Beam Him Up!

This is a true story...    

     Stan climbed out of his Fast Relief van in front of the nail salon and pulled up the bluejeans that rested below his hips. He scratched himself behind the driver's door, in case the owner was peeking out the window, and slammed it shut.  He turned his baseball cap backward over his blond ponytail, which was held together with an elastic and disappeared into his shirt collar. At the back of the van he retrieved his tool box and threw his wad of gum over the chain link fence.
     Stan jabbed the pass code buttons he'd been told to use on the salon door without success. "Anybody here?" he shouted.
     "Who is it?" Cheryl yelled back.
     "You need a plumber?" A few seconds later the front door of Cheryl's salon opened. "You got a problem here?" Stan asked.
     "I'll need your ID first, Cy - that's your name, right? It's on your shirt," Cheryl said, holding her cell phone in one hand.
     "Actually, my name's Stan. Stan-the-Man, that's me. Forgot my shirt this morning so I borrowed Cy's. I got this here card from the company, though," Stan said, handing Cheryl the company's business card.
     "Well, Stan," Cheryl began, scanning the card, "The pipe between my two sinks is blocked. I have appointments coming in an hour."
     "Not a problem! Stan-the-Man's here! Where's the pipe at?"
     Cheryl led Stan-the-Man to the back room. "I'm going to unplug the washer and dryer while I'm fixin', so don't go trying to do your dirty laundry." Stan-the-Man chuckled at his own joke. "Besides, we can't be too careful with those top-loaders. Front-loaders way better."
     "Why's that?" Cheryl said.
     "Everyone knows top-loaders is where they keep the cameras."
     "Cameras? To take photos of the towels?"
     "No. It's the Army. They can see us. They take photos when we ain't lookin'. I prob'ly shouldn't be telling you this. It's Top Secret. But no electricity, no photos."
     Cheryl's mouth hung open. "You work for the government?" she managed to get out without snickering.
     "No, I'm just tryin' to stop 'em from watchin'. They use digital space where they can. Like in them LED bulbs overhead. Better change those. Can't be watched through the old incandescents."
     Stan-the-Man mumbled something that only the plumbing snake could hear, as it wound its way down into the pipe. "Now turn on the faucets to see if we got it," he instructed.

     Cheryl leaned over the exposed crack of Stan-the-Man, whose butt was no more appealing than his protruding nose. She turned both faucets on full blast. "Are we safe now?" she asked, not realizing she was playing Stan's game.
     "Well, you want to be truly safe, you put tinfoil on the windows," Stan-the-Man responded, rising up with furrowed brows. "That way the infra-red rays can't penetrate."
     "I'll be sure to do that. The water is draining perfectly! I think we're good to go."
     "I'm good to go, as you said, but you'd better not be going anyplace before you replace those bulbs. You got customers to think of. You got a supply of tinfoil here?"
     "Oh, I'll be sure to take care of that after my clients leave," Cheryl said, hovering over her checkbook. What do I owe FR Plumbing?"
     "Just looking out for your welfare! That'll be fifty."
     Cheryl raced to the front door after handing Stan-the-Man her check. She stood with the door open until he had replaced the tools in his box. "Be sure to remember what I told you," Stan said, handing her a receipt on his way out.
     "I sure will," she said, feeling fast relief for the second time that day. She closed and locked the door with one hand while her other hand dialed FR Plumbing.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Importance of Boca Raton, Florida, Airfield during World War II

     For you history buffs, here's an interesting item I read in South Florida's The Coastal Star newspaper:  even before Pearl Harbor, the military had begun building bases across South Florida's flat terrain to train air crewmen.

     The town of Boca Raton already had an airport then, although the population was only 700. And it had lots of vacant land, much of it owned by the Japanese-American pineapple growers at the struggling Yamato Colony. Susan Gillis, curator at the Boca Raton Historical Society, stated, "Before the war, the town had two traffic lights and two bars. It's changed a little."

     There was a ready-made military headquarters in the Boca Raton Resort, originally designed  by Addison Mizner and opened in 1926 as The Cloister Inn. During World War II army officials dubbed the barracks at the Resort "the most elegant barracks in history." The Army Airfield on what is now Florida Atlantic University grew to 800 buildings housing more than 16,000 troops and employing more than 1,200 civilians. Yet the base operated in secrecy.

     Why? Because it was our nation's only development and training center for a new technology developed by the British: radio detection and ranging - radar.

     Florida Atlantic University now occupies some of the remaining vintage buildings. When local journalist and author Sally Ling wrote a book about the Army Air Field during World War II (Small Town, Big Secrets: Inside the Boca Raton Army Air Field during World War II), Miami public television station WLRN produced a documentary. The film screened at Florida Atlantic University before its TV debut, and several airfield vets showed up to repeat the popular phrase, "Radar won the war; the A bomb ended it."

(Information courtesy of "Film recalls Boca airfield's vital contribution to victory in WWII," The Coastal Star, December, 2017, Pg. AT8.)