Picture this..!!!.  Subject: The Reading Room


For those of us who lived on the Barrier....We had 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' The 'picture frame' was wrapped in toweling and hung on the peg inside the door behind the stove we used for cooking and melting water. A medic from DC was inspecting the stations and he was dropped off by an R4D on the way to Byrd and was supposed to be picked up on the way back. Whiteout condition.....he was with us a week!!! His initial words when he saw the 'picture frame' behind the stove being kept cozy and warm was, "That is the most unsanitary thing I have ever seen." So he stripped the toweling off and set the 'picture frame' outside the door where it cooled in a hurry. No one said a word......but guess who was the first one who had to make a trip to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and upon returning, wrapped the toweling on the 'picture frame' and hung it on the peg behind the cookstove. I believe there was some skin attached to it and he wanted to hide it.....or something like that as he didn't choose to sit down in a hurry!!!!
Whitney 
=

Subject: FW: Hut Point Jan 56
Reading some of the mail rings memories:
Slept in tents in sleeping bags on top of air matress.Changed clothes inside sleeping bag. Two places had heat(sick bay tent and kitchen tent). If you did not cross fast enough from kitchen to mess(both separate tents, your food froze. Coffee was in a 20 gallon drum with laddle. Lavatory? Four posts with tarp around it. A plank with 4 cutouts and a hole in the ice. Had to wait for sun to reach a certain position before it could be used. "Yes" tissues were most important. Water? Melted ice or snow over lanterns.
See ya ED C==
Remember both well. For those that did not have the wonderful experiences of the early 60's????????????? Modern technology deprived you of some real experiences. The barracks on the side of the picture of the chapel required that you stand on a block or some sort of apparatus to reach the funnel that ran outside to the 50 gallon drums. And berthing was a premium, bunk beds about three feet apart and a bunch of them co-located around heaters/stoves.
The best thing about the Ch-Ch barracks was that you could crawl back to the barracks from the Bird-Dog club. And not visible is the street full of the old (I mean really old cars) being driven by those fortunate enough to spend enough time there to rent/lease/purchase one. 
I can't remember the name, but I do recall a loadmaster bringing one back to the states and getting a brand new car for same. I believe it was an old chevy.
YES, THEY DO BRING BACK MEMORIES.

From: Dutch Holland
If I properly recall, the orange or was it red hut at the peak of the hill was definately not a reading room. Especially when one of your good friends caught you bearing your butt to the barrel and decided to sit there and fan the door, knowing full well you could not get up and catch up with him. The best thing you could do was to hope to catch him in the same position and tell the rest of the occupants they just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. I don't recall anyone apologizing, only laughing on their way down the steps.
As someone mentioned earlier, they would not know the place, and he is right. I made my second tour and they had flushing toilets on the hill, with hot and cold running water and you could take a shower as often as you wished and you didn't see the tractors running down the street with a bunch of snow to be dumped into the melters. Or the duty seabees pulling the cut off drums out to be piled on a sled and relocated. The more the information flows the more we remember. The same person would probably not believe that he could no longer walk out of the back/front of his shop and take a whiz because of the population. No offense meant to you ladies that put in your time on the frozen continent, but it was often difficult during my last tour to find a place for natural relief compared to the requirements/availabilities of the late 50's and early 60's. But the training excursions to the Pole let you get back to nature, a shovel, a plastic bag and more shoveling and no one knew you were ever there.
FIRST PIECE OF ADVICE, DON'T EAT THE YELLOW SNOW AND BACK UP DURING PERIODS OF RELIEF.
No offense meant to anyone, just a reality check!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
==
From: Soupy Campbell
That was my last tour Al, when they tried to pump running water through the
LOO at Willie Field. I remember it didn't work too good since the screen
filters placed on the end of the submerged pipes would clog up with Krill and
large tiger shrimps and who knows what else. Someone suggested the old Aussie adage "Put another shrimp on the Barbi" cause those shrimps were BIGGG (a few  brought up by the divers who unclogged the inlets.) Must have been all the vitamins in the 55 gal. barrels that were dumped. As you said.....Back to the Barrels. I also remember before the barrels were dumped, we had a burning detail that poured gas on the methane producing products and set on fire.
This was the stuff from the "HOUSE ON THE HILL" I know because as second class PO's were the highest rank to be on the burn detail. Housemouse was another great job. Soupy 
=

Tnx Soup Man, I was fixated on the 'picture frame' and you gave us a look from the other end of life as we knew it.' COOL.. And there was Henry Limpit, Barnacle Bill and Shaggy Dog..
=
Jim Eblen was in Maintenance on the Strip the first year I went to the Ice. I was an Airman working in Airframes.
He grabbed me as a gofer while building a 2 holer with urinal on the Maintenance line. Lou Dill's boys piped in music and electric heat. We mounted magazine racks and I painted musical notes on the outside with a sign that read "Melody Lounge". The skipper came down and cut the ribbon for opening and took the first official crap.
Pygmy

<BGSOUND loop=infinite src="">