My assignment to the AC and W site in Finley, North Dakota to an aircraft and warning sight was a choice assignment. The government had the sites scattered from Washington State to Washington DC covering the boarder with Canada guarding the US against any air attack that might come across Canada.

When Doug and I reported to the site in Finley we were the 19th and 20th airman assigned. It took about three months for it to come to its full strength of about 100 Airman. There were no more than 200 people living in the town. It had one restaurant, one bar, one pool hall and a country store and no gas station. We had to go to Cooperstown to get gas.

The restaurant was run by an old couple we called Mom and Pop. The whole town took us in like we were their own children. But it did not take long for this to change when the Airman started getting the little girls in trouble. A farmer was in the pool room. I asked him what size his farm was and he said about ten flats. I said, “What is a flat?” He said “about 700 acres”.

The girls would all come to town on Saturday night and we would be waiting for them at Mom and Pops drinking cocoa and talking it up. There was an all-girl’s college about eighteen miles away. I think it was called Morehead State College. We would load up in a car when we could find some one who had one and go there to see the girls. This worked fine until the local boys got jealous and if they would catch a couple of airman in town they would beat them up.

This did not sit too well with the airmen. So one of the NCOs checked out a bus and loaded it with about fifty airmen and took us outside the town on a deserted road and sent one car in town with three airmen in it. The car drove up and down the street and got four or five car loads of locals following them. Then they led them to our road block. Everyone fell out with clubs and jack handles. We had the biggest fight you had ever seen. It made all the news networks, but, they did not try to beat up on airman anymore.

During all of this I saw this sharp 1941 Chevy I liked really well for sale. I went back in a couple of days during the day to check on it. We made a deal. That was the first car I owned by myself.

Since I was scared to go to the college Doug and I started going in the other direction to a little town called Cooperstown. We did real well there. Doug started going with a girl named Connie Nordvedt, I went with her girl friend named Patty Pladson. Patty was a good deal for me because her Dad and Mom ran a restaurant and she would always be there when I came to town. On Saturday nights we would go to the barn dances. There was one every Saturday night. They were easy to find. All you had to do is get on a gravel road and follow the beer cans. People drank so much in those days. At one of the dances Connie’s sister, who had been staying in Washington State, came and stayed with her. She showed up at one of the dances and Connie introduced me to her (Jean) and that was the snottiest girl and most stuck-up person I had ever met. We did not get along at all. Jean, Connie and Pat started running together so I began to see a lot of Jean.

Pat’s father was very strict on her. She could not go to all the places we went. So that left Doug, Connie, Jean and me. Jean and I started going together. So I let Pat go as a girlfriend. It hurt her real bad because all she talked about was us getting married and that was no where on my mind. Pat wound up marrying a nice guy and now lives in Beverly Hills, California.

My older brother Teamon was a veteran and served in WW2 until he got shot up pretty bad. He told me while running around in town never to use your real name. They can find you on base real easy and get you in trouble using the right name. So I took his name (Tim).
(Harry’s school house….eight grades in 8 rows of chairs)

Tim was my name throughout my military career. Jean stills calls me Tim. From here I was transferred to Kansas City, Missouri in 1953.

Time went on. I must have lived in the hotel for one year before quarters were built in Grandview AFB for us to move in to. When I moved out there, there were just a few buildings up. The flight line was not even done. It was 18 miles from Kansas City so I just stayed where I was in the apartment building. Jean and I did not get married until after I had moved to the base. I had to maintain a room at the base until I was married. I got a thirty day leave in 1954 and when I returned to the base it was late at night. We had two mens rooms when I left for leave. No one lived with me. There was just one bed. While on leave they turned the quarters in to a WAF (woman quarters), and had moved my stuff to another building. I got in late and went to what I thought was my room. I turned the light on and a WAF jumped out of bed screaming and all the women came running out half dressed. I thought I was going to get beat up. Finally I got to explain the mix-up and they told me where my building was.

In December 24, 1954 Jean and decided to get married. It was something like a shotgun wedding, just Jean and I and two witnesses, Connie and Tommy Adams, a friend from the base. We didn’t go anywhere. We just got a motel room for the night. I had to be at work the next day at 4 A.M. to help cook Christmas dinner for the troops. Jean had to stay in the motel all day by herself as I had the car.



In about eleven months Jeff was born. This was a happy time for me. I sure wanted a boy, at least for the first child. We all lived there for a while and bought a house trailer. The first one was only twenty eight feet long. I had to watch TV through the slats in the baby crib as the only place we had to put the bed was in front of the TV.

One day I was sitting in the trailer babysitting and Jean was out running around in the old car and had gone somewhere. She came home all disgusted and said I had car trouble. I said what happened? She said, “I lost a tie rod off the front end.” I said, “Where is the car?” “It’s outside. I drove it home.” (Just about any one knows you can’t steer a car with the tie rod off.) I said, “You can’t drive a car with the tie rods off.” Jean said, “Yes I did. It is laying out there in the yard.” I went out to look at it and it was a jack handle that had fallen out of the trunk. When I told her she was mistaken she got mad.

We were finally able to buy a larger trailer and about 1956 I got orders for a 12 month tour to St. Johns, Newfoundland. I moved Jean and the trailer to Louisville while I took the tour of duty.

Jean got her a job and we had my sister’s daughter come and live with Jean and baby sit while she worked. One day a large storm came up and blew the trailer over with Jeff and my niece in it. It demolished the trailer. Luckily no one was hurt. The insurance got us a new trailer. Jeff made the front page of the Louisville paper the Courier Journal with this crib turned upside down on him while he was playing inside of it.