The One-Hundred Foot Drop

This work is dedicated to the memory of valiant WASP pilots who not only raced across America’s skies but in Freedom’s name improved our lives in many other ways.

Copyright © 2022 by John Thomas Pierce

ISBN 978-0-578-27377-8

1st printing – 2022; Printed in the United States. All rights reserved. WALSWORTH. Marceline, Missouri.

Pierce, John Thomas, 1949 –Authors, researchers and physicians, 20th Century. Fiction: Public health, aviation, industrial hygiene & toxicology, environmental justice.

One Hundred Foot Drop

John Thomas Pierce

Author of Million Dollar Speedway and Hospital Safari

No part of this work may be reproduced without the expressed written permission of the author. Any resemblance of characters, living or dead, to real people is coincidental and unintentional. Recommendations and practices described herein have been adapted to storytelling and should not be relied upon regarding any disease or condition.

Quarrying Steiner’s Chapter 1

he Tennessee river’s one-hundred-foot plus elevation change commences near Rogersville, Alabama concluding near Muscle Shoals, Alabama. While the Tennessee’s width and flow rates may not rival those of the Ohio or Mississippi, the southeast United States’ development depended on taming its tumultuous path near Muscle Shoals.

Had glacial history produced a flatter riverbed, America’s preoccupation with industrial developments originating in northwest Alabama might not have ensued. Tennessee river drainage characteristics curiously prompted 1920-era visits by President Woodrow Wilson and America’s captains of industry, Henry Ford and Thomas Alva Edison.

Within the Rogersville – Muscle Shoals corridor, further defined by river mileposts 247-53, water-based passage was restricted to skilled canoeists, ones acquainted with both white waters and shallows. Other travelers capsized or found themselves beached owing to perilous combinations of sink holes, rapids, eddies and sink holes. More cautious travelers simply ended downstream river passage near a navigational feature locals referred to as Seven-mile Island.

Beginning about 1827 successive generations of civil engineers first sketched and later designed lift arrangements intended to make the Tennessee river travel less dangerous and more navigable. Despite extensive engineering efforts few practical improvements ensued.

Construction of stone-based diverters and channels required years, sometimes decades. Whether successful or failures each dam, channel or lift project required cut stone.

Appreciating it river-based transportation needs, America’s Congress appropriated funds for river-based improvements. Whether in Ohio, Tennessee or Alabama each project began with surveys and reports frequently describing the effects flooding or even impediments to navigation.

Activities stretched from flow diversions to lift devices during dry months but stone purchases stretched along year-long periods. Joseph and Peter Steiner had been trained in Holland before emigrating and rising to foreman status in Philadelphia. The Steiner’s rationale for exiting the east coast likely originated in limited career prospects there, meaning their efforts supported landed east coast owners. Upon reaching Tennessee and Alabama, the Steiner’s largely abandoned ‘quarry foreman’ descriptors in favor of more gentile ‘quarry contractor’ terminology.

The key to successful stone quarrying, if not stone setting, meant owning sufficient stone-producing land to support years of quarry operations there. While as few as twenty acres might be necessary, government-provided land required a full-time commitment to farming and came in one-hundred sixty-acre increments. Farm activities were largely inconsistent with explosive-based quarrying.

A canal arrangement begun in 1832 had permitted small barges, ones with drafts shallower than six and spans less than sixty feet to make the Muscle Shoals passage on a limited basis, meaning that barge captains and their crews docked nearby for days, maybe weeks, anticipating calmer days for the Muscle Shoals-based river segment, those more impatient capsized, cargoes lost and crew members drowned. Even an early seventeen-lock arrangement fell

prey to the Tennessee’s turbulence, only a few its piers serving as a reminder of a larger rock-and-timber-based structure.

The Steiner wagon trip to Alabama broke into two segments, basically before and after reaching Galbraith, Tennessee, site of a ‘Tennessee marble’ quarry. Galbraith family owners invited the Steiner’s to remain there as employees although the pair declined, leaving shortly thereafter for Alabama, arriving near that state’s Rogersville community in late April 1876

Presenting themselves to US Army Engineers headquartered in nearby Florence, Alabama, the Steiner’s rather expansively described their skills and qualifications stretching from stone quarry operators to providers of mineral aggregates resources. They nodded in agreement as Colonel William E. Merrill outlined his preferences for stone supported dam-and-lock structures.

Merrill was mostly amused by the amiable Dutch brothers, finding their views consistent with his, perspectives acquired during trips to France and Holland where he had witnessed ‘moveable’ dams, impounds featuring raisable/lowerable elements adaptable to high and low water levels. While uncertain of the Steiner’s training, Merrill gave them the benefit of the doubt, concluding he wouldn’t risk much by allowing the Steiner’s to assist the Army. Unrolling an engineering drawing, Merrill traced requirements at fifty river locations, each one requiring four limestone cubes, dimensional stone precisely trimmed to size.

‘Maybe you fellas could help us by providing and placing stone cubes?’

Joseph and Peter examined each other’s expressions before elder Peter responded affirmatively. ‘We’ll ‘float’ (barge carry) stone from Galbraith, Tennessee ahead of supplying most of it from our Decatur quarry.’

The Steiner’s brothers had recently leased a fifteen-acre tract north of Decatur, Alabama, a parcel described by its former owners as ‘won’t grow nothing.’ Thus, Merrill’s offer and the Decatur foothold fostered a stone-cutting and placement enterprise that survived for decades.

Buoyed by contracting prospects, the Steiner’s turned to accommodations suitable for their families. While the two men accepted impromptu construction camp accommodations, their wives and children relied upon the hospitality of GermanAmerican families residing in nearby St. Florian, Alabama.

Colonel Merrill supervised Muscle Shoals-based river improvements from 1870 through late 1876, splitting time between there and similar Ohio projects. But even twenty years of efforts applied along mileposts 247-53 yielded little more than a channel diverter and a series of fragile partial channel dams.

While channel dams had been completed, the sesmall wood-andstone structures couldn’t accommodate vessels larger than a whale boat, making them commercially useless. The Rogersville – Muscle Shoals corridor had also acquired an unsavory reputation for hosting river pilots, scoundrels collecting large up-front fees before leading perilous voyages that emptied cargoes and drowned barged crews.

Inadequate channel dams and river scoundrels pushed Army engineers to further tame mileposts 247-53, projects that created a continuous demand for dimensional stone and mineral aggregates, commodities the Steiner’s were happy to provide.

Dimensional stone, the type required for dams and canals is a carefully measured commodity, previously cut pieces can sometimes slightly alter engineering plans. Per US standards,

dimensional stone is cut in whole inch increments. Thus, a stone piece described as 4’3” x 4’7” x 2’0” approximates the volume of a coffee table. Its weight is secondary, usually expressed in hundreds of pounds or tons. While extracting stone was essential, higherorder cutting and polishing tasks paid produced greater revenues. Neither the originating Steiner’s founders nor their successors ever referred to their products as rocks.

The canals and lift projects were flanked by other projects commissioned by county officials or church leaders. The Steiner’s were particularly gratified when several of their pieces were incorporated into the world’s most significant obelisk, the Washington Monument.

The pace of the brothers’ activities consumed five or more days each week, pausing only on the seventh for time with growing families co-located with German-American pioneers in nearby St. Florian, Alabama. One Steiner family, though, moved to Florence’s Wood avenue district.

Additional stone orders expanded land holdings across southern Tennessee. While farmers near Steiner land holdings were originally welcoming toward their neighbors, they shortly found themselves horrified actually, by Steiner-initiated stone-fracturing detonations, ones rattling window panes, scattering herds and terrifying children.

While their spouses, children and further descendants numbered in the dozens by the 1920’s, neither Joseph nor Peter Steiner survived to witness Wilson dam’s commissioning. Peter’s descendants mostly joined in with St. Florian farmers, gravitating toward agriculture and land holding, whereas Joseph’s eldest son, Hurlburt inherited and also purchased a controlling interest in Steiner Stone & Aggregates.

Young Steiner’s Chapter 2

Young Betsy Steiner could have easily misinterpreted her father’s business as one of commercial trucking, given the frequency with which she and her brother rode company trucks to Limestone and Marion county quarrying locations, Franklin county, too. Hurlburt

‘Burt’ Steiner added cement manufacturing and concrete production capacities to a longer list of Steiner capabilities.

With the November 1918 armistice, America’s war veterans joined Steiner crews. Wilson Dam’s formal commissioning didn’t occur until 1925, the year Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Steiner’s was born following her brother’s birth two years earlier.

The Steiner toddlers bounced and giggled as Papa Burt piloted the Model A stake-bed truck, within a few years they were likely the only Florence children who could define ‘mineral aggregates.’

Papa Burt’s Model-A provided a unique teaching platform, where his children applied multiplication tables to length by width by depth calculations. While the most profitable Steiner product was dimensional stone, rock quarrying also yielded mineral aggregates, smaller-siftable fragments produced by mechanically-shaken screens.

Stone pieces occupying his truck bed provided a basis for multiplication exercises, a limestone piece spanning 20 by 8 by 5 inches proved to be nearly twice as heavy as one registering 12 by 7 by 5 inches. While two years younger than her brother, Betsy early-

on excelled at performing multiplication and related volume calculations.

The neo-classically styled Wilson dam and its Nevada-based Roosevelt dam counterpart introduced Americans to multi-purpose dams, ones enabling both river-based navigation and hydroelectric power production. Recognizing these dams’ profitability, American industrialists sought to purchase them during an era that government leaders increasingly valued fertilizer production While the German Weimar Republic may not have prevailed, its scientists dominated fertilizer technology, providing pivotal advances as useful in Tennessee as in post-war Germany.

Oddly, technologies required for nitrate-based fertilizer production mirrored others applicable to explosives manufacturing. While the original Muscle Shoals chemical plant had been designed to make war-related explosives, the armistice allowed it to be adapted for nitrate-based fertilizer production. But the common denominator, whether nitrate production or even aluminum refining, was the availability of cheap electrical energy

Birmingham, Alabama somewhat mirrored its foundry-based UK namesake, both produced ferrous metals. If Birmingham were the mid-South’s source of iron and steel, perhaps Alabama’s Sheffield should its source of aluminum.

Advanced fertilizer, munition and foundry operations flourished in the ‘quad’ cities represented by Florence Muscle Shoals, Sheffield and Tuscumbia, Alabama. They also attracted the attention of America’s leading industrialists, Henry Ford and Thomas Alva Edison.

Multiple accounts chronicle Henry Ford’s June 15, 1921 Muscle Shoals visit to inspect completion phases for two Muscle Shoalsbased nitrate fertilizer plants. Ford invited Thomas A. Edison his

friend along on his second visit, hosting their travels in his private rail car, the Fairlane (December 1921).

Optimistic regarding hydroelectric power and the fertilizer prospects, Ford announced his willingness to purchase the Muscle Shoals industrial complex, even suggesting construction of a seventy-five-mile-long industrial corridor stretching from Muscle Shoals to Huntsville. Ford’s offer generated three years of divisive Congressional debate Ironically, the ‘Ford bill’s’ chief opponent was a Nebraska senator, George Norris, who later prove crucial to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s creation.

Skirting politics and speculation, Steiner Stone provide government clients with both stone and mineral aggregate products, concrete and cement products, too. Whether dam-related sluice gates, cornerstones or foundation materials, Steiner Stone, Aggregates & Concrete always contributed.

Both Jim and Betsy Steiner enjoyed childhood sports, although her activities largely restricted to girls-only synchronized athletics Across the 1930’s Florence residents learned of impending circuses, auto races or even impending airplane excursions via block-lettered posters, ones featuring bold black capital letters printed on rainbow-shaded backgrounds.

Ford Tri-Star Airplane Rides

Recognizable and important merging two inches lower with Thursday, November 15th 1934

Followed by location

Limestone Airport, Athens - Courtland, Alabama

And a fee.

$1.50.

Betsy Steiner’s flying ambitions oddly began ahead of that excursion. Given a heritage derived from quarrying, stone, a

passion for a contrived ‘lighter than air’ activity came as somewhat of a surprise. A more plausible explanation for the fourteen-year old’s passion for aviation might also be explained by her friendship with a fourteen-year-old male cousin who had been given a Civil Air Patrol training manual. Betsy’s parents reluctantly drove Betsy and her brother to the Courtland air field, located about twenty miles west of Huntsville, Alabama.

There, a Ford Tri-Star prepared to receive excursion passengers. Betsy and Jim’s forty-five-minute flight was uneventful, the TriStar’s passengers enjoying an elevated view of the north Alabama countryside.

The Tri-Star’s pilot was a bit surprised Betsy carried a thick dictionary and an equally thick hymnal aboard the plane, adapting the books’ covers a to a surprising training purpose in which they placed aa book under each foot, flipping their covers forward and strapping her feet to them via rubber bands, allowing her to replicate the pilot’s leg movements. Betsy noticed few details of the countryside, preferring instead to scrutinizing the pilot’s movements and the plane’s responses.

After he had taxied to the passenger boarding area and silenced the Tri-Star’s engine, the pilot thanked his passengers and prepared to boarding more. But he first allowed Betsy to sit in the plane’s control seat where he demonstrated its stick function and explained the purposes for its nine gauges.

As Burt Steiner turned right from the airfield’s access road onto the highway Betsy peered out the Hudson sedan’s back window.

Courtland School of Aviation Ground and Flight Training

All ages & backgrounds

That autumn Betsy repeatedly visited Florence’s library and others in nearby Tuscumbia and Sheffield. While hardly a prolific reader, she sought aviation-pertinent reading materials. Admiring the adolescent’s resolve, one prescient librarian, set a stack of materials aside for Betsy. Within a few months Betsy was as familiar with the accomplishments of Rut Elder, Louise Thaden and Florence Klingensmith as she was of better-known Amelia Earhart.

Betsy’s classmates similarly benefitted from her knowledge, involuntarily enlisted listed in discussions of aircraft tail numbers. Pointing to low-flying airplanes, Betsy shared how a preceding ‘N’ signified registration in North America and that a following, ‘P’ denoted passenger service. Her explanation of ‘R’ was less convincing, apparently applicable to crop-dusting airplanes.

At St. Florian she drilled her cousin regarding what he had learned at the Civilian Pilot Training Program, seated in a porch swing the two Steiner descendants paged through a binder entitled Ground School, some of her initial encounters with important aviationrelevant definitions of drag, gravity and lift.

But a more thorough examination of Ground School requirements would necessitate more than swing sessions, eventually persuading Jim to drive her to St. Florian so she could copy most of the binder’s forty-six pages onto a series of steno pads dedicated to aviation interests, recreating diagrams and text describing stick, throttle and foot paddle movements.

Agriculturally-focused events were unfolding that would spur aviation interests across the mid-South. If the boll weevil had never abandoned Brownsville, Texas in favor of points east, dozens of Alabama airstrips might never have appeared.

Cotton crop infestations must have conspired with overplanting, dispatching a generation of farmers toward poverty. While not

always a permanent solution, aerially-applied pesticides typically boosted yields by a factor of two, sometimes three. Barring crop dusting, southern farmers learned to accept farm foreclosure.

Seven hundred miles from Alabama, another region underwent a similar agricultural decline, although for a different reason. Southwest Kansans along with their neighbors in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas experienced six consecutive years of climactic calamities, their Dust Bowl (1930-36). However, in nearby Wichita, Lloyd Stearman directed his skills toward creation of a biplane.

Given a Boeing-Stearman biplane was marginally capable of accommodating a two-hundred-pound passenger, it front seat could be ditched in favor of a forty-gallon spray tank and associated gravity-fed feed lines and sprayers. Curiously, the term crop ‘dusting’ applied exclusively to aerosolizing ‘liquids’

But if Kansas’ uninterrupted slopes provided a reasonable test for spray-adapted biplanes , the same couldn’t be said of Alabama’s interrupted farm fields dotted with thickets, tree lines and TVAinitiated power lines. Its crop dusters remarkably paired near-stall ground speeds with turns at tree height elevations.

The crop-dusting vocation belonged to odd assortments of former military aviators, barnstormers and plane-owning farmers, all of whom fretted over the wisdom of making split-second flying decisions while breathing insect-paralyzing substances.

While hardly enthusiastic about Betsy’s aviation, Betsy’s parents allowed her to enroll in the Courtland-based ground school, also termed pre-flight curriculum, reasoning it might sharpen science applicable skills. But reaching Courtland was an issue since Betsy was too young to drive an automobile on Alabama highways. The first of many trips to that airfield witnessed Jim driving his sister there in a Model-A truck bearing Steiner Stone door panels.

Parental instructions were specific, over-and-back, no fishing, gigging or seining anywhere along the way. Burt Steiner had also taken his son aside, speaking privately Papa Burt reinforced a rule that anytime the Spearman landed, Jim should note its progress toward the hangar where he was to remain. Chief pilot-or-not, Betsy Steiner was fourteen years old.

As the lessons progressed, the chief pilot challenged Betsy with increasingly challenging combinations of turns, climbs, descents and stall-based exercises. At each juncture, additional progress depended upon careful listening followed by a detailed understanding and application of aviation theories and principles.

Later that winter, the chief pilot phoned Burt Steiner to inform him that Betsy needed fewer than twelve additional lessons before formal testing could commence. Should Mr. Steiner like to sponsor that process, the chief pilot indicated his willingness to arrange a May visit to the Courtland airfield by a government flight examiner.

While her parents supplemented her babysitting money, Betsy somehow produced the ten dollars the chief pilot needed each week. High school physics lectures took on new meaning, too, particularly one describing a gauged device capable of relating a velocity pressure to an aircraft’s ground speed using a Pitot (‘Peetoe’) tube.

Rather predictably, following eight more sessions and a check flight, Betsy met the government flight examiner’s requirements. Following her landing, the examiner posed a single question to the chief pilot. ‘Are you sure she hasn’t already qualified elsewhere?

That June Betsy’s father received a surprising call from the chief pilot, one proposing a complimentary nighttime flying excursion,

one in which the Steiner family might enjoy an aerial view of the Wheeler and Wilson dams and surrounding communities. The Tuesday following, Mr. and Mrs. Steiner drove to the airstrip, Jim and Betsy accompanying them.

Ahead of take-off, the chief pilot lit two smudge pot lanterns bracketing the Courtland airstrip, adding four more lantern pairs along its sides at one-hundred-yard intervals. That evening the Steiner’s aerial host reversed course near the Tennessee river’s Seven-mile island, affording all them a splendid view of Wilson dam’s brightly lit spillway gates, at least twenty discharging silvery streams.

Landing, Betsy’s world felt warm, inviting really, as she and her family listened to a strengthening chorus of male cicadas, perhaps the first time she thoroughly reviewed the road ahead.

Single Engine Bets Chapter 3

Most young adults leaving Florence, Alabama for greener pastures selected bigger places like Nashville to its north or maybe Atlanta two hundred miles to its east. Betsy Steiner’s October 1943 destination, however, sat nearly eight hundred miles west, the tiny Texas town of Sweetwater. While Alabama boasted colorfully named places, Texas town names were that and also water-quality descriptive, hence, Dripping Springs and Sweetwater.

While posted there for aviation-related training, Betsy arrived mostly via rail. Following tearful Memphis-based goodbyes, she boarded the Rock Island as its Choctaw express raced west, pausing only briefly for boiler water in Little Rock ahead of an Oklahoma City stop the following morning. Following nearly three days of uncomfortable rail travel, Betsy found herself at the Amarillo train station although still more than one hundred miles from Sweetwater.

Consistent with the Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) brochure, a yellow bus idled near the mission-themed station, its lanky driver, one missing three digits on right hand, still waved a cowboy hat at arrivees, directing them toward the bus.

Ten young females headed his direction, joining other women who had arrived three hours earlier on a westbound version of the same

train. For then, the lanky driver was the smartest man in Texas, since they none of them had any idea how to reach Avenger field.

The sunny October day faded, nearly two more noisy hours were required for the government bus to reach Sweetwater. There each woman was assigned a bunk and locker in a drafty barracks and given further toilet and shower-applicable instructions. An item of particular importance was a suggestion to lace their shoes to the cots well above the wooden floor lest a scorpion bind a new home in a shoe or sock.

The base commander’s welcoming speech the following morning contained one memorable phrase, ‘skirts or trousers,’ an attempt at explaining the WASP program’s justification. Her further outlined that their training standards, ones applicable to the cohort of licensed pilots standing before , would be higher than license-less male counterparts.

The training officer’s speech followed, one in which he curiously referred to the WASP applicants as a ‘materials acquisition,’ as if ferry pilots could be purchased.

Their ranks rather included several Ruth’s or Sue’s plus more distinctive names, well, one Genevieve. While they all possessed private pilot licenses, they couldn’t have been more different. A New York state heiress bunked next to an Oklahoma sharecropper daughter.

Regardless the women learned that conferring with one another was better accomplished following lights-out, a time when members of their male instructional cadre were prohibited from being in or near their barracks. The Avenger field barracks and mess hall possessed military characteristics, reinforced by reveille, fall-in, morning colors, calisthenics and whistled call-to-trainings.

Following review and ‘remarks, the trainees were ushered into an improvised classroom where the training officer presented a middle-aged balding male, simply introduced as ‘Professor.’ Making no allowance for travel fatigue this man began a mindnumbing recitation applicable to weather, avionics and navigation as if their classroom training needed to conclude by lunch. Following a meal featuring Army surplus-ed canned beef and unidentifiable mashed vegetables, he similarly regaled everyone with a review of Morse code and a nearly hypnotic survey of military law.

Their first training day’s conclusion stretched until about 1930 hours (7:30 pm), most of them by then numb. The evening’s only unusual feature was that they returned to find a cot propped against the barracks bulkhead, its bed linens removed and locker #33 emptied, WASP class 43-W-2’s initial loss.

Their WASP instructional cadre was similarly diverse, composed of unemployed barnstormers, middle-aged military aviators, flanked by several for-hire ‘weed’ sprayers, all of whom recognized the perils of flying in West Texas weather and risks associated with overused - high-hour training aircraft.

Somewhat as a consequence of ‘Professor’s’ boring lectures, several candidates simply departed. Unknown to the WASP trainees, their‘ Professor’ was a retired science teacher, someone who had never flown a plane nor applied for a license. Nevertheless, he did what the training officer requested, he biblically ‘separated wheat from chaff.’

Given there were many more candidates than LINK trainers, the training cadre welcomed early departures, reasoning remaining women would have more time on the ‘Blue boxes.’ Their trainers shared a more serious concern than candidate ‘wash-outs,’ aware

that the Avenger commander had previously posted a letter to a grieving family, their WASP candidate daughter lost in a training accident.

Edwin Link, the training device’s eponymous originator, balanced time between piano-tuning and devising flight simulators. His early trainer permitted instructors to assess skill levels and decision-making short of actual flights and attendant risks.

While it undoubtedly saving many lives, Edwin Link’s invention was comically known the Air Corps hobby horse, its strongest recommendation in terms of its capacity to replicate rolls, yaws and other air disturbances, confusing its pupils while alternatively irritating or amusing their instructors.

Curiously, theatrically inclined trainees sometimes performed better on the device than those more technically-inclined. Following their return to the barracks following their first full day of LINKbased simulations, WASP trainees noted another departure, locker #15 had emptied, its corresponding cot propped against the wall.

While Betsy found the Sweetwater-based LINK training remote from her Courtland experiences, she tolerated the exercises, adapting Chief Pilot’s recommendation. ‘Just fly the airplane, ‘er LINK.’ As the days passed, they undertook increasingly complex exercises including three-axis rotations, pre-stall buffets and spins, all courtesy of instructor manipulated LINK’s.

The LINK ‘terror’ eventually created more cot propping leaving only about a dozen occupied bunks spread across the barracks. The cadre’s primary mission had been accomplished, enough women had left so that the dozen who remained would have a reasonable chance of flying Avenger’s fleet of high-hour AT-6 trainers. The level of meaningful instructor – pupil interaction also increase as actual flying began.

Betsy shortly witnessed an uncomfortable training scenario in which a WASP candidate who had previously been an actual flight instructor ‘simply knew too much.’ Attempting to intimidate the woman, an insecure flight instructor resorted to name calling and insults. Yes, that evening the women returned to find another propped cot. From that point forward Betsy resolved to stay within the limits of the instructional staff’s knowledge, generally deferring to their opinions.

Similar to the other graduates Betsy accumulated nearly three hundred additional hours of flight time by the time of wingpinning and graduation. On a beautiful west Texas day nine women marched down the Avenger field’s grinder, executed a left facing movement and prepared for inspection, perhaps grateful the Avenger commander’s graduation comments did not include his ‘Skirts or trousers…’ reference.

The training cadre found Betsy ‘solid, ’ one instructor questioning whether the Alabama ‘girl’ possibly knew more than her consistent B+ evaluations reflected. While the progression from a 200-HP Stearman to Avenger field’s 600-HP AT-Texan trainers was remarkable, that horsepower increases was nothing compared to the multi-engine qualification process that lay ahead.

Following a brief stay at another Texas airbase, Randolph field, Betsy was posted to a small airfield four miles northeast of Dodge City. Lacking air-based transit, she rode a yellow bus back to Amarillo where she caught the eastbound Choctaw Express to Oklahoma City, boarding a second Kansas-bound train there.

The Dodge City airfield introduced her to aviation’s greatest anachronism, the Glen Martin-designed B-26, an airframe consistently acknowledged as difficult to land.

Betsy acquired B-26 flying hours at Dodge City before being dispatched further north to Offutt airfield near Omaha Nebraska where she added more hours, most often charting westward flight plans over Nebraska’s largely deserted sandhills and executing a one hundred eighty degree turn before a return to Offutt.

One night each week, usually Wednesdays, Offutt’s WASPs abandoned its mess hall in favor of Stella’s hamburger joint, a roadhouse set on a Bellevue, Nebraska hill, whose patrons also included male Offutt-based aviators, none of whom underestimated the difficulties associated with flying the B-26.

Military travel claims break trips into segments segregating departures, changes-in-mode and arrivals. WASP piloting, on the other hand consisted of interminable aircraft ferrying, no beginning, no end. Ahead of world war II, Army airfields numbered in the dozens but by mid-war three hundred Army airfields dotted the country, flanked by nearly innumerable nonfueling air strips, drops and targets.

Military fuel shortages became an issue during 1943, necessitating the use of untested aircraft to ferry freight, military mail bags, spare parts and supplies, fresh produce and even whiskey cases. As pilot shortages became increasingly acute, Betsy had captained several times with a late-stage trainee as a co-pilot.

‘Air-ops’ favored destinations where a WASP pilot would encounter a second aircraft awaiting ferry transport. WASP pilots often possessed little idea where their next flight plan might take them, although larger airfields such as Texas’ Lackland, California’s March or even Oklahoma’s Midwest Air Depot (Tinker field) were frequent destinations. The air corridor stretching from Nebraska’s Offutt to Dayton, Ohio’s Wright field became a frequent path for

Betsy, electing fight plans that flew the B-2 over pieces of Iowa, Illinois and Indiana.

While executing a flight plan from Offutt to Virginia’s Breezy Point air field Betsy knew she would fly over Florence, Alabama and its twin dams. She couldn’t resist the urge to examine the militaryadapted Courtland air field site, floodlights there revealing dozens of Stearman biplane trainers, similar to the Yellow peril in which soloed.

The B-26’s clipped, minimalistic sixty-five-foot wingspan and thirty-seven-thousand-pound gross weight made even two-engine stall exercises a challenge. In late June 1943 a B-26 takeoff from Langley field near Hampton, Virginia tested Betsy. Only a minute in, and less than five hundred feet above Langley, everyone onboard noted a ‘pop’ followed by an even louder ‘snap’ originating from the plane’s left engine.

Dual messages flashed across Betsy’s stream of consciousness, the first beginning with the words ‘the Lord is my shepherd’ followed by the chief pilot’s words ‘Just fly the airplane.’ Recognizing that her crew’s survival, if not her own, would depend upon the generally reliable properties of the B-26’s right wing-mounted Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine, Betsy hatched a plane.

As her navigator requested permission to return to Langley, she circled the Chesapeake Bay, struggling to adapt to the B-26’s single power characteristics, shortly shooting a trial descent ahead of an actual landing.

The welcoming party for Betsy’s B-26, included two LaFrance fire pumper trucks flanked by an Army ambulance, all three maintaining separation from Langley’s active runway. Less visible was a Navy rescue crew circling three hundred yards out in the Chesapeake bay. While Ace Jimmy Doolittle was acknowledged to

have demonstrated a single-engine B-26 stall landing, well, he was Jimmy Doolittle.

Betsy flew the disabled B-26 onto Langley’s 08/26 runway (eastwest) with the precision and purpose reflected in four simple words. ‘Just fly the airplane. ’

Relieved that the emergency vehicles weren’t needed, an effusive Langley commenter suggested that perhaps Glen Martin had anticipated one-engine landings of his airplane. No one else there at Langley agreed, relieved the outcome hadn’t mirrored dozens of others in which the short wing aircraft cartwheeled or hard turned.

While initially assigned Flo-Bests as a call sign, past Langley she was more customarily greeted as

Single Engine Bets!

Flying Home Chapter 4

Close-in Pearl Harbor anniversaries, particularly those during the war itself, evoked painful memories. Hardly anyone awakened to a successor December 7th with other than Pearl Harbor- associated thoughts. On December 6th 1944 Betsy prepared a flight plan to ferry a newly manufactured B-26 from southern California to Oklahoma’s Tinker fields, its air depot on another Pearl Harbor anniversary.

The California-to-Oklahoma flight required nearly six hours, its only unusual feature being that a classified message ‘runner’ met the plane as they disembarked. The ‘runner’ feature wasn’t particularly unusual, often reserved for occasions when the War department needed to pass a classified message to the plane’s captain.

The Air-ops runner got to the issue. ‘Captain, here’s something you should read.’ Who knew, possibly news of another wartime setback or worse. The double-spaced, all-capital letter message took a different course, four third-person declaratives, all lacking explanations for these actions.

THE WASP HAS COMPLETED ITS MISSION – IT HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL. BUT THE COST HAS BEEN HEAVY. THIRTYEIGHT HAVE DIED WHILE HELPING (THE UNITED STATES

MOVE TOWARD THE FINAL VICTORY. THE AIR FORCES WILL LONG REMEMBER THEIR SERVICE AND THEIR FINAL SACRIFICE. PLEASE PREPARE A (MODIFIED) RELEASE FROM ACTIVE-DUTY CERTIFICATE.’

(SIGNED) GENERAL H.H. ARNOLD

Inside the air depot, the duty officer apologetically handed Betsy a second, official-appearing document, one entitled, ‘Certificate of release or discharge from civilian service.’

The words active duty had been struck as if the certificate’s preparer had felt they belonged there before realizing her mistake. The adapted separation form (sometimes termed a DD-214) was similarly stingy in its description of government service, ‘N/A’ (connotes not applicable).

Chronicling decorations, medals, badges and citations the form’s preparer inserted Betsy’s address-of-record.

Home-of-record, Wood Avenue, FLORENCE ALABAMA.

Followed by the most inglorious of recommendations…

WASP TO PROCEED HOME AT PERSONAL EXPENSE.

Even though they lacked authority for a more compassionate approach, Tinker field officials tried to soften shabby treatment. An Air-ops official questioned Betsy about whether or not her family could perhaps meet her at the Tuskegee, Alabama airfield, if ‘dead head’ air transportation to Tuskegee could be arranged and further invited he to enjoy the air crew’s coffee mess while he finalized flight arrangements. Perhaps a feeble attempt at wry humor, Betsy suggested she could finally complete a government travel form.

Mode of transportation or change of mode – MMC – Mission Complete

About seventeen hundred hours (5:00 p.m.) she boarded a twoseater plane along with a young Army pilot delivering a trainer to the Tuskegee airfield. Once airborne he deferred to her broader experience, politely inquiring if she wished to fly. Betsy deferred, choosing instead to review eastern Oklahoma’s craggy landscape as it merged into Arkansas’ Ouachita mountains, both succeeded by a succession of mid-Arkansas cotton and rice fields. Betsy dozed as the plane raced past Little Rock toward West Memphis, Arkansas. Above the newly-commissioned Millington reserve air station they shortly vectored southeast.

About midnight they flew above the unmistakable west-to-east outlines of Wilson and Wheeler dams, followed by a one hundred mile stretch of darkness preceding Birmingham, Tuskegee wouldn’t be long in coming.

Betsy anticipated an impending reunion, confident Papa Burt, Mama and Jim would be there to drive their Betsy-girl home. Tuskegee Air-ops had lit a long series of smudge pots. Taxiing toward aircraft tie-downs, Betsy noted three energetic wavers standing beside the domed outline of a pre-war sedan.

No strangers to slights and miscues, Tuskegee airfield personnel had hand-lettered a welcome poster.

Welcome Home WASP (SINGLE ENGINE BETS) STEINER

Nearly fourteen months had passed since she boarded the westbound Choctaw Express in Memphis. For the three Steiner’s, the smudge pot-facilitated landing meant no more worries regarding a daughter and sister piloting untested military aircraft to

obscure locations, no more dreads when the Western Union man knocked with a telegram.

Betsy’s dad handed her brother the keys to the Hudson. ‘You two young people drive Mom and me home, we’ll get comfortable here in the back.” Jim piloted the old car past thousands of Bankhead Forest pines. Her mom considered asking a question or two but deferred, perhaps the trip home was not the best time to air shared concerns.

Betsy absorbed rather predictable features of her family’s clothing choices, including the soft brown folds of her mother’s dress. Jim’s worn khaki trousers paired with a patch pocket flannel shirt and brushed oxfords announced more function than fashion. Papa Burt favored adaptable business-ready clothing selections, a placketback corduroy jacket joined a laundered white shirt, both paired with creased gabardine trousers. The sole unexpected feature was that her father’s shoes had been left untied, his socks similarly loose, the tops uncharacteristically folded below puffy-appearing ankles

As the car passed Hoover, she abandoned her garrison cap, nearer Decatur, Alabama Betsy similarly folded her flight jacket over seat. The few words spoken across a long night of driving related to Christmas holiday plans, less than three weeks away.

About eight months following Betsy’s trip home a US bomber leveled Hiroshima; a few days later a second B-29 bombed Nagasaki. For some the war was over, but for others it had just begun. No compelling rationale ever emerged for the WASP program’s discontinuation, Representative John Costello’s efforts (HB 4219) to commission WASP pilots as Army Air Corps officers similarly failed.

Home from war Chapter 5

Nothing resembles the feeling of being home from war, in this sense an interminable series of nights and days spent ferrying bombers and other military aircraft. Despite a sleep deficit originating with the Tuskegee drive, Betsy’s family members crawled out of bed later that morning, Jim posted to a Franklin county quarry and Papa to a local TVA work site.

Early on slipped in and out of sleep but by late morning she slept hard, largely unaware of others’ muffled footsteps or even street sounds. Awakening about noon, she brushed her teeth and combed her hair ahead of descending the Wood avenue home’s stairs, soaking in the opportunity to spend the afternoon in pajamas and sleep socks. Finding a tall stack of newspaper articles and clippings her mother had saved on top of a dining room cabinet, she inverted the stack, first examining a Times note describing her Choctaw Express train ride.

‘Steiner

Days ahead of Christmas 1944 allowed a thorough review of the fine old house’s features. Rejoining her parents and Jim in the breakfast nook, succeeding days featured infrequent trips to the bank or post office, generally Betsy stayed at home, though.

The following Sunday Burt Steiner purchased a copy of the Atlanta Constitution, poring over a short article discussing the decision to discontinue the WASP program. He made a mental note to query Lister Hill, Alabama’s senior senator why the War department had recruited and trained a thousand pilots before releasing them.

Daughter Posts to Texas’ Avenger Field for Flight Training’

The Monday following Betsy’s homecoming her mother quieted a ringing telephone, enthusiastically passing the receiver to Betsy, hoping the Offutt AFB-originated call perhaps signaled a new chapter for her daughter, instead, the caller only confirmed Betsy’s address-of-record, the Offutt staff sought to return items found in her locker.

The local Times sent a reporter to Wood avenue to interview Betsy about her WASP flying experiences, irritating her with an unneeded verification that she hadn’t flown in combat as he phrased it. At the Florence public library that week the librarian shared a Popular Aviation article chronicling a Langley-based singleengine B-26 landing attributed to a WASP aviator. Betsy initiated a single call, to Courtland’s chief pilot. While brief, it confirmed her intention to remain in Florence, likely pursuing a non-aviation related career in business.

Time at home provided opportunities for daytime naps, occasions when a storied pilot stared at a personal collection of ceilingsuspended balsa replicas, tiny Stearman and Curtis biplanes. Night sleeping proved problematic, dreams dominated by confused images depicting multiple engine failures and flying in perilous weather. Fully awake, Betsy often couldn’t discriminate between remembered events and contrived nightmares. Family breakfast dialogues were dominated by Steiner Stonerelated topics. Following breakfast Betsy frequently drove her mother to the First National Bank to make bank deposits, a consequence of home-based ledger and check book transactions.

North Alabama community leaders struggled to create a festive holiday despite accounts of heavy continuing fighting in the Pacific theater. By December 1944 nearly five thousand Alabamians had died in the war, significantly dampening preparations for the holidays.

On a Thursday following Papa’s departure for work, her mother initiated a post-breakfast discussion. ‘You’ve noticed your father leaves his shoes untied and cannot wear his work boots, his face is also ruddy and flushed. Doctors suggest that his heart is failing.’

As her mother spoke, Betsy recalled two WASP funerals. Lacking further words, Betsy leaned across the table before taking both of her mother’s hands into hers.

Steiner Stone topics followed. ‘Jim has mastered the rock crusher and crew issues but is not comfortable with negotiating contracts, certainly not with TVA nor even our smaller county agreements. The contract piece is a critical element, what allows us to support ourselves and our workers, too, many of whom are AfricanAmericans. While Steiner Stone’s employees may always not possess strong educational backgrounds, they make a good living here, send their kids to college, too.’

Her mother’s monologue concluded. ‘We’re left with two choices, sell or divest the business, insisting on a hire-on agreement for Jim, or…’

Betsy recalled a memorable event. ‘Do you recall when chief pilot took us on the nighttime excursion ride, one featuring views of both dams washed in light, a nighttime display of millions of gallons of water being released?’ Betsy continued. ‘As teenager, I imagined a valley and its people, a special place, one powered by two illuminated dams, ones we helped build. This is our home.’

Betsy’s mother’s eyes welled with tears, mixed origins in a spouse’s illness and gratitude that her daughter made it home.

College Inn – Blacksburg, Virginia 1975

Chapter 6

Tidewater, home to the. Navy’s east coast-based fleet attracts graduates with ties to Virginia’s mountains. In 1957 Margaret ‘Peg’ Ballew counted among young Virginians relocating from the Blacksburg – Christiansburg area to Tidewater.

Navy resupply is a novel concept given warships spend more time at sea than in port. Nearly half of the Navy’s east coast fleet is home-ported near Norfolk, Virginia; their crews numbering from dozens to thousands of sailors and Marines, thereby creating a complex demand for supplies satisfied by a sprawling industrial complex or naval supply center whose commander was responsible for nearly two million square feet of storage space and hundreds of civilian workers.

In 1957 Norfolk’s Ocean View and Willoughby neighborhoods were home to generations of naval supply center employees. Any visit to a Granby street grocery or one of 1st View’s pubs would reconnect supply center employees turned shoppers. Loose zoning requirements created a jumbled assortment of apartments, cottages and duplexes flanked by payday loan outlets, pawn shops, pizza take-outs and taverns.

Christiansburg’s high’s guidance counselor favored success stories featuring former students who more recently were employed at Norfolk’s Navy supply center. He used Christiansburg High stationery to pen Margaret ‘Peg’ Ballew’s recommendation for supply center employment.

Mondays witnessed employee recruits in supply center classrooms devoted to orientation lectures, out-of-town new hires typically taking copious notes while Navy-connected Granby high graduates dozed. Peg’s effective hire date was established as 1 June 1957, only

days following her high school graduation. While uninvited, single Navy and Marine Corps personnel, mostly enlisted men, peered in the classroom open door, sizing up new-hires.

Tidewater’s rental agents sought out hiring officials given their capacity to answer ‘…you wouldn’t happen to know anyone renting out a studio apartment, would you?’ Peg’s 3rd View flat was short on space and occasionally even dependable hot water but was on the Shore drive bus line, making supply center attendance a given. She lasted there almost two years, the conclusion of her Ocean View – supply center time the result of an oddly-failed romantic tryst with a 6th fleet sailor she met.

An out-patient visit at Norfolk General Hospital explained a missed menstrual period, she was pregnant. Despite repeated telephone calls to an Adams-class destroyer, the USS Rodgers, she could not locate the baby’s potential father.

Twenty weeks pregnant, Peg abandoned Tidewater’s beaches in favor of Virginia’s mountains, a place she called home, trading stenography pads for a short order pad and a waitress apron, ‘College Inn, Blacksburg, Virginia.’ The Inn’s owners welcomed her, a slightly more mature person than the highschooler who had bused tables there earlier.

Learning of the newest waitress’ pregnancy, Blacksburg’s church ladies rose to her aid, arranging a baby shower, one featuring booties, cute knitted caps and baby blankets plus thick greeting card envelope. The card included a note from the Inn’s owners that her base wage would continue for a few weeks until she could arrange day care for her baby, they had also converted a pickle jar’s coins and singles into a short stack of twenty-dollar bills.

Peg and infant son Trace’s Blacksburg-based living and transportation resources were modest, a two-bedroom flat in

downtown Blacksburg and a used khaki-hued Studebaker Lark she had purchased from a Norfolk Military highway car dealer. An elderly cousin who lived nearby and a nearby day care allowed Peg to return to work only three weeks after Trace was born.

Weeks, months and years of weekday breakfasts drop-offs at an early morning day-care place chronicled Peg and Trace’s progress toward Blacksburg a redefined normalcy status. Whether at the elderly cousin’s or day care, Trace timed his mother’s arrival via the Lark’s exhaust note, its motor confirming its dependability.

While Peg have appeared the recipient of concern, she more typically served as a provider, some said a ‘dish-er’ of compassion. Blacksburg residents increasingly slid into one of Peg’s assigned booths, there for large helpings of concern, frequent hugs and laughter.

Dates penciled on the flat’s kitchen door frame, chronicled Trace’s vertical growth progress. While slightly shorter than some of his sixth-grade classmates, he made progress. Recognizing twelveyear-old Trace’s curiosity regarding his father’s identity, Peg chose a quiet Friday night to explain some, but not all pertinent details. The thrust of her words, ones appropriate for a boy was that Trace’s father had chosen not to be in their lives, wasn’t necessarily a bad person, just someone unable to accept responsibility. Trace turned out to be more curious than concerned, recognizing nobody could love him more than Peg.

Raising a boy turned teenager circa 1973 while restaurant employed might have appeared to be a tall order but one Peg Ballew and Trace grew to accept. Early morning waitressing duties and school drop-offs precluded late evenings, the pair’s activities largely concluding ahead of even WDJB Roanoke’s ten o’clock news. Everything considered, Blue Ridge beauty and Blacksburg-based small-town coziness more than

compensated for modest finances. Across years Peg and Trace became a fixture of Blacksburg life.

Evenings in the flat were dominated by Trace’s homework. Library staff at both the city library and the one at Tech greeted Trace and Peg by name, an outcome linked to frequent visits. Trace and Peg, for that matter, broadly discussed topics extending from Gettysburg to the number of divisions in Napoleon’s army. And then came the coin collecting avocation. Following the homework wrap-up, at approximately eight p.m. Peg retrieved her work apron, one featuring three broad coin pockets, spreading dozens of coins across their kitchen table.

Their initial sorting separated silver pre-1965 coins from their copper clad successors, the former considered more interesting. Even as a smaller child, Mercury dimes and Walking Liberty half dollars had fascinated Trace. While such entries might have been rare in more populated Washington, D.C. or even, Richmond, they were common in Blacksburg, a place where farm people secreted even ‘Morgan’ or ‘Peace’ dollars in coffee tins or cigar boxes.

Evenings took on a customer – appraiser character as Peg used a library-donated copy of ‘Yeoman’s Guide to United States Coins’ and a jeweler’s monocle to determine a coins’ worth.

Trace’s fascination with mathematically-based puzzles possibly originating in their coin sorting process. Whether homework assignments, mathematically-based puzzles or even engineering calculations, Peg helped as much as she could before turning the matter over to a reference librarian and, if both of those solutions failed, she adapted a College Inn guest check and relied upon the kindness of one of the Inn’s many professor-type diners.

While the professors could have chosen to be annoyed, they were more often flattered by her inquiries, one of them going as far as to

gift the young mother with the previous year’s ‘Chemical Rubber Corporation Mathematical Handbook.’ Whether from coin collecting, the puzzles or the consults, by the time Trace was fourteen years old he had performed well on every version of standardized achievement examinations, scheduled to graduate at the top of his Christiansburg high school class.

The first hint of new problems arrived on a chilly April 1975 morning when, as Peg showered, she noticed what felt like peashaped lump, one oddly tethered to the outer features of her left breast, causing her to seek local medical attention. Following prelunch conclusion to her work day the following Tuesday she drove the Lark to Richmond, Virginia’s Massey Cancer Center.

While another visit was required to definitively isolate what was going on, Massey doctors were clear in explaining the necessity for a radical mastectomy, meaning removal not only of the left breast but lymph nodes, too. A major step certainly, but one preceding three cycles of chemotherapy, drugs delivered as intravenous infusions.

Massey doctors performed the surgery only days later. Despite expected pain and discomfort Peg appeared to do well. A female Inn patron, someone who had earlier undergone a similar sequence, suggested that the infusion ‘chemo’ drugs could be locally administered, sparing Peg further trips to Richmond.

Trace did everything he could for his mother across weeks that passed as mainly a frightening, horrific blur. As if to establish normalcy, they continued their evening coin sorting routine, although sortable coins originated with Trace’s fill-in efforts at the Inn. Massey appointment cards magnetically pinned to their refrigerator door became a staple, the rest of the process dominated by trips, fitful sleep and quick trips to the flat’s single commode, followed by retching.

Less than one month following her surgery, appearing pale and weakened, Peg returned to work at the Inn, hugs and handshakes frequently substituting for yet-verbalized concern. Despite traycarrying, that had shifted from her left to right shoulder owing to the surgery, little had changed.

If transforming events had ended, or at least stalled there, the experience might have been chronicled by little more than a series of outdated refrigerator notes, some absent breast tissue and scarring, but some aberrant cells directed another course, an inevitably fatal one.

Peg’s breast cancer re-appeared a year and nine months later, the first time she coughed blood. Massey’s appointment staff wasted no time in booking a new appointment. A rather prescient scheduler there, familiar with the process, blocked five more dates and times extending over a two-month period, apparently aware of survival possibilities.

Elizabeth ‘Peg’ Ballew died in February about three months short of Trace’s high school graduation. Given his eighteenth birthday would not arrive until April the school dispatched a track coach –history instructor to Peg and Trace’s flat following work each evening, a welfare check of sorts, one that precluded further social services intervention.

During the span between Peg’s first and second rounds of breast cancer Trace posted an admission application to Tech, questioning the rationale for doing so given his circumstances. Confirmation of a promising outcome originated in a back booth where three male admissions counselors anticipated a Wednesday spare rib special while their counterpart settled for a less greasy chicken salad on toast points.

She offered a seemingly unhinged comment. ‘Trace, how skilled at you at performing a Hokie gobble?’ Trace returned a grin but no gobble.

She had brought news. ‘We processed about fifty freshman acceptance applications this morning, including one from a Ballew kid. Trace, you’d better learn how to gobble!’

Keep the Change

Chapter 7

Shotguns are an integral feature of southern culture, useful implements for game-bird hunts equals so in deer stands. The one in question was a 16-gauge Mossberg fitted with a three-shot limiter, suggesting upland game bird service, likely quail and pheasants, maybe doves, too. Donny’s grandfather had given him the Mossberg on his twelfth birthday. Its scratched wooden stock served as a reminder of happy days walking hedge lines seeking birds. The old man’s dream was realized one chilly November morning when his gangly grandson returned to the car where the old man waited, Donny’s game vest heavy with birds.

The concussive blast and nearly simultaneous scream originated in a downtown Florence, Alabama park, one separated by fewer than five blocks from its police headquarters. The shooting’s origins, although complex, were significantly underwritten by a fresh wave of neuroexcitatory chemicals ‘infecting’ their Alabama users.

Karla’s selection of Donny as a high school beau was largely rooted in common family backgrounds, little favored the tryst, discounting hormonally-drive features. Their short, passionate love affair quickly yielded an unplanned pregnancy. Five months past high school graduation Karla delivered a healthy baby boy at Florence’s Eliza Coffee Hospital. Pressured by two sets of parents, Donny and Karla professed marriage vows before a Lauderdale magistrate. The troubled marriage shortly floundered.

One Saturday evening, Karla presented at an aunt’s house, carrying her baby boy and facial features characteristic of a pummeling.

Karla’s aunt, no stranger to abuse herself insisted Karla and the baby stay there and outlined a relocation plan consistent with an immediate separation ahead of a divorce.

Donny’s child visitation rights were scheduled for alternate Saturdays and were limited to four-hour supervised visits with his baby in the aunt’s living room, times Karla completed the week’s grocery shopping and caught up on errands. Karla fortunately found employment with TVA’s National Fertilizer Development Center, its NFDC. While only a lower-level clerical post, the job provided her with a sense of self-worth and also gave her an opportunity to plan more independent living accommodations.

Rushing home from NFDC to care for a toddler meant date-type opportunities were limited to fifty-minute lunch meet-ups. She had previously spent time with Gregg her co-worker, generally just splitting a fast-food sandwich and a bag of chips while parked in Gregg’s car beside Florence’s fountain park.

Following the break-up Donny worked at a local golf course, mostly mowing fairways and grooming greens, depending on a turf-tired Farmall-A tractor. Club patrons came to like the friendly young man riding the Farmall, frequently complimenting him regarding the club's well-maintained greens, sometimes even gifting him with unused beers or partially consumed bottles of whiskey. Out-of-town patrons donated partial six-packs of Budweiser, half-full bottles of Jack Daniels bourbon and occasionally marijuana-containing baggies.

Sometimes rushed to purchase beer or whiskey, ahead of a golf outing, club patrons increasingly relied upon ‘Farmall Donny’ to supply them with virtually any of these products and whatever leftover weed he might have on hand.

This side business generated compensation beyond the modest sums Donny earned performing golf course maintenance. Donny had bragged to friends and acquaintances that visiting celebrities had been quite generous in terms of their purchases, grossly overestimating costs of either liquor or weed, paying him using one-hundred-dollar bills. Perhaps anticipating more visits, it wasn’t unusual for a well-known rock musician or even one of their managers to decline change, laughing their way through a common expression.

‘We’ll be back, keep the change.’

The club pro counseled Donny twice about what he termed nonclub business before dismissing him, leaving the former golf course maintainer in the unenviable role of selling street drugs. Prior to leaving home that Wednesday, Donny watched a ‘Price is Right’ television episode, neglecting to eat breakfast or even drink coffee, choosing instead to inhale a tarry substance embedded on a canning jar lid, vaporizing the black clump using a disposable lighter.

As inhaled cocaine transited from his lungs to his bloodstream and shortly crossed Donny’s blood-brain barrier, he formulated a confrontation with Karla about her recent ‘dating.’ Two weeks earlier one of his street contacts had made Donny very angry with news that ‘Your old lady is having lunch with some dude every Wednesday at the fountain park.’

Donny’s behavior took an even more dangerous course when he left that morning conceal the Mossberg his grandfather had given him beneath a long coat. His plan, if you could call it that was to ‘Put the fear of God in those two’ whatever that meant to him

Gregg’s maternal grandfather had loaned his grandson seventeen hundred dollars to purchase a nifty-looking two-year-old white-on-

red two door Cutlass. Sprawled across the Olds’ bench seat, Gregg and Karla were enjoying a split hamburger, getting ready to retrieve glovebox-door-suspended Coca Colas, when Donnie rolled up in an easily recognizable noisy pickup, parking the truck beside Karla’s door where he initiated a verbal ‘wife beating,’ an attempt to embarrass his ex-wife. ‘Hey, how do you like the way she pees the bed when you two do the wild thing.’

Gregg’s response adapted a frequently used expression attributable to southern males. ‘Hey Mister, watch your mouth or I’ll teach you some manners.’

Ahead of the gunshot, Gregg reset the Cutlass’ ignition from its accessory position to off, simultaneously swinging his door open and was in the process of placing his left foot on the ground. As Gregg attempted to stand Donny shot him in the back, leaving nearly fifty metal pellets embedded in flesh or doting the Cutlass’ interior. Accounts are unclear whether Donny just meant to point to gun or if he actually meant to fire it. Regardless, the blast reverberated across Florence, Alabama’s core.

Surprisingly, no pellets struck Karla, possibly because her seat had been extended. In Gregg’s case, however, several pellets lodged in his shirt and undershirt and even in his shorts’ elastic waistband, none of these creating injuries.

But other pellets lodged in skin, fascia or lower back muscles, Latinnamed erector spinae and multifidus among them. But still other pellets tore past both garments and tissues to shatter his spine, reaching as far as slender neuronal fibers, ones activating lower limb muscles and controlling Gregg’s anal sphincter.

While other terms might apply, Gregg’s injuries were best described as ‘life-threatening.’ If rapid response could prevent paralysis, the Fountain Park might have been a favored place to be

shot. The retort of the shotgun registered at a nearby police station, allowing police officers and ambulance-equipped paramedics to be on scene within minutes. Given the extent of his injuries Gregg was medically evacuated via helicopter to Birmingham’s UAB medical center.

A police sergeant, someone who had attended church services with Gregg’s family, phoned the Reynold Metals switchboard, asking to speak to his father. Pulled from a melt line, his father listened as the sergeant provided a bare-bone description. ‘Something terrible happened at the Court street park, Gregg has been shot and at this time is being life-flighted to UAB.’

Over the ensuing hours, days and weeks Gregg’s family increasingly appreciated the difference between ‘knowing more’ and ‘doing more.’ While the UAB neurology service was remarkable for its knowledge and concern Gregg’s injuries were obviously far-reaching. The immediate sense of relief that their brother and son hadn’t perished was replaced by a sense of dread surrounding his paralytic outcome.

When apprehended hours later driving his truck toward the municipal golf course Donny offered no resistance but asked a puzzling question. ‘Did I really shoot Gregg,’ causing officers to question Donny’s state-of-mind.

For both Gregg and his family, the consistency of bedside and waiting room meetings with surgical, medical and nursing staffs constituted a new reality. Perhaps the most consistently used phrase his family heard was both well-worn and discouraging ‘We’ll have to wait-and-see. ’ While surgical techniques could not reattach tens of thousands of interrelated motor neurons, Gregg endured gurney trips to the OR’s cold confines for a series of vascular reconstructions. Perhaps a bit of a surprise, the

neurosurgeon elected to leave most of the BB-sized metal fragments in place, fearing disturbing them would mobilize lead (Pb).

Further surgical and physiatry-initiated (physical medicine and rehabilitation) references to American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) ratings enlightened caregivers but did little to buoy the family’s hopes.

By the third week of his UAB hospital stay Gregg could stand and support himself, more support on the left than on the right but had not successfully ambulated. As Gregg’s spirits sank, the nursing staff tried something new, they arranged for a very functional, cliffdiving victim to visit Gregg at Spain. His visitor, also permanently confined to a wheelchair, outlined how he had become successfully employed, had married and how much he enjoyed playing adaptive sports.

Gregg just listened, reviewing features of a life he had not anticipated.

Barb’s Cut & Curl

Chapter 8

Newlywed Kirk’s sprinkled a relatively modest stock of wedding presents across their newly-commissioned Julian avenue home, the move there requiring fewer than three hours. Nick’s moved items were limited to a hand-me-down couch and a frame bed. Lacking a dining room set, the newlywed Kirk’s substituted an ironing board and two aluminum lawn chairs for a more formal dining room table.

A recent graduate of Sheffield’s beauty and barber academy, Barb planned to repurpose an attached garage as Barb’s Cut & Curl. If Nick possessed reservations regarding losing work bench space, he withheld comment, reasoning his buddy Jimmy and he could build an outside shed that could accommodate him, plus serve as an outdoor fish-cleaning station.

Opportunities for fish-cleaning or catching would be delayed until he transformed the frame house’s garage into a more-airy version of Barb’s Cut & Curl. Hence, the following Saturday Nick and fishing buddy, Jimmy Myron, began adapting the garage space. Plans included substituting a sliding-glass aluminum-framed door for a quickly ‘demo-ed’ overhead garage door frame. Barb was insistent that the switch would ‘lighten up the place.’

By noon on that remodeling Saturday, Julian avenue neighbors began to visualize the outlines of an emerging beauty shop. Past the sliding door – garage door substitution, key steps included installing a drain line for two shampoo rinse sinks whose outflows would merge with those emanating from a washer-dryer combination that Jimmy had relocated from the former garage to an adjoining half-bath utility space. Jimmy and Nick concurred that

the previous owners’ decision to plumb the washer within the garage would aid its adaptation as a beauty shop.

Barb rewarded Nick and his nuclear plant coworker with a pair of shaved ham-on-rye at lunch that Saturday, sandwiches and fresh mint ice tea fortifying their resolve to install two deep shampoo sinks and complete the sewer line tie-in. Actually, by four thirty that afternoon the space looked more like a beauty shop and less like a garage

Possessing misgivings regarding utility room space limitations, Barb devised a hamper-less alternative in the form of two identifiable ‘ditty bags,’ one for Nick’s soiled work clothes (labeled as BF – Brown’s Ferry) and the second dedicated for family laundry (FAM).

Buoyed by plumbing successes, Nick and Jimmy turned their attention to electrical issues, installing two ground fault circuit interrupters, ones nearby shampoo sinks suggested but left the actual tie-ins to the attention of a co-worker electrician who had agreed to forego his Monday night commitment in favor of their hook-ups.

Tired from a busy week and productive remodeling, Nick and Barb slept well that Saturday night although Barb fretted over a city inspector’s visit prior to a zoning meeting. The zoning board’s single question arose from a female member who inquired when Barb anticipated accepting her first clients. Their north Florence neighbors viewed the Kirk’s as industrious newlyweds, Mr. Kirk employed by TVA while Barb was active in the beauty field.

Alarm clocks were largely unneeded in north Florence given morning sounds, mostly noisy car starts. Employment at one of several local industries or at the Brown’s Ferry nuclear plant meant employed residents had mostly departed by seven thirty, some

much earlier. Past the morning school bus routine, north Florence was quiet until a comparable parade punctuated its afternoons.

Nick and Barb’s schedules were complementary, his work spread across ‘four-tens.’ Given her patrons’ Sunday church or far less frequent Saturday night Tennessee club forays, the pace of Barb’s intensified as the week ensued. Barb’s Cut & Curl was a hit, so much so that unscheduled ladies stopped by to enjoy its vibe. But by mid-afternoon on Saturdays, Barb drew a shade across its doorwindow arrangement, announcing pause in Cut & Curl activities.

Following a Saturday dinner on-the-town, maybe a catfish place or one featuring barbeque ribs, Barb turned her attention to Nick’s ‘work’ laundry, spreading soiled contents from his BF-ditty bag across the utility room floor. Following the wash cycle, winters meant clanging dryer noises but summers witnessed Barb hanging Nick’s work clothes upside down across a backyard clothes line beside a newly-erected storage shed – fish cleaning station.

Nick was a travelling man, repeat trips to one destination, an ‘under construction’ nuclear power plant. Possibly to minimize gasoline purchases but as much to share company he and Jimmy Myron rode together, typically facing a rising sun during morning commutes and a setting version of the same orb on the drive home.

Nick labored and Barb cut & colored. During the marriage’s year three Nick and Barb welcomed baby girl Nicki who was joined two years later by younger sister Terri, infants who played only steps removed from their mother’s labors. For the most part, neither Barb nor her patrons knew much about the specifics of their husbands’ work, preferring instead to announce a place, e.g., TVA, Reynolds or NFDC, as opposed to a specific job function.

Nick and Jimmy’s Brown’s Ferry orientation included watching instructional films, ones explaining complicated matters such as

‘reactor criticality’ or even mishap-oriented films originating with the Navy’s Office of Nuclear Reactors. During a particularly boring film outlining employee rights and responsibilities, Nick dozed, his elbow sliding from a student desk surface, creating a few giggles before the class monitor told Nick he needed to stand.

Nick and Jimmy had been hired as laborers, believing that their work would complement insulators performing critical reactor insulation steps. Brown’s Ferry new-hires were generally high school graduates skilled in another industrial setting, often military veterans. All of them were required to fulfill attendance and performance requirements relative to nuclear power training. The orientation instructor announced that further training would include what he termed ‘break-out’ sessions for new-hire insulators and electricians, as he put it, laborer attendees could ‘sit tight.’

Nick and Jimmy remained, listening as a newly-introduced speaker explained how asbestos materials crew members, when applying or removing asbestos materials, would be assigned ‘tandem’ lockers, meaning dual lockers on each end of a tunnel-like shower. As he noted, one set of lockers would collect street clothes and personal effects such as billfolds or watches ahead of a dry underwear-only walk across the shower. The second locker would be supplied with ‘work-only’ coveralls, a respirator and additional safety gear such as safety glasses and steel-toed boots. At end of shift workers would abandon their work-only items before taking a soap-andwater shower.

While the speaker emphasized ‘asbestos’ elements, he discussed other risks. Even during the pre-construction phase workers would exit the plant through a radiation-detecting portal while wearing radiation-detecting dosimeter badges.

A question arose from a trainee. ‘Do those badges also record our asbestos exposures?’

Suppressing a grin, lead instructor rather responded. ‘No, we don’t detect airborne asbestos that way but periodically you may be assigned battery-operated air pump that will suck in fibers before we take them back to the lab.

Barb’s preoccupation with Saturday morning hair style client made Saturday mornings good times for Nick to indulge in hobbies. Weather permitting, he and Jimmy sought the solace of the Wilson Dam’s outflows, fishing there for a few hours. Nick’s commuter pickup, an older Chevrolet, on Saturdays was repurposed as a boat tow-er, pulling an ancient flat bottom boat fitted with an 8-hp Johnson outboard. After launching the ‘John’ boat and parking the truck, they anchored several hundred yards downstream of the dam’s outflow seams, favoring Penn bait casting reel and stiff Eagle Claw rod combos to tempt trophy stripers and catfish.

By mid-morning a hot July sun, made even more intense by reflections originating with the broad concrete dam surface warmed surface waters and sent larger fish to lower depths. But by then Nick and Jimmy had netted and strung eight nice sized fish. Recognizing the ‘easy’ feature of spillway fishing had concluded, Jimmy pulled-up anchor while Nick rope-started the Johnson. Back at a rather slick concrete boat ramp, Nick left Jimmy with the boat to retrieve the pickup-trailer combination.

A typical five-minute truck retrieval required nearly fifteen minutes that Saturday before Nick returned with the pickup giving Jimmy plenty of time to rough gut and dress their catch.

Jimmy sought humor. ‘What took you so long, you stop to pee?

Shaking his head, Nick responded. ‘No, but that hike to the truck gets longer and longer.’

Jimmy chuckled. ‘Maybe you and Barb can re-fortify yourselves with some ribs after Barb finishes Lulu’s perm.’

Reaching home by mid-afternoon Nick noted Lulu’s car was still there, providing him with sufficient time to mow the yard using his Snapper riding lawn mower. Showered and wearing a fresh collared shirt and Levi’s, Nick sank into his recliner, dozing by the time the Hee-Haw variety show began.

Barb emerged from the shop with a question . ‘I didn’t see any fish arriving today?’

‘Jimmy took our catch home given I wanted to pilot the Snapper as opposed to cleaning fish. In other news, either the boat ramp is getting longer or I’m getting old.’

Her tone lowered. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘I stopped twice while climbing the ramp ahead of fetching the pickup. Level ground I can handle but that ramp is a killer.’

Road to Emelle Chapter 9

By April 1977 thirty-four years and incomprehensive volumes of water had passed through Wilson dam’s turbines since Betsy’s car ride from Tuskegee. American leadership positions drew strongly from populations of returned WWII veterans who were held in high regard.

While Betsy technically lacked a DD-214 military discharge form, among members of the military aviation community, she required no introduction, her ‘One-Engine Bets’ call sign summarizing her accomplishments. During the post-war years she had rather adapted her aviation skills and attributes to those necessary to lead a regionally-prominent construction firm.

Unfortunately, selected features of her personal life had not been as fortunate. By 1946 her father had suffered a downward clinical course, one in which his pulmonary burden increased, resulting in even more serious damage to his heart. Burt Steiner expired in January 1949, leaving his business holdings to Betsy with provisions support his widow and son, Jim.

While Jim became skilled at operating the crusher and even supervising others, he hadn’t enjoyed similar success in responding to TVA bids, estimating contract-associated costs or attending to the affairs of a multi-state stone, aggregate and concrete supplier.

That was generally what Betsy did. While regional business leaders recognized her lineage as derivative of generations of stone miners, cutters and fitters, male colleagues struggled to accept a female construction firm CEO.

Shortly after she had returned to Florence in December 1944 the Courtland chief pilot had phoned her, indicating he had a pleasant proposition. Taking the call, she acknowledged she wished to discuss some plans with him as well. They set a date for a Courtland visit in early January 1945 when the chief pilot took her on a hangar tour.

‘We’ve trained hundreds of aviation cadets here, primarily using single-engine BT-13A Valiants some but Spearman’s, too. With the war ending the government is surplus-ing planes, some that I have acquired for bid prices. Remembering that you soloed in a Stearman, I purchased the Yellow Peril you soloed in.’

Betsy was overcome by the fact her solo flight had been memorable to him and was touched by his generosity. She quickly centered the conversation on practical matters. ‘When I get back to Florence, I’ll cut a check to compensate you for buying the plane. It goes without saying, I’ll keep up with its hangar fees and inspections.’

Since that January Betsy occasionally flew the Stearman to aviation reunions, fly-ins’ as they were known, supported its annual inspections, upgrading avionics as recommended, While her Spearman may have found a new role, the same couldn’t be said for other surplus-ed items.

Nineteen seventy era drawdowns destined dozens of the Navy’s combat-proven vessels to mothball moorage on the James near Yorktown, Virginia while other ship castoffs lined Beaumont, Texas’ ship channel. Removable items were similarly dispatched, a favorite being lightweight aluminum wardroom seats, ones finding new service in dozens of classrooms and general aviation waiting areas where curious veterans sometimes inverted a lightweight entry and identifying its origin by virtue of a long-expired ship property number.

A 1980 general airport visitor could similarly find and identify a former Navy chair plus other seating arrangements originating in civilian aircraft, the more entries being passenger seats recovered from King Air 200’s, Cessna 300’s and Air Commanders. The reasons for the Navy chair drawdown were fairly obvious but why were intact general aviation aircraft seats being surplus-ed.

Similar to unwanted aircraft seats or event ship chairs, Vietnam veterans found themselves similarly beached. While some returned to finish college or to begin apprenticeship programs, two highlytrained military groups found themselves largely excluded from extending military-acquired skills into comparable civilian roles, those constituted by military aviators or medics (also called corpsmen).

University of Nebraska college officials and that state’s senator Loran Schmidt accepted risks inherent in creating not only a new college major but a profession as well, that of physician assistant. But Nebraska’s training program accommodated only about thirty physician applicants per year, fewer than a dozen originating from the military. Similarly military-associated aviators hailing from the Southeast, sometimes responded to that region’s career, ‘Fly Delta Jets’ but Delta and all other carriers could absorb fewer than five hundred former military aviators in a single year.

Thus, a mostly male under-forty population, individuals accustomed to either saving lives or piloting military aircraft, accustomed themselves to far fewer adrenaline rushes before looking around for new opportunities. Many affiliated medical personnel, medics and corpsmen mainly, adapted well, finding fresh opportunities in nursing, public health and a dozen other fields.

Aviators, though, were perhaps less successful with retraining opportunities. While serving as an air traffic controller might have appeared to be a useful alternative career, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) training statistics were not encouraging, fewer than half of former military air traffic controllers accepted for study and perhaps only half that reduced number actually graduating in Oklahoma City.

Ironically, the General Services Administration auctions aided smugglers through its aircraft auction process. But smuggling via large aircraft could attract public attention, to say nothing of hefty Avgas invoices. While smaller, air-worthy King Air’s, Cessna’s and Air Commanders didn’t attract much public attention their fuel capacities were inconsistent with flights originating from Cali, Columbia or even isolated Mexican airports. Thus, a clandestine network arose furnishing the know-how needed to add additional fuel storage to relatively small aircraft.

Columbia’s Palmaseca airport is nearly seventy-four degrees south of the equator, meaning a flight from Cali necessitates a lot of fuel. Furthermore, aerial smugglers hardly favored refueling stops at busy airports like New Orleans or Houston, preferring instead to take on fuel at nondescript airports or pre-arranged air strips.

Cali, Colombia and small towns such as Livingston or even Iuka, Mississippi share longitudinal bearings, meaning that a Palmasecaoriginated flight can make its way nearly directly northward,

inconspicuously entering US airspace near Mobile before tracing an aerial course above one of America’s oldest mail routes, the Natchez trace. But if that pilot abandoned the ‘Trace’ as it is known to locals, he could use the Tennessee river’s outline to direct a new course toward eastern Tennessee’s two major cities, Chattanooga and Knoxville, both less than a day’s drive from east coast drug hubs such as Richmond or even, Washington, D.C.

Morning radio programming across the midsouth favored twoperson broadcast teams, typically a jokester and a commenter whose skits poked fun at features applicable to southern life, Krispy Kreme donut devotions, trailer park tornado-based mail forwarding systems and occasional Elvis’ sightings. Radio programing that April Tuesday acquired a fresh dimension, one centering on sightings of an Aero-Commander piloted by someone trying to evade a pursuing a Beechcraft King Air. While hardly a Blue Angels air show, the aerial parade attracted attention, particularly given that someone else aboard the lead plane was jettisoning parcels of an obviously unbreakable commodity.

Radio program directors canceled scheduled swap-and-shop shows in favor of allowing their morning hosts to stay live with this continuing story. On-air hosts rather perversely adapted a Biblical phrase, ‘manna-from-the skies,’ labeling the Aero-Commander pilot as yet another ‘Cocaine Cowboy.’

That Tuesday, three pilots traveled near the Natchez trace, a former National Guard F-4 pilot-turned-smuggler, a DEA-employed pilot and a third pilot, one driving the opposite direction at much slower speeds in an outdated although sleek, 1956 Hudson Hornet.

Former WASP pilot Betsy Steiner’s drive plan included a visit to Livingston and nearby Emelle, Alabama, the site of America’s largest landfilled inventory of hazardous waste. She had arisen early, anticipating a four-hour drive to the Emelle facility, one owned by Waste Management or as known to locals, WM.

While she had originally tuned her selection dial to a station staying ‘live’ with the Cocaine Cowboy story, the aviation-based radio schtick surrounding aerial smuggling disgusted her. As she extinguished the car’s radio, she asked herself how someone could turn a useful skill into a criminal pursuit.

Her journey was made longer by slower school buses and trucks sharing narrow highways. A pole truck driver in a high cab glanced at a middle-aged woman driving an old car by what he regarded as a ‘by the numbers’ approach, referencing a recentlyimposed fifty-five per mile speed limit. The woman’s flight jacket suggesting to him that the Hudson’s driver might be a war widow or even a Gold Star mother. The pole truck driver waved.

In late February Betsy Steiner received a telephone call from a Cincinnati sewer official inquiring if Steiner might be interested in bidding on a Queen city project, one requiring five railroad gondola car equivalents of smooth pebbles, needed to feed a rotary kiln incinerator adapted to entomb toxic fly ash while also consuming toxic combustible liquids as a fuel.

While familiar enough with rotary kilns, Betsy wondered how different these pebbles might be as opposed to those Steiner had supplied to dozens of other projects. The project officer explained.

‘We believe these pebbles will increase residence times in the hottest region of the kiln, subjecting solid and liquid wastes to near seventeen-hundred-degree F. temperatures.’

Perhaps tiring of trying to interpret heady, technical language, Betsy proposed an alternative course, asking him to transmit the requirements to Steiner’s fax machine. Betsy had the last word. ‘Steiner will be pleased to help you and I will personally attend your pre-bid conference.’

While the bid specification language was dense, it consumed most of her professional interests, although for a reason beyond selling five railroad cars of pebbles to Cincinnati.

‘Using customary rotary kiln temperatures, we anticipate incorporation of fly ash components (lead, cadmium, chromium, nickel, others) into non-leachable concretes and conversion of fuelcompatible toxic organic compounds at rates exceeding 99.999%, ‘five-sigma’ conversions.’

Betsy’s evolution had progressed far beyond her WASP flying days, focusing primarily on preserving and broadening their familyoriginated construction firm’s interests. If she indulged in it was primarily in the satisfaction that adapted B-26’s provided post-war service across both Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1959-75) war eras. Further flying ambitions were confined to a seldom opened ‘emotional drawer,’ infrequent Stearman fly-ins and arranging annual inspections for the ‘Yellow Peril.’

Knowing earlier Steiner’s had brought advanced extraction and cutting techniques to the Tennessee valley while their sons and daughters had built nationally prominent hydroelectric dam projects, Betsy sometimes reflected on the dynamic of their success, most often reaching the conclusion that her ancestors’ reliance on the TVA for bid contract work had served them well.

Structural concrete required use alternatively designated ‘fly-‘ or ‘coal-ash,’ a matrix enhancer produced by a single enterprise, coalfired power plants. Betsy’s recent worry list included concerns that the EPA might access to fly ash. What would Steiner do if that happened, furthermore what would TVA do with million cubic yard quotients of a light, fluffy material capable of contaminating air or water.

Reading and rereading the ‘Cincinnati plan’s’ requirements led her to the remarkable conclusion that Steiner could be paid to consume hazardous fly ash, permanently entombing the ash in structural concrete while also being compensated to incinerate toxic flammable wastes. But this process entirely depended upon the efficiency of a high-temperature cement kiln.

Geography took a seat at the figurative decision-making table, too. TVA’s Kingston and Watts Bar power plants were near enough to Decatur that Betsy reasoned ash from there could be transported diwb I-65, maybe even via rail, to Steiner’s flagship kiln near Decatur, Alabama. But individually-written plans were just that, plans, and Betsy required allies.

Driving past stands of pine trees interrupted by clearings, Betsy reviewed negotiation strategies that might apply to a regional firm like hers and Waste Management (WM), a national leader in all forms of waste disposition. But how willing would they be to share permits or, perhaps even more unlikely, split revenues, Betsy Steiner’s core ‘lived’ in construction contracting, not environmental engineering.

As the tiny community of Emelle came into view, Betsy noted a WM’s large green-and-yellow logo. Clearing the guard house, she traveled a gravel road leading to a metal trailer that served as the landfill’'s office. Two individuals awaited her, site manager Bobby, plus someone named Stuart, WM’s corporate geologist, who had flown in from WM’s Houston headquarters.

Bobby offered her coffee or a cola, Betsy declining both before introducing herself to Stuart, who motioned her toward a conference table where Bobby. Typical of corporate interactions, both sides had actually studied Haz-waste-to-concrete issues more than the ensuing dialogue indicated. Weather small talk preceded a landfilling and incineration discussion

Betsy congratulated Bobby and his geologist colleague regarding permits they had obtained USEPA and Alabama Department of Environmental Management. Stuart shortly produced a landfill map, penciling in Emelle’s fly ash storage areas, noting what he termed ‘trap and wet soak,’ e techniques intended to contain finelydivided fly ash, thereby preventing it from becoming airborne.

Stuart’s ‘airborne’ reference prompted an unintended response Betsy squirmed, making a mental note to phone a Ft. Bragg official. The dialogue turned from ash storage to transportation issues, Bobby noting some several Tuscaloosa-originated local op-eds complaining about ‘Haz-waste’ trucks sharing space on Alabama’s already crowded secondary roads.

Sensing an increasingly negative tone, Betsy directed Stuart and Bobby’s attention toward an Enquirer article describing a successful Cincinnati-based Haz-waste-to-concrete conversion, one promising to meet USEPA standards. While the report was only a news feature, the WM officials appeared impressed. Site manager Bobby concluded the meeting by promising to share notes concerning their meeting with counterpart WM officials in Houston.

Leaving Emelle, Betsy detoured thirty miles west of Livingston, Alabama, shortly joining the Natchez Trace parkway. A thirtyminute delay reaching home wasn’t the issue, instead she sought the solace of a Nashville to New Orleans Indian trial turned mail route more recently made a linear haven for hikers, cyclists and, yes, a former WASP pilot. The Hudson’s car radio remained silent, though.

St. Florian chicken stew Chapter 10

Independence Day, an important southern holiday perhaps differs from other travel-required holidays due to its largely stay-nearhome flavor. While a family might alternatively set up a fish camp on Guntersville lake or venture the Gulf Shores, northern Alabamians often choose spend July 4th in their own back yards. .

St. Florian’s Independence day event featured a southern-style chicken stew and wood-roasted pork shoulder feast, a tradition dating back nearly one hundred years excepting the 1918 world war year. Early generation St. Florian picnic-hosts numbering among German-American families who had hosted similarly pioneering Steiner’s.

Relatively few Shoals area residents reported anywhere to work on Independence Day, leaving local roads north of Florence relatively free of commuter traffic, instead they witnessed a steady stream of vehicles driven to St. Florian in pursuit of roasted pig butt or chicken stew. The event’s popularity necessitated organized parking efforts more typical of rock concerts than community picnics. A human chain formed by local high schoolers funneled arriving vehicles toward the next available grassy parking space, otherwise valeting older or disabled persons back and forth between parking and the cashier-roasting pit area

Almost twelve weeks had passed since Gregg’s traumatic injuries, ones featuring multiple surgeries followed by a lengthy stay at Birmingham’s Spain rehabilitation center, the same facility that had rehabilitated Alabama’s governor, George C. Wallace, following a failed 1972 assassination attempt.

Gregg’s injuries were continually assessed, particularly in light of recent advanced rehabilitative efforts. Fitted with a complicated-

appearing trapeze-like pelvic support and a series of electrodes wired to an electronic control module, biomedical engineers huddled around the control module and a linked computer as Gregg clumsily traveled a treadmill-directed path.

At first only his right lower limb, leg, lower leg and foot responded, but in a few minutes Gregg’s left leg responded as well. High-fives, engineer-led chants, nurse hug-squeezes followed. A single comment followed. ‘Go, Boy, Go – You’re-a-walkin, Son!’

Perhaps encouraged by several ‘You’re-a-walkin…’ sessions, Gregg’s father went on the road, so-to-speak. After the ballistics investigators had collected as many shotgun B-B’s as they apparently needed, Gregg’s car had been towed to Florence’s Foote Oldsmobile where its mechanics replaced most of the car’s interior.

Encouraged by a call he placed to a Winamac, Indiana firm, Gregg’s father drove the repaired Cutlass to that rural Indiana community to speak to members of the Braunability firm’s sales staff. Its founder, Ralph Braun, no stranger to muscular disabilities, had pioneered efforts to adapt vehicles, primarily passenger vans, to spinal-cord injured drivers. Northern Indiana adaptive vehicle experts made arrangements for an auto transporter to return Gregg’s Cutlass following the ten days they needed to adapt its control features to those appropriate for a spinal cord-injured patient.

One of the Braunability engineers had placed a call to Spain Rehab, asking them to facsimile forward a clinical summary applicable to Gregg’s injuries and rehab progress. Gregg’s dad flew back to Birmingham to join other family members at Spain Rehab.

Similarly, Gregg intensified efforts on the ‘low trapeze’ walking gadget and also completed a series of driving simulator exercises, meriting a Spain Rehab ‘return-to-driving’ certificate.

Back at home in Muscle Shoals by mid-June, Gregg selected the St. Florian holiday event as an opportunity for his first car trip out of the neighborhood in the Braunability-adapted Cutlass his father had arranged. The twelve-mile drive from Muscle Shoals to St. Florian posed few challenges, although the route generated some misgivings as Gregg drove past Florence’s fountain park.

At St. Florian he had unpacked his wheelchair, planning to roll to the event’s cashier stand but quickly discovered that soggy, rutted pasture was largely incompatible with his chair’s relatively bicyclelike tires., forcing a change of plans. An observant parking lot runner, witnessing Gregg’s struggles, rushed over to push him back to the Cutlass, ahead of a reworked plan, one in which the highschool age volunteer retrieved Gregg’s meat order.

The young guy waved in Gregg’s direction as the Cutlass joined other traffic on St. Florian’s Church road. About two that July 4th afternoon Nick and Barb arrived at St. Florian. While Nick had driven them there, he remained in the truck, fearful of a breathless hike back-and-forth to the roasting pits. Instead, Barb left him seated while she went to retrieve their order,

Two of Nick’s Brown’s Ferry co-workers flanked Barb a few minutes later as she returned with their order, men anxious to catch up with someone they hadn’t talked to since Nick’s disability leave began in February. The ensuing conversational sum-up could be described as ‘fun-all-around’ certainly for Nick who had become largely home-bound.

Breathing shortfalls, one’s first noted at boat ramp, had only worsened over an ensuing two-year period, further restricting Nick’s capacity to work or to climb even one flight of stairs; local fishing expeditions with Jimmy were similarly nixed.

Pulmonary medicine’s choice of the S-O-B description of ‘short-ofbreath’ says a lot about medicine’s droll sense of humor. Nick’s breathing studies stretched from an initial clinic visit scheduled in Decatur, Alabama to further sessions at a Florence internist’s office, both doctors ordering breathing or pulmonary function testing (PFT). Twice during the PFT exercise Nick felt lightheaded while the technician exhorted him to ‘blow hard’ into a stiff cardboard tube connected to measuring equipment. At both clinics Nick handed the truck keys to Barb following the tests, choosing to ride home as a. largely exhausted passenger.

A short series of easy rule-outs eliminated radiation-associated illnesses and some curiously- named agricultural diseases from further consideration. The single piece of good news the Kirk’s heard related to combined antigen, sputum and chest x-ray that ruling out tuberculosis.

Both the TVA and Florence physicians agreed Nick should be seen by someone with occupational medicine expertise, nominating a UAB specialist, Dr. Robert Fink Barb and Nick puzzled over the change of expression on Fink’s face when he reviewed Nick’s shady chest films, a similar reaction following his review of Nick’s PFT-results.

Fink asked what at first appeared to be an administrative question. ‘What is meant by – the ‘other duties as assigned’ terminology I see here.’ Nick explained that while categorized as a ‘laborer,’ he occasionally joined insulator-specific asbestos crews.

Fink posed a second question. ‘How about the reference to Tyvek coveralls, are those required for general laborer - construction work?’

Nick explained. ‘The Tyvek suits are provided when I’m cross assigned to pipe lagging projects, ones in which we join asbestosspecific crews.’

Fink posted a final inquiry. ‘Have your work activities ever been evaluated by a certified industrial hygienist, someone trained to address airborne asbestos and other dust-based exposures?’

A weak smile and ‘not sure’ response satisfied Fink that he should seek that information from someone else causing him to request that a medical student shadowing him that day obtain a phone number for a Brown’s Ferry nuclear plant office. Fink closed the appointment by writing a modified supplemental oxygen prescription.

As they exited the exam room Barb spoke. ‘Nick has never smoked, everyone else we know using oxygen in Florence got that way from smoking.’ Fink didn’t contest Barb’s assertion, but only added that patients often found supplemental oxygen mildly helpful but drying as he termed it.

Later that week, in Fink phoned a supervisory industrial hygienist at TVA’s Knoxville headquarters, asking if James N. ‘Nick’ Kirk, a Brown’s Ferry laborer, had been exposed to asbestos or perhaps even fiberglass. The industrial hygienists outlined agency-specific policy and procedures applicable to asbestos-containing materials or ACM, as he referred to them. He was far less clear regarding protective measures for a non-insulator ‘cross-assigned’ construction laborer, indicating he would be back in touch regarding Mr. Kirk’s access to change-out showers and taped coveralls.

A medical resident phoned the Kirk’s indicating Dr. Fink would like to see them later that week, Friday if possible. Barb and Nick arrived in Birmingham that Friday in time for an eleven o’clock

appointment. Fink’s schedulers cleared an hour from his schedule to support a more extensive clinic visit. Fink shared a one-word diagnosis with the Kirk’s. A – S – B – E – S – T – O –

S – I -S

Further promising that his a staff would help them with completing permanent disability applications to TVA and the Social Security disability funds.

Somewhat ignoring specifics, Barb tearfully inquired. ‘Isn’t there a surgery or perhaps medicines that could reverse this?’ Admitting there was not a lot he could do, Fink indicated he would like to see Nick in about six months and thanked them for coming.

As promised Dr. Fink provided documentation and medical paperwork that resulted in Nick’s ‘disability’ retirement. Even without the fishing trips Jimmy remained attentive to his friends’ needs, frequently calling or stopping by to visit. Nick’s co-workers asked a custom furniture maker to fabricate a hardwood rocker, presenting the chair and a spin-cast fishing combo to Nick later that summer.

While the rocker became a prized possession, the fishing combo was never wetted. Nick’s driving days were similarly numbered, by fall no longer able to drive, he settled for staying with the car while Barb shopped, never far from an oxygen bottle. By Christmas that year he abandoned trips altogether, finding himself panting and exhausted following even chair-to-commode trips.

While Nicki and Terri, adolescent fourteen-year-olds made the best of things, Barb increasingly closed the shop’s passage way door, ahead of conversations regarding Nick’s condition, most concluding the same way. ‘God bless Nick and you Barb, God bless the girls, too…’

Often exhausted from caring for an invalid husband in a home largely dependent upon the revenues from her beauty shop, the only possible positive development was that she no longer spent Saturday evenings working her way through Nick’s work laundry. The Saturday night preceding Christmas, Nick could no longer ‘catch his breath,’ a more polite S-O-B expression. Resuscitation began in an ambulance and extended to the Eliza Coffee emergency room, both similarly unsuccessful, Nick died about midnight, three days before the Christmas holiday.

The outpouring of love and support for Barb and the girls was exceptional. As the Helton drive preacher commended James ‘Nick’ Kirk, husband and father to eternal rest, Jimmy Myron checked his wristwatch that Saturday morning, confident the spillway’s larger fish were seeking greater depths and that his buddy had reached a similar reward.

Following graveside services, Jimmy drove by Barb’s shop, noting flower sprays-filled deep sinks Nick verified Nick’s John boat was remained behind the storage shed.

Two months following Nick’s death, Barb called Jimmy to see if he needed Nick’s old boat. While appreciative of the offer he admitted his apartment house manager wouldn’t let him to keep a boat there.

Barb proposed something else, ‘Why don’t you keep it here so you can use it when you choose, maybe clean fish out back, too.’

Overcome by her generosity, Jimmy nasally choked through a thanks-a-million.

Which Florence?

Chapter 11

Crisp fall Saturdays heightened national awareness of stadiumequipped towns like Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Knoxville, Tennessee and Blacksburg, Virginia, radio broadcasters frequently settled for one-word references to ‘state, tech or A&M.’

Fueled by game day enthusiasm, hiring managers favored similar ‘state, tech or A&M’ descriptors of applicants, describing someone from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University as a ‘Hokie’ or another from Auburn University as a War Eagle.

News of TVA job listings spread rapidly, particularly those involving agricultural research. Agricultural research openings typically originated with TVA’s fertilizer arm, the NFDC, whose agricultural function was not shared with similar regional utility companies.

TVA’s Office of Power had never previously employed an agricultural specialist, generally relying upon NFDC for expertise in that direction. Hence, a TVA Office of Power job listing came as a surprise.

Herbicide Specialist

TVA Office of Power

W. Summit Hill Drive

Knoxville, Tennessee

Alumni loyalties might explain why a Summit street H-R person leaked a draft copy of the announcement to Virginia Tech’s Crop,

Soil and Environmental Sciences office. Internal distribution within the agency yielded little more than hand-lettered transfer applications originating with two disgruntled employees facing disciplinary action for falling asleep at work.

Improved NFDC fertilizers benefitted not only US-based farmers but others worldwide, leading to the creation of the International Fertilizer Development Center in 1974.

Why would the Office of Power be interested in employing an herbicide specialist when those kinds of intellectual resources already existed within the NFDC. Most Office of Power applicant searches targeted a single pool of qualified applicants, individuals currently serving the United States Navy. Why not, its Office of Nuclear Reactors hosted the world’s best applied nuclear engineering training program.

While universities operated small nuclear reactors, useful in smallscale production of medical isotopes, Navy’s reactors powered nuclear submarines or even aircraft carriers TVA’s reach-out to the Navy wasn’t restricted to nuclear-qualified operators, Navy-trained twelve-hundred-pound steam plant operators shared many qualifications with their civilian counterparts.

TVA H-R offices served mainly a ‘Welcome Wagon’ function for recently separated or retired naval personnel seeking new horizons. Another benefit attending hiring Navy retirees were straightforward steps surrounding adding those who already possessed advanced security clearances, eliminating screeners visiting applicants’ former neighborhoods asking. ‘Does applicantX host or attend wild parties? Could applicant-X possibly be a threat to the government of the United States?’

The major H-R hurdle was one of convincing Navy applicants residing in Alameda, California or Chesapeake, Virginia to trade

those places for new homes in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee or Town Creek, Alabama.

TVA application forms included sections devoted to hobbies, informing TVA hirers of applicants who enjoyed duck hunting, tournament bass fishing or even hiking; nobody operated better lakes or game preserves than TVA.

Candidates were offered no-obligation tours, complete with slowdowns allowing them to copy real estate agent phone numbers, highlighting communities such as Ducktown or even Tennessee’s Cleveland. H-R types confirmed that monthly mortgage payments for horse farm estates in those places compared well with comparable payments supporting narrow townhouses or duplexes in Norfolk or Virginia Beach.

Rather surprisingly, Peg’s terminal illness didn’t seem to thwart Trace’s academic progress. He effectively coordinate early morning chores at the Inn with class and laboratory obligations. Across the breadth of general education requirements, plus double major requirements in agronomy and chemistry, Trace excelled. His instructors echoed similar comments. ‘You should remain here long enough to complete your master’s work, too. ’ Trace’s subsequent master’s training and thesis addressed herbicide and soil sterilant strategies applicable to east coast railroads, financial support for the project supported by the Seaboard Coast Line and its successor, CSX.

Ahead of master’s graduation day Trace found a note from his advisor pinned to his laboratory chair. ‘See me.’ Recognizing language attributable to a busy professor with better intentions than time, Trace dropped by his advisor’s office where the professor provided a copy of a TVA job posting.

Herbicide Specialist

TVA Office of Power

W. Summit Hill Drive

Knoxville, Tennessee

(incumbent) Furnishes personal transportation and is familiar with ordering, application and evaluation of weed-retardant chemicals; Capable of negotiating (contract) chemical purchases; Organizes and contracts for mist blower and aircraft herbicide applications; Knowledgeable regarding plant growth retardancy and human health and livestock risks posed by agricultural chemicals; Comfortable with negotiating inter-agency agreements; This position requires 80% overnight travel. P-O-C - RG ‘Bob’ Eagerly, Vince Clearnet, Office of Power.

His professor suggested Trace stood a good chance of being hired, asserting that his thesis topic aligned well, further noting their department had previously already post graduates to TVA, although to its NFDC entity. His advisor generously assisted Trace across that afternoon, by assembling and posting his resume accompanied by three highly-positive recommendations and a hard-to-read transcript photocopy.

When his advisor swung the Inn’s glass door open ten days later, Trace anticipated he was for Wednesday’s meat loaf special, but was there instead to relay a TVA-initiated H-R message. ‘Here’s the phone number you call to arrange your interview; it looks like you are going to Muscle Shoals.’

Past restaurant close that afternoon Trace used a wall-mounted pay phone to call Knoxville, shortly speaking to RG ‘Bob’ Eagerly who informed him that TVA had authorized Trace to work with a Blacksburg-local Progress street travel agent to finalize his interview trip plans. Claiming he was needed elsewhere Eagerly

closed the call by suggesting he would pick him up at the FlorenceMuscle Shoals airport.

The next day Trace visited the travel office, its interior walls decorated with sun-faded ‘Ski Vail and ‘Snorkel Sanibel Island’ posters. After congratulating his newest customer on meriting the TVA interview, the travel agent consulted a thumb-worn copy of the Official Airlines Guide, the O-A-G, using tiny printed entries it contained as a guide to travel plans. The agent shortly produced a paper ticket that he claimed would ‘fly’ Trace from Roanoke’s Woodrum field to the Florence – Muscle Shoals airport. Trace asked what the air travel cost but the agent confirmed that TVA had pre-authorized payment.

Possessing no previous air travel experience, Trace parked the Lark in an unpaved, although free airport parking area before proceeding to the Roanoke airport’s gate 16, preparing to board a flight to Florence, South Carolina. His ‘wrong’ Florence choice was quickly corrected by a gate agent who sent him two gates down to one supporting a flight to the Muscle Shoals Regional Airport.

Trace boarded a noisy De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter that shortly passed over Ashville ahead of Tennessee’s capitol city, Knoxville where the pilot chose a new westward vector, flying high above Chattanooga and Huntsville before beginning its descent near the Courtland airfield ahead of Muscle Shoals. The Twin Otter eight passengers were shortly instructed by a flight attendant to secure their seat belts ahead of a Muscle Shoals landing.

If Trace had pursued a history major rather than an agronomy path, he might have recognized the De Haviland’s flight path replicated one forged by Donelson’s Tennessee Valley explorations, occasionally listed as the ‘Donelson Adventure.’

Donelson pioneers, anticipating perilous river conditions accompanying spring rains, departed the Holsten mountain region of Virginia and Tennessee two hundred years previously, perhaps on December 22 1779. Despite risks imposed by their overladen barges, other canoe and flatboat homesteader wannabes joined the Donnelson’s.

But by the time they Donelson’s reached the Muscle Shoals region of the Tennessee, a perilous navigation challenge, almost forty of the original party had perished, victims of drownings, disease or even wilderness attacks. The remaining Donelson’s were happy to remain there given perilous travel across river mileposts 247-53 was known to locals as the ‘One-hundred-foot Drop,’

Trace surrendered a spent peanuts wrapper to a smiling female flight attendant ahead of grabbing an aluminum rail and descending eight hollow-sounding portable stairs. Shaken by the Roanoke mix-up, he breathed relief at signage announcing ‘Muscle Shoals Regional Airport.’ He was shortly met by two corporateappearing individuals, one of whom held a sign welcoming ‘Ted Ballew.’

Trace quickly appreciated that his TVA hosts, Eagerly and Clearnet had a full agenda in mind. While Clearnet drove, Eagerly took the lead, explaining the interview would take place in a rented conference room at the Turtle Point golf club, a Robert Trent Jones golf club on the Tennessee’s north shore near Killen, Alabama.

Once they were seated in Turtle Point’s opulent conference room Eagerly conversationally teed off. ‘Here’s the thing, right now brush and weed removal in the Division of Power is 90% mechanical and only 10% chemical.’

‘In TVA language this means more muscle, less mental. What we want you to do, under our supervision of course, is move the mix

toward 90% chemical removal using herbicides complemented by perhaps 10% mechanical removal, mostly rough-cut brush hogging and chain sawing.

Ignoring the fact Trace had already worked with major east coast railroads to accomplish similar goals, Clearnet overstated the obvious. ‘Floor work means previously cleared areas, as opposed to tree work addressing volunteer trees and brush. We’ve checked with Bonneville out west to conclude that expanded herbicide limits labor-intensive floor work, brush hogging and chain sawing.’

Clearnet had more. ‘But TVA Power isn’t in the scorched earth business, we need some ground cover below high-tension transmission lines, they can weigh tons and require erosion control.’

Good cop – bad cop, here came Eagerly. ‘If you examine our sister utility provider approaches, you’ll conclude TVA is an outlier. Our tower-transmission line landscapes don’t look much like ones Arizona and Nevada owned by Bonneville Power. Farmers, they want to grow crops minus weeds, railroads, they don’t want to grow anything but we are in a mixed position. Clearnet then produced a colorful map designating twelve TVA sectors.

Nearby sector entries included Muscle Shoals, and Madison, Alabama twenty miles east of Turtle Point. The West Point sector stood to their west while the Nashville was obviously to their north. Names such as Oak Ridge were reasonably familiar to him, whereas others such as Morristown, Manchester and Cleveland were less so. The Hopkinsville TVA sector appeared to abut Tennessee’s border with Kentucky while a very non-Italian Milan sector spread nearly to Memphis.

Eagerly pinch hit for Clearnet. ‘TVA staff are wondering why we didn’t just phone NFDC to find some agricultural scientists from

there to run the herbicide management piece. But Vince and I would like to keep this project entirely under our control plus we’ve looked into establishing some inter-agency agreements beyond TVA.’

Eagerly took a curious leap. ‘There are other interesting regional resources. The Navy’s SEABEES in Gulfport, Mississippi are sitting on fifteen thousand barrels of expired herbicide, some of which, with the right paper work, becomes useable. Ten years back soldiers from Fts. Richie and Meade sprayed herbicide mixtures along Georgia Power lines, mainly 2,4,5-T, but a DOD herbicide named Picloram, too.’

Eagerly gained steam. ‘Why not support mile-long fairways beneath our power lines, an amplified, electrified golf course of sorts. That’s the reason why we brought you here to the Turtle Point Club, nice surroundings that might encouraged you to become a big-picture guys like Vince here and me. What’ll it be, Ted, you want to join our efforts?’

Eagerly and Clearnet moved toward closure. Again, here came Eagerly. ‘One of our directors flew to Muscle Shoals this morning for a meeting and is not planning on returning tonight although the jet itself has to return to Knoxville. We’ve held it up anticipating you might want a King Air experience all the way back to the Roanoke airport.’

Not impressed his hosts hadn’t gotten his name right and were at best only marginally informed, Trace tested the water, asking a question. ‘How much floor work do you anticipate will be directed at buckbrush or invasive honey suckle?’ Doubling up, Trace probed further. ‘How concerned are you about adjacent crops, say soybeans or corn?’

Eagerly’s response reflected a curious combination of ignorance and arrogance. ‘Ted, we see you’re up-to-date on details. Why don’t you just keep that kind of stuff in mind?’

As if he had accepted, Clearnet advanced. ‘Our only remaining issue is that only TVA employees are allowed on agency aircraft so if you’d like to ride home on the King Air we’d like for you to sign the H-R paperwork, making you the Office of Power’s newest, in fact its only ‘Agronomist – Herbicide Specialist.’

After signing multiple copies of H-R paperwork that evening, Trace boarded a King Air, one making an intermediate stop at Roanoke ahead of ending its day at Knoxville.

Once airborne they vectored east, passing directly overhead the Brown’s Ferry nuclear plant where the pilot sought a new slightly northeast course, allowing Trace to view 500kV transmission lines stretching out below the plane’s course.

Darkness revealed locations of millions of TVA power subscribers, from the flight’s origination in Muscle Shoals until well past Chattanooga. Likely exhausted by a confused airport arrival and a goofy interview, Trace dozed. The King Air exited Tennessee’s air space, entering the Commonwealth of Virginia. Awakening, Trace mulled over the possibility of keeping Peg’s Blacksburg flat while occupying a series of Clearnet-endorsed motel rooms.

Fairways Chapter 12

Various Hyde Park Roosevelt’s dedicated major efforts to other regions. Theodore ‘Colonel’ Roosevelt favored the American west while his niece and her husband, Franklin Delano, likely favored Appalachia. Historians’ likely to claim that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s train trips to Warm Springs, Georgia-based rehabilitation facilities fostered his interest in mid-south. But that proved difficult to establish given that passed mostly through states such as Virginia, the Carolinas or even Georgia as opposed to TVA lands, mostly in Tennessee and Alabama plus three other states.

Efforts to improve the Tennessee’s navigability preceded TVA by almost one hundred years. Dams, particularly those equipped with locks, levees and controlled outflows favored navigation while hydroelectric power production offered a useful bonus.

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) legitimized the federal government’s role in river navigation. Congress responded, too, deeding four hundred thousand acres bordering the Tennessee river to the state of Alabama. Successive efforts before and following the Civil war there were directed at dams and lock construction, engineering projects requiring engineers, steam shovel operators and stone masons.

Barring further federal support and restrictions the result could have been as minimal as a local Muscle Shoals Power Corporation (1899), but much more than a local power company was required to resolve the ‘One-hundred-foot Drop.’ Even provision of cheap electrical power wasn’t enough to resolve over-planted cotton fields and nutrient-depleted soil. Successfully addressing nutrient depletion would require nitrate-dependent chemical

improvements. While Birmingham, Alabama had early established itself as a producer of ferrous metals, plentiful hydroelectric power in northwest Alabama might make that region a key producer of aluminum.

Alabama ‘sword to plowshare’ politicians lobbied for federal support of two Muscle Shoals nitrate plants ahead of world War I’s effective armistice (November 11th 1918). Oddly, neither nitrate plant provided war-useful explosives nor munitions.

The Wilson dam construction project near Muscle Shoals mesmerized American industrial leaders. Thomas A. Edison and Henry Ford both traveled to Muscle Shoals to witness nitrate plant and dam construction progress. While Ford may have generously visited north Alabama his offer to purchase the plants and dam was by any measure stingy, a couple of million dollars for improvements the federal governments had invested tens of millions and decades in producing. Ford’s stingy offer resulted in a Congressional deadlock.

Declining crop yields in the Southeast owed some origins to overplanting that could be partially rectified through crop rotation. Curiously, either application of fertilizers or herbicides improved yields. The Southeast’s crop-growing personnel problem originated with world war II when many of its farming sons, some daughters, too, left for war. World war II labor shortages further argued for ‘one-and-done’ chemically-based use of herbicides.

Regardless, use of herbicides and improved fertilizers spanning TVA’s first fifty years conspired to double crop yields. Corn led the way, 1930-era twenty-bushel yields remarkably quadrupled by 1980 maybe even more While perhaps not as dramatically, cotton and soybean yields tripled, too. Skilled agriculturally adapted statisticians struggled to assign fertilizer-only or herbicide-only credits.

Back in Blacksburg, Trace told the College Inn’s owners what they already knew, that he had accepted a TVA job offer and would be moving. Analogous to Peg’s baby shower and to similar collections taken up during her illness, they presented him with a ‘Good Luck – Graduation’ card bearing greetings from the Inn’s staff and other ‘townies. ’

Trace stuffed four changes of clothing, a clock radio and an outdated but useful copy of the ‘Farm Chemicals Handbook’ into his Val-a-Pak suitcase before leaving the Lark in the same unpaved parking lot where he had parked ahead of the interview. Trace flew to Knoxville for a new hire processing and TVA agency orientation.

Eagerly-initiated orientation tours and meetings occurred in Knoxville and Nashville, places Eagerly said he favored on account of what he termed ‘night life’ possibilities. While perhaps only a formality, the tours afforded him with an opportunity estimate the dimensions of TVA’s vegetation issues. Perhaps tiring of the meetings, Eagerly gave Trace an agency credit card, instructing him to it and use his personal vehicle to meet with herbicide operators and contractors across all twelve of TVA’s sectors encompassing nearly eighty thousand square miles.

Spending time with Eagerly enabled Trace to learn Eagerly had served as a cost estimator for a transformer oil replacement program, one in which toxic PCB-based capacitor-type fluids were replaced by less toxic alternatives. He similarly learned that Clearnet supervised the agency’s fly ash sales program, one in which cement manufacturers were compensated for removing toxic coal-plant byproducts from TVA coal-generating power plants.

Even more interesting, during a water cooler conversation at the Summit street headquarters, an accountant largely explained the rationale for Trace’s hiring. Apparently, the accountant had

generated some 1977 TVA-wide estimates of vegetation control expenses, everything from brush-hogging to contracted aerial spraying, sharing how he estimated chemical costs at 75% of the total causing Trace to wonder how that estimate reconciled with Eagerly’s 10% figure. The accountant also shared that agency decision-makers had minimized roles for non-technical, mid-range purchasing staffs in managing the vegetation control program, suggesting instead that the Office of Power should recruit a university-trained agronomist.

Trace shortly undertook an 80% overnight travel agenda that witnessed the Lark traveling in multiple directions. Indeed, over the succeeding three months he spent time in all twelve TVA regions.

Consistent with his railroad experiences, most of TVA’s ground applications worked well while the effectiveness of aerial spraying varied greatly. On two occasions across his first three months Trace phoned his Tech advisor to update him on new job managing TVA power line vegetation control efforts.

Posted to Muscle Shoals the first week in November, Trace was surprised to receive an evening Eagerly-initiated phone call. ‘Hey Trace, I’ve got an idea for next week. Why don’t we visit the SEABEES in Gulfport. They’re sitting on thousands, maybe millions of, gallons of expired herbicides. I’d like to review the Navy’s plans and let them know about some of our initiatives.’

Trace spent his last day in Muscle Shoals touring NFDC warehouses and following a night’s sleep checked out of his motel on Saturday morning . His drive across Mississippi was punctuated by live radio broadcasts of an Alabama – Ole Miss football game, announcers occasionally updating listeners regarding the Virginia Tech - Virginia score. Before he left the northeast Mississippi TVA region Trace stopped twice to harvest

some shrub samples taken under power lines, labeling them for further identification and characterization.

Monday morning Trace met Eagerly outside the Navy base’s guard shack. Trace used his TVA badge to gain access while Eagerly insisted on flashing what appeared to be a pink naval reserve ID card, sharing with Trace how he spent most weekends there performing what he described as ‘drilling duty.’ Trace formed a mental image of Eagerly marching back and forth from the guard shack to an extensive area reserved for Agent Orange storage, one known as area-7.

Reaching area-7, Eagerly introduced Trace to a female civilian worker, someone who had reluctantly agreed to be Eagerly’s tour guide that morning. Even though unsolicited, Eagerly reinforced that he and Vince Clearnet would continue to head TVA’s herbicide program, describing Trace as a newly-hired technician. Trace remained silent, sizing up the woman’s reactions to another Eagerly overreach. She appeared to focus most of her attention on a pencil she currently twirled between two fingers, mostly ignoring Eagerly.

The female civilian shoved words Eagerly’s way. ‘Petty Officer, when can we expect to have the pleasure of expecting your company again for one of your drill weekends?’

Straightening at the reference, Eagerly requested an area-7 herbicide tour. Using a walkie-talkie, she radioed an office mate that she would be reachable via radio, that she was showing their guest around using a Cushman-Truckster golf cart.

Trace viewed a vast array of olive drab barrels, most stacked twohigh, spread across five acres. Their guide explained that the barrel matrix required surface and first-level pallet-ing, that they were never stacked than three barrels in, lest what she termed a ‘Leaker’ become inaccessible.

Trace viewed a labyrinth-quality maze, successive stands of barrels and pallets, each interrupted front-to-back and side-to-side by aisles set at the width of two back-to-back forklift trucks. True to her description, no potential ‘Leaker was more than one barrel removed from a forklift-based and hopefully berm-ed transfer.

Trace quickly appreciated that the SEABEE’s chemical storage insights, ones adapted to the world’s largest Agent Orange repository, further noting that barrels there carried an identical inscription.

HERBICIDE – BUTYL ESTER

Below the all-capital stenciled identifier, smaller letters designated Gulfport, MS as a destination, suggesting they had been returned from southeast Asia. Trace puzzled over why there were no hazard warnings, barring bright orange circled bands.

Directing her comments specifically to Trace, the tour guide explained. ‘As Bob has likely told you, we monitor the chemical inventory daily for leaks, frequently replace damaged pallets and, fortunately, less frequently, have to redrum barrel contents.’

While Trace said nothing, he recalled a line he had memorized for a Christiansburg high school play, from Dante’s Inferno, ‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here,’ finding it apropos for a nearly interminable array of Agent-Orange barrels.

Following a series of left-hand turns they neared Area-7’s distant corner where their host piloted the Truckster onto a wide access road before speeding back to the office. Directing her comments toward Eagerly, she outlined a plan. ‘You’ll want to collect all of your personal belongings before you exit our main gate.’

Eagerly shortly proposed a lunch meeting with Trace. ‘Why don’t we sketch out an after-action report at the Hung Foo buffet in downtown Biloxi.’

Voicing no objection to Chinese food, Trace followed an Eagerlydriven sedan, nearly losing him on account of his reluctance to exceed the installation’s fifteen-mile-per-high speed limit. Half an hour later they parked near a downtown restaurant, joining a lunchtime business crowd that could have just as easily originated at Blacksburg’s College Inn.

After fanning through an eleven-page menu, Eagerly announced that he would take the buffet. Armed with warm plates needing side-boys to contain steaming rice and noodle entrees, Eagerly began questions before Trace’s first Hung Foo bite. ‘What are you paying for a 55-gallon drum of herbicide concentrate.’

On the job for only a few months, Trace’s answer was less than definitive. ‘Maybe twelve hundred dollars per barrel, depending upon vendor, herbicide and concentration.’

Mostly ignoring the vendor – composition - concentration variables, Eagerly raced to conclusions. ‘We can do better. I’ve got something in mind that might streamline our operation and save TVA lots of money.’

Speaking in a hushed tone as if a fellow Hung Foo patron might overhear him, Eagerly plotted. ‘Are you aware that Brazilian authorities have proposed that the Navy transfer the entire Gulfport Agent Orange inventory to them so they can convert the Amazon rain forest into a series of farms?’

Having no idea what Eagerly was talking about Trace comically lowered his shoulders and leaned forward as if they were

discussing nuclear plant secrets, all the time twirling Hung Foo noodles.

Although rhetorical perhaps, Eagerly posed a second question. ‘Why we let Brazil get there first.’

Twice drunk Chapter 13

His parents conceptualized Louis Gdalman’s pursuit of a pharmacy degree in somewhat the same terms as if Louis were chasing a neighbor kid down Dearborn avenue. While financial arrangements were a bit of a stretch, his parents supported Louis’ desire to become a degreed pharmacist, somewhat of a novelty among 1937-era working-class families. Less than a week following graduation Louis was employed as a hospital pharmacist, primarily serving Cook county, but working other pharmacy shifts at Chicago’s St. Luke’s hospital, too.

While his classmates may have favored retail or drug store-based employment, Louis gravitated toward hospital pharmacy work, fulfilling in-house (also termed hospital) orders but also satisfying out-patient (discharge) prescriptions. Hospital-based pharmacy meant lots of face-to-face contact with providers, house staff physicians. Furthermore, Louis believed his hospital affiliations provided insights into Chicago, and even the region’s social ills, infectious or communicable diseases, workplace-acquired conditions and, yes, intentional and unintentional poisonings.

Louis and Kathryn married less than a year past their respective college graduations, her baccalaureate mostly devoted to music. Settling near the two hospitals and the lakeshore permitted them access to Chicago’s core but perhaps more importantly, for it meant Louis trips back and forth to work were brief.

Thus began a process in which Kathryn aided Louis, accepting hospital switchboard calls during the brief period required for Louis to take the train to their steam-heated flat. Kathryn spoke to some of the most respected clinicians of that era, ones from Chicago and others originating elsewhere in Illinois, if not southern Wisconsin or northwest Indiana, distinguished panels of Ochners, Solomons, Sheinins and, of course, Daniel Hale Williams.

It is uncertain when, or even why, Louis Gdalman originated one of the first systematic approaches to poison management. Furthermore, why him as opposed to experts in Philadelphia or perhaps San Francisco. The fact he compiled copious notes surrounding cases, or used these experiences to generate guidelines is noteworthy but not necessarily unique. Major figures like occupational medicine’s Carey McCord or even Alice Hamilton had favored a similar summative approach.

Fairly put, Gdalman’s unique contribution was a call-back system applicable to clinical management of seriously poisoned patients. Remarkably, for nearly twenty-five years he and Kathryn supported a twenty-four hour a day poison information resource.

Gdalman also approached poisoning management on a wellreasoned pharmacokinetically-driven basis even though the latter sub-discipline had yet to be announced. Nevertheless, Louis’ efforts were not universally accepted. ‘Why is a pharmacist from another hospital calling us about a call someone placed to him yesterday –Who does he think he is?’

Gdalman’s additional contribution was one of training others to appreciate and execute approaches similar to his, an early trainee being a young physician named Robert ‘Bob’ Fink. Young Bob Fink had completed college, and the first two years of medical school, at the nearby University of Illinois Champaign professors there directed their capable African-American medical

student to undertake his final medical school years at Atlanta’s Morehouse School of Medicine. Fink remained in Atlanta past graduation, qualifying at Emory’s Grady hospital; his credentials included both internal and pulmonary medicine ahead of a Chicago return. Back in Chicago Fink acquired hospital admitting privileges at its best hospitals.

Fink sought Gdalman, possibly a result of a previous encounter or due his interest in Gdalman’s successive call-back approach. Popping into the Cook county pharmacy, Fink thrust out a hand and introduced himself. Somewhat startled, Louis, someone known to be a bit dry, introduced himself using his last name, Gdalman (‘ Doll-Man’) and function, hospital pharmacy.

From their first days, Fink referred to Louis as ‘Prof,’ Louis never corrected him nor ceased chuckling at the reference. Needing a Gdalman opinion, Fink timed pharmacy trips to coincide with lunch, bringing deli originated corned-beef-on-rye sandwiches and multiple questions. One day as they worked through an algorithmically-based approach, Gdalman suggested a new professional contact, someone operating an environmental laboratory.

‘Have you met Dr. Berman at the Cook County hospital lab, our goto for industrial, or even forensic analyses, lead, toxic metals and whatever else she’s willing to help us with?’ Admitting he had not, Fink affirmed an interest in setting up a time to meet the remarkable clinical toxicologist and to tour her lab, one that had converted hundreds, maybe thousands of lead (Pb) laden blood specimens, into critical readings.

While granted admitting privileges at both St. Luke’s and Cook County , Fink possessed a passion for the mid-South. When a friend at the ‘Grady,’ Emory’s teaching hospital informed him of an

impending University of Alabama hospital opening, Fink responded.

Hastily arranged air travel placed Fink in Birmingham where staff recruited him as an attending physician and for the UAB poison center medical directorship. Anxious to attract the well-qualified Chicagoan, UAB staff presented Fink with an embroidered lab coat announcing a new affiliation. Below a green UAB university logo, it announced

Robert ‘Bob’ Fink, MD Internal Medicine & Poison Control University of Alabama Hospitals

Some of his midwestern colleagues likely questioned Fink’s new choice of a medical environments, wondering how welcoming the area might be to a relatively young African-American physician.

Robert ‘Bob’ Fink, however, saw matters differently, wanting to practice in a place where many of his patients would likely share his cultural attitudes, if not appearance. In short, Fink sought to bring the best of medicine to the mid-South.

The hospital, if not the entire Birmingham university was experiencing a renaissance. Originally known as the ‘extension,’ UAB-led advances in medicine and surgery helped to replace an older, negative view of Birmingham. Dr. Fink numbered among a handful of African-American academic physicians at UAB, certainly the only one dedicated to managing toxic injuries.

While Birmingham residents might not make frequent visits to north Alabama, the same wasn’t true for the reverse flow.

Individuals surrounding Muscle Shoals frequently visited Birmingham, sometimes in terms of mall-based shopping opportunities at big retailers such as Parisian or other times on account of UAB medical appointments.

Like Colbert bordering the Tennessee river to its south, Lauderdale county was legislatively dry, both counties prohibited sale of alcoholic beverages. Purchasing legal alcohol meant day trips to Tennessee border towns like Lawrenceburg or Savannah. Otherwise, imbibers relied upon bootleggers and local moon shine whiskey distillers, both in high demand. Desperate for a drink, still others searched tool sheds for a lightly-disguised bottle hidden from a spouse.

Greek social organizations formed a basis for the college experience, whether in Tuscaloosa, Oxford, Mississippi or, more recently, Florence, Alabama. And what better way to begin a college football weekend than with an alcohol-fueled social event. That was exactly what the Tappa Kappa’s or as more commonly known, T-K’s desired.

The T-K’s beverage of choice for parties, an alcoholic ‘purple passion’ mixture was prepared by pouring the contents of Everclear (grain alcohol) into a half-full punch bowl containing two 2Lbottles of Mountain Dew soda, its purple characteristic the consequence of three grape Kool-Aid envelopes sprinkled and stirred. While its non-alcohol ingredients could be purchased at a Kroger’s or even a Piggly-Wiggly grocery, Ever-clear purchases necessitated a trip to the Tennessee line where a fraternity pledge would flash a phony ID and leave with his hastily-organized purchase. To ensure the purchaser reached his Loretto, Tennessee destination, T-K sent two pledges to get the Ever-clear.

The weekend’s house party began and hour preceding the time that teaching laboratories concluded. Early arrivals fished beer cans from an iced tank before a T-K pledge relocated the Purple passion punch bowl to an outdoor party space. T-K’s anticipated the arrival of their female campus affiliates, the Sigma Maxma’s, or S-M’s, affectionately termed ‘little sisters,’.

Older T-K’s cultivated the fraternity’s pledges in terms of pledges’ interactions with the S-M ‘little sisters,’ using opportunities such as the house party to observe and encourage polite behavior. James Perkins, a recent T pledge, beelined from a late afternoon lab assignment, excusing himself he went upstairs to exchange rumpled classroom duds for a crisp Navy blazer and pressed trousers, shortly hustling downstairs to perform an assigned shift hosting the punch bowl

James’ other objective that evening was one demonstrating responsible alcohol consumption, or as an older T-K described it, ‘holding your beer.’ By the time James changed his clothes and came downstairs the punch bowl’s volume had sunk to a low level, too many orange slices and not enough booze. Another pledge assisted with resupply, innovatively adding an aliquot of Ever-clear pinched from grandfather’s tool shed. James manned the replenished punch bowl, politely chatting with three S-M’s while ladling the ‘purple passion’ product and slowly consuming two full Solo cups himself.

While most of partyers consumed a variety of alcoholic beverages, mainly beer and whisky, James drank exclusively from the second batch of Purple punch, demonstrating his capacity to conduct a conversation while drinking, retiring about midnight following a busy day. As others later recalled, the only predictor of future problems might have been noted in his slightly slurred speech, hardly unique to James, though.

Saturday morning was a different matter, though. Mid-morning fraternity pranks intended to awaken him advanced from icecubing his undershorts to ear whispers and vigorous shakes, nothing worked. Finding something seriously amiss, all of the fraternity members assembled beside James’ bed, shortly calling for an ambulance. James’ arrival at Eliza Coffee Hospital, prompted its

staff to review resuscitation protocols in light of diminished responses and poor scores on a famous coma scale, one originating in Glasgow.

Clinical history-taking focused on contributions from drinking relative to his present illness.

An E-R nurse, Patty Brown, RN, noted that several of the university students bringing James there, showed signs of having been recently drunk or hung-over, although none of them shared James’ obtunded state.

A senior fraternity member confirmed that T-K’s and S-M’s had generally drunk a variety of alcoholic products, possibly prompting a second T-K to provide a useful clue. ‘James drank exactly two cups from the second round of ‘Purple passion. I was there to grade him on social interactions while drinking. He passed the test, that’s it.’

And that really was ‘it. ’ As is often case, someone with a smaller platform, in this case the admitting clerk, provides time-essential data. ‘One of the fraternity boys says the Ever-clear wasn’t purchased, he pinched it from his grandfather’s tool shed, who knows what it has in it.’

Nurse Brown phoned the Alabama person she trusted could help them, Dr. Robert Fink.

While Fink hadn’t completely adopted the Gdalman formula, he was generally reachable via a digital pager. Fink’s exchange with Nurse Brown and his Florence ER physician counterpart was brief, mostly listening and a few suggestions.

Blood alcohol testing revealed James had consumed alcohol, however, the technician performing the test reported inconsistent repeat values. The late morning 30 mg % result (0.03%) determination confirmed previous ‘drinking.’

Fink’s recommendation surprised his Eliza Coffee callers. ‘Start an IV-drip at 100 mg of absolute ethyl alcohol per hour and get a repeat blood alcohol. If this young man drank toxic alcohol, we’re at the end of its elimination phase but I would still like to block possible metabolism to even more toxic metabolites.

Fink’s second suggestion carried a ‘Perry Mason’ or even a ‘Columbo’ ring ‘See if any of the students there can retrieve the woodshed bottle. Do you have someone in Florence, say at the college, who could analyze its contents to determine if that bottle contained ethanol or something more toxic, maybe wood alcohol or anti-freeze.’

Alternative features of small-town charm and oppressiveness were reflected in Nurse Brown’s response. ‘We certainly do, my PhD husband, Jackson Brown, runs a lab that can answer that question if these fellas get that bottle down here.’

Confident her husband was using her weekend working as an opportunity to catch up with some of his own lab work, she phoned him at his lab. ‘Jack, we’ve got a nineteen-year-old male down here that’s not doing well at all. He may be ‘drunk,’ but it’s the wrong kind of drunk and the poison control people down in Birmingham have suggested he may have drunk non-ethanol alcohol, maybe wood alcohol, maybe antifreeze. Can you help us resolve what he drank if I get his companions to bring us the bottle?’

Jack, in this case Jackson Brown was good at detecting worry on the other end of the line. ‘I’ll drop by in a few to retrieve your ‘worry’ bottle and perform a quick test termed the iodoform reaction, one that distinguishes ‘er drinking alcohols from toxic varieties. It’s a quick-and-dirty but it’ll head us in the right direction.’

Later that afternoon Prof Brown phoned his wife to let her know the iodoform test confirmed the presence of a toxic alcohol substitute, methanol - wood alcohol. He had other news, too. ‘Per the radio, Alabama has Tennessee down by seven points but the game’s only in its third quarter.’

About five pm Dr. Fink called back to verify that the i/v-alcohol drip had been ordered and was onboard. He also asked the Florence ER staff to fax him James’ blood ‘chemistries’ that would facilitate some specialized chemistry calculations, ones he termed ‘anion gaps.’

These steps may well have saved James’ life but, unfortunately, they were insufficient to preserve his vision. Instead, during across following six days James progressed from legal blindness to low vision to no vision, leading numerous persons to ponder how only two Solo cups of a toxic alcohol could rob someone so completely.

THE BEVILL AMENDMENT

CHAPTER 14

Alabama’s capitol originated in the town of Cahaba before moving to Tuscaloosa in the early 1800s ahead of its permanent relocation to Montgomery (1847). Alabama’s religious, if not cultural roots, resembled the European pancake formed by Protestant Holland atop Catholic-dominated Belgium, although north Alabama’s Protestant leanings are not the primary reason why it attracted national attention during the early twentieth century.

Buoyed by mid-century successes tied to river navigation, power production and perhaps even disease prevention, TVA broadened its mission to include fertilizer research and development. While agribusiness hardly welcomed TVA’s quasi-governmental agricultural establishment, they were largely ineffective in halting efforts. By 1980 nearly four hundred full-or-part-time technicians and administrative staff complemented more than one hundred PhD-prepared scientists at TVA’s National Fertilizer Development Center Muscle Shoals campus.

Not unlike TVA’s fertilizer operation, Steiner Concrete had competitors, detractors even. Steiner’s big advantage was its regional quarries, offering reduced limestone feed costs.

Steiner quarrying operations early-on provided alternative employment for sharecropping, perhaps more accurately termed subsistence farmers, many of whom were of African-American origins. By the time Betsy flew back to Tuskegee in 1944, Steiner had employed multiple generations of similarly-named Jeffersons,

Johnsons, and Venables. Betsy avoided ‘lay-offing’ trusted employees during patches of poor weather or unsuccessful contract negotiations.

Betsy’s plans increasingly emphasized revenues generated by recovering wastes, adapting Steiner’s high temperature, Portlandcement producing kilns to dual purposes. The commodity that might help her do that possessed an interesting name, ‘fly ash.’ While its limestone and sand reserves might confer a small cost advantage, the same wasn’t true regarding fuel necessary to produce incredibly hot kiln temperatures, Steiner certainly didn’t own any oil or gas wells. Furthermore, combinations of OPEC greed and a national reluctance to tap the oil and gas reserves had generally sent fuel prices sky rocketing.

While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency experienced a slow start in the early 1970’s, that was changing, too. Key pieces of legislation such as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act were changing not only the general environment but the business environment as well. Betsy’s Emelle trip in April that same year convinced her that Steiner should capitalize on the fly ash market and their kilns’ capacity to incorporate toxic, although often flammable, liquid wastes, into a useful fuel blend.

Doing so would not be without its risks, though. Capital costs suggested by the Cincinnati Haz waste-to-concrete project and others initiated by Ash Grove Cement in Kansas suggested that plant modifications necessary to effectively ‘feed’ a variety of fly ash substrates while also accepting Haz-waste liquids would investments totally one million dollars per plant. And perhaps more importantly, that was before the EPA and other regulatory officials issued a permit to move from testing to actual operation.

Steiner’s Decatur, Alabama rotary kiln cement plant was her firm’s flagship, the plant that always made money. No surprise there,

Steiner – Decatur next door to concrete-hungry Huntsville, Alabama, a community supporting the Marshall Space Flight Center, the Army’s Redstone Arsenal, the Olin Corporation, maybe a dozen others. Steiner – Decatur possessed an advantage given it was within a day’s truck drive of multiple TVA coal-powered and fly-ash producers. Interstate-65 was a natural corridor for fly ash and even liquid Haz-waste shipments originating in Tennessee, perhaps in Kentucky, too

Betsy piloted a ‘Daytona-fast’ 1956 Hudson Hornet toward Huntsville’s Marshall Space Flight Center for a meeting with Congressman Tom Bevill, someone Alabamians jokingly referred to as the state’s ‘third’ senator, an offhand reference to Beville’s ability to sponsor bills.

Betsy slid the Hudson into a slot identified by a ‘Welcome E.B. Steiner, CEO Steiner Stone.’ Before quieting the hot rod Hudson, she popped its hood and performed a quick engine check, the sure sign of a pilot.

His advance team had shared with Betsy that Bevill’s appearance was primarily to announce a twenty-million-dollar building expansion at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Retrieving a plastic identification badge in the reception area, she nodded to David S. Freeman., the current TVA board chair. Betsy viewed Freeman’s presence as a positive, perhaps they could work together to muster some Congressional support for her Haz-waste-to-concrete scheme.

Bevill’s comments regarding the building project’s importance to the Huntsville area were uncharacteristically brief, allowing preselected campaign donors, Betsy among them, to move to the Marshall conference room. Other invitees had apparently come only to shake Bevill’s hand and leaving, leaving only Betsy for a sitdown. Past pleasantries, he gave her the lead-in she hard traveled

there for ‘How can my office help you and your folks there at Steiner Stone?

Betsy shortly summarized the Haz-waste to cement scheme, getting quickly to specifics. ‘How do we obtain an assurance from the EPA regulators and their counterparts at the state level that what we propose to do is reasonably acceptable to them before we invest millions.’

Bevill responded in kind. ‘Senator Bentsen and I have worked hard on Subpart C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act’ that specifically addresses incorporation of fly ash in Portland cement products. If you encounter misunderstandings initiated by regulators, please call my office so we can help unravel them.’

While regarding the response as thoughtful, Betsy pushed on. ‘Our problem goes beyond the Subpart C exclusion, we need to devise improved means of working with both regulators and the big energy companies, certainly with TVA.’

Bevill had a question and a comment. ‘Do you have somebody who could ‘run herd’ on testing technology, that will likely prove important. One thing Lloyd (Senator Bentsen) and I learned while formulating the subpart C exception is that we required staff who could both understand the technology and speak EPA’s language.’

Invariably the campaigner, often a congressional ally and frequently a funder, Bevill moved past regulatory constraints to his ‘good news’ department. ‘We’re working on another bill to support something called Small-Business-Innovative-Research (S-BI-R). I think Steiner Stone should one of S-B-I-R’s first contract recipients, that would let you access some federal funds to support new concrete technologies. I’ll make some phone calls.’

Betsy laughed, graciously thanking the Congressman for his efforts. Before departing she performed a walkaround of her car, giving her a chance to speculate how many females might be given a chance for one of the Space Shuttle’s pilot and mission specialist positions. Flying past the Courtland airfield, she figuratively tipped the Hudson’s wings, a sign of respect for the deceased chief pilot from there who had taught her to fly.

Paid to steal Chapter 15

Trace’s Lark delivered him on agency business to colorfullynamed mid-south destinations, Bugtussle and Ducktown among them. Occasionally, he temporarily abandoned the Lark in a regional airport parking lot, mostly occasions when he traveled with agency managers who favored passenger seat cocktailing as part of their Monday through Friday work weeks.

The eighty percent travel requirement proved to be a low estimate, Trace rarely visited Blacksburg even though he stayed current on rent payments to maintain the flat there. The exception to the eighty percent travel commitment occurred across the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas holiday span when TVA offices emptied. Few TVA employees reported to nearly-empty Knoxville administrative offices during what they termed the holiday ‘intermission.’ RG ‘Bob’ Eagerly, an assistant purchasing agent, however, reported daily to TVA’s Summit Hill offices.

Given that switchboard-mediated long distance call volume was similarly reduced, TVA operators quickly connected Eagerly with chemical sales offices belonging to Spencer Chemicals in Kansas City and DuPont’s offices in Wilmington, Delaware. Eagerly left multiple answering machine messages in Midland, Michigan for a Dow call back.

Chemical sales staffs scratched their heads at Eagerly’s questions, finding them more representative of a chemical manufacturer than ones originating with a purchaser of herbicides, Most of his questions surrounded drum stenciling practices, plus other peculiar inquiries regarding barrel durability.

A Kansas City-based Spencer sales specialist nearing retirement speculated Eagerly might be preparing a large blanket purchase bid announcement and did everything he could to convince Eagerly that Spencer had exactly the products TVA sought. What a way to go out, a big cash sales bonus, perhaps one sufficient to finance a post-retirement cruise for him and the Mrs., all he needed to do is tolerate a few more of Eagerly’s nutty calls. While chemical manufacturers generally favored easily pronounced trade names, Eagerly consistently stumbled through an old government designation, ‘Herbicide – Butyl ester (2,4,-dichlorophenoxy acid).’

Mostly to tease sales staffs, chemical industry receptionists chuckled their way through ‘Eagerly again’ announcements. Seeking head-of-the-line standing for his firm, a soon-to-be-retired representative hatched a plan when he announced ‘I’m going to be in Knoxville anyway (lie one) so why don’t I take you out to dinner so I can make sure we’ve covered all your needs.’ Knowing that Trace had already finalized the 1981 purchase, Eagerly deferred, claiming he would be out-of-town (lie two).

Eagerly’s holiday calls weren’t limited to chemical suppliers, he also frequently phoned the Gulfport Navy SEABEE base, mainly reaching watch standers assigned holiday duty. Given good weather and nothing else to do, they spent days there Truckstertime-trialing, stop watched events in which they navigated the barrel maze in the Cushman golf cart.

While Eagerly’s naval reserve commitment was largely satisfied by showing up at the Gulfport SEABEE base in uniform for two weeks each summer, across December he placed repeated calls to the naval base regarding what he termed ‘shared warehousing matters.’ While having no idea what he was talking about, Gulfport answerers coined a phrase. ‘Eagerly again!’ Why was a

TVA assistant purchasing agent and part-time petty officer fascinated with outdated stocks of Agent Orange chemicals.

For the combined civilian and uniformed staff manning Gulfport’s Area-7 chemical storage area, the only break in a nearly perpetual process of inventorying and inspecting barrels came when one of them sprang a leak, usually meaning that toxic barrel seepage first contaminated its underlying pallet and then the pebbled surface below. Three staged responses followed: One, notification, two, sprinkling a fluffy vermiculate absorbent, and, three, arranging to have the contents of the leaking barrel transferred into a more secure empty barrel. Compensated features attending ‘step three’ fascinated Eagerly.

Brazil’s president general João Baptista Figueiredo, no stranger to coups or radical plans had weirdly asserted that his country might be prepared to accept the United States’ expired Agent Orange inventory. While likely more concerned with rain forest-based farming as opposed to spraying deadly chemicals, world news services quoted Figueiredo, mostly a tongue-in-cheek story.

In 1979, however, as he read a newspaper account of the Brazilian proposal, RG Bob Eagerly adapted their initiative. But Eagerly’s Agent Orange ambitions didn’t arise in Brazilian-based deforestation, instead Eagerly wanted to get rich, maybe even include his older brother Carl in that financial journey.

Carl Eagerly eked out a modest living in nearby Biloxi, mostly scrapping pallets, meaning cruised through industrial parks, surveying warehouse docks and dumpster drop zones for discarded pallets could resell. He had also expanded his scope of operations by adding 55-gallon barrel discards to pick-ups. Retrieving them meant that following a quick steam-cleaning he could return recyclable barrels to local paint or chemical suppliers for a fee.

Carl shared his expansion plans with brother Bob, adding how he had recently rented an enclosed metal building, a storefront where he could store and sell pallets and barrels. The metal building adjoined a weedy, abandoned railroad siding.

Bob Eagerly welcomed his brother’s move to secure the steel building, finding both the building and Carl’s barrel operations consistent with key features of a profitable ‘recycling’ program he had devised, shortly hatching a plan in which Carl would act as a front man in a scheme that would appear to aid Gulfport’s naval base with redrumming leaking barrels.

While complex, the plan involved creating a shell corporation in which he and his brother would be compensated for redrumming expired Agent Orange stocks before selling them as recently manufactured herbicides. Front-man Carl would reload the contents of a leaky Agent Orange barrel into an unrelated secure barrel Carl had scavenged elsewhere in Biloxi. That barrel would not return to Gulfport, instead it would be re-stenciled as if it contain freshly manufactured concentrates. Instead, Carl’s one-ton rated truck would be used to return a similar freshly-painted barrel containing mostly cheap kerosene spiked with a small volume of Agent Orange liquid to Gulfport’s Area-7 Agent Orange storage area.

All parties would appear to get what they had contracted for, sort of. Navy officials would witness a contractor leaving with a leaking barrel secured in a hoist-and-berm equipped truck followed by lateafternoon return of a secure barrel, one presumably full of the original barrel’s contents.

Having spent nearly the entire Vietnam war era (1959-75) performing stateside reserve duties following an earlier stint at the

Norfolk naval supply center (1955-59), Eagerly discounted reports describing illnesses and injuries arising among Vietnam war veterans, preferring to believe herbicides only disturbed plantspecific pathways.

Bob Eagerly reasoned his older brother would have no problem stenciling a second secure barrel as containing fresh herbicidal concentrate from Spencer Chemicals even its contents had just been funneled out of a Gulfport barrel. Certainly, given his status as an assistant purchasing agent, he foresaw no difficulties in procuring herbicidal products from the shell, E-A-G-E-R enterprises.

Furthermore, Trace – Ted, whatever his name was, just needed chemicals that worked. Once applied, what difference did it make if the concentrate originated somewhere else, nobody grew aboveground crops below the powerlines, the Gulfport Area-7 product would eliminate volunteer trees, kudzu and invasive honeysuckle as well as anything else.

RG Bob Eagerly left minor details to brother Carl’s attention, leaving him free to focus on ‘Big lick’ issues. Maybe Carl could even use paint strippers to wash to de-identify the leaking barrel’s origin before selling it as metal scrap. One detail remained, though, although one readily addressed by his petty officer background.

Three summers earlier, he had shadowed a SEABEE barrel-transfer technician, noting she used a color change reagent paper to verify barrels as containing Agent Orange. The female petty officer had volunteered the test had been designed to detect part-per-million concentrations of 2,4-D or 2,4,5-T, meaning it produced a positive result if Agent Orange chemicals were present. Presciently, petty officer Eagerly had asked her how it would respond to a kerosenefilled barrel spiked with a quart of Agent Orange. Having no idea why he asked the odd question, she laughed off Eager’s inquiry. ‘It would test positive of course.’ Appreciative of the information,

Eagerly invited her to lunch with him at the Hung Foo buffet in nearby Biloxi.

Technical issues resolved, he turned to financial matters. Carl’s redrumming fee would be set at eight hundred dollars per barrel while he reasoned he could provide TVA with a good price for fresh herbicide, twelve hundred dollars per barrel. The net result would be that he and Carl would collect two thousand dollars every time a Navy barrel sprang a leak, less rent payments and gas and oil for the hoist truck.

Regardless of whether he was listening through another boring ‘contract ethics’ lecture at headquarters or even chewing his way through another Summit street soup-and-salad, he returned to the ‘Big lick’s’ key feature, he and Carl would be paid to steal.

Only one item separated the Eagerly brothers moving to the ‘Big lick’s’ operational phase, a carefully precut sheet of poster board, otherwise known as a stencil. While he doubted the veracity of Eagerly’s claim that a hail-storm had erased stenciled identifiers on some Spencer-originated barrels, a Kansas City-based sales rep shoved three identical Spencer labels into a large padded mailer, dispatching them to TVA’s Summit street address, c/o RG Bob Eagerly, of course.

Three days later Eagerly visited the mailroom, asking if anything large with his name had arrived. Delighted, Eagerly impatiently pulled the stencils from the mailer and examined it as if he were a radiologist reviewing a chest film.

Herbicide – Butyl ester (2,4,-dichlorophenoxy acid)

Manufactured by Spencer Chemicals

(note) Distributor designation appears here

Eagerly wielded an exact-o blade as if a surgeon, adapting the stencils, curiously electing to add an address designation for Spencer Chemicals, perhaps for effect. Regardless, the adapted stencils appeared to be professionally done.

Herbicide – Butyl ester (2,4,-dichlorophenoxy acid)

Manufactured by Spencer Chemicals - Kansas City, Kansas Distributed by E-A-G-E-R Enterprises - Biloxi, Mississippi

Given difficulties surrounding identifying qualified vendors for barrel transfers, Gulfport Navy officials were delighted to receive a bid from a nearby Biloxi firm, shortly arranging a signing conference with ‘Carl Eggers,’ the E-A-G-E-R enterprises’ CEO.

Over the following fall and winter months E-A-G-E-R Enterprises responded to Navy calls for re-barreling assistance, dependably arriving in a chain hoist-equipped one-ton truck, shortly chainhoisting a leaking barrel into its berm-fitted bed. By Navy close-ofbusiness the truck’s driver returned a full non-leaking barrel.

By spring 1981

E-A-G-E-R Enterprises had transferred a dozen leaking barrels, an eight-hundred-dollar fee accompanying each transfer. As he liked to say, the TVA Eagerly ‘flexed’ some purchasing muscle on Summit street, purchasing all of them for further storage and distribution from a TVA Muscle Shoals warehouse.

The Muscle Shoals warehouse was state-of-the-art, one featuring automated materials handling systems, a great destination for both school and chamber of commerce tours. As its manager hosted a distributive education (DECA) class, he directed their attention toward the warehouse’s newly-installed chemical storage area, noting its berm - dike features could contain chemical spills.

Requesting questions, the manager was shocked by the DECA advisor’s comment. ‘I don’t know where you got those barrels but they didn’t originate with Spencer Chemicals. My father retired there after thirty years and their facilities were always located in Missouri, never in Kansas City, Kansas.

Two months following the DECA revelation, Carl Eggers arrived at Gulfport’s Area-7, shortly chain hoisting a leaking barrel before securing it and exiting the base Returning to his Biloxi-based metal building he didn’t appear to notice a panel truck parked alongside the railroad siding.

Inside the panel van two federal officers, ones equipped with telephoto lens cameras, recorded the driver’s activities. Because he was transferring toxic chemicals, the driver left the building’s overhead doors in the open position, providing good camera angles for the NCIS officers inside the panel van.

The truck’s driver shortly used the truck’s chain hoist to invert and place the leaking barrel in a wooden cradle arrangement positioned above a receiver barrel. Once cradled, he carefully unscrewed the barrel’s ‘bung-type’ opening, allowing its cap to fall into broad metal funnel atop a receiving barrel. The receiving barrel received most of the photographic attention. NCIS officers employ identically configured cameras to record dual images, in the event one camera fails . Dual images recorded the same result.

Herbicide – Butyl ester (2,4,-dichlorophenoxy acid)

Manufactured by Spencer Chemicals - Kansas City, Kansas Distributed by E-A-G-E-R Enterprises - Biloxi, Mississippi

The driver’s efforts on behalf of the leaking Agent Orange barrel transfer were complete. Rather than loading the receiving barrel, he backed the truck close to five unlabeled barrels and used its chain hoist to lift one of them into its bed. Given the slow, deliberate

nature of the motorized lift it appeared that barrel was likely full. With his truck loaded its driver then turned his attention to the receiving barrel.

Sufficient time had passed that telephoto images suggested the suspended barrel had mostly emptied. The driver shortly secured the Kansas City, Kansas-derived product’s bung, using a pallet jack to move the freshly loaded to the corner of the building where it joined five identically-labeled companions The driver then hoisted an unrelated barrel onto the truck’s bed and pulled outside where he examined his surroundings before double-padlocking the metal building’s wide doors.

As often the case for white-collar crimes, federal prosecutors privately named their case against the Eagerly brothers. Rather than ‘Big lick,’ they labeled their prosecutorial efforts as ‘Big suck.’ Multiple lines of evidence incriminated RG Eagerly, and to a lesser extent his older brother, Carl.

Meeting after meeting began with the same prosecutorial question: ‘So, you’re saying someone removed hazardous leaking wastes from a government facility ahead of repackaging them in fresh containers and successfully selling them to another government agency.’ Prosecutorial teams found it in the government’s interest to avoid a jury trial or publicity-generating events that might expose an embarrassing incident.

Nearly eight weeks were necessary for investigators from four agencies including the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the TVA inspector general, USEPA’s criminal crimes unit and the Alabama Department of Environment to assemble their respective cases.

On a bright May day federal officials arrived at the metal building, shortly taking Carl Eagerly into custody. While Carl requested a

phone call to Knoxville, that request was denied. RG Bob Eagerly was similarly apprehended by an undercover officer waiting for Eagerly to pay for his soup-and-sandwich at a Knoxville lunch counter, comically suggesting to a street person as they took frontcuffed Eagerly to the car, that there was a soup-and-sandwich inside for him.

Multiple layers of explanations were required to explain a crime in which the Eagerly siblings replaced barrels of expired Agent Orange chemicals with low-toxicity kerosene and then sold dangerous chemicals to an unsuspecting TVA. The environmental crimes unit debated the likelihood of a conviction given intent issues but were relieved dangerous chemicals had been recovered prior to use.

Whether from fear or due to a limited understanding, Carl Eagerly could not provide a logical account of their activities. Bob Eagerly was placed on administrative TVA leave before being fired and was similarly separated from the naval reserve.

Early in the Eagerly affair Clearnet let Trace know he was taking over Eagerly’s purchasing assignments, adding that Trace should identify a vendor prepared to supply a dozen replacement herbicide barrels for Muscle Shoals, oddly specified that the vendor list would not include any version of Kansas City’s Spencer Chemicals. Finding Clearnet’s message cryptic but important, Trace visited the TVA credit union to learn Eagerly was in jail.

Whether due to Eagerly-initiated embarrassments or Reagan-era contract fervor, enthusiasm surrounding TVA’s Fairway herbicide initiative waned. Clearnet phoned Trace one evening as the latter stretched out in a Nashville Best Western, informing him that TVA was contracting out its herbicide management program, that Trace could exercise re-employment rights by interviewing for one of several open NFDC positions.

So that was it, no more King Air rides, no more Truckster tours nor Hung Foo lunches, no more Eagerly, no more job. Lacking further agency ambitions, Trace considered university-based options.

Florence redux

Chapter 16

The pace of science teaching doesn’t share rhythms with general industry. Following days, sometimes weeks, reviewing research reports, textbooks and monographs, professors ‘return the favor,’ condensing massive quantities of data into fifty-minute lectures. But by about ten thirty, excepting a few high-end obsessive compulsives, professor types often sag under the weight of specialized topics presented to mildly interested audiences. Weary of ‘board work,’ science profs migrate back to their offices where stacks of student papers await grading. While chemistry professors may be in a privileged intellectual position to aid their industrial counterparts, these rhythmic disparities often account for why they don’t.

Weeks earlier Trace had sought technical assistance from a nonrock-and roll, Jackson Brown. Chemist, not musician, Jackson Brown possessed expertise in organic chemistry and was also selftaught in occupational and environmental health fields. Trace’s previous collaborations with Brown had been limited to occasions mostly paid exercises the latter verified the composition of herbicidal mixtures Trace proposed to use. Released from TVA and less than enthusiastic about joining NFDC Trace sought Brown’s counsel.

Trace explained why he was there. ‘The agency has moved management of its Fairways herbicide management program to contract-only status, effectively ending my role in TVA’s Office of Power.’

Anticipating he might see the likeable Virginia Tech graduate again, Brown had saved a Time-Daily article, one he believed Trace needed to see. In chemist-to-chemist style, Brown produced the

clipping from a desk drawer, sliding it across the desk toward his visitor.

Eagerly Siblings Held in Agent Orange Removal Case

(© Knoxville News Leader). Two siblings, Robert Grant and Carl Eugene Eagerly were apprehended Tuesday by officers from three federal law enforcement agencies plus Alabama and Tennessee officers. While details regarding the brothers’ criminal activities are sketchy, both men face charges of attempting to sell the Tennessee Valley Authority expired barrels of Agent Orange taken from Gulfport’s naval base. Younger Robert Grant (known locally as ‘Bob’) Eagerly entered a nolo contendere plea before a federal magistrate. Authorities indicate they are finalizing charges for his older brother, Carl Eugene Eagerly.

Trace provided a two-word response. ‘Eagerly again.’ Jackson Brown solicited no additional comments but moved to a new topic by asking a question. ‘How much do you know about the Florencebased Steiner Stone firm or its CEO, Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Steiner.’

Trace stayed within bounds. ‘Beyond seeing their trucks and occasionally passing by one their Steiner cement plants, not much.’

Jackson Brown quickly expanded Trace’s knowledge. ‘Steiner is a generational construction company, meaning they have quarried stone and produced cement and concrete longer than nearly anyone else in the Tennessee valley. We’ve performed their routine phosphate and nitrate determinations for years but Betsy appeared here two weeks ago with a fresh initiative, one requiring chemical analyses and air pollution-type stack sampling expertise.’

‘The scope of her proposed project is significant, enough to support a salary. I’d like to move on this, though, before Betsy drives or perhaps flies a Spearman biplane she owns, to Tuscaloosa or

Auburn seeking labs and consultants. You may know, she also enjoys a considerable reputation as a WASP pilot.’

Trace’s response was measured but positive. ‘That sounds interesting, are there papers I could read regarding Steiner’s needs?’

‘Yes, I’ll loan you the preliminary data she shared, most of which appears to derived from a Cincinnati-based rotary kiln demonstration project.’

Sensing buy-in, Brown continued. ‘There’s a secondary issue. Steiner proposes to retrofit one or more rotary kiln cement plants to accept Pozzolan-adapted fly ash, meaning they’ll embed a concrete strengthener in cement while also feeding Haz-waste liquids into their burners, thereby destroying toxic liquids and boosting the feed line’s BTU-content.’

Trace distilled. ‘Steiner will be paid to accept both fly ash and Hazwaste liquids, incorporating both in cement.’

‘Yes, but EPA regulators in Atlanta, and others in Birmingham and Montgomery, will want to make sure the wastes are consumed, not emitted or redistributed.’

‘So, what’ll it be Mr. Trace, sound like something you’d like to do?’

Method 5

Chapter 17

While arranging emissions testing might have seemed a poor career move for a budding agronomist, Jackson Brown and the Steiner-funded project proved to be a good fit. Past completing new-hire forms, Trace familiarized himself with a multi-component emissions testing apparatus commercially termed an R-A-C emissions package (early manufacturer of stack sampling equipment).

Anticipating he and Trace needed R-A-C-applicable drills, Prof Brown arranged for the facility engineers to create screw-type or bung-type openings in an exhaust duct, creating a location where they could practice moving the R-A-C device’s probe in-and-out of the stack at measured distances while adjusting the device’s extraction rate to match the stack’s velocity.

But however important the Steiner project, Prof Brown was often called away, teaching responsibilities standing at the head of that line. Trace even filled-in a couple of times for his boss when Jackson presented out-of-town seminars, mainly proctoring examinations or answering students’ softball questions.

Trace drove to Blacksburg to attend a Virginia Tech engineering seminar devoted to stack sampling, mainly devoted to calibrating and operating the R-A-C equipment. Seminar speakers’ repeated references to ‘on-the-fly’ measurements sounded almost aviationlike.

The fact the course didn’t conclude until late on Friday afternoon, allowed Trace to Friday night at Peg’s flat before renewing College

Inn friendships and departing Blacksburg in his car the following morning. . While he had two days to drive back to Florence ahead Monday work meeting, he hoped to at least clear the mountains by Saturday evening Reaching Knoxville late that afternoon, he pushed on, arriving in Florence past midnight.

That Monday he outlined what he had learned, emphasizing the ‘on-the-fly’ nature of the measurements. As Trace shared with Jackson, the challenge would be one of operating a delicate piece of sampling gear, the R-A-C sampler, in harsh field conditions.

Brown interrupted the flow of Trace’s comments. ‘And speaking of challenges, here comes somebody who knows a lot about that topic, Ms. Betsy Steiner.’

Trace could have mistaken the woman heading for Jackson’s office as an airline pilot or perhaps a retired female military officer, well those descriptions did apply. Trace’s initial impression arose mostly from piercing blue eyes accompanied by a warm smile. ‘I’ve heard many good things and couldn’t wait to come here today to meet you, Trace.’

Although embarrassed by the attention, Trace returned in-kind. ‘Thank you but the pleasure is all mine.’

Prof Jackson turned the discussion over to Trace who outlined that he was freshly back from a good seminar at Virginia Tech, one applicable to, as he put it, Ms. Steiner’s emissions testing project.’

Trace focused on the permitting challenge. ‘Prof Brown and I have put together a demonstration of what we propose to do at your Decatur test site. I’d love to show you more.’

Trace highlighted the R-A-C test equipment’s features, particularly emphasizing those involving its control panel when Jackson

encouraged him to describe more about the device’s sampling probe as opposed to its control elements, maybe even demonstrate its Pitot tube.

‘The sampling probe removes air containing particles that we collect and analyze via a filter while the glass vessels or impingers collect gases. The probe’s Pitot tube measures both static and velocity pressures, the latter corresponds to air velocity.

Trace was shocked by newly-introduced Betsy’s response. ‘Oh yes, the reliable Pitot tube. I’ve flown thousands of hours relying on that clever gadget, as it estimated the plane’s airspeed.’

Brown solicited their sponsor’s help in developing a project timeline. ‘How far along are they at Decatur with the modifications, knowing that will help us schedule your emissions test.’

‘Our engineers are collaborating with the consulting engineer-sales people to adapt our fuel feed lines to accept Haz-waste liquid feeds, they should finish doing that in perhaps two weeks. We’ve also identified ash in Kingston Tennessee that we want to use for the test.’

While Betsy was known for her brevity, she shortly introduced a sidebar issue. ‘I’m not sure who wants our permit more, TVA or us, expense isn’t the sole driver, both of us want to see waste inventories reduced.’

Trace spoke to a technical issue. ‘We’d like for the tested liquid feeds to be intermediate BTU-producers, otherwise we’ll likely struggle to coordinate our sampling plan with up/down temperatures and outputs.’

Betsy nodded, adding. ‘The Decatur kiln is certainly a hot one, it surface temperatures push 2000 degrees F, 1600 degrees F at itscore.

My Cincinnati contacts say that’s comparable to their conditions and should work for us, too.’

Prof Brown followed. ‘Trace and I will generate a pre-sampling plan for the regulators. Once the test is complete and results submitted, we’ll return here to discuss additional sites and testing plans for Haz-waste-to-concrete conversions.’

Betsy got to specifics. ‘So, win, lose or draw, based on the Virginia Tech info and more, eventually this is a million-dollar pass-fail exercise?’

Here came Trace. ‘That’s essentially it. EPA Method Five testing means we move the probe in-and-out of the stack while the regulators strain their necks to see what’s going on up there. Make sure the plant guys have coffee made, that may be the deciding factor.’

‘We’ve spent most of a million dollars to adapt Decatur to accept the waste feeds Our reasons for seeking the permit are not only monetary. I’ve visited the Emelle landfill site and would like for Alabama to represent more than a national Haz-waste storage site. The Valley is a special place and I’d like to help keep it that way, my people have been here for one hundred years.’

.

While it’s unlikely Henri Pitot (1695-1771) foresaw either the aviation of air emissions testing applications possible for his special metal tube, Pitot’s invention formed the basis for dozens, maybe hundreds of similarly configured velocity-measuring devices.

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), an energetic inventor-clergyman is credited with the discovery of elemental oxygen. In the age of coal and, more specifically coal mining, concern arose not only from a mine-based shortfall of oxygen but from the presence toxic gases there as well.

By the late 19th century, Louis Orsat (1837-89) pioneered a curious rubber-tubed glass (buret) device useful to mining engineers charged with estimating oxygen concentrations, Orsat’s analyzer was equally applicable to carbon monoxide and dioxide determinations.

World war II maritime navigational advances necessitated sturdy steel drawer assemblies accommodating quick changes outs of electronic gear, meaning one set of malfunctioning electronics could be quickly replaced by another. The replaceable drawer concept crossed over to air pollution engineering and was reflected in the R-A-C sampler Trace and Jackson proposed to use. EPA’s Method Five, one applicable to estimating particle concentrations, relied upon a a complicated drawer assembly. within a sampling train (chain of air collecting components).

On a warm June 1980 Tuesday, a dozen pick-up trucks and cars, recent visitors to the Decatur cement plant, monopolized its gravelsurfaced parking spaces, a khaki-hued Studebaker Lark numbered among the first to arrive.

In early May that year Betsy called-in a favor from David S. Freeman, chair of the TVA board of directors, suggesting his agency as a source of Pozzolan-quality fly ash (Pozzol-i rhymes with Napol-i, villages).

Betsy similarly contacted an Avenger field classmate, one managing a North Carolina-based military aviation rework facility, about a shipment of waste hydrocarbon-based solvents. Her classmate, and former WASP pilot, was delighted to help Single-engine Bets while also freeing up space in one of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point’s spent solvent tanks.

On a warm June test date Tuesday, the R-A-C stack sampler hung from a permanent I-beam high above the ground at SteinerDecatur. A near-sighted observer might have wondered why the cement plant was flying a green flag from it stack. That stack had been modified by the addition of a drawer-supporting I-beam, from which the sampling probe and associated impinger – filter box hung, both umbilical-ed to a control box five feet below, one that presently had Trace’s complete attention.

Nearly a year had passed since Betsy’s meeting with Congressman Tom Bevill, similarly three months had passed since Trace had joined Brown’s lab. Per instructions from regulators, Trace would monitor air emissions beginning at nine, concluding at two pm, creating an air pollution-relevant record of what occurred during that five-hour cement-producing span.

A single, oddly named feature of his sampling efforts would determine success or perhaps failure that term being ‘isokineticity,’ basically a comparison of the stack’ velocity and Trace’s ability to match that velocity in terms of the sampling device.

The pass-fail criteria were strict, he either produced a result that fell within plus-or-minus five percent of the stack’s possibly modulating velocity or their efforts would be judged as unsuccessful. As a matter of comparison most laboratory-derived results struggle to achieve plus-minus three percent precisions but are not derived from dusty days hanging on the side of a stack with delicate sampling gear.

Across morning, the cement plant’s operator occasionally relinquished controls long enough to consult with Trace regarding the match between concrete production and Trace’s monitoring efforts. Even during these brief conversations Trace’s eyes focused the sampler’s control panel. ‘On-the-fly’ was a good description of his efforts.

Regulators mainly took notes, spoke to one another or watched Trace. When he secured the sampler just after two pm and climbed down, he passed his clipboard calculations to an EPA compliance who used a Polaroid camera to photograph its data sheets, effectively eliminating any possibility of someone altering data.

Standing by his car, Trace used a Texas Instruments calculator to quickly perform a series of calculations confirming they had met the plus-minus five percent requirement. Only one task remained, one of placing the R-A-C sampling equipment in the Lark’s back seat area. The sampling train and two metal drawer devices fit well there. Trace removed the car’s bottom seat cushion to use it as a brace just ahead of the delicate equipment.

Betsy offered an aviation-applicable compliment. ‘Seeing that Pitot tube attached to the sampling probe brought back a flood of memories. Pitot’s haven’t failed me; I don’t think yours will either. adding. ‘In my world, you earned your wings today, Trace.’

The Lark proved no match for a hot rod Hudson as both were piloted toward Florence, Alabama.

Ladder Climbs

Chapter 18

Steiner’s interconnected air pollution controls must have worked well on test day, although the plant’s cement output was thirty percent lower than normal, giving regulators pause for concern.

Across the 1980’s EPA regulators were known to listen with both ‘ears,’ meaning they remained attentive to mixed viewpoints. In the case of the Steiner – Decatur, it turned out plant emissions wasn’t the environmentalists’ principal concern, instead Haz-waste transportation issue occupied their attention.

By 1981 TVA planned to decommission its coal-burning Kingston, Tennessee plant while nearly simultaneously commissioning a more powerful nuclear-fueled facility at nearby Watts Bar, Tennessee. While carbon dioxide and acid gas emissions would dissipate when Kingston’s burners went cold, the same wasn’t true for coal ash wastes there, some of it near the banks of the Emory river.

Under David S. Freeman’s leadership (1977-84) TVA sought nuclear energy expansions, planning to commission perhaps as many as twenty reactors at seven locations. But the last thing the agency wanted was a legacy surrounding permanently stored fly ash.

Environmentalists had speculated that a Kingston-based berm breach could send millions of cubic yards of toxic fly ash into the Emory river.

Freeman, TVA’s chairman, personally phoned Betsy to congratulate her, jokingly inquiring when he would learn of similar permitting successes at Steiner facilities in Tennessee. Thanking him for his interest, Betsy suggested his calls to Tennessee Senator Howard Baker or even to its Congressman, Al Gore, would be helpful to Steiner.

Following the Independence Day 1981 and another St. Florian hog roast, Jackson Brown convened a lessons-learned panel to discuss the Decatur – Steiner permitting test. Panelists included Trace, Betsy, Brown and a female history professor who had called, wanting to meet WASP pilot, the next time she was on campus.

Betsy listened as Trace summarized both their sampling strategy and related analytical results, ones applicable to the mass of particles emitted each hour, plus some destruction efficiencies for the liquid waste. The presentation was short, maybe seven minutes, after which Prof Brown asked if there were questions.

Betsy responded. ‘We’ll add these results to some financial disclosure information we’ve assembled. forwarding both to EPA Region Four; we have some ideas regarding similar Tennesseebased conversions.’ Betsy moved the agenda to transportation.

‘We need to highlight the local need for chemical waste recycling, particularly given Olin Corporation’s presence in Huntsville.’

As the meeting concluded, the history professor introduced herself to a Betsy, asking her if she would autograph a book, one describing contributions of WASP pilots. The two women sat for a while and chatted.

Solvent Foes

Chapter 19

The open purchase feature surrounding the Steiner work created an atmosphere in which the laboratory continuously analyzed Steineroriginated samples via both chromatographic (creates separations) or spectrophotometric (recordable color-like changes) means. The arrival of the mail runner at the laboratory about two pm each day created a near Christmas eve-like package opening session, albeit of a chemical nature.

Jackson Brown sought laboratory independence, meaning Steiner should not be its sole client, using bully pulpit marketing techniques to seek additional clients, frequently presenting papers, and accepting speaking engagements

The origins of Robert Fink’s interest in a small environmental lab one hundred miles from Birmingham possibly originated in the ‘alcohol-blinding’ James Perkins case. A more careful historian, however, might have reviewed Fink’s background back to his Chicago years when he sought out the counsel of Louis Gdalman, RPh and Eleanor Berman, PhD, individuals with backgrounds very different than his, making them particularly valuable to him.

Regardless, Fink phoned Prof Brown to schedule an August 1981 road trip, one in which they could discuss a clinical matter he wanted to describe in person. Fink’s call concluded with the standard physician-initiated travel question. ‘What’s it take doorto-door to reach there?’

Fink arrived mid-day and, as promised, had brought a deli tray featuring three identical corned beef-on-rye sandwiches. Past a quick tour of the lab and survey of its capabilities, Fink, Prof

Brown and Trace sat down to learn more about the reason for Fink’s two-hour car trip to Florence, Alabama.

He outlined what he described as a series of forty peripheral neuropathy cases, ones that he believed possessed origins beyond more common metabolic or infectious origins. According to Fink, the consequences of the illnesses were severe, beyond tingling and lack of sensation, chronic intractable pain, decrements in vision and hearing and possibly even death

Fink’s suspicions regarding chemical origins originated with a concerned spouse who had insisted on bringing an unlabeled can of solvent to clinic, insisting her husband’s illness had followed its use for what she described as ‘cleaning avionics.’

While Fink indicated he found the solvent link interesting, further attempts on his part to reconcile solvent use with likely exposures had been largely unsuccessful. He had apparently identified a specialty laboratory, one located near Philadelphia, to identify the can’s contents, noting the lab had indicated it contained a solvent, one frequently used to remove grease or varnish-like residues.

Prof Brown interrupted. ‘Does the solvent have a name?’

Fink provided a one-word answer. ‘Hexane, hexane, that’s what the National Medical Lab chemists claims it contained. So, I’ve come here enlisting your help in identifying possible chemical origins for these cases.’

Fink then turned to geography. ‘These patients mostly originate in rural locations, not many are from cities. Most report either being unemployed or performing what they term ‘odd jobs,’ the exception being two living near Nashville who claim to have been previously employed as aviation mechanics.’

Prof Brown interjected. We’re well aware of the Willow Grove, Pennsylvania laboratory, they perform GC – Mass Spec work-up’s similar to what we do here, although our clients are more interested in Haz-waste matters than blood-and-urine monitoring. Say, Doc, Florence is a lot closer than Philly’s Willow Grove.’

Reaching for a sales valise, Fink extracted a sheaf of lab reports and clinical summaries, shortly proposing a plan. ‘Keep track of your time and give me a call after you’ve reviewed the National Medical Lab reports and these patient summaries. Both your expertise and location put you in the right place, maybe we can work together to prevent some future neuropathies.’

The oddly-named GC – Mass Spec term derived from a more complete, although harder to recall, gas chromatography – mass spectrometry expression. During the early 20th century at least three Nobel awards and perhaps a knighting owe origins to a chain of discoveries underpinning its chromatographic and charge-tomass based development.

The hyphenated term possesses a distinctly upper Midwest flavor, appropriate since key features of its development occurred in Midland, Michigan, home of Dow Chemical. In the right hands, GC – Mass Spec is powerful, one capable of shining new light on chemical identities and concentrations.

Fink’s proximate departure was announced by the distinctive sound produced when two case-closing metal staples are fed into matching valise hasps. Beyond Fink’s success in recruiting a panel of supporting chemists, Prof Brown had gotten something he needed, too, a second major client for their lab.

Dr. Fink checked his car’s gas gauge before departing Florence, a mainstream southern community, wary of refueling at out-of-theway gas stations, recalling the words of a Morehouse mentor.

‘Doctors drive Buicks, dependable cars that rarely fail. AfricanAmerican doctors drive three-year old Buicks because they attract even less attention.’

After the Shell ‘full service’ attendant topped-off the LeSabre’s twenty-six-gallon tank, Fink handed him a twenty-dollar bill for an eighteen-dollar purchase.

Smiling, Dr. Fink completed the transaction. ‘Just keep the change.’

Flight plans

Chapter 20

If enthusiasm were marketable, the Brown –Ballew team would have been rich. Every aspect of Haz-waste-to-concrete expansions necessitated additional analyses, revenues, too. But while the Brown –Ballew lab load had increased, so had Betsy Steiner’s worry list. What about the record-keeping and storage issues surrounding accepting another firm’s Haz-wastes. Furthermore, how was Steiner supposed to respond if regulators withdrew their Haz-waste-to-concrete permit, reverse ship mini-mountains of tarped fly ash back to TVA? Even worse, attempt to return threehundred-gallon liquid-waste-filled carboys?

In late 1981 Trace was joined in the Jackson Brown laboratory by a newly-recruited female graduate who liked to be called Kyle, she had previously worked in the Cleveland Clinic’s esteemed lab. While a newcomer to the mid-South, Kyle was a huge fan of rockand-roll, where better to live and work than near Rick Hall’s appropriately-named, Fame Studio.’

Betsy Steiner co-signed a note permitting Brown to expand the lab’s metals analysis capacity, appropriate for a team analyzing fly ash. The expansion meant Kyle could abandon tedious one-at-a-time analyses in favor of a multi-element technique described by a long name. Given few could recall its designation, and even fewer could

spell it, I-C-P won out over inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy.

Trace and Prof Brown analyzed urine and blood specimens originating in Fink’s neuropathic patients, searching along a neurotoxic trail, although few associations emerged and even fewer suggestions of causality perhaps accounting for Fink’s increasingly anxious calls, at times suggesting Trace should go on the road to investigate further.

Prof Brown asked Trace what he thought of Fink’s visit proposal, causing Trace to review a similarly unsuccessful attempt to travel across all twelve TVA sectors in search of weed management insights. Fink or TVA, it always came down to trips across a TVA service area containing eighty thousand square miles.

Sensing a lack of direction, Prof Brown scheduled a Thursday conference call with their Birmingham physician friend, one in which they could agree on the scope of work. Fink led off by affirming his interests in the hexane exposure piece.

Seeking higher ground, Prof Brown proposed that he and Trace would put a sampling plan and expense estimate to support what he termed selected or representative visits. Fink softened, thanking his collaborators for their efforts before hanging up, leaving Trace and Brown only a few minutes before a scheduled in-person meeting with Betsy Steiner.

True to reputation, she arrived a few minutes early but didn’t propose new agenda items, apparently content to listen to a discussion involving three laboratory specialists, Trace, Prof Brown and newly-introduced Kyle.

Excusing himself, Brown noted he and his wife were hosting a birthday party for their twelve-year-old daughter that afternoon.

Betsy laughed, jokingly asking what flavor. Kyle similarly excused herself, claiming she was needed to check on the I-C-P’s afternoon progress.

Trace and the former WASP pilot had developed a professional friendship. No doubt, the Decatur success helped but there was more. Learning of Trace’s shabby treatment across the final days of the TVA Fairways program allowed her to recall some similar misgivings at being unfairly terminated

Seeking aviation expertise, Trace sought Betsy’s counsel. ‘We have a medical client, Dr. Robert Fink at UAB, trying to link some air and skin exposures with what he describes as a series of neuropathies, one case of blindness, too. At times he has hinted his cases may have origins in aviation-maintenance, a field well outside our scope.’

Laughing, Betsy admitted that medical issues were well outside hers, too, but followed with a question. ‘Well, what sort of airports or even airfields is he talking about?’

Trace led. ‘His patients, and those of his medical colleagues, are mostly in Tennessee. Have you ever heard of Camp Tyson or the Cornelia Fort Airport? How about the Ft. Campbell’s Sky Drop or a field near Gillespie? When we tried to look these up, it appears they either don’t exist anymore or have a greatly reduced status.’

Betsy silently recalled occasions she and the chief pilot had performed touch-and-go’s and refueling stops at all four of the locations Trace described, his comments stirring memories stretching from Courtland to Avenger field.

Perhaps distracted, Betsy recalled an incident when a less than (<) air-savvy aviation candidate at Sweetwater had similarly petitioned her for help. Past lights-out that woman and Betsy had

reconfigured lockers and junk barracks furniture to resemble a Link trainer. With the other woman seated atop a pile of lockers, Betsy circled, redirecting broomstick-initiated maneuvers, similarly yanking and tugging at locker handles in a comical attempt to recreate dive, tilt and climb. The day dream dissolved with the image of < Air-Savvy at her right during inspection and review on the day of they received their wings.

One Engine Betsy had an idea. ‘Would it help you if we flew to some of the Tennessee airfields you mentioned. perhaps allow a few minutes at each for you to assess their environments and possibly even make a few measurements?’

Flummoxed by the offer, Trace settled on a one-word response. ‘Sure.’

Here came Betsy. ‘I don’t have prior commitments Saturday. Why don’t join me for a ride to Tennessee in a Stearman. We’ll meet at the Courtland air training facility. Right now, write down the names of the airfields you wish to visit so I can put a flight plan together.’

Heading east on US 72 that Saturday, Trace’s Lark was the final entry in a parade of trucks pulling boat trailers toward Wheeler lake. Pulling into the parking lot, he noted Betsy’s parked Hudson, halting his Lark alongside it.

Recognizing space would be an issue in the biplane, he had brought only a knapsack containing an apple, a notepad and a small direct-reading air gadget.

By the time Trace parked, Betsy had already filed a flight plan and was currently completing her pre-flight check. After waving him over, she agilely demonstrated a leg-up approach to boarding the biplane’s front seat. Seating herself behind Trace, she explained.

‘Our flight plan today heads toward Camp Tyson, a continuation to the Tennessee McConnell airfield and then back her to Courtland.’

One of many interesting Stearman-associated features is that while taxiing, its front seat affords a skyward view while the rear-seated pilot relies on mostly lateral views ahead of liftoff. Betsy handed Trace some insert-type ear plugs before they taxied out into a stiff breeze from the southwest

During takeoff Betsy called on the Stearman’s radial engine for all of its two hundred horse power, placing them shortly comfortably above both power lines and trees. While Trace’s TVA year afforded travel opportunities, those experiences waned in comparison to the raw, gritty experience of flying in a 95 knot (100 mph) biplane, noting observers waving at them from the ground below, ones perhaps knowledgeable regarding the Spearman’s role in training combat pilots or others recognizing north Alabama’s WASP.

A north-by-northwest flight plan from Courtland skirted larger towns, instead they flew above both Collinwood and Waynesboro, Tennessee, ahead of a planned landing at the small Camp Tyson airport where Betsy flew the Stearman all the way onto the runway, choosing a taildragger wheel-type landing as opposed to a stall.

Taxiing to a stop near a steel hangar outbuilding, they waved to a male who straightened from a truck’s engine compartment. Returning the wave, the truck’s mechanic motioned them over. Perhaps anticipating gusts, Betsy secured the biplane before they joined Camp Tyson’s mechanic.

Past morning greetings, newly-introduced Ralph suggested coffee, directing them into a hangar where a glowing red light announced a fresh product. Handing a Styrofoam cup to Betsy, he passed an

identical one to Trace before retrieving his personal mug from a hook.

Camp Tyson’s hangars hosted two Cessna’s and one other plane. Trace chose not to explore solvent issues with Ralph, preferring instead to listen to the exchange between the pilots.

Ralph explained he owned the third airplane, an Aero Commander. Trace found Betsy’s offer to purchase a spare seat obviously removed from the Aero Commander peculiar. Ralph declined the offer, explaining he planned to reinstall the seat before the Aero Commander’s next inspection.

Betsy thanked him for the coffee and the conversation before suggesting they were departing. Ralph concurred, predicting gusty cross winds later. Once in the air Betsy plotted a new course nearly due east, part of a seventy-five-mile aerial journey to Tennessee’s mostly abandoned McConnell field, one located near Nashville. While its support elements had been abandoned, the airfield featured an east-west landing trip, a worn wind sock suggesting a light west-to-east breeze, otherwise no one would likely welcome them there.

Shouting above engine noise, Betsy informed Trace her initial approach would not be to land but to estimate landing conditions, and that they would re-circle the field ahead of a landing. This one featuring a neat three-point stall inches above the runway’s surface. Taxiing toward the hangar and parking area, Betsy instructed Trace remain in his ‘belt’ until the propellor blades had halted.

Climbing down, they walked toward an obviously unoccupied hangar-office building. No hot coffee awaited, instead they repurposed an outdoor smoking area as a lunch site, splitting a Trowbridge-prepared chicken salad sandwich and an envelope of Golden Flake potato chips.

Trace sat on an ancient appearing, although surprisingly lightweight aluminum chair, while Betsy picked a cushioned armless chair, one likely extracted from a private aircraft requiring more space.

Betsy inquired whether Trace had enjoyed himself so far, further questions regarding any aviation ambitions he might possess, suggesting his knowledge of Pitot tubes and air velocities could enable that process. The Pitot reference possibly refocused attention on the day’s mission, Fink’s aviation maintenance concerns.

Betsy explored. ‘Did you notice the extracted Aero-Commander seat at Camp Tyson, the one I proposed buying? Here again, we’re seeing these surplus-ed aircraft seats, including the one presently accommodating me.’

Trace was obviously puzzled by her comments. ‘But what do surplus-ed aircraft seats have to do with solvent exposures?

Short of a tease, Betsy threw him a lifeline. ‘Where do you think the aluminum chair you are seated in originated?’

Shaking his head, Trace remained silent before Betsy made a suggestion. ‘Turn it upside down and examine its underside.’

Doing so, Trace read a series of letters and numbers aloud.

BUSHIPS – U.S. NAVY – DD-876

‘So that would make it a surplus-ed property item, one possibly removed from a naval vessel, likely a destroyer one possessing an 8-7-6 hull number.’

Trace reached out for a more conclusionary lifeline. ‘Ok, I believe I see where you’re going with the military surplus thing, but I still don’t see how the Navy figures in aircraft-related solvent

Betsy patted her surplus-ed aviation seat. ‘How about this one, where did it originate.’ She promptly answered her own question.

‘This seat and also Ralph’s Aero-Commander seat likely originated in passenger aircraft being modified for longer flights.’

Here came Betsy. ‘One of the main reasons private aircraft are being modified is to support longer south of the border flights, ones favored by drug traffickers, Cocaine Cowboys as they apparently like to be called.’

Trace still struggled. ‘So, you believe seat replacements have something to do the solvent exposures?’

‘Not directly, but solvent use is integral to fuel tank modifications. Whether at Camp Tyson or McConnell, fuel tank modifiers could be using the hexane Dr. Fink is interested in. These kinds of Cocaine Cowboy modifications are being performed in environments lacking air exhausters, personal protection or PPE, ones certainly lacking gloves or protective suits. While a few aircraft mechanics may be willing to break the law or even risk arrest, they remain sticklers regarding protocols. If hexane is listed as the cleaning solvent, then hexane it is, possibly connecting Camp Tyson with McConnell here, or even Soddy-Daisy for that matter.’

Trace tried to connect the dots. ‘But even if that were true, how could I test environments in the modified airplanes, they’re long gone?’

Apparently, Betsy believed a question deserved another one. ‘But where did the displaced tank go, likely to the same ‘home’ as the seat discards. One more feature, though, mechanics ‘prep’ the

removed tank in the same way they do the larger installed tank, using the same solvent. Just like our new friend Ralph, they anticipate re-installing the smaller tank when they leave the drug trade.’

Betsy got to the punch line. ‘Trace, let’s fly the Yellow Peril back to Courtland, I believe you’ll find surplus-ed tanks you can test there.’

That was the first, but not the last time, Trace heard her refer to her biplane using that curious term.

Bone yard blues Chapter 22

Betsy landed the Spearman at Courtland field as daylight faded on a sparkling fall day. For Trace the flying excursion provided a fresh opportunity to review Tennessee Valley landscapes without Clearnet or Eagerly tagging along. And what about the great leads Betsy provided regarding Dr. Fink’s issues. For Betsy the day trip had also been a welcome respite, time away from the office certainly.

No dogs guarded the Courtland aviation scrap area, one secured by a chain link fence, mostly used to support an inventory of the Bone Yard’s T-6 aluminum scrap ahead of a periodic load taken to a Decatur metals recycler. While scraped aluminum receipts were modest, they funded the office coffee ‘mess’ and purchased holiday turkeys for some of the airfield’s less prosperous neighbors.

While unspoken, Betsy possessed her own ideas regarding a possible for role aviation fuel (also called Avgas) in Fink’s neuropathy cases Although locals occasionally ‘pinched’ Avgas from airfield pumps, she was not aware of illnesses, only infrequent arrests. Following Trace’s shared interest in the Fink cases, she had phoned a Northrup Grumman executive, inquiring whether they had experienced similar illnesses in their giant Atlanta-based facility, one employing more than a thousand workers. While < Air Savvy was happy to hear from her,

her sister WASP denied hexane-based toxicity problems on a corporate level there in Atlanta.

After assisting with hangar-ing the Stearman, the Courtland airport manager asked if she needed anything else, the lead-in she needed. ‘Could you let my friend and me in the Bone Yard. He’d like to perform some testing on an auxiliary fuel tank I noticed there , we promise to return it tank when he’s done.’

Chuckling, the volunteer manager joked. ‘I didn’t know Steiner Concrete wanted in the metals recycling market. Tossing her the Bone Yard key, he sealed the deal. ‘Just throw the key on my desk when you leave, the office door locks itself.’

Amidst expired aviation grade rivets and fasteners, along with assorted avionics junk, Betsy tugged at an auxiliary fuel tank, trapped under a heavy brake assembly. Trace helped her free the tank which the two of them hoisted onto a metal shelf, finding nothing physically unusual about it.

Anticipating some measurements during the fly-in, Trace had brought a hand-held concentration-measuring device, one usually known by its spectroscopy-adapted identifier, HNU (pronounces as H-new, Planck’s constant). While not well suited for determining individual concentrations of chemicals, its manufacturers touted its use as a quick check of ‘total’ concentrations.

Past the HNU’s stabilization phase, Trace verified that the airfield wasn’t a unique source of heightened Avgas concentrations. Given their Spearman had been the only plane landing recently the device read essentially zero until Betsy cracked open the auxiliary tank. The HNU’s digital light panel cascaded through steadily increasing digits.

Trace shared. ‘The HNU doesn’t uniquely measure hexane but when I attach this pre-filter gadget, it does a better at producing a hexane-only reading, not the best Tri-Corder but what we’ve got for now.’

The pre-filter equipped HNU produced much lower readings but never returned to baseline. Tiring of knowing ‘more’ but not ‘enough,’ Trace turned the device off, returning it to his knapsack. Similar to their strategy with the heavy R-A-C drawers Trace and Betsy carefully lodged the fuel tank in the Lark’ rear set, again removing its bottom seat, using it as a soft wedge to squeeze the tank ahead of the seat back.

Before departing, Trace outlined steps to follow. ‘Prof Brown and I have some tricks up our sleeves via his GC-Mass Spec, ones that will allow us to estimate air concentrations of pure hexane, the solvent Dr. Fink wants to know more about.’

Continuing, he outlined Monday’s lab schedule. ‘We’ll park a fuel tank-originated sample behind other determinations during Monday’s ‘run ’ Thanks for a great day flying and even more for your insights. I’m sure Dr. Fink will be similarly appreciative.’

Betsy returned to aviation roots, instructing Trace to make sure he left the Lark’s back windows open, lest his driving be affected by ‘fumes’ as she termed them. ‘Once an aviator, always an aviator.’

It was late Monday afternoon by the time the Courtland-derived charcoal tube-derived tank specimens made their way to the GC-Mass Spec’s’ load position. The resulting chromatogram (answer sheet) achieved baseline separation separating hexane from other chemical components but the sample was too concentrated to yield a quantifiable estimate. Noting same, powerful GC – Mass Spec technology automatically performed an adjustment that placed a second diluted sample on scale.

While selection of an analytical method or even the choice of the Courtland fuel tank specimen could always be questioned, the result was clear, any unprotected person breathing in the vicinity of the tank could have been exposed to a neurotoxic hydrocarbon.

While hardly publication-ready, Trace and Betsy’s findings prompted Dr. Fink to prepare a series of public health advisories that were not

only read by medical audiences but attracted media attention, too. Perhaps Fink’s selection of ‘Cocaine cowboys are killing their customers with more than dope’ broadened their impacts.

UAB-based Fink never used the term ‘medical research’ in the advisories, well aware of ethical breaches attending Tuskegee infectious disease protocols (1932-72).

In Chicago, seventy-one-year-old Louis Gdalman and Kathryn, caught a page three Tribune by-line, ‘UAB’s Fink Chases Cocaine Cowboy Air Mechanics.’ Louis posted amental note to obtain an article reprint, concluding as well that he owed Bob a call.’

Postscript: Kirk v. Tennessee Valley Authority

December 2001

Chapter 22

Birmingham Alabama’s Hugo Black Courthouse custodial staff possibly deserved as much credit for the building’s appearance as its designers. Past close each evening, its custodians removed trace soiling left by buildings occupants, trading smudges, finger prints and shoe scuffs for shiny surfaces. In early December, a prolonged discussion regarding Brown’s Ferry Nuclear Plant laborer duties had consumed nearly eight days for a three-judge federal panel, jurists possessing limited laborer or custodial backgrounds.

Low-speed orbital floor polisher operators maneuvered heavy machines with curling-quality precision, erasing vestiges of coffee spills and less frequent diaper outflows, efforts made in behalf of the building’s decorum. While the Hugo Black building custodians arrived after court had concluded, their cleaning efforts actually aligned with plantiff concerns.

Experts appearing on behalf of the Kirk family included a TVA industrial hygienist from Knoxville and a university professor named Jackson Brown from Florence, Alabama. TVA’s government counsel oddly chose two east coast-based two experts, a distractable New York-based behavioral safety expert and an expansive Temple University professor, someone repeatedly referring to a ’twelvepoint’ respiratory protection plan although he struggled to identify even eight or nine of that plan’s supporting features.

Barring a few relatively minor exceptions, experts on both sides agreed that by early 1979 a TVA hazard control manual required the agency to provide asbestos-exposed employees with respiratory and skin-relevant protective gear when they worked in applicable construction zones. The meaning of the term asbestos worker was also called into question, agency counsel attempted to limit its meaning to strict H-R classifications while plaintiff counsel sought a more inclusive definition.

The Knoxville-based industrial hygienist used H-R prepared documents to support the idea that workers designated as asbestos applicators/removers were afforded personal protection equipment but could not say for sure that those steps applied individuals cross-assigned from other crafts.

While multiple story boards and explanations were needed, the jurists eventually registered some understanding of TVA’s dual locker arrangement, the first accommodatng street clothes and the second, past the hot-water shower, loaded with respirators and hard hats, protective coveralls and gloves, plus other safety items

A TVA H-R official reluctantly admitted that a James N. Kirk had been added to removal crews’ rolls but could not produce asbestosspecific training applicable to Mr. Kirk. To TVA’s embarrassment, the legal discovery documented multiple pay periods when Mr. Kirk received a ‘1340.09’ incentive, a thinly veiled reference to hazardous duty pay.

While arcane features attending H-R or even safety issues dominated testimony and subsequent discussion, other features acquired a very human element, one in which the Kirk’s neighbors and some of Mrs. Kirk’s ‘Cut & Curl’ clients spoke. Jurists learned that the Kirk’s shared lives commenced from September 28, 1971 when twenty-three-year-old Barbara Eileen Ware married twentyfive-year-old James Nick Kirk. Three Julian avenue neighbors

specifically recalled an early October 1971 weekend when ‘Barb’s Cut & Curl’ replaced the frame house’s enclosed garage space.

During days one and two plaintiff attorneys sought to establish that James N. Kirk had never been afforded access to separate cleandirty lockers nor post-work decontamination showers. Plaintiff attorneys also insisted that James N. (Nick) Kirk may have been confused with an unrelated John N. Kirk who had been properly provided with asbestos-specific protective gear Oddly, the two unrelated Kirk’s shared ‘last fours,’ in terms of their respective social security numbers during an era in which the agency had sought to minimize use of social security numbers for non-pay and benefit purposes.

The New York and Temple University experts appearing on the part of the defense team emphasized TVA’s general-to-specific safety policy pyramid, even though most of their examples applied to radiation exposures or general safety concerns such as trips-andfalls. Perhaps reaching too far, the defense team produced work records from Nick’s earlier employment at Alabama Wire, findings at least one jurist noted as irrelevant.

The trial’s second week was accompanied by a sense of fatigue applicable to the three jurists and counsel on both sides. If the fatigue accomplished anything, it might have explained both sides willingness to accept a ‘draw’ regarding the source of the asbestos exposures although that was not true regarding Kirk-related pathological findings. However, plaintiff experts’ account of a rigid tumor tethered to the right lung, compressing tissue and distorted the diaphragm, clearly favored their side of arguments.

Across the trial’s concluding days much of the testimony centered on clothing, how it was selected and characteristics of soiling and wear. A textiles expert posited how asbestos fibers become entrapped in both cotton-blend, or even more susceptible softer

cotton garments before being released by activities like shaking or sorting. Discussion surrounding a technical feature termed ‘friability,’ went mostly nowhere given multiple experts inability to explain its meaning past a simplified ‘shake-off’ basis. Jurists gained a better appreciation of work clothes’ significance, often a blue-collar symbol of wearers’ work efforts on behalf of their families.

Jurists also reviewed bathroom access for Cut & Curl mostly female patrons. Miss Lulu and two others described a hamper-less bathroom/utility space in which two barracks bag-type duffels hung from two nail arrangements, one duffel labeled as BF, apparently a Brown’s Ferry designation while the second carried a FAM label, signifying family laundry.

Jurists further learned the while the FAM duffel’s contents were laundered throughout the week, Mrs. Kirk laundered the contents of the BF bag exclusively on Saturday evenings. Nicki Kirk, the elder daughter provided testimony that two laundered sets of work coveralls were sufficient for her father, although a third, worn set was held in reserve should he have, as she put it, a ‘bad week.’

Characteristic of a federal three judge tribunal, the arguments were long, consuming nearly eight days and generating nearly three thousand pages of documents and supporting materials.

Barring a wedding license announcement and Nick and Terri’s birthweight entries, the Julian street Kirk’s had never previously merited mention in local newspapers but that was about to change.

The Florence Times-Daily’s readers, perhaps expecting to learn of a father’s work-related illness, were quite surprised to learn the jurists’ findings were in behalf of (deceased) Barbara Eileen (Ware) Kirk as opposed to her husband, James Nick Kirk.

Nobody saw this coming.

No particular action was taken in this matter to prevent asbestos fibers from leaving the plant. A 1979 TVA Division of Nuclear Power Safety Manual clearly directed. ‘Each employee exposed to airborne concentrations of asbestos shall be provided with two separate lockers. One locker shall be used for street clothes and must not be contaminated with asbestos.’

The feature’s writer quoted directly from the jurists’ findings. A 1979 internal plant memorandum clearly indicated that TVA and Federal safety and health standards require that locker and shower facilities will be provided for insulators and their helpers.’

The most telling rationale for the decision appeared last. ‘There was no discretion in those requirements, ones required to prevent asbestos from leaving the plant on the clothing of workers. TVA violated those requirements, resulting in Mrs. Kirk’s illness and death.

Beyond the Kirk’s daughters and spouses, only one Florence-based person, a TVA retiree, drove to Birmingham each day for the trial, Nick’s friend Jimmy Myron.

Barbara Eileen (Ware) Kirk’s heirs were awarded three million dollars, perhaps a modest sum given her untimely death from a single fibrous mineral, one strangely named asbestos.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Thomas Pierce was born and raised in southeast Kansas. A researcher and a physician, he has practiced public health on four continents. This is his fifth book, the first two were technical entries applicable to industrial hygiene and toxicology and published by the National Safety Council and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, respectively.

His third book, Hospital Safari (Leather Publishing - 2005) described sub-Saharan medical care. Between 2017 and 2020 he wrote and distributed a book entitled Million Dollar Speedway that pioneered narrative storytelling in environmental and public health fields. He is the 2012 recipient of the Rachel Carson environmental leadership award (Environmental Management Committee, AIHA, Falls Church, Virginia) and has raced bicycles at most competitive levels.