Snake!

During my early days at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson Spacecraft Center) I worked in building 7a on the northeast corner of the central quadrangle. The computers that I used to develop VECTAN (see LBNP) were in building 12 on the middle of the west side of the quad.

In the photo above the building on the left is Building 1, Headquarters. I doubt that I was in it more thatn 10 times in 6 years. The sidewalk coming rightward from the bottom was the first part of a walk I will describe below. At the Tee I would turn right toward to bridge across the pond - now you have the scene.

In those days interactive computing had not taken over. We participated in batch processing. A typical run went like this:

4-5 PM walk across the quadrangle to Building 12 to submit the deck of Hollerith cards with the FORTRAN program along with the proper batch request so that the computer time could be correctly allocated. Then walk back across the quadrangle to Building 7 and probably immediately out to the parking lot

Wait — over night — go home — play with Britany — have dinner — watch TV - and so on

8-9 the next morning Walk across the quadrangle to Building 12 to get the cards and the printout from the overnight run. Walk back to Building 7a.

9-4 peruse the result of the run, make corrections then do other project work (e.g. - electronic hardware design and testing)

Repeat - Ground Hog Day

I pretty much hated the walks between buildings. It was actually a pleasant walk along curved paths through pretty landscaping and across a bridge that spanned the pond in the middle of the quad. The issue was the curved paths. They offended my sense of engineering efficiency. The straight line distance was nearly doubled by zigging and zagging along these curved paths. NASA was paying extra for folks to walk curved paths.

I have calmed down in my later years and rail less about stuff like this.

The view from the 3rd floor of Building 7a looked down on the quad and was quite an attractive view.

One morning I was enroute from 7a to 12. It was cool. there was dew on the grass and shrubbery. About 10 feet from the bridge I hooked a snake with my foot. In retrospect it was almost certainly a garter snake, but my immediate visceral reaction was: snake! Moccasin!! Rattler!!! SNAKE!!!

I started kicking and slinging my leg to GET IT OFF ME. The poor snake was thinking, “What have I gotten myself into?” The more I kicked and jerked the tighter the snake wound itself around my leg. I finally kicked the correct way and the snake gave up and was thrown into the shrubbery. Whew for both of us.

I continued my stroll to 12, gathered my “run” and strolled back to 7a with my eyes peeled. When I reached my desk on the third floor I concluded that my colleagues had observed my gyrations. They crowded around. “What was that St Vitus dance you did all about?”