...How NOT to execute a H.S. Dance....
...In H.S. I was the 'nerdy girl', I would walk the Halls with a cello strapped to my back, and my arms clutching binders and books, and a full sidebag hanging over my shoulders My glasses would be hanging off the end of my nose, and my hair and makeup weren't in a very good style. I was totally focused on scholastics, and practicing the cello. I did a lot of chemistry experiences after school, I did succeed in making a sulfa drug!!!
There were other things I wanted to make, but the teacher forbade me, saying that it was too dangerous. I talked the 'Brilliant Friend' of mine, 'Mike', to help me perform some experiments with his home chemistry set, it was better equipped than mine, and we did several, and only set the counter in his garage on fire three times.
We only had one significant explosion, but the thick plastic barriers we set up contained it...we never heated metal sodium in a pure oxygen atmosphere again. (We NEVER told our parents what we were doing). We never made any illicit drugs, we weren't into mind-altering substances, and didn't want to get in trouble with the police.
...We were also into programming computers. I was right up with him in writing programs in Basic and Fortran, but he left me behind when he learned Cobol. He went on to earn a Masters Degree in Computer Science at UC Berkeley, and went to work at General Electric. We had a reputation in H.S. as being the Science Nerds, and other students would turn to us. I was the TA for chemistry, and would tutor students in Algebra and Geometry. He actually got passkeys to enter relaxed security areas at Lawrence Livermore Labs, and we would go there late at night and run our complex programs. (That was EXCITING...they actually issued us ID Badges that had our pictures on them, but Security made it VERY CLEAR where we were to enter, and which rooms to stay in. One was the cafeteria, and we would always have some coffee and cookies, and look around at all of the 'Big Brains' around us.) The 'night shift' programmers liked us, they encouraged us to earn college degrees in computer science, saying that computers would develop into more complex and interesting things.
...The Sophomore Class approached us, they wanted to put on a dance, and they wanted to put together students that had common interests. So, they asked us to write a computer program that would do so. The students would fill out a simple questionnaire, and we would put the data on punch cards, and then get a printout that matched up the students. I was amused when we got the cards, there were THREE TIMES as many GIRLS than boys! Mike and I got distracted with other projects, and waited until the last moment to write the program. I then spent the afternoon typing out the punch cards, Mike insisted that he was the 'Chief Programmer', and laboring over a key punch machine was beneath him. (I think that he was also being a bit 'sexist', but didn't call him on it.
)
...The night before the dance, we showed up at the Labs, and it was busy. The Manager said that they were running a big job, but that we could have access to a computer for half an hour. We put our cards in the hopper, and hit the execute button, and...the program WASN'T RUNNING...there was a glitch in our programming. We frantically worked on fixing it, but then the Manager came over, and said that the computer was needed for the Companies project. We sat for about an hour, hoping that a computer would come free, but that didn't happen. So...we used the....
...EYEBALL TECHNIQUE!!!!
...We stayed in the Lab, and would hold a guys card to the light, and place girls cards, one after the other, behind it, and see how well the holes in the cards matched. (That was my solution to the problem...Mike went along with it...but wasn't a happy camper)
We then made sure that each guy got three girls, some guys matched a lot of the girls' cards, a few didn't have ANY matches.
...We did get paid for the job, and thanks, but we kept that evening a secret to ourselves.
...Later on, the Programmers at the Labs would tease us. We would walk in, and they would say that the computers were busy, but that they REALLY needed our help. They would hand us a box of punch cards, and say, "Run this program for us". We would sit, and hold the cards, one by one, up to a light so we could see the punched holes, and make up a silly answer when we were done, or say, "You need to redo the program at lines 32 to 46, the integers don't match, and one of the lines opens the safe in the Presidents Office."
...Those were fun times...
