In May of 1966 I walked into a dingy, humid little room that had a rancid smell of vinegar and spoiled fruit not knowing that I had just taken my first step towards a life long interest in photography.
The place was Sweetwater Air Force Station, forty miles east of Abilene, Texas. Sweetwater was my first Air Force duty assignment following electronics training at Keesler AFB in Mississippi. I was 19 and having bouts of homesickness, wondering what my friends were doing back home. I did enjoy my job but dread the time off because there wasn’t much to do.
I mostly spend my time in the “day room” which was a recreation center of sorts. There was a very small library as part of the center. The librarian was a pleasant civil service lady that sat waiting for someone to walk in but for the most part everyone stayed away from. It was she who explained what was available including, table tennis, checkerboards, chess sets and a black and white tv viewing room tuned to Armed Forces Network.
As the months went by, I got to see everything there was to see around the base and as it turned out, the recreation center was the best there was.
There was one room, with a rusted padlock on the only door and it had no sign on the door and it had no windows. I pulled on the padlock several times thinking it would open but it didn’t. I remembered that the librarian had been very thorough about everything but she had not said anything about this room. The room was next to the library. (More Later, time to go to sleep.)
