OK, I'm back but I don't know for how long.

I was a nerd in high school. No, really. Really. Remember, my mother chose my clothes. Dress pants (no blue jeans until I was an adult), dress shoes (tennis shoes are for gym), and, for some ungodly reason, long-sleeve, checked shirts.

Then, add the usual assortment of nerdom. Pocket protector, multiple pens and pencils including: mechanical pencil (not really common at that time), ballpoint pen which writes in 3 colors, actual fountain pen. As an added attraction, the calculator of its time, a 12" sliderule, dangling like a gunslinger's Colt '45 from my belt in a fancy leather holder.

I was ready at a moment's notice to calculate a cosine or a square root for anyone who needed one and then to plot the results in 3 glowing colors on a piece of graph paper ripped from my bulging 3-ring notebook. Oh, I was something to see.

Now, I had the usual teenager boy's sex drive, but it was locked inside a nerd's body. We won't talk about the small locked chest hidden under my bed with the few pictures of bare-chested women I had managed to pick out of the trash containers behind the buildings downtown.

Or the time my parents drove me to the "nice" downtown theatre and, once they were out of sight, I ran over to the "naughty" theatre to see the "risque" expose on the white slavery trade (real women's boobs on the screen, who would have believed it!). Of course, they weren't suppose to let me in, but, you know, the guy selling tickets didn't seem to care a bit that I was underage.

Couldn't watch it all, of course, had to make sure I was back over at the other theatre before they came back to pick me up. Couldn't take the chance that my mother would learn her sweet little baby had such thoughts.

And continuing the nerd theme, in all my years in high school, I only asked one girl out on a date. And even that wasn't really my choice. You see, my best friend in high school, Ken, was a nerd too. Although he was much more able to make friends and talk to people (that's one of the reasons I hung around with him), he weighed about 250 and, unfortunately, absolutely none of it was muscle.

Anyway, he was sweet on a girl. Now, he was my friend, but she was way out of his league. As she was mine. He had managed to become her best male friend, her confidant. But he wanted to be more, much more, but was afraid to try and move the relationship on. Perhaps he was wise in that.

So he talked and talked and talked and eventually convinced me to ask her out. His reasoning was that if she would go out with me, if she was that desperate, maybe she would go out with him. And he wouldn't jeopardize his friendship. Did I say he was my best friend? Yes, he was, so I said yes.

I have to say, that was the hardest thing I've ever done. Even harder than walking in to teach a classroom of 400 for the first time. Well, she was nice enough, and considering the stammering lack of confidence standing in front of her, trying to get his words out, I have to respect her greatly for that. But she said no. What else could she say?

Later Ken told me she had been flabbergasted by my asking her out. And that she was really honored that I did, given how shy I was and how she respected me. Not as good as a date, but something. Ken, however, soon drifted away from her as a friend. I don't know if it had to do with his failed asperations, the way she felt about me, or just that relationships come and go. And she never knew that it was his idea all along.

I don't know what I would have done if she had said yes. I hadn't thought beyond the asking. Maybe I didn't figure I needed to have any real plan beyond that. People who are not nerds cannot imagine the social ineptude of those of us who are. Sure, you might have been inept, but you weren't INEPT. You started making your social forays at the ages of 10, 11 or 12, maybe even earlier. We nerds still haven't done so at the age of 18.

So I graduated high school, I went to college, I met new people. Still a nerd, but at least choosing my own clothes, reaching out in a limited way to the rest of humanity. Ken couldn't afford college, ended up going into the Navy (nobody hardly ever chooses the oil-field, remember) and I made a new best friend. In true nerd fashion, he was the guy behind me in line at registration.

Clark Mount-Campbell was his name. One of the few people I'd even heard of with a hyphenated last name (they really were RARE then and mostly were found in England). His father's last name had been Mount and was adopted by a family named Campbell. So his father had his name officially changed when he became an adult, before Clark was born. Another interesting point about his father. He was in his 60's when Clark was born BUT still had coal-black hair when I met him in his 80's.

Anyway, Clark had other friends (he was a nerd too, but not as much as me), and one of them was named Chuck. And Chuck had a sister, a senior in high school at that time. Her name was Genevieve and she would end up as my first wife and the mother of my children. But how and why it happened is a long story.

In college I participated in a work-study program. The Navy had contracted with the University to track the satellites being placed in orbit in the early 60's. Thus, they would track signals from the different satellites and from the data collected, calculate their exact flight paths. Then, given the angle of the signal and knowing exactly where the satellite should be, a ship could determine it's own position much more accurately than with other methods and under all weather conditions.

Anyway, the pay was much better than the menial jobs that one could normally get at that age (in those days, at my age, a dollar an hour was the max you'd find). This job paid 1.65/hour which was fantastic. Plus, you were paid $10/day per diem when you were away from the University. You see, to track the satellites there were "stations" all over the world. Wow, good pay and a chance to travel as well. What more could a young man ask?

Anyway, I went to school for two semesters and then was scheduled to go to Anchorage for two semesters to work. We stayed on Elmendorf Air Force Base, in the BOQ. The room was $1/day, meals were 50 cents, 75 cents, and $1 for breakfast, lunch and dinner at the messhall. And when we were out at the communications shack, doing our job, the food was free because it might be at any hour of the day and you had to fix it yourself.

The satellites were on a regular schedule, but it was hardly a human schedule. That far north, we only saw a couple of them and they were only above the horizon for about 13 hours out of the day. This thirteen-hour time period, however, rotated a little every day, so some months would be day work, some night, some half-and-half.

And the passes overhead were for about 15 minutes every hour and a half. So, we'd go out, catch the 6-8 passes, working for 15 minutes every hour and a half and generally paying pool or reading the rest of the time. Not a really strenuous job. And we were spending maybe three dollars a day from our per diem, building up our regular salary at home to use for school when we got back. Things were great.

There were more stereos bought at the BX and shipped home, more custom tailored suits ordered from Hong Kong, more cars purchased when we got home, than you can imagine. BUT, it did require you to go away for an extended period from everyone you knew. So a lot of us made arrangements for some correspondence while we were gone. Genevieve said she would write all us guys she knew that were in the program (Clark went to Japan), and I don't know if she wrote anyone else, but she did me.

So, we have a bunch of young guys, out in the middle of nowhere, with a lot of free time on their hands. Naturally, talk turns to girls. And how we could meet some when we got back to college. We hoped to drain enough experience from all of us to help the group conquer that first meeting problem. And we hatched up a plan.

Now, as part of our job, we had to lock onto the satellite's signal and start a machine which was punch the data from the satellite into a paper tape (hey, things were primitive in those days). This paper tape was then transmitted to Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland via teletype for processing. These teletypes formed part of the plan.

Now the teletypes have a paper tape punch as well. And you can take the teletype off-line, type anything you want on them, and produce a paper tape. This paper tape can then be fed into the tape reader and it will type what's on the tape, making a copy of your original work (this was before Xerox machines, remember). Thus, if we would feed regular paper into the teletype, instead of the roll of yellow paper which you normally used, we could make printed copies.

So we hatched this plan to run a "bogus" beauty contest. We got a student directory (which had names and addresses), picked out about 300 girls and printed out a "beauty contest" entry form on which we would ask for important information, including, we hoped, measurements, what they liked to do, maybe even pictures. All that stuff that could help so much when first meeting someone. We were trying to create our own dating service, so to speak, except the girls wouldn't know that was what it was.

At the last minute we ran into a snag. We had the form, we had the names and addresses, we could use the Air Force supplies of envelopes and paper. Now remember, we were sitting there, flush with money. Turns out nobody wanted to put any money in the pot for postage! Hey, stamps were about 8 cents then, so we're talking about maybe 24 dollars. So our whole grand scheme fell apart.

But I sent a copy of the form to Genevieve and, wonder of wonders, she thought it was great, took it to be a humorous way I was using to get information about her, and responded to the question in a way that made me think she had a sense of humor and maybe I might have a chance with her. Question: "Do you pet?" Answer: "Dogs?"

Anyway, we came back. I got up my nerve and asked her out. And she said yes. Anyway, nerd or not, I plunged ahead and our relationship progressed (I guess I don't have to explain that one, right?). Two semesters go by, it's time for us to go out on assignment again, now there's a problem. I didn't mind leaving everyone behind before, but now I do.

She was the first woman I dated (or did anything with, for that matter), and I figured if I left her for 8 or 9 months she might not be there when I got back. And she had reason to maybe wonder the same thing about me. You see, I ended up with the opportunity to go to Europe.

Of all the places you could go in the world, this chance to go track satellites, in a van travelling around Europe so you're moving from country to country, was the plum. Everyone wanted it. And that included me. Now it was just pure chance who they decided would go where, but I lucked out. In more ways than one.

You see, I had been corresponding with a pen pal, a girl, in Germany. She was very friendly and was getting out of a convent school in a month or so, just about the time the van would be in that part of Germany. And she was ready to kick loose from all those restictions she'd been living with in school. So, who knows. Maybe I'm just lucky that my Children don't speak German. Let's just say that when I saw Europe beside my name on the list, I was not disappointed.

Now, my future mother-in-law was psychotic. No, really. She had been diagnosed as a paranoid. That fact didn't make being a daughter in her house an easy life. Genevieve wanted out and she saw me as her vehicle. But I was going away, would meet other girls. So our plan was hatched, we would elope before I left.

I was going to visit my mother, 300 miles away, before leaving for my work tour. I told her I'd leave and drive over on Sunday. But we left on Saturday, having to wait an extra 2 hours until Genevieve's mother was out of the house. At least we'd left a note for her so she didn't think her daughter had been kidnapped or ran away for good.


I was too young to get married without permission (she was 18, I was 19, but things were a little stricter then for guys) so we ran to Juarez, Mexico, just 60 miles from the college.

Even there we were underage (both had to be 21 there), BUT they didn't check things there like they did in the states. After mumbling our "si's" at the appropriate places (indicated by the official pointing to us at the proper time), we traveled to a town between the college and my home town and stayed our "wedding" night together, mostly to put an "official" stamp on the paper with all that Spanish writing on it.

Well, got home, broke the news to my mother, who was floored (remember, I was still her sweet little boy). When she finally got her voice, the one thing she said was: "Tomorrow we go to Lovington (country seat) and you two get married for real." Then she made us call Genevieve's mother who, of course, was totally P.O.'d.

Next day, we go to Lovington, my mother signed for me and we're officially married. So my first wife and I were married twice, once illegally, once legally. So what do you use for your wedding anniversary?

We get back, the old lady and I have some words about the situation, finally decide that they will pay for Genevieve to go to business school to acquire some skills, I'll send her most of my per diem to help support her and we're all set. Right?

Wrong. Somehow (I still don't know how), the University found out I got married. I got to the airport in El Paso, new wife staying at home so the location director won't see us together, and am told, at the gate, that I wouldn't be going to Europe. Seems like they have this rule that says married men aren't allowed to go overseas, too hard on the family. So, I have to get hold of my in-laws and have them drive the 60 miles to pick me up.

I managed to register for classes that semester, late of course and we set up married life. She didn't go to school, had to go to work instead to support us while I went. After one semester, however, the project relented and let me go on work phase at Goddard Space Flight Center, processing the data collected, since my wife could move there with me.

There I got my first experience with computers. And that leads to the rest of my life.