This little remembrance was contributed by Col. D.A. Wininger, USAF, Ret.

Sam,

There is one story I forgot to ask you about--so I will tell you how I remember it--if it's not true--too bad--I've been telling it now for years.

Remember back in the fall of 1972, we had American History with Ted Russ as our instructor. During the Presidential campaign, we had to take one of the candidates and do a political speech on why they should be elected. You and I were in different classes, but we both ended up having to support George McGovern--We got together sometime during the week before the class to talk about our mutual assignment. I remember you saying something like, "McGovern doesn't have a very good platform, so I recommend we play up this Watergate incident. We should emphasize that the activity was illegal, and that a full disclosure should be made-- then President Nixon should not be re-elected, but should resign instead." I remember thinking, "this is kind of crazy, but what else do we really have?" So I remember arguing that point.

Of course everybody thought we were crazy--but less than two years later--as I was in Basic Cadet Training at the Academy--they brought us into a big auditorium to watch President Nixon's resignation speech. I remember laughing, and they guy next to me asked me what was so funny--I told him, "Almost two years ago, a friend of mine said that Nixon should resign because of Watergate--we used it in campaign speeches--and now it has taken place!" It was one of those 'Nobody will ever believe me moments.' Do you remember that?

Dave Wininger


Dave:

Here's what I remember about it.
1.) It was my mom's idea. She had an extreme dislike for "Tricky Dicky"
2.) We lost the general election by a landslide.

You and I may have been the only two votes for McGovern in the whole school.

Sam McCormick


Sam:

So it was your mom's idea. That is so cool! The only other thing I remember about McGovern was that Byron Orton was in college in South Dakota at the time and he was a big McGovern fan--used to talk a little bit about it around the baseball field. But like you said, there were not many of us.

Dave Wininger

Well, that was fun. We're going to take a break for the Holidays. Next up is Loose Ends the memoirs of K.A. McCormick, 1929-1959.

The Antarctic Journal of a Young Man

August 25, 1975: Monday

The World is Flat! I have been up there and have seen it! Spreading out from under the plane (my first, United Flight 799, a 727) like a giant hazy pancake. Fields of brown and gray-green check their way in infinite variety towards the horizons.

It is hard to tell variations in elevation. The ribbons of dark creek valleys and the unevenness of the country roads are interpreted as hills. Our part of Nebraska is flat. A far different picture of the state than we had when we hitchhiked. (“What’s beyond the next hill?” Another hill.)

We fly low from Lincoln to Omaha. I can see Highway 6, and Ashland, and Ceresco, and Ithica, and way off in the foggy blue distance is Wahoo. In fifteen minutes I’m 10 miles closer to Auburn and 50 miles farther from L.A. Oh, well, it’s my first jet flight and it’s over territory I know and understand.

The Lincoln airport is built like one of the cabins at Cedar Creek, a large two-story sort of A-frame. It looks like a pavilion at Six Flags. It only has four gates and no paperback copy of Centennial. I met Mrs. Treves, Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, and Dr. Treves’s two boys. They’re wearing Operation Deep Freeze T-shirts. Cal says I’ll find out where they come from.

We say good-bye. It was terribly unemotional. Cal’s been down before. I made two mistakes in the news story. This is only Dr. Treves’s ninth expedition and we’ll go from New Zealand to McMurdo by plane, not icebreaker. Oh, well. I’ve forgotten three things: a watch, air-mail stamps, and a duffelbag.

Epley is a lot bigger than the Lincoln airport. But Omaha’s a lot bigger than Lincoln. On the way back I can follow the Platte into the Missouri (gee is it muddy) and follow the Missouri as it snakes down the state. It’s hard to visualize that one side is Nebraska and the other Iowa, but that’s easy to do on the ground. I can see Cedar Creek, and Springfield, and Louisville, and Manley. Over in the corner of the world, where the misty blue horizons meet the Pizza that is Nebraska, I think I can see the City. But you can never be sure, they only come out at night, you know.

Nebraska is an east-west, north-south state. The mile roads intersect uniformly in all directions, like a quilt. It’s comforting to know that the land surveys look so nice from the air.

I can follow Highway 6 to Hastings. I look for the College where Deb will be on Wednesday. Then the Platte comes into view and we must pass right over Kearney and I miss my chance to wave at Joy. Shelby was on the wrong side of the plane.

Marilyn was right. You can see the circles of green that center-pivot irrigation makes on the section or quarter section. I get sort of lost after Kearney. I think I see McCook, but it might be Julesburg. Who cares? I think we cross into Colorado when the pattern of sections and country roads becomes only sketchy. The pilot announces our descent into Denver, 75 miles out. We fly much higher than we did to Omaha. Off in the distance I can see the Front Range rising above the purple haze. We get a snack.

Denver is bigger than Omaha, at least it looks bigger. It’s much bigger than Lincoln. Lincoln from way up looks like Waverly from close down. The Capitol is hard to spot because of the shadows. But Memorial Stadium stands right out, an oval of green in gray.

We get off in Denver to wait to reboard the plan. We stand around and watch people in the terminal. There must be some correlation between city size and airport size. I haven’t run across anyone I know yet, which is unusual. But then, I haven’t tried hard.

Back on the plane a young lady sits next to me and talks to the lady on the aisle. Dr. Treves tells the man next to him where we’re going. He takes it calmly.

I think I spot the Great Divide. At least all the valleys on one side go one way and the valleys on the other go a different way. The timber line is very evident. Changes in elevation are much easier to spot. The pilot is friendly and tells us where we are, which helps because I’m not familiar with the area.

I eat lasagna for supper. The girl beside me asks what state we’re over. She’s dressed in green and has eyes and hair like Brenda Holding. She has that “I know I’m pretty” air. Close up she’s full of make-up. She’s reading The Bible and History: Do They Agree? Or something like that. I read parts of it. The arguments are weak and typically half-hearted, religious, “It is because I’ve told you so.” Even though I agree with the book, I don’t respect it.

Clouds have flat bottoms! The little marshmallow ones do, anyway.

Coming into L.A. (from 35,000 feet up), we travel through the clouds. Above the clouds it’s bright, with shadows, and the sky above is a purple-blue-black. I hope it’s really thin air and not tinted windows. Down below the clouds it’s sort of murky. The built up area just goes on and on and on. I’m totally confused about where the individual cities are.

At the airport we met Cal’s cousin, her son, and Cal’s grandmother. We travel by bus to Golden West Airlines to fly to Oxnard. It’s dark, now, and one young marine comes into the building and says, “That was a dramatic entrance, wasn’t it?” He sounds like Tom Triptow, but doesn’t look like him. California people are strange.

Now I know where all the people who aren’t driving around Dallas and Houston are. They’re all at Los Angeles International Airport. Our flight to Oxnard is canceled because of weather. Everyone’s mad because we have to take a bus. Sit in the lobby and right post cards to Joy, Marilyn, and Cathy. The bus driver gets directions from the guy at Golden West. We drive on the Santa Monica Freeway, Interstate 10, and California 1, through Malibu, the cliffs on our right and the Ocean on the left. I can’t see it. Oxnard is 50 miles away, to the north, which is the direction I’m going. I doze as we travel around the cliffs.

We get out at Ventura County Airport. We must have been on Ventura Highway. We get a cab (my first) with a guy going to the “base.” Back to the Oxnard Lodge, which we’ve passed once. Go to the bathroom and go to bed.

Today’s Expenditures:
$0.48 ....Post cards
$0.50....38¢ worth of stamps
$0.15.... Orange pop

August 26, 1975: Tuesday

I’m afraid my idiosyncrasies are more noticeable than Dr. Treves’s or Calvin’s, oh well, my shower (with my bath robe) and all my odd personal things (diary, travelers cheques, hat, jacket).

We eat breakfast at Keely’s, seventy-four cents and a dime tip. Walk down town. They have this neat mall, kind of like Gateway, but on an old street. Oxnard reminds me of Miami, but only more so. We pass a Mexican diner. “We ate there last year, remember?” Dr. Treves says, “Yeah, it was warm.”

We watched a John Wayne-Roy Rogers-Walter Pigeon western. I knew Roy Rogers couldn’t be a bad guy all the way through. It was about Cantrel’s Raiders. The good story line was not enhanced by the corny dialogue. John Wayne, in his J.W. accent, saved the picture when he turned to Walter Pigeon and said, “Sure.”

We ate back at Keely’s about 2:30. This time it was spaghetti (two dollars and five cents). The tip was a dime and the pennies in my pocket. The food was good and portions small. Gee, I sound like Peter Citron. “I’ll give the movie an 84. Who for? Gary Clark, Saturday night, and a bag of Dorittos.”

I mailed the post cards. Should have sent one to Nancy and Ann. Oh, well. We took a cab to Point Mugu Naval Air Station and waited three hours in the air terminal for the jet. Once we took a walk down to the N.E.X. cafeteria. It was closed. I took a picture of the mountains. I think it was illegal.

There was an officer (Navy, wore white duds) with a broken leg. Also some oceanographer from Scripps had come early. He’s a real freak with chin whiskers (scanty) and one earring.

The Navy officer asked me to get him a Coke. The machine wouldn’t work. I got him an ice cream sandwich. He looked like Wes Ebler and was on standby to Hawaii. Another officer and his two oriental-looking sons ran the place, checking in the Naval and NSF personnel that arrived. The plane came in, a Northwest Orient D.C. something or other. The check-in went quickly, but we were first in line.

I meet Emmett, the Holmes and Narver representative. He remembers my name when he introduces his wife, daughter, and her husband. There’s another Holmes and Narver guy who’s going to Winter Over (Dave, or Mike, perhaps). Also meet the NSF bigwig. He’s young with a beard. A cross between Mr. Falter and the Music Teacher. He acts governmental important. I forgot his name.

The plane takes off in the dark and I am completely lost. I think I spot Antares. We must be heading west-southwest. We get a chicken dinner. I doze and have fitful sleeps. It’s cold.

I feel a change in engine noise. We are descending into Honolulu. Gosh is it pretty. Lights all over the place. Beautiful.

We have to get out at Aloha airport. Just like on “5-0.” The plane has to be boarded by a staircase instead of one of them tunnels. It’s beautiful. The climate is delightful, at 11 o’clock, anyway.

I buy Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Had trouble deciding between it and a Forsythe or Michner book. When I discovered he wrote “Coventry” and Starship Trooper I had to get it.

We watch the crazy brown Flight Board and go back to reboard. They search us for everything. I got caught for a belt buckle.

Today’s Expenditures:
$0.74.... Breakfast
$0.10....Tip
$2.05....Lunch
$0.23....Tip
$1.50....Book

August 27, 1975: Wednesday

Read awhile, back on the plane. It’s dark and we fly very high, 39,000 feet. Berzel’s read this book. It’s very funny, I think, in our way. Witty, I guess. I sleep and look out the window. I see Orion and Sirius. I judge we cross the equator when Sirius goes out of sight above the window.

August 28, 1975: Thursday

Somewhere we cross the International Date Line and Wednesday was very short.

I dream a weird one about a lady who thinks we are derived from photons being quanticized across the universe. Life is a particle of light following a titration curve path. Billy Graham speaks against her. This all takes place in central Missouri and I have to take secret pictures of it. The airplane taxis down the highway and crosses a big, steel-girdered bridge to get to a high school, where this all happens.

I awake for breakfast. Then read. Then snooze. Dinner is roast beef. The sun is coming up. We are flying farther southward than I had thought. Sunrise is nice. I think, “Sun arise, come every morning.”

The clouds stretch out below us in all directions. In the distance they look like the hills around Auburn, covered with snow and devoid of trees and buildings. Peaceful, calm, and inviting. We descend into the clouds and they are gray and swirling, but not threatening. I have lost directions.

We come below the clouds. New Zealand looks like a Nebraska flooding spring. It looks gray, through the rain, and homey. I was afraid the plane’s 150 passengers would double Christchurch’s population, but it’s as big as Omaha.

We land. They spray some sort of aerosol that makes us gag. Then we de-plane. I get stuck having my baggage checked. Cal says it was my long hair. But I have an honest face, don’t I? They checked everything, but missed my quartz crystal. The lady had a flat face. She spoke with a Scottish-English accent.

I get 55 N.Z. dollars plus one Florin (20 cents). All for 60 dollars, American.

We got a cab. The driver was a lady, very friendly. She drives on the wrong side of the road, with a car that has its steering wheel on the wrong side. Of course, my directions are 180º off, too.

The Town Hall Motel is somewhere between Quaint and Rustic. Our room has three beds. Across the hall are two. We share a living room, kitchen, and bath. It’s cold. The space heater is spacey and the radio is even wilder. T.V. doesn’t come on until later. It’s only 10:30, after 9 hours and 50 minutes of flying from Hawaii.

We meet our two roommates. One’s a wide open Freak. The other looks like a Frat Rat. We talk. I learn about Antarctica. They’ve been before. The NSF guy’s name is Dave. They don’t respect his dignity.

The Freak had trouble with the inspection, too. They took a dog near him. “Come on, boy! Smell something! It’s got to be there! Sniff, boy! He’s a long-hair! Find something!”

We took off for lunch, walking through the rain and the streets. All the houses have walls around them, secluded, reserved. Dr. Treves says the British think New Zealand’s quaint and the Australians think it’s backwards.

Downtown is rows and rows of shops. Most of them are tiny one-family operations. Lots of produce, meat, bakeries. Almost frontier-like. Fifty-four cents for fish and chips; it was very hot. We huddled outside the door, protected from the cold and trying to stay warm.

The gutters run full of water and it splashes when you walk. Cal, Dr. Treves, the Frat guy, and I go looking in stores. I enjoy rain. Always have. And shopping in the rain. It’s just a pleasant feeling. Ninety cents for post cards. The Frat’s name is Doug. He’s all right.

We walk over to Canteberry Museum. It’s free and not bad. Learn things about Captain Cook and Moas and Maoris. Fifteen cents for tea. I could get to like hot tea. Very British.

We walk back to the motel. We see two Chevys. Cars are real out of sight here. Over $4000 for used cars. We sit around and talk and tell stories. It’s all right. I wish I could remember the stories.

Tim (the Freak) comes back and we’re reminded it’s time to eat. I write nine post cards. I still have to write Andria and Mom.

It’s bitterly cold out. We talk to the manager. She’ll get us an extension cord and another space heater. She introduces us to her husband. She remembers our names.

We walk back downtown, briskly, to keep our circulation going. Tommy is showing at the State Theatre. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Christchurch is like pictures of London, with the long streets intersecting each other at haphazard angles, shops wedged in the triangles. Things are painted gray with gold lettered signs in the windows. Hardly any neon signs. There are only a few new buildings over three stories tall. It is all so delightfully old-fashioned. We pass a shop with an alarm ringing. There’s not a policeman (constable?) in sight. We walk (shiver) a block farther, past more curious squares (the city is full of Monuments, Statues, Plazas, and pleasant things), shops, and cars, turn left, and there is the Shanghai Café. The interior is the same size, shape, and color as Marie’s Café, but it doesn’t have a counter or calendars on the wall. The man at the table in front of us looks half black, half oriental. Maybe he’s Maori. He enjoys his food noisily and gets the very last drop. He has not a fine set of teeth, but the waitress does not find him offensive. He gives a kid a shilling (10 cents) or a florin (20 cents). I’ve found those out. Everyone (except us) in the place looks so typically English. I mean you couldn’t mistake it. I feel like I’m inside Quadraphenia.

I eat shrimp soy something for $1.90. It’s very, very good. Another first for me, a Chinese meal. Pay when served. No tips. The waitress could be very pretty, if she tried. The girls walking about at night seem nicer, prettier. I wonder if that means anything.

Doug got a huge steak for $2.50.

We walk, I mean hurry, back to the motel. There are some Constables (Bobbies, perhaps?) at the alarm scene. Still don’t see anything inside. It’s 6:30, dark, rainy, cloudy, cold, wet, windy, and thoroughly enjoyable. They tell more tales about what McMurdo is like. They have a diffractometer there. I am very anxious to get to work.

We get back, fool around with wholly inadequate electrical connections, watch a British soap opera, “M*A*S*H,” and part of a “Streets of San Francisco,” the one where the guy’s son is killed by a deaf burglar and he goes after him himself. That’s a confusing sentence, ain’t it. Oh, well.

I read another chapter. I like the way Heinlein’s story line is going. It’s the way I would have done it.

We talk about McMurdo. It has a radio station, FM. Whoever wants to play records and isn’t busy can go ahead and do so. This might be fun. I must not rush things and act awed, respectful, and eager to get my hands on it, but in a polite way. Unfortunately it isn’t KOOL, but there’s four months ahead of me.

Boy, am I an ambitious one tonight.

Hurrah for electric blankets.

What I Spent:
$0.54....Fish and Chips
$1.90....Dinner
$0.90....Post cards

August 29, 1975: Friday

Got up once to go to the bathroom. I’ll never get used to the toilets here. They’re very deep, with hardly any water. The other part is way up on eye level. The flush thing is a device that looks like a key on an old cash register. It releases an absolute torrent of water.

I get up early, shower, have trouble getting the water hot. The controls need getting used to. Breakfast is corn flakes in a cup, bread with jam, and tea. It’s free.

We blew a fuse and are out of electricity ‘til the electrician gets us more.

We take a taxi out to get our clothes. I buy some shampoo and soap after we get our P.X. passes. Didn’t need it to get the stuff, though. Mailed the nine post cards with nine ten-cent stamps. That’s air mail.

My clothes are all right. They look official, like I know what I’m doing. We dress and take inventory in a cold drafty cement-floored room. It reminds me of football, especially Rock Port, sitting in longjohns, lacing up heavy shoes with tube socks, and funny pants on.

I feel dumb, having to copy everything Dr. Treves does. But it’s the only way to survive. I ask dumb questions. I can’t see the purpose of the actions we have to do, but finally I understand what’s going on.

Lunch is in the Non-Com cafeteria. One dollar twenty for pork chops and stuff. I’m eating more than I ever have in my life down here, without getting full. It’s unusual.

Dr. Dick (PhD, Wisconsin) and his assistant need blood samples to see what kind of germs we’ll infect the Winter Over people with. I gave my share.

We go to the NSF headquarters and meet Mr. Jack Hoffman and Mr. Bob Thompson, important people with the New Zealand Antarctic Program. We talk about the problems at McMurdo, look at a map of the drill sites and make provisional plans and ideas for alternatives.

I’m learning more all the time. There’s a big map (three dimensional) of McMurdo. Cal shows me where everything’s at. I get used to the place, because it looks all right. Sort of what I expected, only more sophisticated.

We go to the airport, catch a bus, and walk back to the motel. I wish I could remember the funny things Dr. Treves says, but they’re just throw away lines, playing on the conversation and being only funny at that specific moment.

McMurdo is on Ross Island with Mount Erebus.

Calvin got bumped by a biologist and has to go down on Wednesday. I wonder if he wonders why I (as having least seniority) wasn’t the one demoted. I feel it an honor to be on the first-day flight.

We ate at the Shanghai Restaurant, again. A dollar ninety-five for sweet and sour pork. We went window shopping. It was almost like Christmas shopping with the cold and the happy feeling. We wanted to see a movie. We looked at The Night Porter and I suggested Tommy. I hope they liked it and don’t blame me if they didn’t. I feel guilty about forcing them to do something they didn’t enjoy.

It was a buck fifty, plus all sorts of commercials and a Newsreel about the Queen Mother, Margaret. I told them that seeing Tommy twice was cheaper than buying the album.

We returned home. Wrote to Kay. Why am I putting off writing to Andria? I want to be in the write mood. I must contemplate tonight, grokking her fullness. I like Stranger in a Strange Land.


Today’s Expenditures:
$1.20....Lunch (pork chop)
$0.75....Soap and shampoo
$0.50....Bus ride home
$0.90....Stamps
$1.95....Chinese supper
$1.50....Tommy

August 30, 1975: Saturday

Rise and shower. The same breakfast, except the toaster works. Big discussion with Doug about rugby.

After reading awhile Cal and I go to the Botanic Gardens. Gee, the place is nice. Lots of vegetation and people enjoying the warm winter sun. There’s this Paradise duck, which is an unusually friendly, nicely colored thing. This New Zealander gave us a bunch of bull about the bird, about us, and about Antarctica.

We get back to Cathedral Square where Dr. Treves is eating fish and chips. We go get some while he gets some stamps. A dollar two for fish, chips, and scallops. We get something to drink while waiting for the bus to New Brighton.

They guy in the Hot Dog place hassles me about what size Coke. I get a 38 cent one. It’s a 750 ml bottle. Cal gets a small one. I need a cup. Cal ends up with another Coke. And I’m self conscious about my accent. The hopeless feeling gets worse, especially when connected with my fear of not knowing how to get on buses. The driver tells me to get rid of the bottle (one quarter full) and I have trouble communicating what size ticket I need to get to New Brighton, mostly because I don’t know myself.

Feeling down. Brighton’s the place in Quadraphenia. But here the day is bright and the sea roars onto the beach and all is peace and inner thoughts prevail. The Pacific and the land around reminds me of a puzzle. It’s all right.

We look in the New Brighton stores and reboard a bus (40 cents, round trip). The driver makes Cal throw away his ice cream bar. Finished my first roll of film.

We walk back to the motel and I read. I keep liking the book more. The Martian’s notions remind me of the way I feel towards Cathy. I must grok this carefully.

Cal and I go to Wino’s Pizza, while Dr. Treves naps. The pizza is made with Cheddar cheese, and it’s a bit soggy. Two dollars is all right, pricewise. Some old lady gives some bull about a lady she knows who fixes pizza on New Year’s Eve. I tell her we’re going to Antarctica to drill holes in rocks. Cal laughs. You have to say that line with a straight face. I’m feeling more confident, now.

We walk around looking for something sweet. I buy a nickel candy bar for eighteen cents. Dad would be ashamed. We walk home to watch T.V. and read. We get flight schedules. Dr. Treves and I have to be at the airport at 11:15 p.m. tomorrow night. The landlady hassles us about getting out tomorrow by 10:00, but not leaving the place. Dr. Treves tells her we’ll just pay for an extra day.

Costs:
$1.02....Fish, scallops
$0.38....Coke
$0.80....Bus
$2.00....Pizza
$0.18....Candy bar

August 31, 1975: Sunday

Up early again. Gee I picked up a nasty habit this summer. Shower, shampoo, and breakfast. Read and talk. We argue with Doug and Tim about Politics and Social Liberalism. We win. They’re suitably impressed by our Nebraska values. We eat fish and chips. Eighty-nine cents. Oysters this time. They’re O.K. We decide to go to the soccer match. Meanwhile we take a stroll on the Avon. I know why I enjoy the visit here. It’s late winter, the sun warming the cold ground, the coming of spring. A happiness, one of my favorite times of the year.

We return and I read. The book is bogging down in religious fal-do-ral and the totalness of sex. Which, I’m sure is true, but is none of my business.

The soccer match affirms my belief that the sport is purposeless. It lacks any sort of strategy. But for eighty cents, what can you lose. Besides, it’s fun to watch people. The bus is twenty cents out and back. The stadium is deteriorating plastic.

We eat at Shanghai, again, one dollar and ninety cents. Back home, I think this cold, drafty toilet needs an electric bun warmer. We talk about what we’ll be doing on the ice: collecting things to test their chemistry, dredging for sediments. Dr. Treves mentions that the three of us will probably publish a paper on the shallow water sediments. I wonder if that means me, him, and Cal, or three important people. If it’s us, I’m scared. I’ve had things printed before, but nothing that people have to take seriously.

We wait to go out to the airport.

I listen to, really, K.C. Kassom’s American Top Forty. That’s right. My life is now complete, listening to him no matter where I go in this old world. And on, get this, Radio Avon - 1290. Right on.

After paying our bill we taxi out to the airport and get dressed.

The wool shirt and parka are appreciated.

I have to follow Dr. Treves, again. And again feel like a fool because I don’t quite understand what’s going on. But I learn about what you need for hold and hand held. I decide to leave the bag full of good clothes in security storage at the airport.

Dr. Dick and Dan the lab man need to ask us if we have a cold or a fever. I have some symptoms. Dr. Dick asked Dr. Treves if he was sick.

“No.”

“That’s too bad.”

We go over to the cafeteria and get breakfast for seventy-five cents. After that we wander over to the barracks lounge. I read The English People up to the Tudor Kings. It’s a brief sketch of English History. Very interesting.

Days Debts:
$0.89....Fish and chips
$0.80....Bus
$0.80....Soccer match
$1.90....Supper
$0.75....At the airport
$20.00....Motel (receipt

September 1, 1975: Monday

About one o’clock we wander back to get our hand held luggage. We sit around the warehouse manager’s office (nothing like good ol’ Stephenson’s) and listen to the first plane rev up it’s engines. A few minutes later the phone rings.

“Uh huh. I see. O.K. What about accommodations?” Whitney (the manager) informs us the flights have been canceled. Fog and fuel problems. It’s back to the motel at 3:00 a.m.

Say good-night, Calvin.

We wake up at 11:30. Because all our clothes were packed last night, I get to wear my long underwear, jeans, wool shirt, and tight work shoes.

Calvin has gone motoring to the Banks Peninsula. Dr. Treves and I walk down to Fish & Chips and have lunch (54 cents). We sit in the Cathedral Square and listen to some Jesus Freaks preach. The day is warm and lots of people are out shopping. Go to Whitcoumbs and browse. I buy Ivanhoe for 75 cents.

When we get back to the motel, John and Jeff (two oceanographers) invite Doug and Dr. Treves and me to ride down to Lytleton Harbour for some sight seeing.

I grab the camera and we’re off (one dollar for gas). There’s this neat castle-looking tea house. We snoop around. And a hill that gives a commanding view of the city.

The Harbour is in a volcanic setting, absolutely marvelous. We wander around and end up on a farm trail and get some close shots of sheep.

Back home, I finish reading the book. I got a little bored with the proposition of his theological views and will not ask Cathy to read it ‘cause she might take the “growing close” wrong.

Someone, Cal (who’s back), Steve (the guy with the ring in his ear), Dr. Treves, and I eat at the Coffee Pot Café, mutton. Tastes like sweet pork. Two dollars and sixty-six cents, part in American, part in New Zealand. We walk around for awhile and head back.

I take a short nap. Then it’s the same routine as last night, except we get off the ground.


Days Expenditures:
$0.54....Fish and chips
$1.00....Gas
$2.66....Dinner
$5.00....Motel
$0.75....At the airport
$0.75....Ivanhoe

September 2, 1975: Tuesday

I find it hard to believe, sitting sardined on a C-130 “Hercules” (you know, the wings way above the body and the tail that angles sharply up with an all-glass cockpit, that kind), that I’m off to the Southlands. It gets bad, close, cramped. Fanny fatigue and tiring. In short, an eight hour roaring “Herc” trip. Fitfully sleeping in odd positions is an ordeal.

Finally it’s light out and below us you can see pack ice, cracked and tossing in the sea. My heart races.

The pilot informs us that the airfield is in a whiteout and we have to circle. More agonized waiting. We find out later he was off-course most of the way down. Then without warning we bump, bounce in the air, and bump to a landing. In zero visability, we taxi three miles to the airfield. I think the pilot was lost, but we couldn’t see anything to be sure.

Now, with all my Antarctic gear on, we step forth onto the Ice Shelf. As we step out men wave and direct us to follow the fellow in front of us. The wind is at 30 knots. It’s just like any Nebraska blizzard. Nothing different. We get in a truck and drive up to a shack. It’s crowded with men, smoke, and Playboy centerfolds. I eat two donoughts. They were real donoughts.

Sidebar: I think there’s something wrong with doughnuts.

We get back into the truck and drive to McMurdo. My impression is of eastern Nemaha County in the winter. Snow filled ruts and what look like plowed fields. Traffic in both directions. Telephone poles along the hills and stuck trucks with a junkyard on the outskirts of town. The relief is very steep.

McMurdo looks like a warehouse district in Nebraska City, or Fremont, maybe.

My roommates are Dirk (whom I‘ve only shook hands with), Pete (with two telephone calls to his girlfriend and a pith helmet, reminds me of Humphrey when he talks), and Steve (with the ring).

We get oriented in the officer’s lounge. We’ll only be in the big building (Navy barracks and mess) until the station opens up. Then we’ll move into the USARP Hotel. There’s no use getting settled. I start to beat Pete in a game of darts.

Then we go try to get our luggage. It’s not off the skid yet. So Mike takes us on a tour. We end up in the place that outfits campers. I meet Jim. He reminds me a lot of Dunbar (mannerisms, hair, and speech patterns). He seems to be the only sane Winter Over person. The others would be classified as loony back home.

Dr. Treves wants to check out the Earth Science Lab. We spend some time trying to get it open and then walk back to dinner. We get a maintenance crewman to go unlock it.

The lab is adequate. Lots of thin section equipment. Oh, boy. I get to learn something. All the cabinets are locked. We can’t find the keys. I don’t understand exactly what I’m going to do. Just follow Dr. Treves, I guess.

Doug stops by from the Cosmic Ray Shack. He’s got a twenty-minute-a-day job. The Winter Over physicist is missing things. He wanders around, spacey, and stares at a lot of walls.

We stop by Jim’s again. There’s a party going on. We stop. I meet Bio-Bob, another sane Winter Over.

Dr. Treves talks about what we’re going to do. Next week we’ll go out to check the ice. We’ll be out there a couple of days without coming back. I feel cold already.

Meet a Russian. Dr. Narcissus Something (Nartsiss Barkov). He’s from Leningrad. Pete tells him his life story. His girl works for the FBI.

“What?”

“FBI.”

“Like the KGB.”

He’s a super nice guy. I could have put the bull on that man all day. But Doug and I get very tired. Return home. I square things away, sort of. Shoot some pool ‘til someone comes in. Then go to bed.

Expenditures:
None.

September 3, 1975: Wednesday

I have a hard time keeping track of the days. Time is ephemeral. Only meals count towards time.

All morning we look for keys. We find the ones to the cabinets in the Bio-Lab. Boy is that a nice place. It’s huge, with lots and lots of sophisticated equipment. Cathy and Janet would like it here. We look for a microscope down there. Can’t find it, either.

I like the Earth Science Lab, even though it is way up on the windy ol’ hill. It reminds me of the Newspaper Shop, the way the lights softly hum and there is hardly any noise and the gray metal desks and the cloudy gray skies, and the sort of used-but-needed smell. I like it.

After lunch we get our pick-up truck. A four door Dodge that won’t engage third without sputtering out. The foot-feed sticks and it won’t idle.

Jack, the mechanic for Winter Over is lost (gone, perhaps). He wears a field jacket with a plastic flower in the lapel and a CAT baseball cap, out in the snow. He took Dr. Treves in a ride in the Cushman Trackster. Up and down hills, over dale, and up snowbanks. It was wild.

We went over to look at the diffractometer in storage. We get some water jugs and three sleeping bags for our little trip (traverse, as they call it down here on the ice).

We go back to the lab. I find a star chart. It’s not very good. I try to figure out longitude and latitude, 77º 51’ South is close, but I vary from 166º 35’ East to 166º 45’ East on different charts.

There’s an Auroral Observatory around here somewhere. It’ll have a nice dome.

At supper we hear on the radio, KGRI, Grand Island. That’s strange. I’d found the Armed Forces Radio studio, but it was all locked up. Jim was trying to teach Dr. Barkov about credit cards. Dr. Treves thinks that’s the way communism will fall. Give ‘em BankAmericard.

Dr. Barkov got some magazines on Soviet Life, the Black Sea Area.

“Bikinis, beaches, and good oil!”

“Ah, that’s just propaganda,” from Jack.

“Sure, a little,” from Barkov.

They’re friends.

Pete has a tape player. Tea for the Tillerman, Dark Side of the Moon, and Venus and Mars are All Right Tonight.

All right!

Expenditures:
None.

September 4, 1975: Thursday

In the morning we go up to the lab and wait for Calvin to arrive on the plane. I found a couple of O.K. astronomy books. I take my camera and set it up on a tripod. Some New Zealander comes and talks about our traverse. Cal comes up to the lab. We talk a bit and go eat. Steak. I’ve gained seven pounds.

After lunch we go up to the lab. I write a letter to Kay. Cal writes home, too. We walk down to the Post Office, $2.60 for air mail stamps. We go get Cal’s luggage and go square away his room.

He brought along a tape player for the lab. He’s got Layla and Abraxas and some Simon and Garfunkle and some classical.

We walk up to the lab. Dr. Treves has gone to check into the traverse with Dave and Emmett at the Chalet (NSF HQ).

I go out and take some panoramic pictures of McMurdo, Bowers Piedmont Glacier, the Royal Society Range, and Mount Discovery.

At 2:30 we go down to Jim’s and get the key to the security locker, plus two able bodies, and Dr. Treves. We have to move seven skidoos to get to the door. Inside are six microscopes, a copier machine, a 1500 pound x-ray diffractometer, a roll away accessory attachment, and four boxes of parts. We wiggle (with great effort) the machine onto the back of a lift-truck. (Careful, can’t tip it ‘cause it’s full of oil.)

Driving up the hill is scary and jiggling the machine into the cold room and down the hall is hard work.

We get everything into the proper rooms, check out the microscopes (good ones), and try out the copier. It doesn’t quite work right because the rollers won’t roll the paper on out. After much unscrewing, poking around, and lifting so the funny noise goes away (but comes back when you let go), Dr. Treves pounds on it with two screwdrivers. A metal tap slips into its niche and it works.

We go eat.

After lunch Cal and I go up to the lab. We decide to have our own offices, the two rooms in the back, next to the thin section saws. Mine is on the left. We both get electric typewriters. He gets an electronic pencil sharpener. Tomorrow I’m going to get out another battery clock for mine. One clock is over the door to the hall in the front room. If there was a descent bathroom, I wouldn’t mind living up there. I think I’ll bring up the desk stuff tomorrow. It’ll look official. Took a lot of cleaning to get things in order after the last guy left in a hurry. Hope I didn’t throw anything out that was valuable.

On the way back we stop by the Bio-Lab.

I talked to Bio-Mike. (Bio-Bob’s gone home. He was an O.U. man.) He’ll let me use the darkroom. We have to develop some prints off an ERTS satellite transparency for Ross Island and the Dry Valleys.

All my pictures developed, except for a couple of shots in the middle of the first roll. They’ll print O.K. The transparency was a bit thick. Besides that, it’s a negative print.

I think I spotted the Magellenic Clouds. If I did, they’re huge.

Dirk has some tapes, including Chicago Transit Authority and Son of Schmillson.

Days Expenditures:
$2.60....Stamps, air mail

September 5, 1975: Friday

Boy, am I glad I learned how to drive a truck at Stephenson’s this summer, because I sure wouldn’t want to learn here, with all the poles and ditches and snowbanks and cold, cold weather. Especially our pick-up. I killed it four or five times whilst Cal and I were picking up provisions for the lab. Bio-Mike took my jacket, so we had to go down and trade him. It took close to thirty minutes to get up the hill. Dr. Treves told me to take it down to Jack to get it fixed. Backed her out of the drive and couldn’t get it started. Boy, was I unsure of myself ‘cause I thought this whole mess was my fault because I didn’t plug the truck into a block heater.

I told Dr. Treves I couldn’t get it started. He just sent me down to get help. Sam Morgan climbed into an emergency truck and gave me a jump. He and Jack went to work on the carburetor, points, and foot-feed.

In the afternoon, I almost fell asleep listening to Billy Taylor jazz. Fortunately Cal and I had to go find our lab cameras, which we got. The rest of the afternoon we spent giving tours. Met Leon, head of the drillers. Jack and Sam Morgan were suitably impressed by everything, especially thin sections in crossed nicols, and my quartz. I’d brought it up, with the pen holder and letter holder. Makes the office look used. I wish I new what to do in that office. The last two hours we sit around and talked about teaching, geology, and field camp. I listen carefully and feel that I’m not doing too bad. Everyone makes the mistakes I do. I got out Rocks in Thin Sections for a review. I need it.

They’ve got a machine here called a Freshen-up with Seven-up Machine. It dispenses, for twenty cents, either Coke or Miller’s. I read Ivanhoe and drink Miller’s. Then I wandered down and taught Pete, Bio-Mike, Ed (a bioperson, Chicano, I think), and Dan (the health joker) how to play darts the way Clark and I play. Told ‘em it was “collegiant rules.” Then Dan and Ed and I play “Round the World” (one, two, three…). I lose both times.

Days Output:
$0.20....Beer, Miller’s

September 6, 1975: Saturday

It started out like a Saturday. We vacuumed the rug in the lab. I almost fell asleep before lunch. In the afternoon I started a little project with zones on the astronomical chart.

The water truck came late in the day. We got everything all hooked up except that there is a leak in the system. No water ‘til tomorrow.

Gee, am I tired. Went to bed right after supper.

September 7, 1975: Sunday

I slept 14 hours. Pretty good.

Went up and finished the star chart.

I tried to get a phone patch home but no one was around. I was awful nervous about it. Don’t really know why.

We had a meeting to make plans for our traverse. Us three, Jim, Jack, and Jim Newman (a Kiwi, as they call New Zealanders). We’re taking two trucks and lots of things to keep warm.

There’s a bench, right outside the front door of the mess hall, with some plastic ferns stuck into the ground next to it. A sign reads, “McMurdo City Park, keep off the grass.”

It’s across the street from the Penguin Power & Light Company.

Dr. Dick gave a talk on his work in tracing infections of viruses. He’s a short man, gray hair, thin, growing a beard. He talks like Orson Bean. His talk was like a lecture, writing on a blackboard all the unimportant concepts. I ask some dumb questions, which is a hobby of mine.

September 8, 1975: Monday

Today we got ready for the traverse. We’re taking a Nodwell and a Scott Base vehicle. I get to ride in the Nodwell.

The Nodwell is a track vehicle with a flat bed in back and a two seat cab, which is wide, wide! It works like a tank. To turn it, you have to brake on one side or the other. No steering wheel, just a lack of motion in the direction you’re not going.

We have to take along barrels of gas. But first we have to rummage around the junk yard for empty barrels. It takes a long time to fill four fifty-five gallon drums of gas. Almost five hundred dollars worth of fuel! Berzel and I would be kept in heaven for a long, long time with that much gas.

Sam Morgan helps us. He talks like Goober Pyle, but he’s shorter. To look at him you’d never think he had a twelve year old son. He’s a nice guy, but he looks like the devil, with a black Van Dyke beard and dark, dark eyes that look out from under his parka hood like he’s looking into your soul.

We load into boxes all kinds of tools, saws, gasoline cans, kerosene, sleeping bags, foam insulators, pouches of food, stoves, tents, and accessories.

We (Cal and me) get to try out the new type coats. Gee are they nice.

I play Pete in chess. No contest. Got to find someone else, or he’ll end up being another Clark.

September 9, 1975: Tuesday

Surprisingly, I’m awake at five a.m. Had a rough night’s sleep, too. Karen Aufenkamp and Greg Berger and their class got caught on the other side of a breaking away glacier. Karen was sweet.

We sit around waiting for the other vehicle to get their last minute details. It’s a snowtrack, a Volkswagen on tracks.

I get to sit in the middle of the Nodwell behind the engine and overlapping the gear shifter. I get to sit on a five-gallon bucket. It takes almost a half hour to figure out a comfortable position to shift in. It takes a good deal of physical dexterity to shift with me in the middle. But Cal’s too big to sit there.

We head out for the tip of the Dirty Ice. I thought it was southwest of McMurdo. It’s northwest. Oh, well, so I’m confused a bit. The Nodwell (R-41 as they say on the radio) is slow, but sure. The sea ice at the Tip is only 2 or 3 inches thick, so we have to go up on top of the Ice Shelf, which takes for ever because it’s rough. On the other side the ice is thick enough and we go chasing penguins, three of them. Emperors. Jack chases one and catches him. I stand out in the middle of them, looking like Harry Nillson amongst the fiddlers, while Cal takes a picture. You know, little Penguins, three feet high, carrying trays full of drinks and calling you “Guv’ner.”

It’s an endless ride towards the Blue Glacier. Another misconception, the Blue Glacier is on the right, not on the left. Distances are deceiving on the map.

I look for a mountain to name. The one hovering over the Blue Glacier is nice. It forms the bowl for the Hobbs Glacier (the one I thought was so pretty, it must be the Blue Glacier). Anyway, I don’t know if it has a name or not, and we don’t have a map.

At the next stop (the snow track gets way out ahead of us and has to wait for us to catch up), I look at the map, point the mountain out to the group, remark that it doesn’t have a name, and proclaim, “Hence forth and forevermore it shall be known as Mount Debrushka.”

I guess I’m just a helpless Romantic.

A sidebar: On the map its 1340 meters tall.

The mountain, twin spired and majestic, looks down upon the weathered Piedmont and the frozen Sound, glaciers on the left (the graceful, curving Hobbs, in delicate light it glows blue with a small silver cloud echoing its beautiful descent) and glaciers on the right (the Blue, in rushing torrents it cascades down to the ice). Between the spires, in shadowed light, a snowfield, gray, nestles its head against the second spire.

Alas this second peak may have a name. The map is ambiguous. The photos shall tell.

As we move on up the coast, the mountain is viewed sideways, instead of head on, the two peaks, side-by-side and slightly rounded. I think something obscenely remindful of Debbie’s figure and how adequate the mountain is. Debbie would blush, but be proud. I won’t mention it to her. She’ll probably see for herself (and bring it to my attention). She has a dirty mind.

I try to think of ways to make it official and get the name on the map. This will take some doing.

We continue our endless journey passed the Stranded Moraines (huge piles of ground up rubble left behind by a retreating glacier) and through New Harbour. I fell into the Ross Sea through a crack in the ice. Got my boot wet.

We stop at an iceberg and get samples for Dr. Nartsiss. I think it’s the strangest scene I’ve ever been in. Standing on a frozen sea, chipping ice from a towering ‘berg, bundled up in fur, wearing white “bunny” boots, and standing next to a snub-nosed tracked vehicle painted like a Coke truck (with out Coke®).

I trade places with Jim, who has frost bite and needs to keep his fingers warm. The snowtrack is bumpy.

We finally get to Marble Point, our destination, 65 miles from McMurdo and an eleven hour drive. Marble Point has a collection of abandoned road equipment and gouges in the rock where roads were trying to be made.

The village itself has a marker for mapping purposes, a hut with a heater, a blown over Wannigan (hut on skis), two Jamesways over the hill, and several dozen barrels of DFA (drilling fluid), which is what the heater runs on. We clean things up (plenty of food in the hut, even a pot with ice in it), pull over the Wannigan, and set up two tents. The hut is six by six with six people in it. The Wannigan is full of snow and old lumber. Jack sleeps in there. I’ll sleep with Jim Newman (the Kiwi).

We eat Long Range Patrol Rations, called lerps. They’re a self-contained meal in a pouch. All you do is pour in hot water. They come with a spoon and a candy bar and either coffee or cocoa. Spaghetti and Beef with Rice are O.K., except they both come with coffee. I look through all sorts of packets, but never get cocoa.

I go to bed.

September 10, 1975: Wednesday

I dreaded having to go out into the tent and try to sleep. I’ve never slept well out in the open (except when we were hitchhiking in Kansas), especially when it’s cold. I almost froze to death at Chadron.

But for some reason, it’s tolerably comfortable in this Italian tent in a Bowers bag, next to Jim. I find out Jim is Officer in Charge at Scott Base. He owns one third of a construction company and is forty-two.

More clues to Dr. Treves’s age. He was a grad student at Ohio State when Jack Nicklaus was there. Have to ask Dad about that one. He fought in World War II as a foot soldier.

Anyway, I don’t know why I didn’t freeze, out in 30 below zero winds, isolated, on the very Continent of Antarctica. This is the boonies. You can’t get much farther away. But it was so calm, peaceful, delightful. I didn’t freeze either because of a better sleeping bag or it was all psychological.

That doesn’t mean that I slept well.

My back hurt.

I dreamed. See, the moon was a silver crescent on the eastern horizon when we left. When we went to sleep it was an orange crescent on the western horizon. It never got overhead. It just kind of rolled around the Horizon.

Anyway, I dreamed. The kind of dream of stark emotion. This one was amazement. The kind that you’re not sure you’re asleep, and when you realize you are, you’re relieved. I dreamed about hitchhiking. Me and Berzel on this farm by a lake on the 4th of July, watching the moon grow from a crescent to full, then burst into a thousand sparkling twinklers and fall to earth as another moon appeared in the sky above and to the right. At anyone time you could see three moons ascending to the zenith, like a time-lapse picture of changing phases.

In the morning I had to take a piss. (I think the word is onomatopoetic). Told Jim I had to or I’d float away. When you go in snow, your body’s fluid (at 98.6º F) melts the top powdery layer until it hits the hard, cold ice and just lays there in a yellow pool of steep walled snow.

We (Dr. Treves, Jim, and me) went out to drill holes in the ice to see how thick it was, if it could support a drill rig. We went off to find the sites, got the drill stuck in the ice, had to dig it out, and went home. Jim and I walked over to Gneiss Point to look for rocks. I picked up some amphibolite. We told Dr. Treves what we saw (he mapped this region, once) and it turned out I knew what I was talking about (half the time, anyway).

We ate lerps. The things cost six bucks a piece. Then we have a general discussion about Politics in which a California used-to-be-radical, Arizona construction worker, three Nebraskans, and a Kiwi were pitted against each other. It was diverse.

Jim didn’t like our Constitution and our three branches of government.

I learn about some tricks the helicopter pilots play. They put a plastic tree by a wrecked ‘copter in the Dry Valley. They tell people it crashed while carrying experimental seeds. Only one tree survived, Pinus antarcticus. They tried to steal something off of a Navy ship. A sailor stopped them. They told the sailor they were CIA and had a miniaturized camera in their wrench. They took the sailor’s picture and the sailor gave them what they were after. When the Captain found out, he demanded it back. It showed up one night in the officer’s mess.

Time for bed.

While I was away, they had a fire. The other Jim burned two fingers. Nothing serious was damaged.

September 11, 1975: Thursday

Again, curled up in my bag, I dream. A five part saga that runs like a play through my mind. In logical sequence the scenes are connected to form some sense to my slumbering mind. David Wininger is dead. The Newspaper is full of his photos and stories of his exploits. There is mass hysteria and people are wandering, grief stricken, over an Oriental bridge to mourn his death. I sit beside Joy (who looks like Lori, Cathy’s roommate) and I cry on her shoulder.

Then it is Peru, springtime, and the Peruvians are out walking around (Brian, Martha, etc., etc.). They’re having some sort of contest over there and people are swimming in pools behind chain link fences. There is some sort of controversy about where the sidewalk is pushed up by a tree root. It’s by the steps to the library and the trash can doesn’t agree with the candy wrapper.

I have the most desperate urge to leave the party at eight (there’s some sort of profound logic here), because I have to pick up Cathy in the City when the movie is over. But Kay and Rich are up there.

We’re at a farm, but this is a country estate, where there’s a holiday camp, with honeysuckle and lilac and climbing trees and a little house out in the woods where everyone plays. It has a bar. I try to get Berzel to share water with me, but the scheme just won’t work. The timing is bad. He’s with Karen B. (I think) on a bearskin rug before a roaring fire. Again, I feel the urge to depart, but never do.

The scene turns into a school building, where Kay’s class (Brettmann, etc.) is being taught advanced methods of causing paranoia. I think I am their target. They use Halloween tactics, chasing me through all sorts of imagined horrors. The school slowly blends into my house, where all the kids go next door to the Eckerts and ring the doorbell for Trick or Treat.

Me and Berzel have to walk to Nine-Oh-Five Ninth Street, but we get as far as the Radiator Repair Shop, where a pavilion has been built. Inside is an exhibit in which a turtle is metamorphosed into a horse, with documenting evidence. No admission charge. As we walk around the square of little booths, we see a turtle become an alligator, lay eggs and hatch caterpillars that turn into butterflies, which lay more eggs, which sprout wild flowers (tall things), which pollinate into rabbits, which grow up to be horses, one of which is in the front hall, tied to a doorknob and pawing a bare spot in the grass.

Two sheets of paper, under a plastic cover, are mounted on the far side of the exhibits. I glance up and see a screen. I know that this is the script for a slide show.

The lady standing at the exit asks me if I believe her theory. I reply, not wishing to offend her, that all things are possible but the probability of this series of events to occur is astronomical. She reminds me of Mayor Blankenship, but smells (and talks and acts) like the Lady from Holiday Hippodrome.

We leave, but have to go back for our tennis shoes, which we left by the other corner, down from where the slide show script is. We go back outside and sit on the steps to put our shoes on.

The steps are the west steps of the Methodist Church. The kids that went to Eckerts show up with Auburn Police Department patches. Jeff Wilson tells me it’s the Scouts, but there are girls with them, and more and more people keep showing up.

Berzel is gone and Kay is sitting next to me. Mom and Dad are standing up, asking the newcomers if they have patches. Every time I get my hands on one, Kay takes it away from me and passes it out.

More and more people arrive, shaking their Auburn Police Department patches (ol’ man Eckert gave ‘em to them to commemorate their overnight campout in his living room), over their heads, like a scene in Tommy, but no music. I stand up as they stream passed me. I walk down and ask Mrs. Ghandi, who is standing there on the sidewalk by the tree stump, looking gaunt and wearing her robe, if she is happy that she has contributed so many participants.

She smiles and the whole throng goes inside and downstairs for cookies and kool-aid.

Back to reality (I think). After I get up, we have to go outside to call Scott Base on Jim’s FM radio. I have to hold one end of the antenna.

The wind blows fiercely and the sky is gray. Ross Island is clouded. The weather report is bad. We decide to stay another day. I look glum and go back to sleep.

It worked. As soon as I was comfortable, the sun came out and they changed their mind. We pack up and leave Marble Point.

Jim Matthews rides home with me and Jack. The snowtrack goes off to survey two other sites. We spend the afternoon following Tuesday’s tracks and wondering where the snowtrack could be. Their walkie-talkie batteries are weak and we loose contact. Jack leaves his door open all the way across the ice. Because I lack sleep, I think foul thoughts about it and our progress.

At six o’clock, Jim (the Kiwi) has to call Scott Base. When that happens, Mac Center orders us to stop and wait for them. They come bouncing across the ice. We refuel and go home. Something to drink, eat, and go to the bathroom. Then sweet sleep.

September 12, 1975: Friday

Boy, I learn a lot of things today. Read some of Dr. Treves’s papers in the Antarctic Journal. There’s a Treves Cliff somewhere in Antarctica. There’s a Mount McCormick and a Cape McCormick. Cape McCormick was named after the surgeon on the H.M.S. Discovery in 1842 with Ross (or perhaps the Terror in 1894, I forget which).

Anyway, I found out where to notify the government that Mount Debrushka has been named. It’s a bureau in the Interior Department. They publish official gazetteers.

Jim Newman is writing a book. We went over to Scott Base, after unloading the gear, to talk to Robert Thompson about what we did. I guess we’ll be going back out next week.

I developed pictures. The one of the bridge reflecting in the River Avon is the prettiest, but as usual my rotten photography and impatient darkroom work leaves a lot that could be better.

We get the day off tomorrow.

I went over to give Jack his copy of a penguin photo. He wants my role of negatives. He’s a pretty good photographer.

Al was dissecting a Borchavinky fish in the Bio-Lab. He’s studying the synthesis of a protein molecule, which works as an antifreeze. He played the Carpenter’s Close to You album twice while I was developing.

ToDay:
15¢ lost in a Pop Machine
Traded Pete 23¢ Kiwi for
a quarter and had a Miller’s

September 13, 1975: Saturday

Slept ‘til eleven. All right!

I guess we’re going out to the Erebus Ice Tongue on Monday. We’ll have to get ready tomorrow. I put up the pictures I’ve developed in the hallway of the lab. Looks official. I get to use the lab’s Cannon camera. Cal’s going to teach me how to make thin sections with the rocks we got at Marble Point.

Pete screwed up in the darkroom. I went over and got things straightened. I’d forgotten how much fun it was to teach people how to make pictures.

Snooped around the Special Services Building. Nothing worth fussing over.

Dan brought a guitar down. Even let me play with it. I needed that. He had it tuned for playing lead, DADDAD. He let me retune it to EADGBE. I need practice.

We got these new red suits to wear instead of wind pants and parka.

Went down to listen to the Mad Dog Jack Radio Program. He had Dr. Treves as his guest. I could get to like it, if it weren’t for his Country Music. I found where my music’s stored. Tim’s got a program tomorrow. I think I’ll go down and help him.

September 14, 1975: Sunday

Got up early to help Tiny Tim Zig-zag and His Radio Show. Boy I needed that. Three hours of Rock.

After lunchtime I go up to the lab and read Ivanhoe. He writes the way I do, but back then it was O.K.

We’re going to load equipment tomorrow, but only if the weather is good. Right now it doesn’t look good. I do my wash.

Dr. Treves gives his speech at the Chalet. It’s interesting, and we have a general discussion about the ethics of exploiting the Antarctic. I ask stupid questions, but Dr. Treves says there are only stupid answers.

I talk to Emmett. He likes to talk in that… slow… rambling… personal… style. And I have to go to the bathroom. What agony. But he gives me a Great Idea for a novel about a multinational corporation, oil, some enterprising individuals, and the usurpation of sovereign rights for the plundering of continental wealth. All right!

Bullshit with Peter about the State of Things. His problem is that he grew up in California.

September 15, 1975: Monday

Weather isn’t good. Maybe we’ll go tomorrow. Got a phone patch to home. It’s still there. Auburn beat T-town and Nebraska beat LSU 10-7. They got my letters, so Andria probably got hers. (Except I don’t know if I had the right town, and no zip code. Oh, well.) No news. That’s good.

Cathy moved to a new apartment (no pets allowed), the landlord sold the house she was in. She brought Toodles to Auburn (must mean she has her sister’s car) and gave him to our family to keep ‘til the end of December. Why? Dad doesn’t like cats. Kay does. Mom might not mind a housebroken one. But Toodles McGoon is as sickly as Cathy is sometimes. It’s not like Cath to impose on people, especially without asking me. (But then, she couldn’t.) Mom didn’t sound too upset. I hope Cathy did it without imposing, even though she can be pretty nasty, when she wants what she wants. Why not Berzel? Or Kruegers (whose family she knows better than Mom and Dad)? But I must not think it means anything. Just accept it (and be thankful, praising its fullness).

We get a current meter. It looks like a meat grinder and we don’t know how to convert the readings on the dial to knots (or feet per second, either). We get Bio-Mike to look around and after supper we check out a current meter that looks like a Tommy gun. We know how to read it. It’s not as classy as the first one.

Dr. Treves and Dr. Barkov are the same age. Fifty. No more mystery.

I’m learning more things about names. I found the criterion used by the Board of Geographic Names for accepting names. It is doubtful that Mount Debrushka is twin spired. I’m half way through the pages looking for another name for 164º 10’ E and 77º 52’ S.

I may pull this one off yet.

September 16, 1975: Tuesday

Jim and Mike and Nartsiss and us go out to the Erebus Ice Tongue. It’s the part of the glacier that has gone out to sea. We drive past Turtle Rock. It is a very good name.

We walked all the way across the ice tongue. It’s blue and has real crevasses in it filled with snow, so you had to be careful where you stepped. I almost fell in one. The north side had layers of wind blown kenyite glass imbedded in the glacier. On the south side there are ice caves with beautiful icicles and things. What we wanted were intermittent layers of yellowish-brown ash in the ice. We collected some while Nartsiss got a core sample from the top. The generator wouldn’t start, and got busted, so we had to do the coring by hand. The new suits are warm.

After three and a half meters, the weather got miserable. We descended, packed the gear, and got the truck stuck. After a desperate drive to get the truck out of the snow and onto ice, into the whiteness we bumped along back to McMurdo. Unload and eat sandwiches.

Nartsiss was reading a Playboy. Jim said, “Is degenerate magazine, Nartsiss.”

Nartsiss nodded and said, “Da, degenerate.”

I go and lay down, then to supper (lunchmeat of all things). Dr. Dick is very complimentary about my age and ideas.

After supper is a meeting in the lab to plan for Thursday’s trip to Marble Point. We’ll have trouble with the weight.

It was Jack’s birthday. Sam Morgan stole his truck and we’ve hassled him about it all day.

They came to take the phone out of Cal’s office and put it into Dr. Treves’s. They couldn’t find the one in Cal’s office (it’s on the desk), so they just put a new phone in the office. That makes three. Not bad for only eight rooms.

September 17, 1975: Wednesday

Went up to the lab and fell asleep in the office. Tried to sleep all morning, but it’s hard in a chair with your feet on the desk. So I slept with my arms folded across the top. Except you hear everything better.

Dr. Dick got all my symptoms. I just can’t seem to wake up today. And I burp a lot. He wants me to get a nasal wash.

In the afternoon we get things into the pick-up. Two thousand pounds snugly fits. We give Sam Morgan endless hassle about his first trip out onto the ice. We got a note from NSF saying the holes at New Harbour are not feasible and to concentrate on holes close to home. We don’t understand. They must have thought the ice was only a meter thick.

It’s snowy. Blowing snow, poor visibility and gusty. Weatherman says it will clear up. Sure. But I still have to get up at five.

Went to the Library. Dan’s the Librarian. They’re giving away free paperbacks. I see (good ones only) Dr. Zhivago and some science fiction. I’ll go down and take a hard look when I get done with Ivanhoe, which is getting better and better. (It always was good.) They have Nicholas and Alexandra. Dan says it’s the Movie on Sunday.

Tim calls me Raoul. Funny, that’s what I told those two broads in the City my middle name was. Paul R(aoul) Baer. He wants to know if I’ll be here Sunday for his Zig-zag Show. Gee. I want the weather to be good tomorrow so we can get back.

September 18, 1975: Thursday

I awake at 5:00 a.m. (more or less). The weather outside is good. Mount Discovery and New Harbour are very close and the dark brown storm cloud is over Marble Point, receding quickly. We go to the BFC. Sam is already there. He had a good night’s sleep. I didn’t. David Wininger is alive and in the Air Force, shaking hands on “R” Street at UNL, which is now somewhere in New Zealand. I get letters coming out of my ears. Weird dreams.

The Kiwi vehicle shows up about 6:30. We chase it around awhile, then head out for the ice, Cal at the helm.

The pick-up needs speed to get through the drifts. But speed kills, you know, besides bouncing all the gear out of the back. Then we get on thin, soft, crusty snow and the pick-up breaks right through.

We get out. Dig it out. Go back and find a lost crack board. And press on. Sam, driving like a man possessed. He has an Italian wife (like Andria) and three kids (12, 10, 8). Cal, me, and Dave out on foot finding safe places. We give up when we get ol’ 590 buried to the axles. I guess I didn’t wear the right shirt. Should have worn 51 again.

We turn around and head for home. Decide to take 504, a trackmaster (the Bio-People’s) and a sled, which is this nifty little red contraption. We unload, load, and pack for leaving tomorrow. So long Zig-zag.

Dr. Nartsiss asks about my education. He has seen Nicholas and Alexandra. He didn’t like it. Too sympathetic towards the Tsar.

Put in a real long day today. But the sunset was worth it.

Traveling towards the Dirty Ice this morning it became clear that Mount Debrushka is a one spired summit, not the twin peaked mountain I had hoped. But this does not lessen the beauty, does not diminish the glory. For the mountain is a tribute to beauty. And glory. And half of infinity is still infinity.

The sunset from the side of Observation Hill was like a Nebraska sunrise across the Nemaha Valley.

In fiery splendor of orange and gold, the sun slid behind the Royal Society mountains, above the Blue Glacier, reflecting down cascades of fire and smoldering orange. The sea fog, catching this splendor, returned the dying light with a whispered, pastel flame. The clouds, once gray and blue, now shone in purple majesty, robed in tones of soft, soft pink, reflecting down to a small thin layer of wispy clouds that stood within the cup of the mountains to receive their orange hue of twice reflected light.

Three seals on the endless expanse of white-blue sea ice enjoyed the splendor of their universe.

September 19, 1975: Friday

Up at 5:00 again. The morning is farily decent. But five minutes after I get to the BFC, the wind comes up and snow starts blowing all over the place. Sam and Dave and I go get gas. It’s a howling gale outside. We go back and decide to wait ‘til the forecaster gets to work at 8:30. I go back to bed. It’s bloody miserable outside. Can’t see fifty yards. Dr. Treves decides not to go and says I can have the morning off.

I don’t feel like sleeping. So I go check out the radio station. I procure the key from some sleeping guy, who was nice enough about the whole thing, just a bit groggy.

A tape is playing and it takes me five minutes to get it turned off and to figure out how to turn me on. After a lot flip switching and hoping, I get things turned on. I start out with “Roundabout,” my theme. I go by the name “Raoul’s Radio,” Ø945 to 123Ø. (Notice how the Navy puts things through their zeros). I keep saying “Armed Forces Radio” instead of “American Forces Radio.” Played both of Cathy’s songs. Even got two requests (from the same guy) for “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” off the Concert for Bangladesh album. It’s a bit of a hassle pulling out albums for one song and shoving ‘em back. Can’t get the full appreciation of the song. And I like to do things while I listen, but on Radio you got to keep busy running it. But I like it.

After lunch, as the gale continues, Cal shows me how to get rocks ready to make thin sections. It’s all a matter of judging how smooth a rock surface is and the various tools to get it smooth.

The rocks we’re working on are from the bottom of the Sound, collected by Al and Steve while they were fishing for things on the bottom. One’s a basalt and the other’s a tuff.

I guess Cal and I will describe the bottom rocks, make tables about them, and publish it in the Antarctic Journal. I guess that’s what they did last year. But I’m not certain anbout any of this. Dr. Treves is point counting minerals today. Something else I don’t quite understand.

I’m glad it’s bad outside because the trip’s postponed ‘til Monday. So I’ll be here Sunday to help with the Zig-zag Show.

At supper Jack gives an impassioned and bitter attack on the State of California. “Why, I checked into a motel and the lady said, ‘That’ll be 28 dollars.’ And I said, ‘I ain’t stayin’ for a week, just this one night.’ And she said, ‘That’ll be 28 dollars.’ And I said, ‘Good, when’s dinner served.’ And she said, ‘You’ll have to go down stairs if you want to eat.’ Why, in Arizona you can live for a month on five dollars and a tank of gas.”

There’s a whole lot of nonsense going on. I guess it’s Friday night. Playing pool we get this dialogue.

“You geographers are pretty good at pool.”

“Isn’t that the schists.”

“Only if you’re gneiss about it.”

“Or if you take it for granite.”

“That’s a marbleous statement.”

“Oh, stop this punishment.”

Dr. Treves and Cal lost the Earth Science Lab and Mrs. Treves to Bio-Mike and Al playing pool, and that starts with “P” which rhymes with “T” and that stands for Trouble, with a capital “T,” which rhymes with “P” and that stands for Pool, right here in River City. Ooooh, yeahhh!!

At least they won Hallet Station back. They didn’t get around to playing for the USARP Mountains. That made Dave happy ‘cause there’s a Bresnehan Mountain.

Bruce, the Winter Over CosRay guy, who reminds me of Tom Weaver and who got a little absent during the night, told me there’s a list somewhere that if you put your name on it, you’ll get a mountain named after you by the Board of Geographic Names. But Mount Bresnehan wasn’t named that way. So I still have a chance of getting Mount Debrushka on the map, if bureaucracy doesn’t make things impossible.

I finished Ivanhoe. I’m glad that Athelstane didn’t die. He was a good guy, and necessary to reconcile Richard Couer-de-leon with Cedric, so everyone could have a happy ending. The author took a lot of liberties and things for granted, but then, he’s famous.

I stayed up ‘til way after one talking to Bio-Mike. He came out in his bathrobe to the game room and asked about my education and age. He told me about his girlfriend (a year older than I am), named Janelle, but doesn’t fit the description of a Nebraska Janelle. It was a good and interesting story and I think I shall remember it, for it may come in handy some day. It’s about a high school biology teacher who falls in love with one of his students, but after she graduates.

I think Mike wanted to talk. And I hope I didn’t goof up in listening by interjecting too many comparisons with Nebraska. But the point was made that People are People, and their differences just make their similarities that much more remarkable.

September 20, 1975: Saturday

What a way to start a day.

Dr. Treves came in to wake me up. I over slept. Then he said here was a time and a place for work and a time and a place for taking pictures, and they do not mix. I nodded my head. If I’d been in a worse (or better) mood, I would have argued the point with him, having grown up as work being the taking of pictures. Also I can only think of three specific instances that I have not helped, but all are questionable. I take my lumps, for they are there to be had. And to learn by.

The storm has abated and the Southern Foothills are mantled in a light powder of purity, Mount Debrushka cloaked in the softest fur of white that I have ever seen. It is beauty. It is right.

The Life Cycle of a Thin Section: First, Dr. Treves tells you to practice on benmoreite. Then you ask Cal what a benmoreite is. Then you cut the rock with a rotary saw until you get a piece the size of a cover slip.

Then you pour 180 grit on a revolving wheel and make the rock smooth, with no grooves. Then you pour 400 grit on another revolving wheel and polish until it’s glassy, with no scratches.

Then you pour 600 grit on a revolving wheel and grind until it has sharp edges and no scratches. Then you put it in the oven to dry. Then you frost a slide by rubbing it in grit and drying it.

Then you mix up this epoxy glue. (Heaven knows in what proportion. We experiment.) And stick the rock to the slide.

Then let set.

This Life Cycle will be continued after it has thoroughly set.

Jim Newman came by. And he, Cal, and me went to take pictures of the ice runway at Williams Field. I feel guilty.

After supper I act as a good luck charm for Dan playing poker. Then I go and have a heavy intellectual discussion with Bio-Mike and Doug.

Is the Human Race a Success or Failure? Will the Human Race Survive, if it Changes its Own Environment so Drastically? (Big Nuclear War Argument.) Given the Same Conditions Present on Earth, How would Life Evolve on a Distant Planet?

Finally it got around to good ol’ College Days. I had thought that my life was filled with fullness and flavor. But I perceive that these High School memories do not hold weight amongst those who have gone on in life. Even though the ideas are the same, high school is a bit immature. Yet college is Good Times. Besides, I am not a natural story teller, and it takes a lot of explanation to convince someone about Auburn.

September 21, 1975: Sunday

Up to help Tiny Tim and the Zig-zag Show. We blew a circuit breaker. Listened to Bridge of Sighs by Robin Trower, the only new stuff we could find. Played some funny USARP commercials.

Went back to bed at 11:00 and slept ‘til 3:00. Went to the library to study up on the Kings of England.

We’re going tomorrow. Hopeful. I remember to get out my rubber gloves. See a movie in the Chalet about Palmer Station and the Glomar Challenger. Very boring.

Tom, the guy from Kearney, plays a good guitar. I write three scenes for Antigone and Mercedes. I am going to finish it down here while my ideas of Cathy remain constant. I have to search out Tragic Flaw, Third Act Climax, Comic Interlude, and Final Motives. Especially in a Sense of Time. The hardest thing is to get Antigone and Mercedes into the right relationship of close friends.

I meet two drunks on the way to my room. Regular Navy guys. They want to know my name.

“Raoul.”

“Oh, a Cuban. Come on, we don’t wanna talk to no Cuban. We’re you born in Cuba.”

“No, my first name’s Paul.”

“Paul what?”

“Paul R. Baer.”

They laugh and stagger away.

“Is that all you want?”

Then they really laugh. I think they were after my body.

September 22, 1975: Monday

Had trouble getting 504 started. Took the batteries out of the BFC’s stake-bed and jumpered 504. Went out and hitched up the sled. Had trouble getting down Main Street Hill. At the bottom we coupled up the chain and chugged off across the ice. At one spot the red flags went North and the orange flags went Straight. We took the Orange Route and ended up in rough ice. We got out to check on things and discovered that 504 had two (not one, but two) flat tires. We hobbled back into the garage and Jack fixed it in half an hour. Meanwhile we got gas. They let me off to make sandwiches. I fix six peanut butter and jelly and six baloney. The guy looked at me and said, “You must be one hungry mother.” He wasn’t even Black. The mess cooks were having some dispute with Navy over who should put up more coat hooks. It’s not my Problem.

I get to call Mac Center and say, “Mac Center, this is 504 trying again for Marble Point. Over.”

“Roger, roger, 504.”

Back across the ice to the Dirty Ice. Have trouble getting 504 and the sled up. The snowtrack had to come back, attach itself to the sled on the other side and pull us both back for a clear shot at the ramp. We finally get up and see before us the vast gray sea, McMurdo Sound, stretching far to the North, the sun, small and golden, reflecting off it. The Sound, actual water anyway, is a rarity. And we delighted in its gray green choppy waves, which flashed and sparkled in the saffron sun, like Karen Aufenkamp’s eyes. One penguin, proud and lonely, strolled along the shore, almost like a beach, with the waves lapping onto the ice, the sun obliquely casting its enormous penguin shadow. It was time for a Kodak stop. The snowtrack went on to the other side of the Dirty Ice to find a safe way. There they encountered a flock of penguins. We had trouble getting 504 over a hump. The birds wandered over to see what was happening and laugh at us dumb humans. When you chase a penguin, he’ll get down on his belly and push himself along by his feet and paddle with his wings. Another Kodak break among the penguins. A seal surfaced and he’s a tired old fellow, yawning and shying from the camera. But he obliges me with a picture, a sausage with two black eyes. On across the ice. It is clear now what exactly Mount Debrushka is. And the pictures and the maps agree. She is a single peak, for certain, standing proudly at the front.

Halfway through New Harbour the heater top falls onto the batteries and we have a temporary short, with heaps of sparks and hissing sounds. Almost woke me up. The sky that night was a color I’ll never forget, a royal navy blue, so deep and dark, but not purple, an expanse of depth matched only by Debbie’s eyes.

We leave the sled at the edge of the ice and chug on over to the Hut at Marble Point. Sam didn’t want to go over the tide cracks. We thought about getting a post and padlock so no one would rip off the sled. Pitch tents, eat lerps, and go to bed.

September 23, 1975: Tuesday

We put all the non-essential gear into 504, decide to set up a tent at the drill site and sit around for twelve hours. Have a bit of a problem getting the snowtrack started. We had to heat up the engine with a little Primus stove, and even more of a problem wedging six people and equipment into it. Halfway across the Point, we incur another flat tire. We get out (at last). Oh, our aching bodies, tortured from pretzel positions. We walk back while Dave Hope drives the snowtrack. Finally the tire and tube fall off the rim. We abandon it and walk back to the hut. We fetch some rope and a box (in case we have to carry the generator back to get 504 started). We wind the rope around the rim so it doesn’t jump the track. The rope unravels. They tighten the track by hand and very slowly it returns to camp. We plug the generator in, to heat up 504. We try to start it. No luck. It’s late and we’ll try to start it in the morning.

We eat “hoosh,” which is a bunch of junk thrown into the pot by Dave. Mostly lerps with some stuff from the Kiwi’s food box. We learn some Kiwi things, like “cake of chocolate,” “biscuit” for “cookie,” “torch” for “flashlight,” “ta” for “thanks,” and “doovery” for “doohickey.” I start to read The Cornerstone by Zoe Ouldenbourg, a French novel about the Middle Ages. It’s interesting. About the old double standard between men-women and noble-peasant.

We talk about school systems. Dr. Treves has tenure. It becomes a stock phrase. Also we have to keep our options open. One of these is to forget about the hole and go home tomorrow to return some time later, with only four people. Dave and I will stay home. I feel put down, confused, like I provide no useable help out here. I must find out if it’s true. But then, I’ll be in charge of the lab. Have to put up our short-wave radio that Chief Penafeather is going to give us.

Sam stays up all night to watch over the generator. I take the alarm clock to bed to relieve him at 4:00 a.m. He decides to stay up.

September 24, 1975: Wednesday

The night was cold. My feet are the only thing that really got cold. Not even my eyelids. But boy, do my feet freeze. And it takes forever to thaw them out in the morning. Such excruciating pain. But these red jump suits sure work. Never been warmer, outside.

We can’t get 504 started, not even by heating up the batteries and cooking the oil. About noon we call Scott Base and tell them what we need. They’ll come out to get us. The radio didn’t quite work right. Their transmitter was bad.

In the afternoon we build a crude snow wall around the snowtrack to keep the wind off. At six o’clock we’re informed that Jack and Tonto (the Scott Base mechanic) will come out a six tomorrow morning to rescue us.

The weather is cold (-37º C), and windy. We read and talk. Fortunately we have enough books. Sam wants to go out and name Morgan’s Rock. Dave H. says you have to go before the Board to get one approved, officially. They don’t allow you just to go out and do it. I tell them I’ve already picked mine out. They’re pessimistic. Even if it wasn’t named by 1966, every mountain with an elevation mark will have a name by now.

It won’t hurt to try.

Anyway, it’s not the actual official name that counts. It’s my naming of it that’s important. The honor by which I am bound to uphold, whether or not the rest of the world recognizes it or not. It’s between me and Debbie.

Sidebar: Many secrets are by no means official. Yet they are official in our hearts.

The zipper on my cowl got stuck. Then broke. Had a weird hassle pulling it over the top of my head. Scratched my forehead. Took fifteen minutes before I could see and breathe.

Dave might have taken a sour opinion of me. He’s the cook. Does it at home. And I eat the most. And we all say rotten things about the food. And I always say the last rotten thing.

At 6:00 we do our radio show with Scott Base. “Scott Base, Scott Base, this is Jolly One, Jolly One. Jolly One, over.” “Roger, roger.” “Roger, roger.” “Etc., etc.”

I get frostbite on my nose. Just a wee patch.

Now I am a real Antarctic explorer.

September 25, 1975: Thursday

During the night we have a gale, 60 mile per hour winds. McMurdo is worse. No rescue today.

Dr. Treves says its the Catabolic Winds, right on schedule. “Catatonic?” “Gastronomic.” “Metabolic.” “Acrobatic.” “Catastolic.” It becomes a standard joke. Very boring. Although we have enough food and candy bars, Sam and Dave H. are running low on cigarettes.

To keep busy we get the chain saw and cut snow blocks and finish building a wall around the vehicles. Mighty nice workmanship. In the afternoon we talk about moving the Wannigan (Marble Point Lodge, that is) up onto the flat bed with the hut (Marble Point Civic Center). The place will be crowded with eight. We need the extra room. We get a winch and start to pull it up to the flat bed. We cut blocks to make a ramp up.

For supper Dave feeds us beef curry with vegetables. We’re happy, even if we do get tired of the same cup for drinks, soup, and supper. On the radio, Dave H. asks ‘em to bring cigarettes and rum. Go to bed early.

September 26, 1975: Friday

Up early. Bladder won’t let me sleep. Feet don’t sting so much. It seems strange, to be sleeping in a Scott tent in the Antarctic wilderness, waiting to be rescued. I love it. We have a joke about Scott’s diary. “’Tis a pity. I can write no more.”

The weather at McMurdo is “dogged out” as the Kiwi’s say. Bad weather for the next 18-24 hours. That becomes another joke. We hoist the Wannigan onto the flat bed in the morning. A great engineering triumph, with ice bars and heaving and winching and getting it on the balancing point of the skis and climbing onto the front for more weight.

It’s too large on the skis to cut a hole in it and attach it to the hut. So we leave it sit, door facing door. We decide to build a wall between them, to cut down the wind blowing between them. I am in charge of building the wall. Well over fifteen feet high. Double walled at the base. When it’s done I get a green flag and crawl up the Wannigan and place the flag on top of my snow wall. Cal gets the camera and documents the event for DVDP.

What ecstasy. On top of the world. What sweet victory over the forces of nature. I’m sure the Pyramids are of mortal design.

The Catabolic winds come up and blow the wall over.

Sam and Dave H. run out of cigarettes. We fix the wall as best we can, admiring our home reclaimed from the wilds, and bring our alarm clock and sit on the front porch.

Sidebar: Anatomy Punch - University of Minnesota Medical Center By way of Dr. Treves:
1 Gal. muscatel
1 Fifth cognac
1 Qt. apple juice
1 Qt. pineapple juice
2 Drops orange bitters

The weather is warm (above zero, even), the day sunny. How can McMurdo have such rotten weather? All we need is a Welcome mat to make our home complete. Our next project will be to construct the Jackie R. Steinman Memorial Crapper.

After five days of heroic enforced constipation I must go and disfigure a rock. Everything comes out all right. Read and retire, after rummaging through the Wannigan’s food boxes (like kids at Christmas) and writing in the Wannigan’s guest book.

September 27, 1975: Saturday

I get up early, before anyone else. Didn’t step on Dr. Treves, either, when I got out of the tent. No rescue today. We use the Wannigan (or East Wing, as it is known) as a cloak room.

Dave H. and Sam go to the Jamesways and rummage through them looking for cigarettes. They find four and smoke them.

We tell Scott Base to call Jack up and play us a request on his radio show, “We’ll be Home for Christmas.”

McMurdo might have bad weather for the next 18-24 hours, but the weather here is fabulous. I go outside without a jacket, just hat and gloves.

This being a weekend, I get a discompensation, to go out and relieve my bowels. I finished The Cornerstone. Like Stranger in a Strange Land, it got too mixed up in its own personal justification for religion, towards the end. Left two problems unresolved and didn’t blend the story lines together. The climax was well constructed.

In the afternoon I go down to the Jamesways. They’ve been there since Deep Freeze III in ’58. The helicopter pilots pulled a joke about the Nurses at Marble Point. They put a red cross on the Dispensary Jamesway and dressed a pilot up in a nurse’s uniform. They’d fly a guy over the camp and the “nurse” would come out and wave. They fooled a lot of people. I went and visited them. They must have been out to lunch.

Sidebar: Another Joke - "Having to wait until the helicopters fly to be rescued." We said that the first night, when we saw all the food, not thinking it might be true.

No cigarettes. But we retrieve IGY rice, Jell-O, and cinnamon. I walk back, the day is just beautiful, and eat graham crackers with honey and peanut butter. We eat beef curry with rice and vegetables, Jell-O, and apples with cinnamon and sugar. I read The Wizard’s Back . (The King is a Fink, you know.) I pick up Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love and retire.

September 28, 1975: Sunday

It’s half-past September. Will we ever get rescued? Not in the next 18-24 hours.

We construct the outhouse. A fine piece of noble workmanship. We pose for the inaugural picture. Dave on the board and the rest of us queued (a Kiwi term for lined) up, waiting.

Scott Base plays Tom T. Hall records, when we call them at 6:00, to check out the distortion on the radio. One night it was 95%. But tonight it was only 75%. We could recognize “Welcome Home.”

I read. Heinlein is just a joker having fun. I’ve already counted six allusions to other author’s S.F. books and shows. We finally turn the stove off, it’s so warm. I borrow pen and paper and write notes because I had only planned on remembering three days, not seven.

Sam has done his Christmas shopping from the Navy catalog. He has a mistress. Admits it. He’s had one the 13 years he’s been married. I couldn’t live like that.

The book is about this dude who is two thousand years old. He’s a lot like Jubal, independent. A good ol’ guy.

September 29, 1975: Monday

We’re being rescued today! Hurrah! 41 and 503 on their way at eight o’clock. We walk out to the hill overlooking Marble Point and try to make radio contact with Mac Center. Dr. Treves explains the geology of the place to me. But to see it for myself, without help, is impossible. I wonder if I ever will.

Sam walks down to the ice and puts his ear on it. He claims he can hear 41 whining it’s way here. In the afternoon Cal, Dr. Treves, and I take a four mile walk over to a cinder cone, slide down a snow bank to the Bay of Sails, and walk around the coast to Gneiss Point.

About 5:30 p.m. we make contact with Jim Matthews, who is with Jack and Tonto. He thinks it’s Jack calling. We ask for an ETA and put supper on.

They’re a little late, so we eat. Finally, we’re rescued. Four people (a guy from Penguin Power and Light, also). It’s like an invasion. Now I know how the Winter Over people feel at Win-Fly. But they bring out the cigarettes and rum. And it’s Party Time.

First we get out this parachute, a huge silk thing, and drape it over the Civic Center and East Wing and 41, like a big circus tent. It’s amazing, like Ringling Brothers, especially with all the lanterns and talking during the Party. Dave is a nice guy when he loosens up. No animosity with him any more. Jack dedicated his whole show to us.

The stars are out for the first time in awhile, even though you can see where the sun is going down at eleven o’clock. I’m surprised I recognize so much. I point things out to Sam.

September 30, 1975: Tuesday

Demon Rum gets me up very early to relieve my bladder. Proud of myself. Not too drunk. Didn’t even feel like getting out and running into a brick wall.

We have the snowtrack fixed early, load up, and go out to the drill site. 190 centimeters of ice and 400 feet of water. The chain saw breaks down and we can’t get any current measurements. Take sightings for a novel method of positioning.

They get 504 going and we rendezvous at New Harbour. A couple of growsers (things on the track) break and we stop to fix those. Then we push for home. Jim says it’s more than 100 miles, not the 70 we’d thought. It’s getting late when we get to the Dirty Ice. Penguins and seals all over and lots of open water. They spot a whale. (I didn’t see it.) We push on home. Very tired. Wind picks up just outside of town. A permanent bad weather area, I guess. We get to eat. Take a long, long shower (and boy, does that feel good). Sleep in a real bed, which Pete had strewn with his junk. Nine intrepid days, over.

October 1, 1975: Wednesday

Spend the morning figuring the latitude and longitude of the drill site. I pick two points, 180º apart, on a straight line through the drill site, then two other points, similarly. The Fang through the left side of the third mountain on the first range north of Gneiss Point (turns out to be Mount Doorly) and Mount Bird through to the Hogback. Using their latitudes and longitudes as coordinates on a Cartesian field, I determined the equation of the lines, solving simultaneously to find the point of intersection, namely the drill site.

I had to convert seconds of arc into decimal points. I am worried that the graph is scaled so that the unit division is not always the same length. But since I am doing only positions and not distances, the conflict is taken care of. I come up with 77º 25’ 17” S and 164º 33’ 20” E. That’s 2 seconds off in latitude and 7 seconds off in longitude, according to what the guideline says. That’s not sufficient. I must determine my own error.

I spend the afternoon unloading 504. And then go down and develop negatives, plus three large pictures of the Outhouse Inauguration.

I get a phone patch home.

Nebraska is 3-0, ranked 4th, beat Indiana 35-7 and TCU 57-0. Kay (I talked to her, she was glad, I think) is a homecoming candidate. Becky B. is the prettiest candidate. Berzel is officially engaged. I forgot to ask if it was to Karen. Yesterday I had a funny feeling about being a best man at his wedding. Hope it all comes true. Toodles lives in the basement. And they haven’t heard from Cathy. I’m going to call her next week.

Develop all the pictures and go to sleep about eleven.