In the late 1950s, a group of us who grew up in Madison Park fulfilled our duty for Uncle Sam. Happy to be home enjoying some free time, we eventually found jobs, which were plentiful.
In any group of friends there is always one who excels beyond others. As kids, Dick and I roughhoused and were competitive on one interest: girls!
Around age 14, I found out he was calling a girl I met first, so one day I walked the two short blocks to his house.
I asked Dick’s dad if he could come to the door. I invited Dick to a fight at the corner of 42nd Avenue and Lynn Street. Another friend came along to referee.
We each weighed 147 pounds, soaking wet, so we were pretty spent after throwing windmill punches.
With split lips and bloody noses, we shook hands, and that was that.
Later, the girl found out about the fight and wouldn’t date either one of us!
Unfortunately, we did it again on the grounds of Holy Names grade school, and this time I was the guilty party.
Much later, Dick hired on at one of the many gas stations in Madison Park, changing tires, lubing and filling tanks with ethyl or regular, like so many of us had done.
His first real job was at Georgetown Electric, selling parts, and while there, he built a ham radio with used or discarded parts and tubes. His claim to fame was relaying messages from the victims in Alaska when the big earthquake and tsunami hit in 1964 and there was no other communication.
Because of his skills, he landed a job installing all the instrument panels in small, private planes; he even became a supervisor.
Eventually, the computer age caught up, so the bigger vendors were not only able to sell instrument panels but they installed them. His hours were cut, and he exited.
Military Manuals Co., which worked closely with the government on highly classified projects, hired Dick as a lead tech writer for the Atlas missile program.
He called me and asked if I was still looking for a job. When I answered in the affirmative, he replied, “Want to be an illustrator?”
The gig was good for about two years, but when there was no more government funding, the lucrative 110 hours a week were cut way back.
Truth be known, the company converted some 40 to 60 jobs into two workstations with the dubious computer.
Again, it was time to move on, so I found work in sales at Wonder Bread and Dick ended up at Renton Aviation.
Replaced by machines
With his love of flying, Dick somehow saved money for flying lessons and the needed hours to get his pilot’s ratings.
Renton Aviation welcomed him to teach ground school at night while supervising and testing flying lessons during the day.
One afternoon, he took me for a trip in a company plane while I did my Wonder Bread sales report.
After he got his multi-engine ratings, he taught those wanting to fly for the major airlines. This job disintegrated, however, when the airlines figured out their own in-house criterion for pilot training.
One night, Dick called and said, “Get the gang to meet at the R.O. at 7 p.m.!” We gathered into the booth at the Red Onion, and he announced that he had been hired at the cardiovascular unit at Providence hospital.
There, he monitored levels during open-heart surgeries and even published his findings in medical journals.
One day, some smiling medical salesmen wheeled in a 4-foot-high tin-can pile of blinking lights. Dick’s eyes lit up as he knew he had become part of the computer age. He was eager to get his hands on this metallic, light exhibition on wheels.
To his utter disappointment, the machine replaced him, right after he stayed on to modulate frequencies dealing with body functions during critical phases of surgery.
The hospital did give him one heck of a sendoff, though, and luckily, other hospitals heard of his departure and requested interviews.
Alas, no sooner did the phone cool when the blinking-light salesmen beat him to the punch and took over all other job prospects.
Getting his chance
Technology was not helping any of us improve our job scenarios. Only the fresh-out-of-college, starting at beginning wages, were being tapped.
Dick was forced to drive for Yellow Cab and live in a bachelor apartment on Capitol Hill. He accepted his lot, but macular degeneration was Mother Nature’s slap-in-the-face.
Declared legally blind, he ended up in assisted living, but he was able to use a computer using special devices and became quite educated with the ins-and-outs of the machine after all.
Dick had the natural ability to grasp concepts more than most people. It’s great to hear him laugh after all he’s been through.
We exchange phone calls and relive the good, old days, but he insists he has the better left!
RICHARD CARL LEHMAN is a longtime Madison Park resident. To comment on this column, write to MPTimes@nwlink.com.
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