Read Online The Falcon and the Snowman by Robert Lindsey - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Lindsey
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to study these birds? Professors in the History Department at Cal Poly encouraged him to apply for a Federal grant to finance a study of the history of falconry. The idea excited Chris. He envisaged an odyssey that would take him to Asia and Europe, to old castles, temples and archives, from the Pyrenees to above the Arctic Circle, where the great Arctic gyrfalcons flew. But the grant was not approved, and Chris, disappointed, decided to leave Cal Poly the following June. Gnawing at him was the implicit pressure that society wanted more out of him.
Several years later he would say of the year he spent on Morro Bay: âWhy I didnât stay there Iâll never know. I guess I was guilty about being so happy and felt that if I didnât at least try entering The Establishment I would have been forever locked in prejudices of my own making. How dumb.â
After school ended in June, he told his parents that heâd decided to quit college for a while, bank some money and make some decisions. Then heâd return to college in a year or two, probably to become a lawyer. His father said he would see what he could do about helping him to find a job. Maybe, he said, Chris might even find a job that he would like for its career possibilities and he could end his seemingly aimless wandering.
In the aerospace industry, as in many industries, there is a kind of informal âold boy networkâ that arranges jobs for the sons and daughters of members of the network. A company executive may not be able to hire his own son because it would invite charges of nepotism; but what is wrong in calling a friend whoâs an executive of another company and asking a favor? Such arrangements can work reciprocally without charges of nepotism.
Chrisâs father decided to ask a friend at the Hughes Aircraft Company if he might have any openings. But the friend, with an apology, said he couldnât help.
Then Chrisâs father called a friend who worked for TRW Defense and Space Systems Group in nearby Redondo Beach. This friend said he might be able to.
8
When his father told him about the job, Chris didnât know what kind of work people did at the dozen or so buildings marked âTRWâ that sprawled over a sizable portion of Redondo Beach, one of the coastal cities that hug the rim of the Pacific north of the Peninsula. The fathers of several of his friends in Palos Verdes had worked at TRW when he was in high school. But the only thing Chris recalled about the company was that it had something to do with computers or electronicsâlike a lot of the industries that provided work for fathers on The Hill.
To Chris it didnât matter what business the company was in. He just wanted to work awhile, save some money and, eventually, return to college. His father told him the job would probably be in the mail roomâa boring prospect, Chris thought, but a satisfactory economic bridge before going back to school and making a decision about what to do with his future.
In the middle of June, 1974, Chris made an appointment to see his fatherâs friend. He drove to one of the several TRW compounds in Redondo Beach and presented himself at a reception desk; he signed his name on a visitorâs card, and after a clerk made a telephone call to confirm his appointment he was given a badge allowing him to enter a limited portion of the plant under the guidance of an escort.
The complex looked much like the aerospace plant where his father workedâreally more like a college campus than a factory. There were modern buildings fronting on wide expanses of grass and lots of trees; there were no smokestacks. On the top of several of the buildings were curious igloo-shaped white superstructures that puzzled Chris.
Inside the plant, he walked past rooms that seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance. Each room was illuminated by a ceiling of white fluorescent lights that glowed without shadows and seemed to
Several years later he would say of the year he spent on Morro Bay: âWhy I didnât stay there Iâll never know. I guess I was guilty about being so happy and felt that if I didnât at least try entering The Establishment I would have been forever locked in prejudices of my own making. How dumb.â
After school ended in June, he told his parents that heâd decided to quit college for a while, bank some money and make some decisions. Then heâd return to college in a year or two, probably to become a lawyer. His father said he would see what he could do about helping him to find a job. Maybe, he said, Chris might even find a job that he would like for its career possibilities and he could end his seemingly aimless wandering.
In the aerospace industry, as in many industries, there is a kind of informal âold boy networkâ that arranges jobs for the sons and daughters of members of the network. A company executive may not be able to hire his own son because it would invite charges of nepotism; but what is wrong in calling a friend whoâs an executive of another company and asking a favor? Such arrangements can work reciprocally without charges of nepotism.
Chrisâs father decided to ask a friend at the Hughes Aircraft Company if he might have any openings. But the friend, with an apology, said he couldnât help.
Then Chrisâs father called a friend who worked for TRW Defense and Space Systems Group in nearby Redondo Beach. This friend said he might be able to.
8
When his father told him about the job, Chris didnât know what kind of work people did at the dozen or so buildings marked âTRWâ that sprawled over a sizable portion of Redondo Beach, one of the coastal cities that hug the rim of the Pacific north of the Peninsula. The fathers of several of his friends in Palos Verdes had worked at TRW when he was in high school. But the only thing Chris recalled about the company was that it had something to do with computers or electronicsâlike a lot of the industries that provided work for fathers on The Hill.
To Chris it didnât matter what business the company was in. He just wanted to work awhile, save some money and, eventually, return to college. His father told him the job would probably be in the mail roomâa boring prospect, Chris thought, but a satisfactory economic bridge before going back to school and making a decision about what to do with his future.
In the middle of June, 1974, Chris made an appointment to see his fatherâs friend. He drove to one of the several TRW compounds in Redondo Beach and presented himself at a reception desk; he signed his name on a visitorâs card, and after a clerk made a telephone call to confirm his appointment he was given a badge allowing him to enter a limited portion of the plant under the guidance of an escort.
The complex looked much like the aerospace plant where his father workedâreally more like a college campus than a factory. There were modern buildings fronting on wide expanses of grass and lots of trees; there were no smokestacks. On the top of several of the buildings were curious igloo-shaped white superstructures that puzzled Chris.
Inside the plant, he walked past rooms that seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance. Each room was illuminated by a ceiling of white fluorescent lights that glowed without shadows and seemed to
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