What Would Jimmy Do?

A few weeks ago, during one of our far-ranging discussions, it somehow came up that one of my high school classmates’s son was the lone American on the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and has never been found.

The discussion eventually led to the black boxes used on airplanes to help determine the cause of crashes. Well, we all knew that “black boxes” and not “black.” They are painted a bright orange to be more visible. There are a lot of theories as to the origin of the term “black box.” Some believe that the mysterious contents of the device could be safely accessed only in a dark room, others think that because when they are recovered, they are usually charred. One of the people involved in our discussion said it was called a black box, not because it was black, but because it was developed by an engineer named Black.

Well, without doing any extensive research on this subject, I’m pretty sure that I know the answer. First of all, what is usually referred to as a “black box” is actually a set of two bright orange colored “flight recorders.” I worked with electronic devices for many years and the term “black box” has been around longer than I have. In the electronics industry, a collection of different circuit modules put together to do a specific job is often/usually called a “black box.” The idea is that the contents can be a complete mystery as long as you know what the output is for a given input. So my theory, at least, is that these devices, although painted orange, are called black boxes because the components were constructed and sealed into a single unit to serve a specific purpose.,
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
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A day or so ago, I mentioned buying a Corvette with my American Express card. While I’m on the subject of Corvettes, it turns out that a Corvette isn’t only the car of the Williamsons, it’s also the car of the astronauts — at least the car of the Mercury astronauts.

Alan Shepard not only was the first American in space (sub-orbital flight) but he was also the first of the astronauts to own a Corvette. He bought a used 1953 model Corvette from his father-in-law in 1954. In 1959, after he was chosen as a member of the original astronaut class, he bought another (used) Corvette… a 1957 model.

After he joined NASA, he became friends with a General Motors engineer, Zora Arkus-Duntov. After his flight that made him the first American in space, Arkus-Duntov convinced GM to give Shepard a brand new 1962 Corvette. (General Motors usually didn’t give away cars, but in this case, the company saw a once in a lifetime publicity opportunity.)

After Shepard received his Corvette, the owner of a Chevrolet/Cadillac dealership (Jim Rathmann) in Melbourne, Florida decided to take things further. Rathmann was a former Indianapolis 500 winner and savvy businessman. In coordination with GM, he offered all the Mercury astronauts a top of the line Corvette at a very affordable lease price — $1 a year. After the lease was up, the astronauts could buy the car outright if they chose — also at a very good price. If they didn’t purchase the car, the dealership had absolutely no trouble selling  a Corvette formerly owned by an astronaut.

Only four of the seven Mercury astronauts took Rathmann up on his offer of a Corvette for a dollar a year. NASA cancelled the one dollar car program in 1971 over concerns of a backlash from the public.

I spent some amount of time in and around Melbourne, Florida and I’ve been to the Chevrolet/Cadillac dealership that provided the Corvettes to the astronauts — but, alas, I never owned a Corvette driven by an astronaut….. we do, however, have George Foreman’s grill.
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I just got an Apple Card — just what I need — another credit card. The first credit card I ever had was American Express. I got my first American Express card sometime around 1960… there wasn’t very many places that accepted it back then. I got the card because of work — it apparently helped with accounting and it proved useful when traveling — something I was doing a lot of in those days. The card wasn’t free, but my employer(s) always paid the annual fee.

In 1972, a friend had dropped his car off for service at the Dudley-Martin Chevrolet dealership in Manassas, Virginia. I picked him up in the morning as we were attending a training class in a neighboring town. When we went back to pick up his car that afternoon, I went into the showroom, while he was dealing with the service department. In the middle of the showroom floor sat a shiny gold Corvette. I was looking at the car and a salesman approached and asked if I would be interested. It turns out that in 1972, Dudley-Martin was located outside of Manassas proper, and Manassas itself was a “small town.” The salesman told me that they had had the car on the showroom floor for several months and no one had shown much interest in it. (Manassas was basically a farming community back then.) Anyhow, the salesman said he’d make me an extremely good deal, because they wanted to get rid of the Corvette. The “sticker” price was just slightly over $6,000. I offered, and he accepted $4,400. While he was filling out the paperwork, I gave him my American Express card. He looked at it, and said, “What’s this?” I told him it was my American Express card. He said he understood that, but why was I giving it to him? I told him that I had just agreed to buy a car and I was using the American Express card to purchase it. He said, “You can’t buy a Corvette with an American Express Card.” I said, “Why not? The sticker on your door says, ‘American Express Accepted Here.’” He said, “But that’s for parts or accessories — not for cars!” I said, “You sell cars, and the sticker says American Express accepted here. I don’t want the car.” Since I hadn’t signed anything, I picked up my card and started for the door. The salesman said, “Wait — I’ll talk to my manager.” The manager came over and we had the same conversation all over again and I started toward the door. The manager and salesman stopped me again and said I could put half the cost of the car on the credit card. Again — I started to leave. By this time my friend had paid for his service and was waiting on me. I told them my ride was leaving and I had to go. The manager asked that I wait for him to make a phone call… while we were waiting, they actually gave me and my friend a beer. This was 1972 in Virginia, so I figured they must be serious if they give you a beer. (I’m pretty sure that may have been illegal in Virginia in 1972.)

To make what’s already become a long story, at least a little shorter — they called American Express and they charged my credit card $4,400. When I got my statement, the charge was listed as “Corvette.”
I wonder what I can buy with my Apple Card…..
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We live in Shepherdstown, West Virginia… A lot of people have never heard of Shepherdstown and when we tell them it’s just down the road from Harpers Ferry, they almost always say, “Oh, yea.” Most people know of Harpers Ferry because of its historical significance.

Robert Harper, an architect and millwright from Philadelphia arrived at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers in 1747. In 1747, that location was known as “The Hole.” At the time, this point of land was under the control of a squatter — Peter Stephens. Stephens operated a ferry from the land belonging to Lord Fairfax.
Harper was so impressed by the wild beauty of the area and the potential water power its rivers promised, he purchased the ferry and Stephen’s squatter rights. He later received a one hundred and twenty-five acre plat from Fairfax.
When Harper’s wife, Rachel, arrived she apparently cried for days and begged Robert to return to civilization and abandon “The Hole.” But Harper built a mill and improved the ferry service across the rivers.

The Harper’s original cabin along the Shenandoah was lost to a flood, so the Harpers built a new and grander home high above the flood plane. The Harper House still stands today and is the oldest surviving structure in Harper Ferry. Robert Harper died before the house was completed. After his death, Rachel continued to work finishing the house but fell from a ladder and was killed.
Since the Harpers had no children, their property was inherited by a niece, Sarah Wagner. She in turn left the Harpers Ferry property to her son and it was his three children who settled in the town — and became its leading citizens.

That’s a little about how Harpers Ferry got its name… but not really where I was going when I started this. When Robert Harper’s health started to fail, he became fearful of the roaming bands of renegades and plunders that sprang up during the war, so he instructed Rachel to bury all of their gold and tell no one where it was hidden. When Mrs. Harper fell from the ladder and was killed, she apparently carried the secret of the buried gold to her grave.
As far an anyone knows, the Harper treasure has never been discovered, but local residents swear that they periodically see an old woman dressed in 18th century fashions, peering from the windows of the Harper House. Many think she is still guarding the family gold.
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President Eisenhower is noted for establishing the Interstate Highway System. He’s also noted for something else that’s probably more important to the country than interstate highways — the establishment of the CRITICOMM System. Here’s a little background in case you don’t know what the CRITICOMM System is….

On October 4, 1957, Russia launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit the Earth. The launch was a complete surprise to the intelligence community, including NSA. President Eisenhower didn’t learn about the launch until 24 hours after it occurred. To say he was a little annoyed would be an understatement. The intelligence community had come up short several times under Eisenhower, notably the attack by Israel of Egypt in the Sinai in response to Egypt’s nationalizing of the Suez Canal and Russia’s seizure of Budapest to crush the Hungarian revolution. The Director of NSA issued an alert of the seizure of Budapest, but it didn’t leave the building for seven hours. Again, the President found out about these events well after the fact.

President Eisenhower responded to these failures by establishing several committees to reform the intelligence community. His objective was to see that he had warning of impending crises — not learn of them after they occurred.

One of the reform committees that Eisenhower established was the Critical Communications Committee. The committee defined “critical information” as that information “indicating a situation or pertaining to a situation which affects the security or interests of the United States to such an extent that it may require the immediate attention of the President and other members of the National Security Council.” The committee also recommended that critical information should get to the President within ten minutes of the recognition that it met “Critic” criteria as defined above. President Eisenhower accepted this recommendation in August of 1958 and National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 7 was promulgated.

The problem with the committee’s recommendation was that no communication system existed that could meet the ten-minute deadline.
A study published in 1953, concluded that NSA’s handling time on the most critical information was not less than five or six hours from the time of intercept. NSA told the President that 90 percent of the expected warnings would come from Communications Intelligence (COMINT) so NSA was put in charge of creating the new notification system. NSA’s plan called for the establishment of communications relay centers where messages could be routed faster due to the fact that messages would never have to be re-encrypted to be passed along. One big problem with this plan was the various military services were required to fund the relay centers located near their intercept sites. The services usually chose to use their funding for things other than the relays.

In 1958 when NSA was put in charge of building a CRITICOM system — by 1961 — they did not have an automated relay switch that would satisfy the requirements and the relay centers didn’t exist.

Luckily, two technical achievements came along in time to allow NSA to meet its goal. The two devices were the KW-26 and the shunt box. [These are both good subjects for future blogs — I had a fair amount of experience with both devices.] The KW-26 was an on-line encryption device that speeded up transmissions because it could encrypt communications transmissions in real time. The shunt box was developed by the Teletype Corporation — it was a device that could recognize a unique combination of letters and route messages automatically through the relay centers all the way to Washington. If critical information was being sent, nothing else could travel on those circuits. All the relay centers got built — probably because of the Presidential mandate. The system became operational in 1961 and NSA met its timeline goal.

So next time you’re driving down the interstate highway, thank President Eisenhower, but also remember that because of him, every president since 1961 has been warned of impending crises or potential crisis situations in a timely manner….
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We were driving the other day and, I’m not sure why, but I asked Claire what is the difference between a Church and a Chapel. Turns out that neither one of us really knew the answer. We attend St. Agnes Church, but a block or so away is the St. Agnes Chapel. We’ve gone to Mass in both buildings… why is one a church and one a chapel? Well, I figured this subject just begs for some extensive research on my part. Like a lot of things I’ve dug into lately, a satisfactory answer to how a church differs from a chapel is difficult to come by.

Since we go to a Catholic Church, I figured the Code of Canon Law might be a good place to start…
I found these definitions:
Can. 1214 — By the term church is understood a sacred building designated for divine worship to which the faithful have the right of entry for the exercise, especially the public exercise, of divine worship.
Can. 1223 — By the term oratory is understood a place for divine worship designated by permission of the ordinary for the benefit of some community or group of the faithful who gather in it and to which other members of the faithful can also come with the consent of the competent superior.
Can 1226 — By the term private chapel is understood a place for divine worship designated by permission of the local ordinary for the benefit of one or more physical persons

These definitions are interesting, but not especially satisfying. My research uncovered some more definitions — some I hadn’t even thought about, but tend to expand the terminology and instead of zeroing in on the solution just expanded the question….
A shrine is not attached to a specific community, whether a parish or an order or school, etc., but usually just to commemorate a specific saint or site or event. It’s a place people visit, but are not regular congregants.
The mother church of a diocese is known as a cathedral. It is the official church of the bishop of a diocese. The greek word cathedra means “chair” or “throne;” the bishop’s “chair” symbolizes his teaching and governing authority and is located in the principal church or “cathedral” of the local diocese, of which he is the chief pastor. The cathedral is always the most important church within a diocese.
A basilica is originally an architectural term — from the Greek basileios (“royal”) and referred to Roman government buildings. When Christianity was incorporated into the Roman Empire, the first public building used for worship were copied after this model, and retained the name and architectural style.

So religious places and/or buildings go by various names and there appears to be a good reason for each being called what it’s called….. obviously this whole subject became much broader in scope than I had anticipated. I though it was pretty simple question but….

Anyhow, here’s what I think, maybe, that I’ve concluded with all my extensive research. To look at the big picture, the Roman Catholic Church is a church — in this case the term church can refer to the entire community of Catholic Christians worldwide or a particular location, like a parish. The Sistine Chapel is a chapel — a physical location/facility.

I think a chapel can be a church, but not all chapels are churches. Some churches have small rooms or structures within the church called chapels — there are also small standalone structures called chapels that don’t have all the characteristics of a church. And there are private chapels or chapels in single rooms in buildings like hospitals, airports, etc.

So….
In summary, this is what I’ve concluded, and I’m going to leave it at that.
A church is a center of a community with its priest — a chapel is not
A church is consecrated — a chapel is not (I’m really not sure about this one)
A chapel can be a structure inside a church — or — inside another building
A chapel is usually a place for individual worship — a church usually has a regular worship service.

I guess if you’re looking for God, you can find him in a church or a chapel. Of course if you’re looking for God and you think you have to go to a church or a chapel to find him, you probably won’t find him at all….
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We were talking a few days ago about our first cars and the best and worst car we ever owned… some of us had old Studebakers, and beat up Chevys and Fords, but no one had a “foreign” car when they were growing up. It would be interesting to hear the same conversation from our kids… and grandkids.
Anyhow, I got to thinking about the most unusual “car” that I ever owned. I didn’t own it for long, and legally, I probably never really owned it. Here’s the story….

More than forty years ago I was working in Jakarta (Indonesia.) I was there for several months and traffic was bad, even back then. I stayed at a downtown hotel, but it was maybe a little more than a couple of miles from the American Embassy where I was working. Every morning I’d call a cab to get to work and every morning I wound up waiting and waiting for one to arrive. When they did arrive, they often had to stop to get gas, or the cab broke down on the way to the embassy. All in all it just became a nightmare to get to work every morning.

Jakarta, like a lot of Asian cities, had tons of Peticabs, or as they were called in Jakarta at the time, Cyclos. They were basically a seat with a bicycle attached to the back — there were a lot of them in Vietnam, but most all in Jakarta were motorized. It was cheaper to take a cyclo than a taxi, but the drivers were — to say the least, reckless — and the cyclos were very noisy and all of them spewed black smoke, so sitting in the seat you were subject to all the noise and fumes, plus whatever the weather was at the time.

So after experiencing the cab issue for a couple of weeks, I got fed up one morning and approached a cyclo driver outside the hotel. To make a long story short, I bought his cyclo. I paid him two hundred U.S. dollars and away I went. When I got to work, the guard at the embassy looked at me funny, but waved me in because he knew me. I drove the cyclo everywhere I went while I was there — to work and when I went out to eat. A little kid watched it for me when it was at the hotel and there was always someone to watch it at the various restaurants… never an issue with theft.

One evening the Ambassador had a party at his house we were invited. I gave my co-worker from the Philippines, Conrad, a ride to the party in my cyclo. When we arrived, the guard at the gate was totally confused… it looked like we might be invited guests, but apparently no Americans had ever arrived at the Ambassadors residence driving a cyclo. He started questioning us, and I guess we caused such a commotion, that the Ambassador came out, kind of rolled his eyes, and motioned us on in.

When we left Jakarta, I sold the cyclo back to the guy I bought it from — of course he no longer had the two hundred dollars, so I sold it to him for a few Indonesian rupiahs. It was easily worth the $200 not to have to worry about transportation during my stay.
So that’s the most unusual vehicle I ever owned, or at least I like to think I “owned” it — I never had a title or any paperwork that said it was mine….
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The topic of the day after golf last week was Maine. One of our regular golfers spends his summers in Maine, and Kelly, Chris, Emily and the pups are vacationing in Maine with the Giffords. Anyhow, someone said that our friend, Fred, might venture out in his boat and end up in Africa. That statement was met with a few puzzled looks around the table. The speaker went on to explain that Maine was the closest state to Africa…. and the discussion started.

Someone thought Florida was closer to Africa than Maine, so the iPhones came out and the search was on. I think we all learned in geography class that if you cross the Atlantic Ocean from the United States, you can end up in Africa. But where should you leave from along the east coast to make the trip in the shortest distance?

We had three opinions — Florida, North Carolina and Maine. Turns out the correct answer is Maine — all our iPhones agreed. Maine, specifically a peninsula called Quoddy Head, is the closest point in the United States to Africa. The peninsula is home to the Quoddy Head Light, a quaint little lighthouse that is just about 3,154 miles from El Beddouz in Africa.
So golf is not only good exercise for the body, it’s good for the brain, too.
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A number of years ago, I had quite a bit of work to do in Jakarta, Indonesia and before returning to Manila, where we lived at the time, I had a couple of things to do in Medan. Medan is located in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra. Claire met me in Singapore where we spent a few days and she accompanied me to Medan.

The trip was memorable — probably more so for Claire than me. We intended to stay at a friend’s house, but after spending a nice evening with them, when they showed us to their “guest house” turning on the light in the bathroom revealed more than a hundred (big) roaches. This isn’t an exaggeration… the floor was completely covered. Needless to say, we went to town and checked into a hotel. But there’s more to this story, and a good subject for another time.

What I intend to talk about was the Medan International Airport. What made me think of this is all the news about the Boeing 737 Max and all the safety issues associated with it. At the time we visited Medan, the 737 was relatively new, but it went through a few growing pains to correct a number of safety related problems. We flew a Malaysian Airlines 737 from Singapore to Medan; the day before we left, the station in Singapore had received an advisory concerning a safety warning for the 737s. We had no problems on the flight and landed at Medan without incident. However, Claire was amazed at the airport — it didn’t look like an international airport. There was a single asphalt runway, 140 feet wide and 9800 feet long, but only 9000 feet of the runway was usable. At both ends of the runway were houses — in fact, the airfield was completely surrounded by a residential area.

The airport basically served flights to several Indonesian and Malaysian cities, but did have a flight to Singapore and Thailand. The official name of the airport was Polonia International Airport and it operated until 25 July, 2013 when the new airport, Kualanamu International Airport opened. The old airport now belongs to the Indonesian Air Force.

I remember asking about the very close proximity of houses to the runway, and was told that the airport was deliberately located in the wealthy Polonia area because of an Indonesian superstition that the loud noises from aircraft drive away malevolent spirits. Strange world…..
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This subject has come up before, but last week it surfaced again… everyone seems to have their own opinion as to what the “D” in “D-Day” stands for. During our after golf discussion that address “important subjects,” it was decided that the “d” in d-day stood for departure or decision or doomsday or debarkation or day of decision or just plain day.

The fact is that the “d” doesn’t actually stand for anything — it’s just a placeholder used to designate a particular day on the calendar. Time Magazine reported on June 12, 1944 that “as far as the U.S. Army can determine, the first use of D for Day, H for Hour was in Field order No. 8, of the First Army, A.E.F., issued on Sept. 20, 1918, which read, ‘The First Army will attack at H-Hour on D-Day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel salient.’” So the term stretches back to World War I. The term allowed units to effectively coordinate their operations ahead of time even when they didn’t know the actual start date, and also provided flexibility in the event that the launch day shifted.

“D-Day” as we have come to know it refers to the morning of June 6, 1944 when Allied forces staged an enormous assault on German positions on the beaches of Normandy, France.
But the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 wasn’t the only D-Day of World War II. Every amphibious assault — including those in North Africa, the Pacific, Sicily, Italy, etc. — had its own D-Day.

Just another point of interest…. we usually see the “D” in D-Day capitalized. That’s because it usually is referring to the Allied invasion of Normandy. It is properly written in lowercase when the term is being used generically, and capitalized when it refers to the 1944 Normandy invasion.
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