We moved to Jacksonville, Florida, in about 1934 and lived close to the St Johns River (4350 Hiawatha). At nights I remember telling ghost stories to the other 4 and 5 year olds while under the cover of a giant oak tree. I scared myself with those stories, but the wide eyes that faced me kept me going until we all ran home to the safety of our moms. In 1992 we returned to that area...the oaks are larger, but the park is still there over looking the St Johns River. It was as if I had never left.

Miami Photos

About 1936 we moved to Miami, FL. Early memories are of going fishing for crabs, Blue Point and Stone Crabs, with my dad. The bait was tied to a string and thrown in the water, we had a net attached to a six foot pole. The object was to lure the crab onto the net while playing the bait. Later we got mechanized with a cage where the sides would fall down and the bait was tied in the bottom of the cage. When you pulled on a drawstring the sides would fold up and the crab would be caught inside. I always felt sad for the crab, but enjoyed the crab legs and the deviled crabs my mom would prepare. One time we had a bunch of friends over and my dad had heard about baking potatoes in a galvanized tub filled with tar. We tried it with great success...except it was hard to find the potatoes in the tub!!! But, in those days, tar and tar covered potato skins were fun to chew on. (That seems so ancient now, but so modern in 1938.)

Favorite swimming places were Matheson's Hammock, and Tahiti Beach. Today they haven't changed much from the early 1940s. But, Coconut Grove has changed considerably. Then it was rural, with the Pan American terminal used by the Coast Guard for submarine warfare surveillance. Today the famous terminal is a ruin of it's former self as the Miami City hall; lost is the splendor of the China Clippers and the 12' diameter globe of the world. The house on Greenwood is now gone and Hurricane Andrew (Aug 1992) did to the big mango tree in the back yard what the storm of 1945 couldn't do; it was uprooted then, but we were able to right it and it returned to health quickly. In 1993 it was 35' tall and most of it's huge branches were broken and the city had pruned it harshly. It looked like a 35' tall stick. But, I'm ahead of myself.

During the early part of the war years (1941-1945) we lived in Miami Springs on one of the "twin lakes", as I remember them being called. That is where I learned to swim. One day another boy (Earl Hyde) and I decided to swim across the lake, about 200 feet. We got across all right, but I couldn't make it back. About 20 feet from the dock I started going down. Dad was cutting the grass and heard the commotion. Running full tilt he dove into the water and grabbed me and started back to the dock. He had been wearing house slippers and one floated by us; I remember like yesterday plucking it from the water and reporting "I saved your slipper."

A most eventful thing happened one day with I was gigging gars from the dock. What I thought to be a gar turned out to be a water snake; I gigged it in the tail and it slithered up the handle, across my shoulders and back into the water. I remember, also like yesterday, that I fainted! In fall of 1943 a hurricane came into Miami, the eye crossing over the area. I remember the sunrise that morning, beautiful colors, and so quiet you could hear the mosquitoes buzzing. During the blow though, the 30 foot tall Australian pines that bordered the lake almost bent to the ground.

We moved to Coconut Grove about 1944 (2711 Greenwood Rd.), it was a quiet place in those days. The homes ranged from small 2 bedroom old homes, built in the 30s, to huge mansions along Bay Shore Drive. From about 1944 to 1946 I had a Miami Herald paper route, delivering papers in style; I earned enough to buy a Cushman motor scooter with a side car. In those days the paper cost 35c a week and my take was 19c per week per customer; I had about 600 customers. About that same time I met a milk man at a local diner where I washed dishes. We got to talking and he told me he needed an assistant to deliver milk on a morning route during the summer and he would pay me more than washing dishes. So, after delivering my 600 papers I would meet Jake and spend the next 3 or 4 hours running milk from his truck to the doorsteps of his customers. He was a sly one, he found I loved to work so he started timing me; he knew I would continue to try to better my record from day to day. It worked! I finally got to the point that I could carry 4 quarts of milk in each hand, running full hilt. That came to a screeching halt one day when I dropped a quart as I was setting it on a concrete step, I flinched and grabbed for it as it broke. I almost cut off my thumb and did cut off my future as a milk man.

My dad was a buyer for Pan American at that time making $85 a week; I was making over $150, tax free, delivering papers and milk. In fall of 1945 another hurricane came into Miami. Of course I was older now (15) and braver; I took a city bus downtown to see what things looked like. The stop lights were blowing and the coconuts were whipping, just like in the news reels of the day. To this day no one believes I was so stupid as to do something like that, but I figured that if the bus barn was just a few blocks from our house the bus had to return. No problem, I was right; and with exciting memories for a 15 year old.

Speaking of being brave, I tried my hand at Golden Gloves that year. My dad had told me over and over I would never be a man until I could beat him up. My first Golden Gloves fight was a doozy! It was up against a little smart alec I couldn't stand; thus, I knew I could beat him with one punch. One problem, he ducked. He then proceeded to beat me silly by cheating. I never knew how to "put up my dukes" properly and held my right in front of my nose. He cheated by continuing to hit my right and knocking it back into my nose. Pretty soon my face was a bloody mess and I was crying to boot. My fight career ended with that first fight.

In January of 1946 my father's mother ("Mammy", Mary Anglin) died. On the way to Mammy's funeral: I remember all too well that we were chaffered in a new 1946 La Salle, the likes of which I could only dream of riding in. The chauffeur was elegant; when shifting gears (a "new" column shift) his hand lifted to the heavens like an orchestra conductor. I happened to notice that the engine temperature was getting too high for safety, but I hesitated to remark because this was a solemn occasion. A few blocks later the radiator hose blew and we had to call for a backup unit. Mammy had predicted she would be late for her own funeral, and she was!

Dad decided we needed to move to an area with more hope for the future: New Mexico. Dad "went west" to Albuquerque to start a turkey ranch with a distant cousin, Joe, and Mom and I moved into a hotel in Miami Beach until school was out in June. I remember like yesterday watching Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, The Andrews Sisters, etc., entertainment from our second class hotel. (We had a 5th floor room overlooking the tennis courts of the Fountain Blu where some of the shows took place.) The Army had taken over Miami Beach for R&R for the troops returning from WWII and really did their best to entertain our GIs during their convalescence to civilian life!

The trip to Albuquerque for Mom and me was uneventful, except for Mom having to sleep on the ironing board in the back of our 1942 Chevy while I had the comfort of the front seat. Outside of Albuquerque we stopped for "last chance for gas for the next 50 miles" and, low and behold, there was Dad waiting for us. He had opened all 4 doors of the 1941 Dodge so we would see it parked along side the highway (Rt 66). But all I saw was the "see the snakes" sign! I spent the next couple of days in a 120 degree Albuquerque hotel room while Mom and Dad got acquainted again. Dad was considerate of me though, he taught me how to prop a chair up under the door knob to keep strangers out of the room; I hardly slept for 2 days! ;=)

We took a side trip to Los Angeles to visit some relatives...most of whom I don't remember. I do remember an Albert Bumis (Dad's uncle) and wife that lived on Exposition Blvd in downtown Los Angeles. It was rather pathetic. Albert was about 75 (at least 222 years old to a 16 year old kid) and they had lived in the same place for 40 years. The blacks were moving into the neighborhood and wanted him out, but Albert and his wife had no where to go. When we left that day I remember a black kid my age and size silently confronted me. We stood toe-to-toe for about 10 second as I aged 1 year. He didn't like whites in "his neighborhood." We both backed off and glared at each other for a long time. Such a waste, intolerant prejudice!

The turkey business turned into a flop (or a flap as the case may be) and Mom refused to live in an area with more sand from dust devils than she could clean up in a day. We moved from Albuquerque about a month later (August, 1946) to Venice, California. Actually Mar Vista (12567 McCune Ave), at Centenella and Venice Blvds. I graduated from Venice High School and attended Los Angeles City College for one year before joining the Army in 1949. My story continues as an adult, in 1953 when I return from the Army with a wife, Marilyn Estelle Bryan, and daughter Beverly Colleen (b.12/8/1952), aged 20 days.

Upon return from the army (1953) I had no special talents other than typing and filing so I looked for a career field to start. While in the service in Washington, D.C., I had taken a course in stenotype, thinking I would like to be a court reporter. I was a whiz in taking dictation at up to 250 wpm, but transcribing the tapes was painful; it took me forever to transcribe my steno notes because I can't spell! So I decided that wasn't to be my future. Thus, I enrolled in the Electronic Technical Institute in Inglewood, CA, and that started my electronic career. I first worked as a receiving parts inspector working graveyard shift at Hughes Aircraft at $.95 an hour until I was lucky enough to find employment at Northrop Aircraft in the R&D Lab connected with Northrop's SNARK project, a V-2 type test-bed for Northrop's celestial navigation system. I fell in love with electronics and was thrown into it as a design technician at an early stage in my career.

Beverly's sister, Barbara Diane (b.4/7/1954) increased our family to four now, and we purchased our first home in Torrance, CA. It was a 1,300 square foot house with 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, floor furnace, and cost $13,000. The payments were $86 a month, including taxes, for 30 years. I wasn't sure how we would manage at that time. I heard the house sold in 1993 for $150,000!

Life during the 50's in Los Angeles was fun; I was attending El Camino (Jr.) College as a pre-engineering student (tuition was $6.50 a year), working at Northrup and racing motorcycles on Hare & Hound races in the Mojave desert. It was a time full of enthusiasm, learning, and working on really interesting projects at Northrup. I was active in magnet amplifier design, vacuum tube power supply design and early transistor data acquisition systems design. Northrop's SNARK looked and acted like a V-2 rocket with one "design" difference...it was supposed to come back and land! An F-89 "Scorpion" guidance chase-plane pilot was to guide it. One problem though...every time it launched it went into a "fuel dump, pitch-down, yaw-left" maneuver and crashed into the ocean off Cape Canaveral! We finally determined it was because the electrical control relays were throwing to the opposite position during acceleration that was causing the problem; we changed relay design and eliminated the problem. We landed the next (many) SNARKS and went on to develop a great celestial guidance system for the Air Force!

But, all good things become boring after a while and in 1957 I went to work for STL (Space Technology Labs, the precursor to TRW Space System Division) in Manhattan Beach as an electronic design technician. That meant I was paid as a technician but given the responsibilities of a design engineer, all because I didn't want to get a degree. FUN TIMES! We were an advisor to the Air Force for space missions, which in those days was primarily for data acquisition from lost satellites; "lost" meaning we didn't expect to get them back! I was first in a magnetics physics lab and later in a particle physics lab. We primarily engaged in design of data acquisition equipment to fly and return information relative to magnetic fields or atomic particle information. We had a minimum of electronic people so the responsibility of design of everything fell on the technicians! This included power supply design, both conventional 6 VDC or special purpose high voltage supplies.

For instance a Faraday Cup experiment (to measure electron energy distribution in space) needed a power supply that produced a stepped supply of 10,000 volts per step, for 5 steps, up to a maximum of 50,000 volts, but only with microampres of current. Then the process needed to be repeated, at 1 second intervals. This was an unsolvable problem until I discovered a way to discharge the power supply using SulfurHexaFloride as a gas to contain an arc to discharge the power supply and re-start it from zero volts again. About that time I was fortunate enough to be a prime designer of a magnetic field measuring device that Dr. Van Allen used in mapping the earth's magnetic field and discovering the Van Allen Belt (electrons trapped in the earths magnetic field). Another space instrument was a nanosecond measuring device to categorize isotopes of hydrogen in space. These were examples of the fun work of the day.

To augment this work-a-day world I spent leisure time racing sailboats in the Southern California waters; I had a 16' catamaran and was also working the foredeck on a friends 47' racing sloop. This period lasted from about 1960 to 1970, the most pleasurable, exciting period of my life. I believe the sea is my lost love from another life. I also spent nights going to UCLA trying to keep up with electronic design as it moved rapidly ahead in this period of time; the only trouble was my work was ahead of the subjects being taught at UCLA at the time! Weekends were spent either racing sailboats or sports cars; I had a TR-3 and later a Porsche 356B and did a bit of club racing, but never got better than about 10th club wide. For about 5 years I was also very involved with sports car navigational rallying; i.e., driving precise speeds, using cryptically written instructions, demanding 1 second accuracies over a typical 6 hour course.

In 1965 Marilyn and I got a divorce and she and Bev and Barb moved back to be with her mother in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Today Bev is living in Apex, NC, after receiving her AA degree in Industrial Waste Management and Barb has her own graphics arts business in Cocoa Beach.

Let's see, we are now up to about 1970...I have been single for about 7 years and was getting tired of Los Angeles and the paper work that the Air Force (congress) has placed in the way of research and development of space exploration. I marry a second time to a horse woman Marrae' Velliquette and we moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to work at the Los Alamos National Labs (LANL) in particular at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (LAMPF). The work was a different world (literally and figuratively) from that at TRW. At TRW it was a world of space craft electronics; small components, light weight, tight schedules. At LANL it was high power (thousands of amps), heavy magnets that were 6x6x4 feet weighing up to 2 tons, and 1000 amp magnet power supplies regulated to 1%!

I was hired as an electrician, because there was a hiring freeze on. The Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility was to become the highest powered linear particle accelerator in the world; 800 mev (million electron volts) with a particle beam of 1.6 milliamps; and capable of running about 8 different physics experiments at one time. The magnets mentioned above were used to control the direction of the accelerator beam into several different targets for various experiments. The linear accelerator was unique in several ways, one of which was the ability to run 6 to 8 physics experiments at one time. Most other LINACs in the world operated at only 300-500 mev at 10-100 microamps (1/100th of our current levels) and for only one experiment. I had gone from tiny electronic components (e.g. transistors) to vacuum tubes that were 2 feet in diameter and 4 feet tall! Their filaments drew 1,000 amps at 6 volts, regulated to 1%; 6,000 watts; an all electric house consumes about 10,000 watts, and is typically regulated to 10%.

But the marriage to Marrae'‚ lasted only 3 years and I settled into working once again. While at LANL I work in electronics at various projects until I tired of hardware design and move to computer programming; you don't have to worry about lack of screws and connectors to put a system together! It was a fun, but frustrating period, at LANL or New Mexico in general they don't care to work at the frenzied pace I was used to at Northrup, STL and TRW; I got in trouble because of this many times and finally retired in 1987 at age 57.

I married Carol Ann Gaunce (b.5/15/1935 m.Oct 4, 1981, Santa Fe, NM). At the time she was an English teacher in Santa Fe, NM and later an Assistant Principal at the local High School; she retired in 1992. We have been actively engaged in square dancing (where we met), building a house together, backpacking, photography of wildflowers, camping, canoeing, and genealogy. One of the beautiful things of this marriage is that we are first, last, and foremost FRIENDS. We got married while building a house together; we figured if we could work together we could build a future together! It really has happened!!!

From about 1990 on most of my waking hours have been spent at the computer, or local Mormon Church Family History Library, doing research on the NICKELL and MOOTY (my mom's line) research. I won't say much about that except to say it has been a labor of love and dedication to an activity that can (and has) become addictive.

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