Living on the Beach
I’m from a little town in South Dakota where the only beach we had was the sand hauled in by truck to Ravine Lake. I’d been to the beach in California when I was a young teen but that was an abstract memory. Then, all of a sudden in my mid twenties, still chasing common sense and adrenalin, I found myself stationed in Panama City, Florida. I was there (1) to learn to be a radar weapons controller, and, (2) to learn how to fly the T-33, both in preparation for my assignment to Iceland. The weapons controller school was scheduled for about three to four months, T-33 school for four weeks (I don’t remember the exact lengths). The T-33 school was scheduled after the weapons controller school finished. I had a rental car but needed a place to live.
The temporary quarters office at the air base didn’t have a place for me to live for that long and so they gave me non-availability. Normally that means you head off to a motel somewhere but…I thought I’d try something different. It was the off season in Florida, why not look for a beach house. Easier said than done. Hurricane Eloise had devastated much of the beach just 5 months earlier so there weren’t a lot of houses available. Read none. I ended up driving 10 miles east of the air base to Mexico Beach, FL. Mexico Beach had been lightly hit by Eloise but not horribly. I found a tiny little house only 50 yards from the beach on 41st Street. Lightly furnished. Sadly, Hurricane Michael in 2018 destroyed much of the entire town. But I digress.
My little house was three rooms, probably 600-700 square feet. One quarter of a mile east was a beach bar. Eloise had buried most of the place with sand but you could still enter on the beach side, I spent a lot of time there. Fresh oysters were fifty cents a dozen! Fifty cents!! Shrimp was equally as reasonable. In fact, most days I’d walk over to the inland waterway just across the highway and buy fresh shrimp right off the boat. It was a lonely life but I was okay with that. Not many people, no tourists because of the time of year. That changed as spring came and it was fairly crowded in June. A stray dog adopted me. I fed him and let him sleep inside when he wanted. Here’s the twist.
The weapons controller course was “self paced.” We were assigned a “learning partner” and the two of us could go as quickly as we were able…all with an instructor, there was no just go off and do it, it was all supervised. I was paired with another pilot, John.
The Weapons Controller’s job is to look at a radar scope, plot an intercept course between a friendly aircraft and an enemy aircraft, and give constant direction to the fighter to complete the intercept. Weapons controllers were seldom pilots and consequently, the course spent a great deal of time teaching the basic language of aviation. For instance, a full hour was dedicated to how to tell time on a 24 hour clock. John and I finished that course in what our instructor said was the fastest time ever. Three weeks. Not three-four months. But then what? The Air Force would not send me home, I had another course starting in just a few weeks. I couldn’t start T-33 school early. I couldn’t stay in Weapons Controller school. I was in limbo.
The T-33 squadron decided that if I called in once a day, that would be enough. They didn’t actually have anything for me to do but, just in case they found something, I should call in. Every morning, I’d get a dime, walk to the payphone at the little beach store, and make my call. Like I said, it was a lonely time but I got to enjoy parts of the beach. I loved the wind, the smell, the food. The sand…not so much.
The image above is NOT from Mexico Beach. I have no images from there, rather it’s from Santa Barbara, California.