1950
  1954
  1956
  1957
  1958
1960
1970
1980
1990

     F Sheff at Work                                       in Los Angeles,
             and at Parks and Sheppard Air Force Bases

4. 1954 - 1956

personal     
Résumé as a window into ^ history

August 1956 - December 1956   United States Air Force
Sheppard Air Force Base, Wichita Falls TX
Airman Photo Interpreter trainee

• Meet Bob Munns in the transit intake area
• Learn to evaluate and utilize aerial visual photography
• Learn to evaluate and utilize aerial RADAR photography
  
• Execute and appreciate a truly monumental spit-shine
    (that's Bakyta [l.] and Homer Barrett [r.], not me)
  
• Arise at oh-dark-thirty to perform Kitchen Police duty
  
• Meander three miles to base hospital emergency room, seeking relief from 103° fever loaned by a fellow traveler from Hawaii by way of the West Coast to Calumet City IL, part of her goodwill- and mononucleosis-spreading tour
• Lose 35 pounds
• Hear every sound emanating from the Democratic National Convention through a television mounted out of reach above my hospital bed
• Miss a PI class going to England, Japan, the Caribbean
• Join a class on its way to Nebraska, Greenland, and Arkansas
• Marvel at one Ronald J. Lupien ("Lupeer," "Lupeen," et al.)
• Try to have lunch with Airman friends in a Wichita Falls restaurant
• Find out what "discrimination" means
• Try to have a post-movie sandwich at a Wichita Falls restaurant
• Discover "curfew," "booking," "Article 15," and "Squadron discipline"
• Spend significant time watering flooded quadrangle during thunderstorm
  
• Meet, photograph and place one arm around Mamie Van Doren     
• Did I mention meeting and photographing Mamie Van Doren?
• Get on a Greyhound for Los Angeles

June 1956 - August 1956    United States Air Force
Parks Air Force Base, Pleasanton CA
Airman Basic trainee

B      N
Click photo for larger view
Click "B" for BIG view, "N" for BIG view with names
Click H E R E for a page with anecdotes and picture access

• Become oriented to military rules, procedures, attitudes, clothing
• Absorb hazing and abuse from senior Airmen
  
• Get my mind right
  
• Quit smoking
  
• Gain 25 pounds
  
• Learn to enjoy marching in plain and fancy styles
  
• End lifelong habit of going barefoot
• Sing Hawaiian songs
  
• Fight for first time, have a little fun at it
  
• Broken '49 Ford rested at Torrance spread

1955     Railway Express Company, Grand Central Station
Los Angeles, California
Package Sorter, Car Loader

• Sort packages, load cars (d'oh)
• Work as many hours as possible during Christmas recess
• Work almost daily for two weeks
  
• Earn nearly a thousand dollars
  
• Spend nearly all of it on Christmas gifts
  
• Encounter Bob Munns on the street in downtown Los Angeles
  
• Accrue some railway employee credits that were worth an eight-dollar a month increment in Social Security retirement benefits

1954 - 1956    S. Frederick Smith    1360 S. Hope Street
Los Angeles CA
Part-time Parking Lot Attendant

• Park cars, collect hourly and monthly fees
• Maintain security and cleanliness of the property and vehicles
  
• Entertain student nurses-in-training from nearby California Hospital
  
• Marvel at the diversity of parking lot automobile and human traffic (Bleeding-faced drunk on his way to the Hospital Emergency Room: "I got hit by a foul ball." Wife, clearly out of patience: "Yeah, and it hit you about three times.")
• Encourage local alcoholic mailman to reduce volume of drinking
• On a New Year's Eve accept as tip a fifth of Johnny Walker Black from Earl Scheib, whose first paint shop was next to the parking lot
• Learn Three-card Monte the hard way
  
• Learn Short-Stub (Be gutless, or ethical, and fail to practice it)
  
• Decline opportunity to become frozen French-fry magnate
  
• Watch fellow employee buy himself a prison term ("Borrowed" a '56 Olds to go on a date, ran it into a pole in a parking garage. Brought it back on time, though.)
• Help "Solly" lay a brick patio on his oceanfront Manhattan Beach property
  
• Ride the bus two hours each way each weekend day until the '49 Ford buy, then
  
• Hit the Lighthouse after work on Saturday nights, sit in the back and swap pleasantries with June Christy
  
• All for a buck thirty-five an hour (after a couple of raises)

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