Life Magazine-09-25-1964

A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning out a closet in a bedroom so that one of my granddaughters could live with me for a while. That closet had been a place that collected a lot of stuff that had little value, but just never made its’ way to the trash. It took multiple trash days to finally get rid of a lot of old computer components that would surely be needed at some point. I found new places to store many things that I might need in the future including a lot of photo paper of assorted sizes so that I can print all those pictures I have saved on my computer.

Underneath a lot of junk, I found a Life Magazine dated September 25, 1964. I knew immediately what it was and why we still had it. I set it in a safe place until I could take some time to look at it again after all those years. For those younger readers, back in 1964, Life Magazine was the premiere monthly national magazine with the largest readership. I saw that a copy of this edition can be bought on eBay for $20 today. There are multiple articles in this edition about NASA and the space program.

There is one article about Bill Wolf and computer programming. At that time, Bill Wolf’s company, Wolf Research, had a contract with NASA to provide personnel for computer programming and computer operations for many of the computer centers at Johnson Space Center (JSC) as it was known at that time. There are several pictures in the article and one of them is him talking with a young new employee that was hired about three months before the picture was taken. That young computer operator is me. The computer in the background was the only one of its type existing anywhere in the world at that time.

That magazine was shared with others by Eva when it came out and then saved by her for all these years. The paper is old with signs of wear along its edges. It has no real value, but it is special to me. Not because of my picture, but because of the memories that it brings back. Eva and I had been married for six months and I had changed employers not long after we had gotten married. We took a week off about the time the magazine was published to go on our Honeymoon trip to New Orleans. Over the next couple of years, my experience and responsibilities grew at a rate few people ever get in life. It was during those years that I began to understand that my career goal of becoming an architect was never going to happen.

It was at a time when most universities did not know what real computers were and even fewer had any courses other than about TAB equipment. The rapid changes in computer development and the need for people who could learn to operate and/or program them was growing as well. It was there that I got my first chance to manage and train other people while still in my early twenties. My responsibilities led to a lot of overtime, especially during spaceflights and simulations. That overtime pay provided the opportunity for Eva and me to build our first house before we were 23.

It was a time when Eva was working a normal work week Monday through Friday and I was working sometimes 80-90 hours a week, seven days a week many times second and third shifts. That would be tough on any married life. I believe we figured out how to enjoy the little time we had together. However, that could not be our future and to be able to grow our family. That led to my decision to take a job at Texaco to be closer to our home and for fewer work hours.

That change also meant less income and different responsibilities. My experiences gained at NASA allowed me to provide better training to existing staff at Texaco than they had been given when they transferred into EDP. This was at the time when IBM was installing some of the first IBM 360 computers that would eventually replace the 1400 and 7000 series computers. That was my first experience where I as a 23-year-old was training some employees that had been working at Texaco for 25 years. That was when I learned a better way of providing “helpful” information. That is a story for another time.