Do not underestimate the influence of "popular" culture! It can change lives! I think my own life is a classic example. At a very early age I first laid eyes on a few comic books brought home by my older brothers... and I've been hooked ever since!
But even before I saw my first comic book, I eagerly looked forward to the 'funny papers' in the daily newspaper. Perhaps you old-timers can remember when newspapers were LARGE. Something about twice as big as today's tabloids and generally thicker, filled with all kinds of ads, as well as four sheets or more of full sized comic strips! Boy, did I love those! During my grade school years every evening I couldn't wait to catch up with the adventures of Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, Li'l Orphan Annie and Li'l Abner, to name just a few. But then on the weekends came the SUNDAY paper... and six or eight sheets of expanded comic strips in glorious color! These included once-a-week strips like Tarzan, Mandrake the Magician and King of the Royal Mounted.
I faithfully followed the newspaper comic strips throughout my school years and into college. One of my favorites was the intrepid reporter, "Steve Roper". In the mid-50s a new character named "Mike Nomad" was introduced. This character was a tough ex-marine who had served in World War II. He tended to get into a lot of trouble and was good with his fists. Naturally, this tough guy character appealed to my teen boy sensibilities. Mike Nomad sported a no-nonsense, flat-top crew cut. So like a typical nerdy teen, I had to emulate my latest comic strip hero... and got myself a crew cut! You can see the results in my junior year high school class picture.
Despite the "eraser head" effect this hair style had on my appearance, I slavishly stuck to it for the next three or four years until I became interested in acting and theatre later on in college. A longer,flowing hair style was more appropriate for drama students. Oh yes. The power of pop culture!
During my Junior class year both my parents and I came to embrace the idea that I was "college material" (a common expression among educators back then) and that I should begin preparations for advancing into "higher education". My father made me understand that a college education was expensive... and that I would have to get serious about getting a full-time summer job and saving up to help pay my way. My previous summers of mowing a few lawns and picking up occasional part-time work to keep myself in spending money just wouldn't cut it!
The previous summer I had struck up a friendship with a kid named Mike Pilliod. He was three years younger than me but was in the same class as a few other pals that I had hung out with throughout grade school. More importantly, Mike was also interested in rockets and explosives... and by that time I had acquired a bit of a reputation among my small circle of friends for my "science" experiments.
Mike was the oldest son of George Pilliod, who headed up the Pilliod Cabinet Company which was situated just a block down the street from my home on Woodland Avenue. At that time the Pilliod Cabinet Company was probably the largest employer in Swanton. It specialized in making silverware chests which were fancy flat rectangular boxes with felt interiors and highly lacquered exteriors. Hence, the Pilliod Cabinet Company was commonly referred to as "the Box Factory".
The box factory would frequently hire high school students for part-time after school work and full-time summer jobs. One such job was scraping off the built-up layers of paint inside the spray paint booths where the silverware chests got their various finishes. Partly through Mike's influence, I got myself a job as a spray paint booth cleaner.
Bear in mind that this was the mid-50s; long before OSHA. The Paint Department was a separate section of the block-long factory and had several spray paint booths lined up side-by-side with open fronts where the paint operators stood. As I recall, the paint sprayers were mostly women. I believe most of them wore surgical masks covering the lower half of their faces to protect them from any direct spray. But the main effort to preserve employee health were the exhaust fans at the top of every booth that had to be running during painting operations. Despite this, you always knew when you were in or near the Paint Department from the lingering fumes of paint, lacquer and thinner!
I began my paint booth cleaning career as an after-school job in the late spring of 1956. The booths could only be cleaned after operations had ceased for the day. Myself and a few other high-schoolers would work for three or four hours in the evening scraping paint and lacquer off the metal walls of the booths. Naturally, we had to be inside the booths to do this work. The air was heavy with fumes.
My booth cleaning career was short-lived. My body reacted badly to the sudden increase in exposure to paint fumes and after just two weeks I was crippled by the most violent headaches of my life! Severe nausea was another side effect. I couldn't keep anything down. Even trying to drink a little water would trigger more vomiting! I lay bedridden in my upstairs bedroom and shamed myself by crying at the relentless throbbing between my temples. What would Mike Nomad think!
Aspirin was to no avail. It just came right back up with the water. My concerned parents called in the local doctor who, at that time, was Dr. Cal Kellog. He made a house call; another quaint practice of those times. Dr. Kellog assured my parents that I wasn't the first person to have a bad reaction to the factory fumes and that I just needed to rest and stay away from them.
But how could I rest with the hellish pounding going on inside my skull?! Dr. Cal had the answer to that: MORPHINE! Within a couple minutes of the injection the demonic jangling in my brain muted into a more sedate pulsing and I felt blessed relief. I also felt a vaguely pleasant warping of my surroundings and my attitude shifted from anxiety and agony to a mildly curious detachment.
I overheard Dr. Cal discussing with my father the need for setting up an intravenous bottle with a tube and needle in my arm while I slept because I had been unable to take in any nourishment the previous day or so. My father was registering some squeamishness about helping with this because it involved sticking a needle in his kid. Dr. Cal replied that all my father had to do was get something that would hold the bottle a foot or two above my body. Dr. Cal would handle the needle insertion. In my morphine-induced euphoria it was like watching a soap opera.
Mom was recruited to bring up rubbing alcohol and bandages and helped Dad set up some sort of bottle-hanger on the left side of my bed. I no longer recall what kind of contraption they used. I wasn't paying much attention.
Dr. Kellog had gotten an IV bottle kit from his car and proceeded to connect a needle tube to the hanging upside-down bottle with a tube pinch-off device. He sat down on the bed beside my prone body and swabbed my inner left arm area near the elbow with alcohol. Then he attempted to insert the needle into my left forearm vein.
Now I suppose Dr. Kellog was a competent general practitioner. But he could've used more schooling in the skills of any competent nurse. He had a heck of a time getting that IV needle into my vein!
His first stab apparently missed it altogether. Thanks to the morphine I only felt a mild poke and issued a dull, "Uhh..". Dr. Cal muttered something under his breath and pulled out the needle leaving a thin trail of blood on my arm. I heard small gasps from Mom and Dad. Dr. Cal swabbed off the blood streak and spent several seconds stroking and pinching the skin on my arm in search of my vein. When he located it, he gave a somewhat more determined thrust to the needle. He found the vein... only the needle went clear through it! I think I heard a quiet "Dammit!" from Dr. Cal as he withdrew the needle a second time.
As soon as the needle came out a small scarlet fountain spurted from my arm. In my morphine mental fog I thought, "Ooooh, THAT'S interesting!" Mom cried out, "Oh Lord!" Dad didn't say anything but his face was as white as the bed sheets. He backed up a step and jostled the IV bottle. Dr. Cal immediately clamped a hand over the blood spout and said with an edge in his voice, "Don't knock the bottle loose!" More quietly he said, "I'll need some clean rags."
Mom bustled back down stairs to fetch some rags while Dr. Cal tried to stem the blood flow with halting success. He did this with hastily applied bandaids, using only one hand with the other firmly clamped around my lower arm - tourniquet style. This lessened the blood flow, but enough kept oozing out that the first couple of bandaids wouldn't adhere to the slippery skin around the puncture wound.
Mom was back upstairs with clean rags in less than a minute and, with her help constantly wiping away the blood, she and Dr. Cal succeeded in turning off the fountain with the third bandaid. I'm pretty sure this procedure would not meet today's standards of sterility. At this point the left side of my teeshirt and underwear briefs as well as a large swath of bed sheet was soaked in blood. I also think Dr. Cal needed to get his suit drycleaned.
On his third attempt, Dr. Cal carefully located the vein a little further up my arm at the elbow and slowly inserted the IV needle. SUCCESS! I didn't even feel it by then. I was vaguely aware of Mom dabbing around my side with her rags but there was no question of changing the sheets or my underwear because I was joyfully drifting off to LaLaLand.
I slept for a loooong time. When I awoke, I felt weak and very thirsty... but my headache was GONE! I was also hungry as a bear! Dr. Cal's diagnosis was correct and I was back on my feet within a couple of days.
The school year was over and the summer of 1956 had begun. I reported back to the Box Factory and told the bosses I could not work in the Paint Department. They were not surprised and agreeably issued me a push broom and assigned me to full-time clean-up and odd job duties in other departments. This broadened my horizons considerably by acquainting me with a wide variety of working people. It also introduced me to some manufacturing processes and materials... some of which would later prove fateful to my "science" career.