathematics and social studies. These proved to be well received by the curriculum staff and they were anxious to make photocopies of relevant pages for examples of American teacher’s guides. I permitted them to do so because they were not to be used intact but only for ideas.

A problem soon became apparent that made the planning difficult. It was that the textbooks for the respective grade levels and subjects to be used the next school year were delayed by about two months. So it was that we never did see any text materials for which the teachers’ guides were to be written. It seemed ludicrous that this could happen, but we made do by concentrating on the preliminary materials that would go into each teachers guide and then outline as best we could the content that should be covered and ideas for teaching it.

A problem that frequently occurred was the superceding of planned meetings with groups by unannounced meetings called by the director of the Center. This of course would cancel our meetings and delay our discussions. But of course the director was the boss.

The general efficiency of the bureaucracy in the Center was very low. All decisions had to be counter-approved by the director in every detail and this slowed down work processes. In addition, each staff member was intimidated by the director and was unwilling to make a decision on his own. So a lot of time seemed to be wasted.

All the consultants sensed this problem but took a relaxed point of view. I think the problem was mentioned in the final reports written by the consultants, however.

One of the consultants was Ernie (Buck) Burkman, a former student of mine from the University of Michigan. I was on his doctoral committee at Michigan shortly after I completed my own doctoral degree. He and His wife Nancy were good company and Dorothee and Nancy did a lot of sightseeing together. Because of the fact that we were working six days a week, we didn’t have much time for sightseeing, but did manage to see the Pyramids, the Egyptian Museum, and a necropolis near Cairo where several ancient relics had been found and several graves of the Pharaohs had been located.

One humorous incident occurred to Dorothee and me while staying in the Nile Hilton Hotel. We had made it a practice to walk a block or two to a swimming pool each afternoon to relax and cool off. One day we returned to our room, hung our swimming suits on the balcony chair to dry, and put on lounging clothes for the evening. We both went out onto the balcony to enjoy the cool evening breeze, and I closed the sliding door behind me. Before Dorothee could say “Don’t close that!”, the door had already locked and we were stranded on the balcony outside our room – seven floors above the ground.

What to do now? Dorothee is very resourceful so she took my white undershorts which were drying, looked around the edge of the balcony at the adjoining room and learned that a lady was reading near her balcony door. The curtains were partly open. Dorothee called but the lady did not hear. So Dorothee threw my white undershorts past the open drapes of the adjoining room, hoping the lady would see them fly by. Fortunately, she did and peered cautiously out her door, thinking perhaps a wounded pigeon had landed! So Dorothee got her attention and asked the lady to call security to let us back into our room. It took about fifteen minutes to rescue us. What would we have done if there had been no one in the rooms on either side of us?

Dorothee made friends of several Egyptian ladies who invited her to luncheons, to the country club, etc. In return Dorothee showed some of her “science experiments” to the children of these ladies, which they appreciated.

At one of the early swimming sessions, Dorothee discovered a young boy about ten years old at the pool who seemed to be under constant close guard by several brawny and armed men who didn’t let him out of their sight. She learned that he was a Saudi prince on vacation in Cairo for two months. Being Dorothee, this fact intrigued her and she resolved to get to know the prince. She did it by doing some of her “experiments” at poolside for several other children, and soon the prince became part of the group. Of course Dorothee had to explain to the guards that she was not about to abduct the prince or cause him any harm. The science lessons became a regular part of the pool activities for a month or so. She found the prince was somewhat over protected and showed the results of that by being a bit reluctant to join in with the other children in doing some of the science tricks. But he soon opened up and had fun with the rest of them – in fact asked her to come back next day.

Next to the Nile Hilton Hotel was the Egyptian Museum which Dorothee and I visited twice. Most interesting to me was the room in which were kept mummies dating back in time 4500 years. They were kept in individual small glass containers in which there were a thermometer and a hygrometer to keep tabs on the temperature and relative humidity needed for best preservation. In most cases the faces were exposed and in some cases arms and torsos. It was remarkable to gaze upon once living human beings from more than four millennia in antiquity.

We were careful to watch the food we ate and the water we drank to avoid getting sick. Most of our meals were taken in the hotel dining room and we sampled just about every item on their extensive menu by the end of our stay. All of the other consultants and their wives were a bit more adventurous in eating at a number of Egyptian restaurants. Unfortunately, they all at one time or another came down with stomach distress. Dorothee and I avoided any digestive problems.

Our stay in Cairo ended on June 1st, 1994 and we flew back to the States non-stop to New York. There we spent one night with Bob and Edie before returning to Denver. Our adventure was all positive and we look back on the experience with pleasure, especially because we met a group of nice people and have new friends. The Burkman’s visited us briefly in Colorado in the summer of 1994 and are planning to return to Colorado again soon. Living in Tallahassee in the summer is not too pleasant so they camp in Colorado frequently at that time of year.

My pay for the two months was $11,500 which was just enough to buy a small Dodge pickup truck to replace our old International, which I sold to Howard. This was the most painless purchase I ever made, as I never did see the check (it came when I was in Iowa ) and it went directly into the pockets of the Dodge dealer in Greeley.

This concludes my narrative of special assignments. This is not to say that all such activities are at an end but I shall put this document in booklet form and distribute it to Dave, Tom Edie, Howard, and Grandma Trowbridge.

The End

Leslie Trowbridge

April 1995

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Photos by Kristina Trowbridge, Video by Tom Trowbridge