EPILOGUE
1946 -1991
It is possible, grandchildren, that I may
not have the time or energy to set down the details of my even more adventurous
second quarter century; therefore, in this “epilogue” I shall simply summarize
the events that led me all over the world and into a truly “golden” retirement. Some of you might protest, “You have lots of
time, Papa Con!” but I am approaching seventy years of age and much of the time
left my beloved Phyllis and I intend to devote to us and to the travelling we
would like to do.
My entire life has been full of adventure
that I would like to record in detail later as Part III of my story. Meanwhile, I hope that you have found the
tales of my first quarter century interesting and perhaps amusing in places. The following is but a bare summary outline of
the events that led me all over the
world and finally here to the peace and quiet of Sandy Point in the Pacific
Northwest.
It
took me two years to make the adjustment to civilian life in peacetime. I first took a job at Meir & Frank in
Portland, Oregon, selling ladies shoes.
That was not satisfying and did not last.
 |
| Conrad Frieze, graduation from OSC 1949 |
I then got a job in Vancouver, Washington at the courthouse
as a draftsman for the county assessor.
During that two-year period, I realized one of my dreams—on the veteran’s
G.I. Bill I started flying lessons and by 1948 it was time to complete my final
year of college. The University of
Washington was over-crowded with returned veterans on the G.I. Bill and housing
was hard to find in Seattle. I settled
on Oregon State College in Corvallis and in June of 1949 graduated with a
Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering with an Aeronautical Option.
My
ambition was to be in the light plane industry as a designer; however, none of
the light plane companies were hiring engineers. It was a bad year in general aviation. Then one day I spotted the new, swept-wing sleek
Boeing experimental B-47 jet bomber sitting on the apron at Boeing Field. I was entranced, applied for a job at Boeing,
and was accepted as a junior engineer.
That
began my lifetime career with Boeing. It
got off to a slow start. I was put to
work in the Tooling Department designing riveting jigs for the B-47. It was not what I wanted. Every day without fail I would stick my head
into the cubbyhole office of Stan Little, the engineering representative and
say, “Stan, when the hell are you going to get me a job in Flight Test?”
Wichita Flight Test
1950 – 1953
In
February of 1950, my persistence paid off.
I got my job in Flight Test on the condition that I would go to Wichita,
Kansas, for eighteen months to help set up the B-47 flight test program down
there. I was assigned as a flight test
Operations engineer, planning test flights, obtaining and analyzing data, and
writing test reports.
Except
for being in the relative desolation of Kansas from the green mountains and
ocean of the Pacific Northwest, it was a dream job. In Wichita, I worked with a happy-go-lucky
bunch of flight test engineers and test pilots who would become life-long
friends.
I
did not stay eighteen months in Wichita—I stayed three years, three months, and
six days. As the program built up I
received regular promotions until I was a Flight Test Operations Engineer A and
the lead engineer on the B-47 flight loads program. Brian Wygle was the pilot, Ross Patrick the
co-pilot, and I was the test engineer recording data while we flew the No. 2
B-47A to the limits of its structural design.
On
February 19, 1951, I became a father.
Our little daughter Stephanie Kathryn was born. Like most men I had hoped for a son, but
Stephanie was adorable and was the apple of my eye. I was a proud father and assumed a son (or
sons) would come later. (I was dead
wrong. It became apparent that Shirley
had a great dread of getting pregnant and she instituted a strict regimen of
birth control. I accepted the situation,
but I fear it laid a brick in the wall that would grow between us.)
[There
is plenty that I can fault my mother for, but in her defense, I will tell you
what she told me. She told me that she had two miscarriages
before having me and that after having successfully delivered me her doctor
told her that further pregnancies would be a danger to her life. My mother has a tendency to hear whatever is
most dramatic and may have exaggerated her doctor’s advice. It would not be the last time. I spent a childhood (and my adult life)
wishing I had siblings so my father wasn’t alone there and adoption seemed to
be out of the question.]
