Selma, Alabama, was a good location for a pilot training base. The land was flat for miles and miles around the base. The weather was often what the pilots called, “severe clear.” Actually, Alabama is a southern state so there were just two kinds of weather–clear and very hot or rainy and cold. It’s true that in cities and on flightlines, hot weather is always hotter and cold weather is always colder.
Another truth is that military guys always complain. They’ll complain about anything and everything. One of the favorite things for crew chiefs (guys working on the open flightline) loved to complain about was the weather. When it was sunny and hot, they’d say it was too hot. When it was rainy and cool, they’d complain about it being too wet and too cold.
One clear sunny day I was on the flightline waiting for the pilots to come out the the T-37 I was scheduled to launch. The T-37 was a very short airplane with flat wings. While I was waiting for the pilots I climbed onto a wing, put my hands under my head, and looked up into the almost cloudless blue sky. As I was looking at this perfect sky I thought about how we always complained about the weather. I was inspired to poetry. This is the only poem I’ve ever composed, but I’ve remembered it and the moment I composed it for almost 40 years:
Who am I?
by David Emery — 1971
Who am I
to curse the sky
for bringing the rain and the hot?
For the rain will fall
and the sun will shine
whether I am here or not!
My first permanent duty assignment after Tech School was Craig Air Force Base in Selma, Alabama. Getting the news that a boy like me from the North would be stationed in the Heart of Dixie was quite a shock. Frankly, I was a bit nervous about it. I remembered very well the scenes from television just a few years before of the race problems in Selma. I remembered seeing Alabama State Police on horseback beating Civil Rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus bridge that crossed the Alabama River at the main street of Selma.
There was one black guy that I’d gone through Basic Training and Tech School with. His name was Eugene Hardy. He was from somewhere in New Jersey. We both got assignments to Selma. I think he was even more nervous about the assignment to the Deep South than I was. As it turned out, it wasn’t a problem for either of us. Eugene was a big, handsome guy and the sweet Southern girls really went for him.
I traveled from Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, Texas, to Selma on a Trailways bus. It took over twenty four hours to make the trip. It was a terrible bus trip. I didn’t have much money with me. We stopped for several hours in Shreveport, Louisana, in the middle of the night. I was very hungry. I asked someone about a place to eat and was told there was a Krystal hamburger place just a block or so away. I’d never of heard of this chain but set out to find it and get some food. When I got there and saw the menu posted up on the wall I was excited. Hamburgers were just ten cents and a bowl of chili was only a quarter! I excitedly ordered a hamburger and a bowl of chili. Boy, was I surprised when I saw that the hamburger was only about two inches square and the meat patty was only as thick as a piece of cardboard from a packing box. The bowl of chili was about the size of a regular cup of coffee. I soon figured out that Krystal was famous for their food. It tasted good so I ordered several more hamburgers and another bowl of chili.
After I ate I got back on the bus for the second half of the trip. We arrived in Selma mid-morning the next day. I called the base for a ride from the bus station to the base. I’d arrived at my new home for the next almost three years.
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