Page 10 - MY STORY

aircraft every 24 hours, one at noon and one at midnight.

I’m not sure this job had anything to do with spurring my
engineering interest (probably not) or my later job with
Douglas (don’t think so), but at least I got my first look at

how airplanes were built. Drilling holes and filling them
back up with rivets was not awe-inspiring. I quit my
summer job one week before Japan surrendered, and beat

the rush of folk collecting their last paychecks before they
closed the plant forever.

GETTING READY FOR COLLEGE: JUNE 1946

In spite of lackluster high school performance, the drive

to be an engineer was embedded somewhere in my
psyche, and I ended up taking entrance exams at Illinois
Institute of Technology (IIT) on the south side of Chicago

in 1946. The entrance exam not only examined what
knowledge I could display in math, English, and physics
but also took a look at an assessment of aptitude as related

to engineering.

In spite of a subnormal score in math, IIT elected to put

me on probation if I took, and passed, a summer make-up
course in algebra, taught by a mean old biddy from
Chicago’s south side schools. She allowed absolutely no

quarter in turning in homework or unmasking errors