Lloyd Duke:
CLASS OF 1956
Rosemead High SchoolClass of 1956
Rosemead, CA
Lloyd's Story
Where have I been? What did I do?
By Lloyd Duke
I have been on a happy wild ride through life with only a very few bad spots. I have been lucky that every day I could not wait to tear back the covers and get to work. Always had good jobs and interesting people to work with
Upon leaving high school, goofed off the summer, and then joined the USAF in the Aviation Cadet or Avcad program. Wanted to be a pilot. Had to wait 18 months though, till I was 19 ½ to go to OCS. In the mean time I became an atomic bomb mechanic keeping our atomic and thermonuclear weapons stock pile clean and ready. Learned this in a big black hanger at Lowery AFB, Denver. A lot of B-36¿s there. Really liked the school there and became sort of a nuclear physicist in my six months there.
Also I was in an experiment being with the first admittance of African Americans into highly classified jobs. Working on the bombs required a ¿Top Secret ¿ Q¿ clearance, the highest. The first two African Americans admitted into Special Weapons school were in my class. There were a lot of them in the Air Force and some that I met in basic training. I had never been with black people until I joined the AF. The ones I associated with were all really nice normal people. I could not understand what all the concern was about. I enjoyed being with them.
It began to sink in that I did not like the way the pilots were treated in the AF. After my weapons school I went to a Strategic Air Command Base at Altus Oklahoma. As a new pilot there would be about a 3% chance of my becoming a fighter pilot and I did not want to be a bomber pilot or a Military Air Transport pilot.
The base commander sat in his command car beside the runway and on the radio kibitzed each landing his men made and it was usually not nice. Every action had to be first responded to by following a check list. The pilot and co pilot had big thick binder books to fly with. That is not what birds do. So, I helped form the SAC aero Club at Altus and gave AvCads a p. We bought two J-3¿s Cubs to get started. Three dollars fifty cents an hour wet. Next we bought an L-21 Super Cub. Built up about 60 hours there, twenty five in the L-21, and got the pilots license at 41 hours.
I found girls were more fun than flying at that time.
In my tenure in the AF I was assigned to Altus AFB. The classes before me at Denver went on assignments all around the world. The two from my class, the two African Americans, were assigned to Okinawa. The remainder of us went to stateside bases. The class after went all around the world. There were few rank positions stateside but lots in Overseas Assignments. I was mustered out an Airman First Class. Both of the African Americans, who had rotated back to my base, were Tech Sergeants. Made double what I made. And, they had changed. One German guy in our squadron, called them, ¿Worly Burgers.¿ They only spoke in jive, walked with a jaunty, jerky attitude, did not like to associate with the other airmen and asked their daters out, loudly on the phone, with the preface that they were going to bed that night, or no date. Gees, not like American Guys.
Did my time, got to be one hell of a dancer, and exited the USAF, Sept 1960. Enjoyed every minute of it except for my rate. That was really 90% of the reason for not reenlisting. I passed up a big reenlistment bonus and promotion from Airman First to sergeant. I did not trust them any more. In my security debriefing, I signed an agreement that I would not talk about this experience to any one for twenty years. I kept the promise.
As a new civilian, I worked part time as an electrician¿s helper in Pomona and went to PCC for remedial work in order to enter an engineering school. Changed to a gas station job in San Marino for convenience. I met a nice lady and fell in love. Did this till I ran in to Ronnie Crafton at the station in 1962. He was working for North American in Downey as an electronics technician there. He got me an interview; I was hired as a, ¿Quality Engineering Laboratory Welding Technician.¿ Ronnie got a finders bonus. I kept my night school attendance as a condition of my laboratory position. Over the years I attended PCC, Whittier JC, and West Coast University. Got my Algebra, geometry, spherical geometry, chemistry, metallurgy, physics and calculus differential and integral. These were filled in with some breaks with Psychology, Political science, American History, World History and Astronomy. I got married to Judy in 1963. Did that for eight years till I got laid off. I did not have my degree but had the essentials for my future endeavors. My departing title was Welding Engineer. I was replaced by an affirmative Action person when layoff recalls were on. Got a bad feeling from the good graces of the Secular Progressives with that one. Ralph Greenup might know about this? It was 1969 he was in the NAA personnel department when I parted company.
I had grief because in my job searches. Every one wanted to hire me as a technician again at half of my departing pay at NAA.
Just jumping back, in this time there were four things that left a lasting mark on me.
In 1964 I worked my but off for Barry Goldwater. I took on two Democratic Precincts in La Puente. That was a bit of shoveling it against the tide but never the less, when it was over I went to one of the Republican Party Planning meetings. The conservatives were just steam rollered. The good old boys went back to the old ways. The grass roots were poisoned. I took a right so to speak and never went back. To this day I am a Constitutional conservative both fiscally and philosophically.
In 1965 I became a Mason. As a result from my Air Force experience I noticed all the good guys were Masons. My Father was a Mason. Two of my Uncles were Masons. My Grand Father was a Mason. My brother Ernie, who had the same experiences as me from his tour in the army, joined me in becoming members of the Masonic Lodge, in San Gabriel.
I am really upset with the hippies for a few things like changing the meaning of Sodomy to Love Making, and Queer, Fairy, Pervert or Homosexual to Gay or Lesbian. Most egregious of changing Communists to Secular Progressives ¿ nice people.
In 1968 Judy and I adopted a boy. Jeffry Allen¿
In the mean time, after NAA, I sold campers on Garvy Blvd in El Monte while studying for my real estate examination and license. Got that in early 1971. Sold houses, bought houses, learned about taxes and became a tax consultant, setup tax shelters, and operated a management company to take care of them. Wheeler dealer. Made money hand over fist and had fun at the same time. New Cadillac and lots of golfing. I had ten houses and the tax shelter houses management company had 153 houses or rental units.
I got greedy in September 1973 and closed escrow on five houses on a lot in San Gabriel that was zoned for a 16 unit apartment house. I went cash poor to close that deal. I figured it would take only three months to get sufficiently liquid again. Then almost on the day of closing OPEC started messing with the oil. My tenants quit paying the rent, my listings were closed out and my sales were canceled. Wow, from $250K net worth to $0 in like three months. My tax shelter owners were very unhappy with me. Like it was entirely my fault. My head was spinning and at the end of December I was looking for a job, like, get me out of Dodge.
I saved my house in North Whittier. What an experience. I have fought for energy independence every since. This real estate experience was a huge rollercoaster with the big hill at the end. I found out what it is like to be rich. It was at once fun then extremely painful.
Two colleagues from prior welding engineering experience vouched for me to join Aerojet Manufacturing as a Welding Engineer. I worked there five years at making heavy nuclear engine components. Reactor Barrels, Core Barrels, Reactor Heads and steam Generators for the US Navy, till 1979. The components were for Pressurized Water Reactors. That factory is now Sam¿s Club. The secular progressives blocked the use of these for civilian electrical power generation. Again attacking America¿s Achilles Heel. Left there as a Senior Welding Engineer.
I went with Fluor, on a job in South Africa as a Senior Welding Engineer in the Mechanical Engineering Department. My wife went with me. The project was a coal gasification factory. 26,000 employees. A colleague of mine was working there and requested my services, and with some other good pier recommendations got me in there with 150% more money, with a 30% bump on top of that for the assignment country, and in addition to that, a cost of living allowance. I was making movie star money. I wound up Managing a school to teach welding, pipe fitting, visual welding inspectors, millwright, electricians, crane riggers and scaffold builders. The students were integrated, Afrikaners, Indian, Malays and Bantu. Had a staff of 170 and a total population of 1400 students, lock stock and barrel, I had Personnel office, Payroll Office, maintenance office and instructors. Had my first company car.
I got a front row seat at watching the Communists ruin Rhodesia and South Africa with the big lies. At the time the Communists had Angola and Mozambique. They were working severely on Rhodesia and South Africa was not far behind. The world news gobbled it up the lies.
But I found out what it is like to be a Bantu or more specifically Zulu, Kwazulu, Venda, Shangan, Swazi, Siskey, Transkey, Pongol, and others, eleven in all. I could only hire people from three tribes because they were the only ones that would not fight each other.
My first look into their existence was the result of one of my Bantu drivers having driven one of my trucks through the front gate. Afrikaners are quite proud of their gates. The ...Expand for more
truck was too big. Next thing I knew I am in trouble with the client. My first question to him was, ¿How old are you?¿ He shrugged his shoulders with total bovine misunderstanding. One of the Afrikaners responded for him saying the bantus have no concept of age. There are no dates when these things happen. You are just born and then you die. People older than you are your mothers and fathers, people about your age are your brothers and sisters and people younger than you are your children. My education went on from there. I could write a book about it but the Secular Progressives would have a heyday with my, ¿discrimination.¿ Even African Americans do not have a clue of what it is like to be a Bantu. I have tried to explain my findings but it always winds up I am for ¿APARTIDE,¿ I am a racist, and when people only have the secular progressive propaganda as their view point it is impossible to discuss. I get into trouble talking about this so I just shut up. They do not understand when I tell them the Bantu have the same abilities as us but they are programmed from their, ¿Zulu mothers¿ knee,¿ to be what they are, different from us.
I got a South African Pilots license. Eight others and I formed a flying club at the new Secunda Airport. We used borrowed planes. One of the members owned his own F-36 Bonanza. Of course none of the others could fly it. The most used was the Cessna 172, ¿ZS-DWG,¿ Zebra Sierra Delta Whisky Golf. We had another one we used quite often. I it was a Piper Cherokee 180, ¿ZS-FEP,¿ Zebra Sierra Foxtrot Echo Papa. I used to mess this one up all the time. The most embarrassing was on a trip in it with my wife and son to Kimberly. As I approached Kimberly I contacted the tower with, ¿Kimberly Tower this is Zebra Sierra Fox Echo Poptrot inbound,¿ they promptly replied with, ¿that air craft does not exist.¿
I was lucky to have people who wanted to go on camera safaris. They paid for the plane, my lodging, my food and drinks.¿ Plus I went with them on the land rovers and see the animals. Visited the animals a lot.
Had some really great adventures doing this. One time, just to get a little feel for this, we were parked in the land rover, on the brow of a low grassy hill, under an acacia tree, on a nice sun shiny clear day. A champagne break if you will. There were Impala, Zebra, giraffe, wart hogs and Gnu grazing. The guide was giving us a bit of a story about the flora and fauna of the place and with out breaking the pace, he went on with, ¿and over here we have a pair of charging rhinoceros¿.¿ And, Jees, sure enough there about one hundred yards away were a pair of charging Rhinos. Coming our way too! Wow! They are really fast. They were fighting. The front one turned on a dime and met the chasing one head on. They tussled about at about fifty yards away, and then ran off over the hill. That was awesome watching two 3000 pound animals duke-ing it out.
My tenure in Africa was from May 15, 1979 to December 03, 1981.
On our trip home we went via Seychelles, Colombo, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong and Tokyo. We closed the link for travel once around the world. I got to set in the jump seat in the cockpit of the 747 for five hours between Johannesburg and the Seychelles. Had a great time with the British Airway flight crew, pilot, copilot and flight engineer. The plane was essentially just like the 172 Cessna but more things like the fuel controls as they applied to weight and balance, etc. They explained every thing they were doing. They had not had any experience with bush flying and were fascinated with my stories, as well as me, with theirs flying airliners.
After Africa I came back to the Irvine office and became a Taskforce welding Engineer, on the parachute Creek Project. It was first class, but I could not take all the hoity-toity conversations about tennis, golfing, the dates and the snubbings. It was just like high school. No one seemed to be concerned with working. The conversations were easy to hear in the office layout. I asked to get in to Construction so I could be in the field. I got my wish.
Flew out of from G & H Cessna at El Monte.
I was sent on a job as Quality Manager at Alyeaska Pump Station #2, on the North Slope, for the addition of a surge facility. I worked there the summers of ¿82 and ¿83. Did a lot of fishing, for Arctic Char, Grayling and Dolly Varden Trout. We did the underground in ¿82, while I was becoming an Arctic Soils Civil Engineer and Cross Country Pipe Line Hydro testing expert under the tutelage of a Georgia Tech Civil Engineer, Tom O¿Bryant and a famous guy, L. Younger Klippert, with a masters in Civil Engineering from Stanford and who had also had been a first string Line Backer for the Pittsburg Steelers. And in ¿83 I returned, for the above ground I became an expert Tank Builder with the construction of a 55,000 barrel tank.
In the winter, 1982, they recorded a period of time at -87O. I went to Cilacap, Indonesia, to work on an oil refinery there. I was on the night shift with one hundred seventy three Indonesians welding out pipes and installing electrical work. In the four months alone with them I learned the language. Also I learned about Muslims. Not nice. Especially for the women. This is another long story.
You could not be on the North Slope and not notice the interaction of the animals with the ¿Pipe Line.¿ I get a visceral feeling again when I hear the Seculars Progressives passing their propaganda against more drilling and more pipe lines there. Again attacking the American Achilles Heel.
Flew out of Larry¿s flying Service at Fairbanks. Flew up the Yukon River at Artic Circle hot Springs, north of the circle.
After Alaska I went to Chalmette, Louisiana, 1983/4 to work on an oil refinery there. Welding out the piping. Gees, what good food. My favorite was deep fried soft shell crab.
During this time my wife had a very serious bout with breast cancer that resulted in her having a radical Mastectomy, and a Hickman catheter installed for taking her adriomiacin. We had been talking of divorcing and were on the verge of doing so when this happened. I could not go through with this due to the massive insurance expenses this was going to require.
After Louisiana, 1984, I balked on a Saudi Arabia job assignment. I did not think I could keep my cool with the perverted Muslim men. Mainly as a result their treatment of young boys and their lack of obligation to be truthful with us infidels.
Flew rental planes from Slidell Flight Service.
Anther colleague luckily recruited me, because he knew I knew about titanium welding. Yes I was known to be a Titanium Welding ¿Expert.¿ Back on the Apollo days one of my tasks was to facilitate welding of the Launch Escape Tower. That little tower that sat on top of the Apollo, that during launch, would to take the Apollo capsule out of problems, if needed, that may exist during launch. That was one of my babies.
As it was Astech had made a bid to fabricate a Super Sonic Low Altitude Target for the Navy. The Navy, after the Falkland¿s they had no assurance they had a defense against the French Exposit or the Russian SS-22 Sea skimming anti ship missiles. There was nothing that fast that could challenge the Aegis fleet defense system. The SR-71 was fast enough but not a good behavior at low altitude. Martin Marietta had a plan for a 2,000 mile per hour sea skimmer target missile to challenge the Navy Fleet. The YAQM-127A, Intimidator. It would come over the sea horizon at ten feet high, at 2,000 Mph, which would give the Aegis crews about 48 seconds to determine they had a problem and decide what to do with it. Its mission was to fly four times, and subsequent flights be used for the Phalanx to practice when it came with in a mile of a ship.
At the same time my wife wanted to move to Bull head City, because it was more healthful there for her. Well we sold our rental house and our own house in North Whittier, after twenty three years there and moved lock stock and barrel to Arizona. I commuted for about three months in my Maxivan. I had a little closet apartment in Laguna Beach, with a beautiful view of sunsets. I would drive out to BHC Friday night and back Sunday Night. Five hours each way. This was getting expensive what with the speeding tickets I was accumulating. She had a great time at the casinos in the mean time.
At Astech I had a colleague who also was a pilot. He tipped me off to a very special deal available at Corona Aircraft Sales. I went there and an instructor I knew from El Monte Airport was there demonstrating it to other people. I got into the left seat, the seat belt did not fit, but we went anyhow. It climbed out just like a home sick angel. I was really impressed. It was old, but good looking, a 1958 model, Cessna182. I offered to purchase it at a really good price cash contingent on it completing an Annual. That is every thing checked, questionable stuff replaced.
I bought the Plane the first one I ever owned. I had a 1976 Chevy station wagon that I used with the plane. I had all the oil cases required, five gallon oil cans for drain oil, a ladder, Mops, rags soap and window cleaner. It used, just all the stuff you need for ground support of the plane. It needed the oil replaced every twenty five hours. Twelve Quarts a pop. I kept the plane at Corona, and used the car to get around during the week. When I went to BHC I left the car at my tie down. I had another tie down at Needles. It was a huge pleasure owning it plus only one hour ten minutes a way, Orange County SNA to Needles EED. My wife would meet me with a thermos of manhattans¿. When I got back to Corona we switched places plane and car.
Coming back Sunday night was a real pleasure because... ...If your are interested in the remainder, contact me.
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