There She Is Again

by Scott B. Laughlin / n7net
Copyright 2008

I didn't know an electron from a pipe wrench when the Air Force enrolled me in airborne electronic school at Keesler AFB, Mississippi. Nor, did I expect the instructors to be so near my age with personalities and emotions to match.   

This surprise-filled era occurred so many years ago that the names of most individuals have faded from my memory, except for one-Airman Andover.  Andover was a lanky individual with features that females found attractive.

Our classes were divided into three-week phases, each focusing on a particular aspect of electronics.  Andover taught third phase-tubes.  His creative instruction enabled me to grasp many important principles of signal amplification, especially how distortion would result if two mismatched tubes were used in a push-pull circuit.    

"If both tubes conduct at the same rate we call them a "matched pair," he explained.  "This is a classic example...," his voice trailing off as he pointed to a receiver/transmitter, a component of the APS-42 Search Radar System.  "I should already have gotten a matched pair for that unit."  

Andover hesitated, and then turned to study the young faces of his pupils, seventeen of us in all.

"You," he said at last, pointing an index finger toward the back of the classroom.

Turning, I spotted the individual to whom he pointed.  He was a studious young airman, a North Carolinian with an overly prominent nose and deep-set eyes.

"Nelson.  That's your name, isn't it?"

"Yes Sir."

"Good. Do you know where the office is?"

"Yes Sir."

"Good.  There's an attractive blonde behind a desk on the right as you pass through the door.  She's in charge of procurement.  Do you know what procurement means?"

"No sir."

"It means she can provide stuff I need.  Go down there and tell her to bring me a pair of matched fallopian tubes."

Perhaps the glint in Andover's eyes meant something to others, but I was the second most naive person of the lot.  It came as no surprise to me when Nelson bolted from his desk and was gone in a flash.

Andover resumed his lecture for another ten minutes, but stopped in mid sentence when the door burst open.  Nelson was back.  Instead of tubes, he'd brought with him a burly, middle-aged woman in civilian clothes.   She was a person of authority.  At least Airman Andover considered her as such, because his complexion turned ashen.  

The glare she cast toward him was so rigid that I could have hung my wash on it.  However she made no mention of the tubes Airman Nelson had sought.  Instead, she went into a detailed lecture describing how to make vacuum tubes from sand, should we find ourselves stranded on a deserted island and in need of producing an emergency radio signal.  All the while Andover shifted his weight and stayed clear of her peripheral vision.  When she was finished she identified herself as an electrical engineer and Vice Superintendent of the Air Force Electronic School.  She left the room in the same manner in which she'd entered, sudden and without warning.

Fifty years have passed since that surprising incident occurred.  I had totally forgotten about the woman who fabricated radio tubes from island sand.  And I might not be thinking of her now, were it not that I'm certain she turned up as attorney general during the last decade of the Twentieth Century.