1968 Ford Island, ComASWForcesPac.

While stationed as Reserve OP-03, I met and made friends with an Army Master Sgt. who was with Army Mapping, across the runway. You see, on the weekend, we could have lunch at the O-Club, on the far side of the island, or eat with the Sergeants mess, which was only25 yards away. The food was much better there too. Sgt Beggs (not his real name) and I spent a lot of time in conversation, because we shared a quite a few common interests, fishing, flying, and horses. It turns out that he was a World's Champion Bass Fisherman in the South. He was from TN, and had started his own company that his brother in law, and sister ran, using his own very successful designs.

The Sgt would go on a lot of emergency leaves, for a week or 2, and I lost track of him. The AMS moved off Ford Island, and that was the end of it for about a year, when one day, as a civilian, I was making a business call on AMS at their new digs at Ft. Shafter. As I was reporting into the duty officer, Sgt. Beggs came in. He was in a nearby office, and asked me to stop by on the way out, which I did. While we were catching each other up to date, he mentioned that he had just returned from an emergency leave, and I said I hope everything was alright. He replied that he had broken his gun case when he hit the water, but his 1 shot was right on target. He complained that he had to tread water for 3 hours because the sub was late. I started to get interested, but he quickly changed the subject, and went on to rant how his Brother in law had just blown a million dollars on a machine to assemble a bass lure automatically, and the machine still wouldn't work. I asked him to tell me about it.

You see, I've got this great lure, with a spoon set in the mouth, and a stirrup shaped bale on the tail with a centered flipper held in place by 2 ball bearings with holes threaded on the stirrup. Outside of them, was a second stirrup with another flipper and 2 more ball bearings, and the darned machine couldn't thread all the parts together. The holes were all over the place, when they fed into the grove that held them for assembly I could see that he was really upset at his Brother in law.

I asked him what seemed to be the trouble, and he replied, the darned holes in the ball bearings won't line up! I was quiet for a few seconds, and then asked him; do the ball bearings have to be round? No, they just are there to keep the spoons in place. Which way do you want the holes to line up? Up and down, or from left to right? Horizontal, of course! Well then, said stop buying ball bearings and next time order Timken bearings, and your problem is solved!

Damn! He exclaimed, my stupid Brother in Law wasted a million dollars, and you solved the problem in 6 seconds! Why don't you come and work for me? I'LL PAY YOU $75,000.00 A YEAR to start, and give you 25% stock ownership!! I declined, and told him, be my guest, the idea is yours to use as you see fit. And so they are made that way still, on the converted machine.