Culture Shock occurred on March 29, 1955

On March 21, 1955, Mom and sons left our small town (and my dog) behind. I can still see him running next to the car taking the four of us to the train station, barking his despair. We took the train to Paris, visited the Eiffel Tower, and went on to Calais to board the Liberte.

The trip across the Atlantic was hell for me. I was seasick all six days of the crossing. Nothing could describe my feelings when I finally saw the Statue of Liberty looming ahead. It was March 28, 1955. Ellis Island was my first step onto American soil. After the immigration process, we still had to get to Chicago by train, but none of us spoke English. A Good Samaritan saw us and obviously had been through the process of helping others before. He looked at the papers and placed us in a cab to get to Grand Central Station. We somehow found the correct train and began the overnight trip to Union Station in Chicago.

There was not much sleeping. We all were very hungry. Sandwiches were being sold in the car, but the family finances consisted of two one-hundred dollar bills. The purveyor had no change. A hundred dollars in 1955 was a kingly sum. Another kind soul came to our rescue and bought food for us. The first two strangers we met in this country set the tone for all future strangers in my mind - "A stranger is simply a friend I hadn't met."

The morning of March 29, we entered the waiting room at Union Station in Chicago, looking for my dad. He wasn't there. Being what I am, I couldn't sit still in this new world, so I ventured outside to look around. After some time, I returned to find my dad and his brother Stanley in the midst of hugs and kisses. I ran to join the group with tears in my eyes. Uncle Stanley was a jovial sort and, even though I couldn't understand a word of what was being said, I liked him immediately. He took us to the apartment my dad had rented and, after unloading the car, stayed with us until dark. The landlord and his wife were Polish and joined us to made my mother feel comfortable and at home. Finally, I would get a good night's sleep.

I was excited about our new life. Having a curious nature and loving to explore new things made me anxious about finding out what Chicago was all about. All kinds of new things had to be done. We had to enroll in school, locate shopping, get accustomed the environment and get settled. All kinds of new experiences were to be had.

I reported to the school the following Monday. One problem - I didn't know a word of English. I was placed in a first grade class to learn -- one of the biggest humiliations I ever suffered. It was very hard for me report to class every day. I decided to do something about it. I found out about crossword puzzles and bought an English/French dictionary and a Merriam-Webster Collegiate dictionary. I began solving crosswords by looking at the clues and finding the translation. When I understood, I would read the definition in the Merriam-Webster and look up the words I did not know in the translating dictionary. It took a long time initially to solve even the easiest of puzzles. Nine months later, I came in second in the school spelling bee. I surprised the school staff.

I still do crosswords today and every day. I know there is a huge difference between learning a new language from conversation and learning it from a dictionary. The other element that gave me an edge for future work is that, having to visualize something in two languages, it gives a broader vision. A foreigner's joke:

What do you call someone who speaks two languages? -- Bilingual.

What do you call someone who speaks three languages? -- Trilingual.

What do you call someone who speaks only one language? -- American.

I became the family translator. I was soon placed in a third grade class and, when we moved to a new address two years later, I was placed in the appropriate age group. It was still difficult for me to adjust, though, because the classwork assigned was so simple and I had done it years before in France. It wasn't until four or five years after we arrived in the U.S. that I finally got work I hadn't done before.

School in Chicago was pretty much a waste of time, from my point of view. I got into many fights to defend the family honor, but I think it was done mostly because of anger about not being able to communicate or "fit in." I was strong and sinewy, like my dad. Soon, nobody wanted to fight me anymore. I got a paper route to be independent and not be a burden to my folks. We were poor financially, but not in spirit. In fact, just a month after we bought a house with family help and replaced the old furnace, both my parents were laid off. We made it, though. Mom and Dad were tough and determined. I never asked them for money.

I attended Carl Schurz High School and was placed in an honors class. I never took a book home for the four years I attended. I was too busy working. I walked a couple of miles to school every morning, walked back home to grab a bite to eat and walked about a mile and a half to work and back every day. I did not even go to the proms. I did all my homework and class studies in study hall.

Although I didn't bring schoolbooks home, I read a lot. I always carried pocket books and devoured them continually. I got hooked on science fiction and read all Heinlein, Pohl and the rest of the famous sci-fi authors of the day.

The problem with doing whatever I wanted to do is that I had no idea of how I could develop my life in this country. Certainly, my folks couldn't help. My dad worked third shift and my mom was a seamstress. I simply took things as they came. When I graduated from high school, I had no idea of what my next step would be.

I worked at a convenience store as a general helper the last two years of high school. Although I enjoyed the work and the independence, there was not much future in it for me. One of the customers worked for a stained glass manufacturer and suggested I apply as an apprentice. After a short stint with Michaudel Studios as an apprentice, my mother was upset at my climbing church roofs and working as slave labor. She insisted that I get an interview where my older brother was working - Northern Trust Bank. Because immediate family members were not allowed to work in the same bank at that time, the personnel director sent me down the street to LaSalle National Bank. They hired me as a trainee that would begin as a mailroom messenger. Three hundred dollars a month and a downtown job - SWEET!

I loved this new experience. Distributing memos and meeting new people was fun. Within my first month, I distributed a memo to all employees and returned to the mail room. Al Brandt was my supervisor and asked me if I had read the memo. It had to do with registering for a test to become a programmer for the bank's new IBM 1401. Not only did I have no idea of what a programmer was, but I didn't know much about banks, either.

Al: "Did you register for the test?"

Me: "Naw! I have no idea what a computer is, much less a programmer."

Al: "If you don't register, you're fired."

I registered.

Twenty-five people reported to Personnel for a screening test lasting an hour. At eighteen years old, I was the youngest by far. Two days later, six of us were notified that we were to take another test lasting two hours. I really did not take this process very seriously. I was happy in the mail room and did not know what I was getting into. I finished the test in just over an hour and went back to my messenger duties. No one else finished the test.

The following week, I was summoned to Personnel again and met with Bill Ryan, Manager of Data Processing. I was a bit apprehensive. After some pleasantries, he asked:

Bill: "How old are you, John?"

Me: 18

Bill: "What is your draft status?"

Me: 1A

"You know Vietnam is going hot and heavy, right?" he continued.

"I know," I replied.

Bill: "I'm not sure how long it may be before you get drafted, but it's impossible to ignore how you did on the test. We've never seen such a score. We want you to go to IBM programming school next month. After school, your pay will go from 300 to 525 dollars a month. Do you want the job?"

"You bet!"

I graduated programming school on the day John Kennedy was assassinated - November 22, 1963. A group of us had just returned from a celebratory graduation lunch and given the news. My first response was: "What's the punch line?" More than fifty years later, I recall the details of this event. Three years later, to the day, I reported for active duty in Norfolk, Virginia.

Those three years at LaSalle were nothing short of wondrous. Every experience was new and exciting. There were five of us in the programming department and we were all regarded highly by the rest of the employees. I still had pride then, so I probably became a pain-in-the-ass to some of my fellow programmers.

This was the bank's first computer and we were assigned to convert manual systems to the current technology. The CPU had 8K of memory, a card reader and punch, a printer, four tape drives and a typewriter console. The equipment filled a glass-enclosed space of about four hundred square feet. Some technology! What fun!

All work was to be done post-haste. This meant sixty to eighty hours weekly, including overnights. That made for some delicious paychecks with time and a half for hours over forty.

The programming group was tight. We would lunch together, go to bars to play pool and drink beer after work, play golf and poker together. I was the youngest of the group by seven years and learned maturity quite fast. All of them were married with children. I was just playful.

The data center manager, Jack Wolf, and computer operator, Jack Olday, did not like us. They had both taken the aptitude tests with me and were quite resentful of the programmers, especially of me. It was not unusual for one of us programmers to be running a test on a program and have Jack Wolf barge in and terminate the effort. This was very galling if we were testing a long procedure. (The longest tape sort I did was at the IBM facility because we couldn't schedule it in-house. It took thirty-six hours.)

Jack Olday loved to show off for the ladies in the Unit Record department. IBM had provided us with a birthday program that would show the calendar page of someone's birth month, tell what day of the week it was, along with some cutesy information about zodiac signs, etc. Each birthday entered took about ten minutes to process. Jack would be showing off during daily production time and preventing us from testing programs. We would be relegated to night or weekend testing because of this. On a lonesome Saturday, while running a long sort, I decided to do something about it.

The so-called "IBM" cards used Hollerith code to communicate with the machine. Eighty columns of twelve punches per column could represent alpha and numeric information. All addresses relating to the CPU memory were contained in three characters. I became quite proficient at interpreting these addresses and I could translate them quickly.

Ed: "John, what is Z3Z?"

Me: "5939!"

I also got proficient at writing machine code. The source code for programs was Autocoder and we punched our own programs to compile them into machine coded cards. When debugging, it was not uncommon to hit a "Process Error." That meant an address was incorrect, something was out of sequence, or a record contained faulty information. We could make "patch cards" and reload the program. It was faster for me to take a "core dump" and make "patches" directly from the console, rather than recompile the program. After reaching the end of the program test, I would make the changes to the source code.

One particular Saturday, I was alone in the computer room, soon to be running a lengthy sort. I retrieved the birthday program and loaded it into the computer to get a core dump. This would show me all the data and addresses that memory would hold to run the program. I found the addresses needed to doctor up the program. The last statement of the program when it reached completion was "Please enter another birthday to continue." Finding the instructions that sent the program back to the starting point, I changed the statement and added a couple more. They read: "I was so happy to do this one, I'll let you do another!" The next time around, it would type: "Not bad for only $75 an hour!" The last one was: "Say, Jack, is daily production on schedule?" It would take over a half hour to produce that statement. I created the patch cards, marked them with pencil in case I had to remove them quickly, and returned the doctored-up cards to their storage place.

This prank was meant for Jack Olday the operator, but it took a twist. I did not hear the story until much later than the event took place, as told by John Caminitti, a fellow programmer.

Jack Wolf, the Data Center manager, was showing off the birthday program to a couple of mucky-mucks from the bank. John Caminitti was directly in front of him, behind the glass partition. As John related, Jack had both hands on the sides of the console, looking down at the typed words with the executives at his side. The hands suddenly grasped the table with obvious force and Jack's face got beet red. John thought Jack was about to rip the console from the table. He stood erect and stormed out of the computer room. A few weeks, later, he found another job and moved on. Karma, I suppose.

Since all new systems were designed from scratch, discussions with executives and area managers were essential before any coding began. This was my introduction to conservative thinking. Most of my interviews were with executives much older than I. I would ask them how they used information and why it was important. If I were to suggest a new way of doing something, I was quickly told: "We've always done it this way!" I heard that countless times. Some had a real issue with dealing with a teenager who asked them very direct questions. I loved creating systems that did more than what was asked for. What I loved most was the fact that the industry was too new to have standards. Using my creativity was pure joy.

I married Janet in 1965. She was sweet. We were engaged on March 10, 1965. That summer, Kennedy's edict that the first draftees to Vietnam be single was expiring. Janet and I talked about delaying our planned wedding in November, but decided to go ahead and do it. Naively, I went to my draft board in August to let them know of our plans and received my "Greetings" letter a week later. By now, a lot of commitments had been made. Wanting to go through with it, I joined the Naval Reserve to get my first year of duty at home. A week later, I received a letter from Army Intelligence to report for an interview for a Top Secret position. A week after that, I received notification that I was drafted into the French Army and was to report to Bordeaux for dispatching to Algeria. Decisions, decisions.

Janet and I married on November 6, 1965 and drove to New Orleans for the honeymoon. We would have a year together before I would enter active duty. On November 22, 1966, I left Chicago for Norfolk, Virginia to await orders.