Part of our education that first year was the social graces. Mrs. McComas led us through how to dance (with little or no sense of rhythm, not one of my better subjects), proper etiquette at the table and with a young lady, and military etiquette (The list goes on, but that was almost sixty years ago). Mrs. McComas also served as a match maker. Through her I met Betty and fell in love.
Betty had her own car, and we dated whenever we could. She was the first girl I kissed, and I was in heaven. She also contributed to my punishments. One weekend we got back to Arnold Hall with plenty of time, but we hadn’t had enough making out. I got out of her car late and ran for the barracks. Unfortunately, I got back after curfew and earned my first Class III. That got me a bunch of demerits and more tours. Our romance ended when I went on leave the following summer. Just before I left, I told her I loved her, and she said that wasn’t acceptable. It wasn’t till I met Carol that I got over feeling giddy whenever I saw Betty.
I suppose I should mention academics. I tested out of basic chemistry and was put in analytical chemistry. The first semester was qualitative – determining the chemical components of a solution. I’d take a small amount of the sample I was supposed to be testing, put in a drop or so of a chemical that would cause certain compounds to precipitate out. It was cookbook stuff, but I apparently wasn’t careful enough about not contaminating the sample. I consistently got the same wrong result. I was essentially failing the course so I was sent back to the regular course where I had no problem.
My chemistry instructor was Lieutenant Lamb. He introduced me to TLAR – That Looks About Right. He used the rule of thumb for mixing chemicals. To get the proper amount of the reactants he would eyeball the amounts and say, “That looks about right.” He made chemistry class fun.
That first year (it may have been the second) I went skiing for the first time. My group was bussed to Arapahoe Basin. After I was fitted with boots and skis, I hit the slopes – almost literally. I had absolutely no training or experience, so I spent a lot of time sitting in the snow. The beginners’ slope rope tow challenged me before I could even take on the slope. It pulled me up a hundred or so feet of hill. Fortunately I was able to stay in the well-worn tracks along the lift, so I could make it to the top. Then I pointed my skis downhill, and I was off – for maybe fifteen feet. I kept speeding up, and the only way I could come up with to stop was to fall down. I spent the whole time I was up there riding the rope to the top of the bunny slope and skiing down stopping every twenty feet or so by sitting or falling down. That wasn’t particularly fun so I didn’t go skiing again while I was at the Academy.
We got to relax a little at Christmas but we still had to be satisfied with Off Base Privileges (We had to be back in our rooms for Taps each day). Dad came out to visit so I spent a lot of time with him and our friends from Guam, the Cooks, as long as he was there. Strangely enough, the one thing that soured that Christmas for me had almost nothing to do with me. One of the members of the Class of ’59, Richert, had been a real hard-nose during the preceding semester. He had academic troubles and stayed at the Academy to try for a passing grade in a class he had failed. He turned out to be a fairly nice guy over the Christmas holidays. I talked to him and commiserated with him but couldn’t help him pass. When he got the news that he had failed his last chance, he told me about it, and that was the first time I ever said, “Damn,” at least out loud.
Back in those days we had summer and winter uniforms. Come mid-April we switched over from winter uniforms to summer uniforms. We put our winter uniforms in our footlockers and stored them away. That night, before we even got a chance to wear our summer uniforms, it snowed eighteen inches. Before we did anything else we had to dig out our winter uniforms.
There were other things I remember from that first year: Saturday Morning Inspections (SAMI) both in our rooms and in ranks, football games at DU stadium (they had one back then), a Harry Belafonte concert at DU, etc. An event I wasn’t involved with – but heard about – sticks in my memory. One of the Air Training Officers had a Ford Thunderbird (red if I recall correctly). Several cadets sneaked out one night and somehow moved that car up the front steps of one of the buildings (headquarters, I think) and left it in the lobby.
Eventually that year passed, and we were “recognized” as true cadets: no more eating at attention or double timing wherever we went outside.