Old friends.

Occasionally I stick a name from my past into the Google or Yahoo search engines to see if anyone I know is now famous. I get lucky on occasion and get to see a little of the life of people that helped shape my life. Last night I entered Edie Parish, who is the woman who talked me into putting in my application to be an Automation Specialist for the FAA. I talked her into applying for the same job and we both ended up getting selected. She also helped me with my studying at FSDPS school. She took great notes and would share them with me. So as long as I stayed awake in class I could put it all together and learn. She also helped me after I got the job because our manager needed to send someone to TAL programing school and since I had shown the most interest in learning the job in general he decided I should be the one. Trouble was that I had spent all my time actually working on the Tandem computer and messing around with the software and hadn't even started the prerequisite correspondence course. Edie had finished the course but she couldn't fly and also had to take care of her husband who was recovering from a bout of pancreatic cancer. So she tutored me so I could meet the requirements. The course was suppose to take like 3 months to finish and I had less then a month but with Edie's help I made it. I had to go in on a weekend to take the final test and didn't even receive the results until I had already started the class in OKC.
Edie was bound for bigger things than just an automation specialist so she was promoted to supervisor at Juneau AFSS less then 2 years after we opened the FSDPS. She went on to numerous other jobs in the Alaska Region and then moved to Washington D.C. to work at FAA headquarters. She had some mid level management positions at headquarters while I was still working but now she is a director of one of the divisions and acting director of another. That's like just below the FAA Administrator. The picture that accompanied the article about Edie reminded me how funny it is that as men age they go gray and many go bald. With women it seems they all go blond as Edie has.
This morning I put the name of my old FSS chief in Google. I actually was going to do it last night but got distracted after finding the information on Edie. So this morning I put Jack Mitchell Pierre, SD in Google and found this information on not only Jack Mitchell but the doctor, Dr. Lindbloom, that delivered both of our kids in Pierre. Jack and his wife Jo were a big help to Mary and me when we first got to Pierre. Mary had come with me to Flight Service school in Oklahoma City for 4 months. She was pregnant with Maija but wasn't due until the end of November. We got to Pierre on November 2 after driving all the way from Oklahoma City to Bismarck, ND so I could check out of that facility and then drive back down to Pierre. The weather was horrible on the way down to Pierre. Wet sloppy snow that would build up in the wheel wells on the car so I would have to stop and kick it out so I could turn the wheel just to steer. We got into Pierre late in the afternoon and Jack and Jo had us over for dinner which was lucky because we found out that Jo worked for Dr. Lindbloom who was the only doctor in Pierre that did babies. That night we went back to the Holiday Inn that we had just checked in to and went to bed. Around midnight Mary woke me up to tell me her water had broke. I had the hotel desk call the hospital so I could find out what to do. ( this was in the days before 911 service ) The lady on the phone had no idea what to tell me but she finally said to come on down to the hospital and she would call Dr. Lindbloom to check Mary out. Mary was in labor but not very far along. She ended up in the labor room for almost 3 days and Dr. Lindbloom was getting ready to do a cesarean when Maija finally decided to finish what she had started and came out. Jack gave me a lot of breaks that first month so I could get settled in. My mom came and helped me get an old house, that Jack had helped me find, cleaned up for Mary and Maija when they came home from the hospital. The payback came that Christmas Eve when the controller that was suppose to work the mid-shift called in sick. I wasn't even checked out but Jack told me my certification would be done the first business day after Christmas. So that is how I got my first check out.
It was kind of fun to see these 2 guys that played a pretty big role in Mary's and my life when we were first getting started. Jack looks pretty much the same as he did when he showed up at our door in Eagle River in the 90's. And Dr. Lindbloom looks just like I remember him only a little older. Doc Lindbloom not only delivered the kids but he was their doctor, Mary's doctor and since he was the flight surgeon for Pierre, he was my doctor.
So far I haven't found any of my old friends that have really become famous or really rich. But I have found quite a few old friends.