DKD
I got an Email the other day from a guy named Kent Dotson . It was more
like two weeks ago, but I'm just now shaking this cold and getting
around to old business. Kent Dotson was one of the people I knew
in the Navy, This was a long time ago. He was Mark Edmunds
roommate (along with Joe Smithy) in the first BEQ can't remember about
the second, after the cruise. If anyone read any of the sketches I
wrote about Mark last year, Kent was around for all that too. He
was from Decatur Georgia, If I remember. I think that's near Atlanta.
He was a rigger, that is a parachute rigger. These guys were good to
know - they could make stuff. Custom designed duffle bags with zippers
pockets and double stitching. Kent should remember his fellow
rigger Andy Levering. Andy used to pick me up and throw me 10
feet across a room into cement walls. I am somewhat short and
lightly built, you see - 5'2" and about 115 lbs. This leads a certain
class of person to regard me as some kind of paper airplane.
I once found a cigarette lighter. A nice one, a chrome Zippo. I liked it, I didn't even smoke. It
took a couple of months before I figured out that it was Kent's. It had
DKD engraved on it. Didn't ring any bells, but Kent is actually his
middle name. I think its David Kent.
While I'm at this. I am going to put up the last of the Ra5c
pictures I have scanned already. Which may be the last for a while,
because the ancient OS 8.6 iMac my scanner is attached to is becoming
undependable, which is to say it crashes most times I try to do
anything with it. For the lack of better information I'm going to
credit this one to Mark Ramsey as well .
I was looking through the Ranger cruise book for the westpac we
were on (its like a yearbook, same general idea) for a
picture of Kent. Finally found one on page 155; make ups and late
arrivals. Its a better picture than any of the rest of us got by
showing up at the official time. Flipping through the book I note that
two of the pictures of Ra5c I've put up here are in that book. This
explains why I have multiple copies of those prints, mine appear to be
test prints for the one our photo-mates gave to the book project. When
I get back to scanning I'll try to find ones not likely to have been in
print before.
One other thing I remember about Dotson is that before he joined
the Navy he worked in the family business which was a company that made
carpets on a large industrial loom and used a pattern printing
technique which as he explained it struck me as being rather high tech.
I was an impressionable youth. I remembered this because my best friend
in high school, George, his father was a mechanical engineer who
designed - high speed industrial looms.
11:38:20 PM  ;;
|
