AngelesCityPI

In December 1968 I arrived at Clark Air Base where I was a ComCenter Specialist in the U S Army Security Agency.

I worked at PCRS Clark which was then the third largest communications center in the world. Here I learned all aspects of being an operator at a fixed station global relay station - Stotsenburg Station.

I was stationed here for two years and had many good friends, both American and Filipino.

My best friend here was Alicia Santia who is the mother of my son Dennis.

I met Alicia in Angeles City, Luzon which is the main island in the Philippine Archipelageo. I fell in love with her looks and personality and asked her to live with me. I learned that she had a son named Dan who was living with an aunt in Manila. I asked her if she would get her son so he could live with us.

Being in the Army, I didn't get paid much but with the rate of exchange and local prices we were able to rent a nice house to live in.

I spent most of my off duty time downtown with Alicia and Dan. Sometimes we would go bar hopping at the Shamrock, the World Club or my favorites the Brown Derby and the Brown Jug.

The Derby was an ASA hangout. We would go downtown and meet there to tell stories, drink all the San Miguel we wanted and talk to the really nice girls who worked there - Tita, Ester, Rosie, Celi, and Auring.

The Shamrock was where I met Alicia. This place had some really good bands and 25 cent beer. We had many good times here dancing and partying with friends.

In the comcenter I had a great bunch of guys to work with. I remember the first day at work there and finding out that I had to learn to read holes in teletype tape at the receive bank. I was surprised how quick it took to learn this.

I really liked this communications stuff - There was always something new to learn. I think I liked working quality control the best. This is where we monitored the page copies of the incoming messages to check for content and systems errors. A lot of the messages were pretty interesting but we were not suppose to read them.

Here I was, sending and recieving messages that were relayed through satelites - this was some pretty wild stuff in the late sixties!