In the spring of 1956 — Chuck was in eighth grade — orders came for the family to leave an Air Force base in California. His father, now a major, was aircraft commander of one of the largest bombers ever, the B-36.
Click was assigned to join a squadron of these bombers at Ramey Air Force Base, in the northwest corner of Puerto Rico. These planes flew long missions — often reportedly carrying nuclear bombs — likely around the periphery of the Soviet Union and “Red” China, though their course was secret too.
Some of the Puerto Rico experiences were pivotal for Chuck, in several ways.
For one thing, since there was no local English-language TV service, Chuck was perforce obliged to wean himself from TV, and thereby transferred almost all his
free time to reading. Here he had help from the Caribbean climate and the Air Force: Puerto Rico was continually hot and humid, with frequent rainstorms (and a major hurricane, Betsy, in late 1956); air conditioning was still a rare luxury. Continue reading From “Tell It Slant,” Excerpt #2: Encouraging Rejections
Tom Edsall writes a very valuable weekly column in the New York Times, and he’s paid a lot of attention to the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Like other observers, he’s particularly concerned about AI’s developing impact on jobs and society, present and future.
