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My LifeChapter 3: The California Years free porn video
A funny thing about the SR-71; it was originally called the RS-71 just like all other aircraft like the RB66, the RF-4C EC-130 and so on. The first letter denotes the mission the second letter denotes the type of aircraft. So an F-15 is a fighter jet, a C-130 is a cargo plane. An RC is a reconnaissance cargo aircraft, but the SR-71 is slightly different. It is a reconnaissance supersonic aircraft so it should be a RS-71, but since the 71 is not really a fighter, it is a reconnaissance aircraft only it should have been an RS-71. However, after Kennedy's assignation and Johnson took over, he announced to the world the existence of the SR-71. Up until that time this was one of the world's best-kept secrets. People knew somewhat of the YF-12A, the fighter version of this airframe. But the reconnaissance version was unknown then. So needless to say after his speech all the manuals, papers and everything associated with the RS-71 had to be changed to SR-71. All this money spent because a president couldn't say RS-71. After the announcement by Johnson, it became known as a Supersonic Reconnaissance aircraft so the new SR-71 designation made sense.
Anyway, the fighter version was mainly a test bed for the electronics, the airframe, engines, and materials. The thing could never be a fighter. It was too fast. It would shoot its 50mm cannon, and then it had to veer up or to the side or be shot down by its own bullets that it just shot out of the cannon. The missiles were no better. They had to be launched during the bottom of the upswing loop and subsequent roll over to get the plane headed in the opposite direction or the heat-seeking missiles would see them first and run up the tailpipe. So as a fighter it was the worst ever designed, but as a test bed for new technology that allowed the SR-71 to come into being it was excellent. That aircraft could do things that no other aircraft could do. The pilots and RSO (Reconnaissance Systems Officer or Operator) wore astronaut's wings due to how high they flew. They flew quicker, higher and further than any aircraft did before them, even after it was conceived and flown. I know from personal experience that they could fly higher than the 80,000 feet height and quicker than mach 3+ that it was advertised to do.
I saw a pilot come back from a mission as white as a piece of paper after being chased out of enemy territory from both Mig 25s and missiles. I assume that they were over Red China. I have seen pictures of SAMs flying up and then turning and falling back to earth after using all of its fuel to try to intercept the aircraft. After the mission, I saw the mission recorder tape, and our recorder speed sensor topped out at mach 4.119 and the line stayed pegged for almost four minutes and 15 seconds. If figure it out at 82,000 feet at mach 4.12 is roughly 2800 miles per hour. So for that you figure they went a minimum of 200 miles in that four minutes and fifteen seconds or almost fifty miles a second. Now I can tell you I have been 141 miles per hour in a car on a and straight stretch of unopened interstate in Nebraska, and I can tell you my ass was sucking the springs right out of the seat of my 57 Plymouth Savoy. So let me tell you going 50 miles a second or more is going to give your ass some pucker power and if someone is shooting missiles at your ass, believe me, you would be white as a ghost too.
Anyway that is all I'm going to say about the 'Habu'. Oh yeah, one more thing. When we used the SR-71 for reconnaissance during the Vietnam Conflict, we did some overseas TDY to Kadina Air Base in Okinawa. Over there they have a snake who is a pit viper and called a Habu. This is a very dangerous snake and highly toxic. However, only a low percentage dies (3%) from the bite, but you are very sick and some people have some permanent nerve damage or disability (6-8%). The blackbird became known as the Habu because of its stealth and long striking power much like the snake it is named after.
Okay, on with other things. One is that before we left Lincoln, my wife had a miscarriage of a single fetus. Once we settled in Olivehurst, outside of Maryville, CA, we tried once more to have a child, and she miscarried another time, but with twins this time. The doctors told us to stop trying for two years as we were still young. The problem lie in that we had heard much the same from the doctor back in Lincoln and Kathy had been on the birth control pills, and I still got her pregnant. So after a real knock down drag out verbal fight I turned from the bed where my wife lay crying and said, "I guess I'll have to live with not touching my wife for two fucking years, so I won't make you pregnant again!!!" And then I hit the solid bedroom door and cracked the damn thing almost straight down the middle of the door. This was no hollow core door but a solid wood door that was 1 3/8" thick. Of course, my knuckles were bruised, but the fight was gone out of both of us then. I fell on the bed crying and hurt, and we cuddled each other trying to sooth the pain that we were both going through; Kathy, with the pain of another miscarriage, and the news from the doctor that if she became pregnant again too soon, that it may kill her and probably the baby too. Of course, my pain was two-fold first was the pain in my hand, and the other was the pain in my heart that if I didn't straighten up, I could conceivably kill my wife if I made love to her again and made her pregnant. I was torn, first with my love for this woman who had consented to be my wife for all our days and my overwhelming desire to have a child, someone I could help mold into this perfect little human being.
Sometime during the year and a half that we lived in Lincoln, I found out my wife had a secret that many knew, just not me. She had gotten pregnant with a guy and had twin daughters out of wedlock. That is when a bunch of things happened that later we found out was why we had so much trouble having children.
The daughters were adopted and one was perfect in every way. However, the other was in the birth canal too long and was mentally retarded as a result. She required constant care, and Kathy had given up both for adoption as a part of the care she got at an unwed mother's home in Omaha. That was the agreement that she made with the hospital; however, she did not agree to the tainted blood she received when she was recovering from the surgery of the caesarean section to gain the second child. That transfusion caused more problems than it cured and why Kathy didn't die outright is still not known today. The result was that we found out much later that her blood developed antibodies that attacked the fetus as a foreign body and tried to kill it.
Confession is good for the soul, and I confessed that I had made a mistake back in junior high. I also got a girl pregnant, Mary Johnson. She had a son and I never knew him or how things went from there. I heard that her family moved away for a while. I do know that we were back there for a visit one time, Kathy saw a young man about the age he would have been, and he was the spitting image of me at that age.
Now, knowing my parents swinging lifestyle it could have been my father's child, but his likeness to me was uncanny and Kathy recognized him immediately. Today I would probably say that the boy was mine, as my son and my grandson have so many similar characteristics to me that it is sometimes scary.
Anyway, you can see from above that having a child of our own was something we both wanted badly, and eventually we did have a son of our own. He is actually number nine of ten; three sets of twins and three singles that were miscarried over the years. I thank god every day that he allowed us to have our son John. He has given us two fantastic grandchildren and now two great-granddaughters from our granddaughter and her husband Juan. Our grandson is not really interested in getting married right away; he is waiting until after college. Wow a smart one in the bunch. Who would have thought?
While we were in California, we got together with a couple of my Uncles: my Uncle Devon and his wife Brenda and my Uncle Arnold and his wife Alice. My Uncle Arnold was really Gerholdt Arnold Stickler; the Gerholdt came from his great grandfather, so I'm sure you could understand why after WW-I and the Kaiser that Arnold would be a more appropriate name than Gerholdt. Devon was a roofer and if you remember Alfred Hitchcock's film 'The Birds' you probably have seen my Uncle Devon. During the scene when the children were running down the hill being chased by the birds he was roofing a house at the bottom of the hill.
Uncle Arnold, on the other hand, was instrumental in keeping the jeeps, tanks and other war vehicles running smoothly for a TV series called 'Combat' with Vic Morrow and Rick Jason. They filmed a lot of the French vineyard scenes at the Korbel Winery vineyards which abutted my Uncle Arnold's place in Guerneville. I got to meet a lot of the men who were in that series when Kathy, and I would go to my Uncle's place for the weekend. I also met Fred MacMurray there one time when my uncle, and I went into town. All those guys were just as nice as can be.
Because the SR-71 was so new, and we didn't even have a building yet when I got there with Kathy, we pulled grounds duty. We had a roll call each morning at 0800 hours and any jobs like rock collection, grass (read weed) cutting with idiot sticks or general police up of the barracks' areas that were needed, there was a call of names, and you had the duty, otherwise you could go home again if you were married or back to the barracks if you were single.
We all helped to clear the land that our new building was to be built on. Rock collecting was back-breaking work and was really hard work. We did rock collecting for four hours and then were allowed to go home. Grass or weed cutting was another four-hour job swinging a stick with a two sided sharpen blade much like a scythe. There are two kinds, one with a single blade supported by a rod running up to the handle, and another where the blade is supported from each end running to the handle. The handle is much like a shovel handle; and is about three feet long.
One of my many additional employment opportunities was farm or orchard work. That's picking tomatoes, peaches, walnuts, and apples. I would join the other migrant workers down at the Marysville State Employment office at seven to seven in the morning, and a pickup or stake bed truck would come by and stop. The driver would lean out the window and say I need five for tomatoes, or maybe I need ten for peaches, and he would then pick people to climb in the truck and go pick whatever fruit or produce work he had for us.
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