by G. E. Nolly
The instructor was from the University, and had volunteered to be a “traveling professor” for a year, spending three months at each of four bases in Asia. He had a PhD in Physics, and had lots of actual experience in industry. I could see I would learn a lot.
This class was the instructor’s first foray into the Air Force environment, and he didn’t really understand how TDY assignments affected our schedules.
“I will be taking attendance,” he said, “and, if you miss two classes, you will drop one grade, from an A to a B as your best grade. If you miss two more classes, that will drop you an additional grade.” He paused. “You know, you’re required to have at least a B average to graduate, so if you get a C, you’ll need an A to offset that. So I suggest you don’t miss any classes.”
I didn’t like what I was hearing.
“Professor,” I said, “do you realize that many of us will be required to miss classes due to TDY assignments? We may end up missing three or more classes due to our military duties.”
“What’s TDY?”
I could see this professor hadn’t been around military people before.
“It’s Temporary Duty, where we’re sent to another base for duty. We’re serving in the military, and shouldn’t be penalized for doing our jobs.”
“Well, then, Mr. Hancock, what do you suggest?”
He knew my name because we had written our names on cardboard name tags folded on our desks.
“If we need to miss class, how about if we write a paper or some other assignment that demonstrates that we have learned the material for that lesson?”
“Very compelling idea,” he replied. He paused for a moment. “I will need a 10-page paper for every class attendance you miss. Will that work?”
“Yes, sir. I think that will work out.”
“One more thing, Mr. Hancock,” he continued, “I’m not really used to being around military people. My name is Jack, not Sir.”
“Got it, Jack.”
I could see this was going to work out just fine.
20
July 1, 1973
I received a call at the office. It was Tom, Sam’s dad.
“Ham, it’s time. Sam is having intermittent contractions, and the doctor wants her in the hospital. He said it will probably be a couple of days until she delivers, but he wants her in bed and under supervision. I think you should get here as soon as you can.”
As usual, Ron was out flying. I went to his office, grabbed the signed Leave Request and filled it in. I left a copy on his desk, along with a short note thanking him and telling him how to get in contact with me. Then I called Don Watson, at the MAC Command Post.
“Don, this is Ham. Sam is going into labor. Are there any flights heading to Yokota in the next few hours?”
“How soon can you get down to Base Ops?”
“I can get there in ten minutes.”
“Stand by, Ham,” Major Watson said. In the background I heard him talking on the radio to a MAC flight.
“Flight 1408, Command Post. Hold your position. We have a high-priority courier that needs to get on your flight. ETA ten minutes.”
I heard the radio crackle, “Roger, Command Post. Standing by.”
He got back on the phone.
“Get down here ASAP, Ham. There’s a C-141 waiting for you.”
“Thank you, Don. I’m on my way.”
I got in my car and made great time to Base Ops. I had packed a small bag with about a week’s supply of clothing and had put it in my trunk several days earlier. When I got to Base Ops, I pulled into the parking lot, grabbed my bag and ran to the terminal.
Don was waiting at the terminal entrance. As soon as he saw me, he grabbed my bag and said, “Follow me.”
We went out to a blue Air Force truck that was parked at the curb, and he drove me onto the flight line. As he drove, he was calling Ground Control on his hand-held radio, getting clearance to proceed to the waiting Starlifter.
Our truck screeched to a halt at the front entrance of the airplane. The Loadmaster was waiting by the entrance stairs.
“Come this way, sir.”
I followed him onto the airplane, stopping to turn to silently mouth “Thanks” to Don. The Loadmaster escorted me to a jump seat in the cockpit, and, after our initial introductions, I sat in silence during a flight that seemed to take forever.
When we pulled up to the remote parking spot at Yokota, there was a staff car waiting for me. Good old Don.
The driver delivered me to the base hospital at about 1800 hours. When I arrived at the main entrance, Tom and Miyako were waiting for me. It was really great to see them again. We quickly embraced.
“Come on, Ham,” Tom said, “I’ll show you to Sam’s room.”
We went up to the third floor, and Tom led me into Room 304.
Sam looked absolutely radiant. Other than her large, no, huge, stomach, she looked exactly like the first time I met her, when I had been instantly enchanted by her.
She reached out from her bed to hug me.
“I am so anxious to get this show on the road,” she said, “The doctor insisted that I stay in bed until delivery, and I would just as soon be up and about.”
“Well, Honey, I’m sure the doctor knows what’s best,” I said, as I kissed her and gently, very gently, hugged her.
“I know,” she responded, “I’m just anxious to meet little what’s-his-name.”
21
July 3, 1973
It was great to finally have some time, in person, with Sam. It had been hard to have any kind of serious extended conversation on the autovon. I knew I was using a secure telephone line, and no one would be listening, but I hadn’t been given unlimited talk time at the CCK Command Post like I’d had at Kadena. And using the MARS line – Military Affiliate Radio Station – was out of the question, since there was no privacy at all using MARS. In addition to the radio operators at each end of the line, there was normally a long line of GIs waiting to make calls listening over the loudspeaker in the room on every MARS call.
I had been able to get an autovon call to Sam about once a week while I was at CCK. We would talk for about 20 minutes, but it wasn’t anything like having a face-to-face conversation. I had gotten Sam pregnant when she was TDY to Ubon, where I had been based during Operation Linebacker, and we hadn’t really had much of an opportunity to collaborate on a name for our child.
I had bought two copies of a book of baby names at the CCK Base Exchange book store, sent one to Sam, and we started with the letter A and went all the way through the book over the course of two months. It seemed like most of the names were either ethnic or outdated. I just couldn’t picture our son being named Nicodemus Hancock.
There were a couple of names that, for me, were show-stoppers. I really wasn’t crazy about the name Hamilton. For starters, the whole time I was growing up, when teachers would initially see my name on a class roster, they would think it was my last name. And I thought it was a bit too self-serving to name my son, if I had one, after myself. I wanted him to be able to strike out on his own, not live in his father’s shadow.
And I didn’t want him or her to have any artsy-fartsy name, especially one with a weird spelling. If our daughter was going to be named Jacqueline, it would be the normal spelling, not Jacklyn or some other off-the-wall variation.
And I wanted our children to have monikers with acceptable variations, in case they weren’t crazy about their official names. James could morph into Jim or Jimmy, Jonathan could become John or Johnny or Jack, Stephen could be Steve or Stevie.
Now we were finally together, and we could discuss names at a more leisurely pace. Complicating the naming ritual was the fact that we had no idea what sex our child would be. I had heard about a procedure that would enable us to know the sex in advance, called amniocentesis.
I asked Sam what she thought of the idea. She would have none of that.
“First of all, no matter what they say, it probably entails some ri
sk to the baby. And regardless of what the tests show, the baby’s sex is already determined, and won’t change. Let’s allow ourselves to be surprised,” she said.
“Besides,” she continued, “I’ve been carrying our child ten inches under my heart for the past nine months. He, or maybe she, has been communicating with me for quite a while. I think he-she will tell me his-her name when the time comes.”
“Okay, but no Junior, okay?”
“Okay, no Junior,” she smiled.
22
July 3, 1973
Tom and I were alone in his apartment while Miyako was holding down the fort at the hospital.
“Have the two of you come close to selecting a name?” Tom asked.
“Not really. I had been thinking of the name June if it was a girl and if she was born last month. I really like the name Samantha, but that’s already taken,” I smiled. “I definitely don’t want my son to be a Junior. I’m not crazy about the name Hamilton, and I think it’s too egotistical to be a Junior, anyway.”
“Did Sam tell you her preferences?”
“She has some names she’s partial to, but we never got enough time together to have an extended conversation. We talked a little today, but didn’t come to any definite conclusions.”
“I guess you know my daughter can be stubborn when she wants to be.”
“So I’ve discovered,” I replied, “but it’s not over until the fat lady sings.”
“Funny you should use that expression,” Tom remarked. “Do you know where that originated?”
“No,” I answered. I suspected I was about to find out.
Tom got up from his chair and walked over to the stereo console. He flipped through the LP records that were stacked vertically in the compartment on the left side of the cabinet, and found what he was looking for. He held the album reverently, and carefully handed it to me. There was a black-and-white photograph on the cover, a head shot of an overweight lady.
“Do you know who this is?” he asked, gently retrieving the album.
“No,” I answered, “I don’t think so. Wait a minute… is that Kate Smith?”
“Very good. Not many people your age recognize her.”
“ I remember my mom used to watch her show on television when I was a kid.”
“She had a television show in the 50s. But she had a radio show in the thirties. Back then I was in college in New York,” Tom said.
“What school?” I interrupted.
“Cooper Union. There was no tuition cost. Everyone there was on a scholarship. I didn’t have much money at the time. It was during the depression. I was barely able to eat on the salary I made driving a hack.”
Tom smiled when he saw the shocked look on my face. For some reason, I had pictured him as always having been wealthy. And certainly not a taxi driver.
“When I had time off, for entertainment, I would stand outside the WABC studios to see if I could get in to see the Kate Smith Hour for free. It was a great show. Henny Youngman, Abbott and Costello, lots of great guests. Plus Kate, who could really belt out a song.”
“Anyway,” he continued, “I had the day off on Armistice Day, 1938. That was twenty years to the day after World War I ended. You know, The War To End All Wars.” He gave a wry smile. “There were no classes, and the cab company didn’t have any work for me. I got dressed up in my one and only suit and stood outside the studio entrance. It was a cold day, and a long wait. I guess because of the way I was dressed, I was the first one they let in. I sat right in the front row of the audience.”
As he was speaking, Tom was carefully placing the record onto the turntable. He turned on the stereo and gently lowered the needle onto the record. Then he grabbed a box of tissues and sat down next to me.
“This was the first time she ever sang this song,” he said, as the as the scratching sound ended and the music began.
After a brief introduction with a reference to the storm clouds forming over Europe, Kate sang God Bless America. I was transfixed.
When the song ended, Tom grabbed a tissue and handed the box to me.
“I think I got a speck of dust in my eye,” he smiled.
“Me too,” I answered, as I grabbed a tissue.
“Kate Smith was nothing to look at. Nothing compared to Marilyn Monroe and the other stars. But she was on radio, so her looks didn’t matter. After that performance, that song became her trademark. She started and ended every show with it. It became hers.”
“And that,” Tom said, “is where the expression ‘It’s not over until the fat lady sings’ came from. Like Paul Harvey says, ‘now you know the rest of the story’.”
“In 1960,” he continued, “after I was pretty well established, I was in New York on business. I was having lunch at the Four Seasons, and looked over and there was Kate Smith, a few tables away.”
He paused.
“You know, I’ve met a lot of big shots, and I am not what you would call star-struck. But I went over to her table and, for a minute, I was a young college kid again. And I told her that I had been in her audience that Armistice Day. And how I often thought of that performance when I was overseas, during the war. She confided to me that, right after she sang it, she called Irving Berlin and told him he had written the next national anthem. She was so gracious. A real lady.”
Tom turned over the record sleeve, and showed me where she had autographed the album: To Tom Marcos. Thank you for your service. God bless America!
Tom dabbed at his eyes again and put his arm around me and gave me a squeeze.
And we sat in silence.
23
July 4. 1973
Miyako called shortly after midnight. Sam’s water had broken and her contractions were starting again, coming closer together. Tom and I quickly dressed and ran downstairs to the front entrance of Tom’s apartment. Yuji, Tom’s driver, was waiting by the open door of the limo.
We sped through the dark streets of Tokyo and on to Yokota. By the time we got to the hospital, Sam had already been moved to the Delivery Room. The nurse in attendance at the door showed me how to scrub down and put on a hospital gown. Then she escorted me into the room. Tom and Miyako stayed in the hallway waiting room
“This is the time for you, the three of you,” Tom said.
Sam looked like she was in incredible pain. She was covered with sweat, her hair was matted, and the veins in her neck and on her forehead were popping out as she strained with each contraction. She was taking short, shallow breaths.
The doctor, whom I hadn’t met previously, was coaching her.
“Push, push,pushpushpush!”
I felt totally helpless. If I had been with Sam during her pregnancy, I could have taken Lamaze classes with her. But I had been TDY, away from her, for virtually the entire time she was pregnant. The only thing I knew about natural childbirth, other than what I had read in the books at the base library, was the movie they had shown us in Physiology class at the Academy, back in 1965. For a 20-year-old, that movie had been pretty overpowering.
I rushed over to Sam and held her hand. She was now between contractions, taking long, deep breaths.
“Breathe with me,” she said, looking into my eyes, “and stop looking so scared!”
I tried to time my breaths with hers, and I started to get lightheaded.
“In through the nose, out through the mouth,” she said, “and make your inhalation breaths the same size as your exhalation breaths.”
I timed my breaths to match hers, and started feeling better.
“Ice,” she said, looking at the cup of ice on the night stand.
I passed the cup to her, and she held a chip of ice in her mouth and handed the cup back to me.
Now the contractions were starting again. Sam took in a deep breath, then started short, shallow breaths again, pushing hard. She was squeezing my hand so tightly I was about to complain, then I thought about the pain she was enduring and felt like a total idiot.
But I was having a hard
time keeping up with her breathing.
A nurse came up behind me, put her hands on my shoulders, and guided me to a seat. I didn’t want to let go of Sam’s hand, but I was feeling faint.
“Just sit down for a minute until you feel better,” the nurse said, “She’ll be fine without you for a minute.”
I felt a short wave of nausea pass over me, and I lost track of time. Finally, my head cleared and I suddenly felt fine. I carefully stood up and went back to the bedside. Sam needed me, and I’d be damned if I was going to let her down.
I stood next to her bed, breathing with her, for the next three hours.
And suddenly, our baby was born.
The doctor looked at me.
“Do you want to cut the cord?”
“Yes,” I answered, “but I don’t know how to do it.”
“I’ll show you,” he said, “First, we wait until we don’t feel a pulse in the cord any more.”
I put my fingers on the umbilical cord where the doctor pointed and squeezed gently.
“Okay, I think it’s stopped.”
“Good. Now we’re going to put a clamp here, and here,” he said, “and we put this gauze pad right where you’re going to cut.”
He handed me surgical scissors, and I cut the cord. A little blood saturated the gauze.
“That’s all there is to it,” he said, “Now, we have to clean up your son a little, and I’ll let you hold him.”
My son! I had a son!
I heard a faint slap, then I heard an infant crying. And then the doctor handed him to me. His skin was blotchy, he was slimy, and he was crying.
And he was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen, although it was hard to see through my tears, because I was bawling my eyes out.
Sam was spent. She looked exhausted. But she wanted to hold the baby.
“Let me see my Johnny,” she said.
