I was born in a garage apartment in Lakehurst, N.J. on January 22, 1928, saw the Hindenburg explode in 1937(see Remembering the Hindenburg)(I attended a Memorial Service at the crash site on May 6, 2007 sponsored by the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society), and attended school in Toms River, N.J., graduating in 1946. My senior year I passed the "Eddy Test" which qualified me to attend the U.S. Navy's Radar School in Corpus Christi, TX and Memphis, TN. Oh, yes, before school I was a "Boot" at Great Lakes NTC, near Chicago where I learned to scrub wood floors with a steel wool pad and wash my clothes in a bucket! I taught in the Radar School the last 1/2 year of my hitch. Then I married my high school sweetheart, Anne, during Freshman Week, 1948, at Lehigh Univ., Bethlehem, PA. I graduated in 1952 with a BS in Engineering Physics, then from the Univ. of Rochester (NY) in 1954 with an MS in Physics.
Sad note about Lakehurst: After 88 years as a U.S. Navy base, starting in June 1921, on October 1, 2009, Navy Lakehurst combined with McGuire AFB and Ft. Dix to form Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst under command of U.S. Air Force Colonel Gina Grosso of the 87th Airbase Wing.
I worked as a Radar System Engineer at Westinghouse (originally Air Arm Division) in Baltimore (now a part of Northrop Grumman) for 38 1/2 years, retiring in 1993. I worked on developing advanced radars for the F-4 fighter, the BOMARC missile and the Airborne Warning and Control System, AWACS. (a Google search for AWACS gets almost 1.8 million hits) In 1972 Westinghouse won a flyoff competition against our arch-enemy, Hughes, to build the radar. Besides the USAF, AWACS are in service with NATO, Great Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and Japan. To quote the late Drew Middleton, former military analyst for The New York Times: "They used to send in the Marines-now they send AWACS." Click here for a history of the AWACS Radar.
Our daughter, Karen, lives a
few miles away in Granite, MD with computer-guru husband and our two
grandchildren. We also have two step-grandchildren and six step-great
grandchildren in New York state. We lost our younger son, Greg, in a traffic accident
on Valentine's Day, 2000. Our older son, Thomas, lives near the site of the Baltimore Orioles original home, Memorial Stadium,
in Baltimore. It was replaced by two stadia(?) in downtown Baltimore and was
razed a few years ago to make room for a senior citizens' home.
Linthicum Centennial: 1908 was the year that the
Linthicum brothers started to turn their farmland into a bedroom community for
Baltimore and the surrounding area. In 2007 a bunch of us Linthicumites formed
a committee to formulate events to celebrate the 100th anniversary of this
event. You can find out what went on by clicking on the header above. As a
bonus, by clicking on "Sock Hop Photo Album" you can see yours truly (the guy
with a white beard), wife Anne (white shirt) and granddaughter Sarah (green top)
dancing the night away at the first event of the Centennial - a traditional Sock
Hop.
The Performing Arts Association of Linthicum: PAAL is a subscription organization that puts on mostly musical performances at the newly renovated Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park, MD. In the 2009-2010 season (28th) PAAL will have five subscription concerts and a free concert by the U.S. Navy Band of Washington, DC. I was treasurer for 23 years and am currently the webmaster.
In retirement I finally have some time to delve into my family's ancestry. I am a 7th great grandson of Thomas Skillman, who came to America in 1664 with the Duke of York's expedition, which forced the Dutch to surrender New Amsterdam to the English who promptly renamed it New York. (Not a shot was fired!) He was rewarded with land in New York, married and raised a family. Virtually all Skillman's in America (except descendants of slaves who took their master's surname) are descended from Thomas. In 1906-08, my 4th cousin, three times removed, William Jones Skillman (1835-1914), published the descendants of Thomas in a genealogy quarterly. I have continued his work with the aid of many people who have sent me their family information. You can find out more at my Skillman Genealogy Site where over 10,000 descendants of Thomas are listed.
My wife, Anne, wrote over 1000
columns titled Conversations with Anne Skillman that were
published in the Maryland Gazette (America's oldest newspaper - founded
1727) from 1970 to 1994. Recently I began converting them to electronic
format. Her first year's columns can be viewed by clicking here.
You may need to download the free Adobe Reader from www.adobe.com
to read the PDF
file. Or, a smaller, faster-loading reader, Foxit Reader, is my first choice.
You can also befriend me on FaceBook where I'm known as William Alfred Skillman
Updated: April 5, 2010