Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 14:21:27 -0500 From: Youngblood Brasket Subject: INTRO: Youngblood Bookout "Not Named" Brasket Hi, I'm Youngblood, a/k/a Fritz, who jumped into the fray here the other day without a proper introduction. I live in Webster, Texas, just one mile West of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center near Houston. Old Lyndon and I used to drink beer together back in my Texas politickin' daze, so I reckon it's a fitting end that I should wind up working in his space program and living in its shadow. I call my pad Rock & Roll Heaven; it is located in the middle of the Magick Forest here on the Texas Gulf Coast. I share my abode with an inside cat named Harmony (also known as Le Pussoise), an outside cat named Bandon, a rabbit, a field mouse, and various creatures of the forest. In my cockier moments I profess to be a writer, although I'm really just a storyteller. I love to tell stories. If I don't know any good ones to tell on anybody, well, I'll make one up. We Texans love a tall tale, donchaknow. As a wage slave I function as Mission Control and head of the Information Underground for a major aerospace corporation, fondly referred to in my stories as Muthah. Muthah has been mighty good to me for the last eleven years. At the moment she is allowing me to help build the International Space Station, which fills my life with the weirdest, wackiest, wildest bunch of rocket scientists known to man. My long and illustrious secretarial career began in 1965. At age 18 I graduated from high school, got married, and went to work ... in that order. My first job was as a file clerk/all-around flunkie for the Agricultural Stabilization & Conservation Service. I was measuring some plots one day when a State Senator walked in. His wife had been my English teacher in high school. He came straight to my desk, introduced himself, and said, "Louise tells me you were the best English student she ever had, and I want you to be my secretary." My mouth dropped open. "B-b-b-but ... I don't know anything about being a secretary," I protested. "Hell, that don't matter," he said. "I'll teach you everything you need to know." And he did. He taught me about politics, real estate, divorce, workmen's compensation, personal injury, adoption, loan-sharking, penny-pinching, thermo-faxing, steaming envelopes, researching case law, picking juries off the sidewalk, and cussing. My vocabulary expanded enormously under his tutelage. Now that business about me being the best English student his wife ever had will soon be proven false, so don't pay it no never-mind. But the good Senator certainly launched me on a career path that would span many an interesting orbit. In 1975, after giving up law and politics for Lent, I decided to freelance for the next ten years, working in all kinds of industries. Petrochem, the oil patch, trucking, construction, aerospace. Aerospace is where I stuck. During my aerospace career I have been privileged to work with some of the great space pioneers. The most recent stint was alongside Colonel Bob Overmyer, former USMC test pilot and NASA Astronaut, from March 1988 until March 1996 when he spun the VK-30 kit plane he was testing into a snowbank in Minnesota and bought the old farm. Not on purpose, of course, but he was just as dead in the end. I grieve for him still. You will be hearing about the Colonel. In addition to building spaceships I have tried my hand as a rigger helper, an ironworker, demolition technician, and roadie for a Rhythm & Blues band. For many years I was married to a drummer named Lightnin, whose name will crop up again and again in my stories, so be on the lookout for him. He's the one who cured me of the need for romance. He's not the only husband I've ever had; there are two others and you will hear about them from time to time, too. But Lightnin provided the experience that curled my hair. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from the School of Hard Knocks, and hold an M.S. in BS and a Ph.D. in Acquired Understanding. And I'm real proud to be here. semper fi, youngblood * * * * * - - - - - -- -- -- --- --- ---- --------------------------<>]====- * http://www.io.com/~stargazr/ * * http://www.io.com/~stargazr/mach25/ *