With that brief synopsis of our future home and neighborhood, I guess I better get a move on and get everyone over here, including Karen’s @##$@ cat, “Inky”. For the first time in our lives we moved via moving van and not “U-Haul-Its’ ‘. As far as we were concerned, we had four kids, two cars and a cat to get over there. How we shuffled the cars I can’t quite remember, suffice it to say I drove Joyce, the kids and much delicate stuff we didn’t want to trust to the movers. We left Pensacola a day or so after the movers, and met them at Mandalay Rd. on the same day. The Elliott’s lived off University Blvd. just beyond the new Mathews Expressway and were there to offer anything we might need including sleeping accommodations, but fortunately we could move in that night.
Since I knew I would have to return to Pensacola to tie up some leftover business, we had left a few things in the house for me to bring, including Inky. In addition, Lee Gardner, the Singing River Working Circle forest manager (in Gautier MS) was transferring to our department in Jacksonville too. He had made it as far as DeFuniak Springs FL and needed a lift to Jacksonville. Gathering the loose stuff up and getting it packed was a cinch. The cat however was an issue. She had no intention of going anywhere. I got a big cardboard box with a top, filled it with soft stuff, punched a bunch of holes in it, plopped Inky in it and slapped on and taped a top to it. What a ruckus she made. DeFuniak Springs was about 100 miles east on US 90, and I pulled into the Dreamland Motel to pick up Lee. Unbeknown to me, Inky had wedged open a corner of the box and when Lee opened the back door to put in his pack, a black streak leaped out the door, down a slope and right into a door just opened by a guy coming out. The explosion that followed was almost epic. The room the cat ran into had the guy’s wife and dog in there. We heard a shriek from the woman inside and with her husband and Lee, went in to see what the commotion was all about. The terrified woman in her slip was standing on the bed with the cat and dog under it snarling and barking. After bumping heads (ours) on the box-spring several times, the guy and I managed to extract our “pets’ ‘ from beneath the bed. By this time the woman was dressed, sitting in a chair and holding her side laughing, along with Lee standing in the doorway. After profuse apologies on our part and agreeing you couldn’t possibly see such a scene on TV, we left the Dreamland Motel and headed for Jacksonville. Soon we were crossing the Chattahoochee (Apalachicola) River into the Eastern Time zone. About halfway across the bridge, Lee suggested we slow down and dispose of the cat over the railing (ha, ha, just a joke). Every couple of miles Lee would reach back and bash the cardboard box to quiet the cat. Upon reaching Jacksonville, I dropped Lee off in the Edgewood neighborhood on the north side of the river (where we lived while in the Navy) and headed for Mandalay Rd. (on the south side of the river) where I breathed a loud sigh of relief. It was a harrowing ride with Inky. The next morning she wanted out to do what we thought was her business, let her out and never laid eyes on her again. On reflection, the Apalachicola River option appeared to have been an opportunity lost.
On the domestic scene, most of our time in the beginning was spent in just getting settled and familiar with our surroundings. Karen was 8 and Bruce 7 so they were enrolled in Holiday Hill Elementary School. Shortly after we had settled in, we visited and joined the Arlington Congregational Church. That church had a preschool program, which was nice since the public school system did not include kindergarten. Since kindergarten provides a nice transition into the public school system, availability to a viable preschool program was important to us. That’s where Diane went for a half day Monday through Friday. Although that took care of three out of the four young’uns, there was still George. With him home, you might just as well have the whole crew (plus Nosy Rosie of course) there. Fortunately after a couple of years, he was potty-trained enough that Happy Acres Ranch just (down the street) would accept him. Since I was gone most weeks until Friday afternoon, this gave Joyce (now Mom) some time to take a breath and get some of the house chores done. As soon as George reached preschool age (4yrs. I think), he was entered into the church’s program and Mom began her career in preschool (Children under six) education, which went on 20 successful years plus.
A bit of a disclaimer here: up to this point in this narrative (excepting some input/corrections from Mom), the vignettes described were as I (Dad) saw them. From now on my colorful descriptions will likely have from one to four versions (depending upon who you ask). Regardless of all that, this narrative is my story and I am sticking to it.
The church soon became the center of our social and community activity. Adding to its normal function, the church hosted a Boy Scout Troup, 263, to which both Bruce and George joined and earned the coveted Eagle Scout rank. Bruce had the rare opportunity to attend a week (or ten days) at the Philmont National Boy Scout Ranch in Cimarron NM. The girls were not left out of all this activity. Both were active in the Girl Scouts and made one or more trips to the Bahamas, including Eleuthera (Bruce’s troop made a trip to that same island). The scouting activities ran well into the ‘70s. These were only a few of several travels our kids enjoyed that we didn’t and sort of wished we had. The church also hosted the “Jubileers” Square Dance club. It was here we learned the art and finesse of square dancing and spent many a joyous (if raucous) Saturday night cavorting around the churches Fellowship hall. At the Arlington Community Center, they had a youth square dancing club and when old enough the kids joined (at our encouragement). This must have been in the 1965-’66 time frame (DIV-6).
Our major social activity during this period is with the church and its couples club. The latter was the source of many get-togethers and good eats over the years. About 1965/’66 George was old enough to be admitted the church’s preschool program, and Mom became active in teaching children under six, in which she had a special talent. I was a Sunday school teacher and active in the church hierarchy. While serving as the head deacon (we met on the third Tuesday night each month). One member deacon who was otherwise very active in church activities was his wife, but he was an active Navy reserve officer that had monthly meetings conflicting with our meeting time. To me he was a lost resource, so I cornered him one Sunday morning. His name was Dave Olson (Eileen his wife). I had both their daughter Joanne and son Billy in junior and senior high Sunday school class. I pointed out I could sure use his help in some of the things we were doing and he wished he could too. We agreed to meet at our house later in the week so I could task him without him having to meet with us on that third Tuesday. We set up an “after work” meeting. Other than brief church chats, we really knew very little about each other. From my point of view, the meeting would be short, so I had fired up my outdoor grill and threw some chickens on to cook (for eating after the meeting). He showed up about 5PM, and I offered him some refreshment, Coke, Ginger ale or if he wanted, how about a cold beer? Like a shot he was out of his chair heading for his car, from which he extracted a huge ice cooler jammed packed with the current beer du jour, saying as he came back: “thought you would never ask”. I can guarantee you that we had a true Deacons-like meeting that included his wife joining us. With luck I had thrown enough chicken on the grill to meet all our needs. I have absolutely no idea of the Deacon’s work done that night, but I do know we had a fun evening, with good “vibes” between all of us. After all, a couple born and raised on Staten Island, NY can’t be all bad. All I can say, the rest is history.
The Olson’s were a few years our seniors, but had 4 kids right around the age of our kids, except their only daughter, Joanne who was older and just ready to enter college (FSU) over in Tallahassee. Ties between their kids and ours were never very close (different parts of town, schools, etc.). Alan and George were a bit different since they went to the same pre-school. The main point of this section is to emphasize the “Branford” years, and the recreation perks offered by St. Regis. Branford is a small town in central Florida just south of Lake City and right on the Suwannee River. St. Regis had the Howell Working Circle headquarters just out of town. West of town was a large wetland area named Mallory Swamp, a large area largely associated with the Steinhatchee River and to a lesser degree the Suwannee River wetlands just before both rivers emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. A large portion of the eastern side of the swamp was drained with a series of dykes, and water-retention lakes. The resulting “dry” lands provided a favorable growing site for slash pine, the species of choice for pulp and paper (Kraft) production. During that period, a “bunk” house was built on site for the reclamation crew. What a building it was. It was capital I in design, with a large central living space including a kitchen and dining area, 3 bedrooms in one wing and another room plus bathroom/shower in the other wing. The kitchen’s center piece was a “to die for” Garland gas stove including a flat pancake surface and two ovens. Outside of the house a long wooden dock reached out into one of 3 interconnected retention lakes. To refer to them as “ponds” would understate their size. There was also a Jon boat with oars for our use as well. The Working Circle forester, Jimmy Vessels and his field crew were always available and accommodating if we ever needed help, like driving into a drainage ditch or something. Most of the roads were built on dykes. These dykes included drainage ditches on either side, usually full of water. Most roads and trails had shallow standing water around them, dyke or no dyke. One day, along one of these secondary roads with standing water (and tall grass) on either side, several yummy looking creatures were captured for fish bait (small frogs, salamanders, etc.). Taking a bucket of these out to the main road, we decided to try our luck on the large drainage ditch associated with the road. We loaded a little frog on George’s fishing pole and he heaved it in. Almost immediately, “wham”! We had a hefty strike, and sure enough, it was hefty alright, it was a small alligator. Well we had a time with him, in which I slipped down the muddy bank and almost into the drink with him. But we were able to cut him loose. It was a hot day, I was muddy and about pooped out. Upon arrival at the cabin, I simply walked out to the end of the dock and right off into the lake. That seemed to be entertaining to everyone especially when they realized I forgot to take my wallet out of my pocket.
On one of our first trips to Branford, George was all of 4 or 5 years old. I spent some time showing him how to put a worm on a hook so it wouldn’t break in two. I also instructed him on what fish to keep (with regards to size). Early the next morning when mom and I were sound asleep I dreamed I was undergoing Chinese water torture, and when I opened my eyes, George was holding dripping 6 or 7 inch crappie (a sun fish like fish) right above my eye. His little voice was repeating: “is this big enough dad, is this big enough??). I probably was. That was a mistake. Of course, he wanted it for breakfast, and he expected breakfast now! Branford was a great place for us to unwind and really enjoy ourselves as a growing family. As you all know, Florida contains a pretty flat topographical profile except for the central limestone ridge. During the early to mid ‘60s there were many rocket launches made from the Kennedy Space Center that were perfectly visible from our Branford location. One night we were all awed by a launch that exploded before reaching orbit. Made one think of the cost, but necessity of space exploration (DIV-7).
As to my career and its development, the early ‘60s were pivotal. Seemingly unrelated was the construction of the Saturn rocket test facility in southern Hancock County, MS beginning in 1961. The location was an extensive area south of the St. Regis Mississippi forest headquarters in Picayune MS. The land taken by NASA for this facility was secured through the government’s right of Eminent domain, and included a lot of St. Regis and other forest products companies land but mostly International Paper Company. The site was being developed in support of the Apollo space program that was heading for the moon by the end of the 1960’s decade, the Saturn rocket was going to get them there. Still active there today it is known as the John Stennis Space Flight Center. As the decade of the sixties moved on, the Saturn testing wound down as the Apollo program successfully progressed. The NASA agency was anxious to explore other possible uses of space in a civilian environment to partially justify the huge cost already invested in the Apollo program. What in the world would the significance of all this be to a mere paper company will become clear a little later in this retrospective.
My work involved not only many a week commute to Athens GA and back, but also field responsibilities not only in the Jacksonville area (east of the Chattahoochee/Apalachicola Rivers) in Pensacola, McIntosh AL, and Picayune MS where I had ten field crews requiring periodic visitation. Around this time George Park, who was a devout Methodist, made the decision to take a “sabbatical” and pursue a Divinity degree from Duke University. Hated to lose him, he had done so much for us during this transition period. I still consider him my principal career mentor, though many others helped. One of those people took over from George. As the reader might guess, it was Bob Elliott, my old friend from Pensacola. During this period (around 1966), I learned another important lesion. Never take as gospel what anyone says including high tech consultants without verifying to the best of your ability the validity of the advice being put forward. In this particular case, we were in the process of assessing a new land acquisition in Alabama, to be included in an existing land contract. I should mention here that two-thirds of the Southern Timberlands land base was held through some 93 separate contracts called Timber Purchase Agreements (TPA’s). Typically these TPA’s were made with individual land owners and ran some 66 years in duration. The idea was to have access to the timber we needed to run our pulp and paper mills without incurring the burden of land ownership. To the landowner’s benefit, they were assured through good forest management practices, the removed trees would be replanted to the point that his entire ownership would include at least as much and likely more standing timber at the end of the 66 year period as it had in the beginning. Once the field work was complete on this new property, I took the data up to Athens where, using previous data from our permanent growth sample (PGS), Jim Bamping and his colleague’s had developed a family of tree species specific volume equations that reflected the variations in the particular species and growing conditions represented by those trees measured. As long as future trees contained the basic characteristics of the trees used in equation development, the results should be similar and predictable.
In this new acquisition the trees, especially the pine component, were far superior to the typical timber stands from which our volume equations were developed. As a result, the model used for this new tract vastly over-predicted the presence of quality trees, and not just of saw timber, but higher value products such as poles, pilings and veneer. When the timber was cut, the value fell far short of the predicted one, and management was not happy. I should have known better, but I was still a young fella, and figured I had it all figured out. The main point was, of course, that various populations of trees are going to exhibit different characteristics, and all volume equations needed a subsample to adjust the major constants of the equation to account for the differences, if indeed there were any. We failed to do that. I thought I was going to be put on the block (and probably should have been), but for their own reasons, management decided a quiet solution would be best. Instead, the “boss” Bob Elliott was called on the carpet resulting in his reassignment to Northern Timberlands located in Bucksport Maine. For Bob and Jane, this was a God-send. Bob originated from the general area and was a University of Maine graduate and active in their alumni activities. Jane’s parents lived just outside of Boston and she couldn’t wait to be geographically close again. In short, both were delighted to get back home. The whole issue could have been avoided if I had not blindly relied on Bamping and the Georgia bunch, and if poor Bob hadn’t relied on me so much without question. I was simply too green.
The next good fortune in my forestry career was Elliott’s replacement as our group leader. Cleatus Turner, a young financial wizard from Accounting was tapped for the job. Cleatus was a quiet young man from Slocum AL. But don’t let the quietness (or Slocum) fool you. He was an extraordinarily efficient “bean counter”, and highly organized. He reorganized our group into an efficient information technology and development department. Because of my limited exposure to operations research (OR), I was assigned as Operations Research Forester. Most of my prior field forestry responsibilities were assigned to another forester. Still other foresters worked with Cleatus in developing return on investment (ROI) concepts in growing forest resources, keeping up with current contract requirements and managing the Division’s pine tree nursery and superior tree program. St. Regis hired Jim Bamping in 1969, which surely reduced my travel. I was happy about that, and also happy that we shifted our academic orientation to the University of Florida (both forestry school and computer center). At least Gainesville was a bit closer.
During this period of time, methods of data processing and analysis were booming ahead. The day of the desktop calculator was short lived. As an OR forester it was incumbent upon me to grow with the technology. First I learned what bits and bytes were, and how binary calculations were made (0 and 1’s only). From there, I learned simple Fortran 2 programming techniques and how to read the results in scientific notation (don’t ask). I quickly graduated to Fortran 4. From that I wrote (which to me was a bit complicated) a computer program called the “Biological Availability of Wood” (BAW). This program focused on our company owned lands. In each of our mill areas (Jacksonville, Pensacola, Monticello MS, and Lufkin TX). This included pine growing, hardwood growing and pine-hardwood growing lands. For the hardwoods and mixed pine-hardwood lands our empirical data collected on a regular basis, plus the data from our Permanent Growth Sample worked quite well in describing the dynamics of the current stands (operating areas) in terms of standing volume, yearly growth and mortality of the existing trees as well as the ingrowth of trees from sapling to “merchantable” sized trees. Where we fell short was in the additions being added by newly planted stands replacing those being harvested. For that, several companies joined us in working with the US Forest Service in plantation cooperatives scattered throughout physiographic regions in the south and southeast. For the flatwoods of South Georgia and Florida, there was the USFS station in Lake City FL for slash pine, the USFS station in Chipley FL specializing in growth and management of sand pine (a unique species in an extreme sand environment). There was also the Forest Service facility in Brewton AL specializing in longleaf pine. My main contact there was Bob Farrar, who was receiving his PhD at Yale the same time I was there and we knew each other well. His chief, Tom Croker, was a well-known longleaf pine researcher. The University of Georgia hosted a USFS laboratory focused on piedmont and coastal loblolly pine, with great support from North Carolina State University.
As must be obvious, we were becoming extremely data rich, but unfortunately also becoming processing poor. The amount of data was rapidly surpassing our capability of processing them. Not only that, but we were dealing only with our own lands which supplied about twenty-five percent of our wood requirement. The rest came from an open market wood supply throughout the region. This supply was managed by our wood supply, or procurement department. This group, mostly foresters, were primarily wood buyers. Clearly their ability to answer the mill’s wood supply needs was critical. Company lands were largely used as a back-up supply source in times of outside wood supply shortages, most commonly adverse weather conditions. When this happened, procurement almost always headed for the timber source most easily reached and closest to the mill. Their need overrode all else, and the idea of developing a cutting schedule on any given Working Circle was considered as a useless exercise. Forest management strategy became basically an academic exercise, when the need for wood trumped all other considerations (except $$$). This was all about to change as the ability to handle our data improved and realistic return on investment (ROI) analyses for each operating area demonstrated to upper management that “easiest and closest” did not necessarily mean most economical. Procurement was not thrilled with our work. But we will let them stew for a while as we take a look at what was going on in the domestic arena (an apt word in the Barker setting).