Just like my buddy who passed away couple years ago. He always used $2
bills.
Back in the 60's the air force base at which my dad was stationed
would pay the airmen in $2
bills...their whole check. Of course the checks weren't as big back
then. The purpose was to show
the communities how much money the military was spending on the local
economy. The idea was pretty
good for a few months after that payday all one would see was $2 bills everywhere.
Don't know if other military installations did that or not.
Pax River talked about it but the payroll was just too big and I think
they do a lot of direct deposit anyway.
Whiteman AFB was pretty good sized, but I don't know how big,
comparatively speaking. It was a B-47
base back then. Had a great photo shop and hobby shop which is where I
spent most of my summer days
when not working.
I was talking about "big" in the number of two dollar bills it would
take. Back in the olden days the average enlisted salary was $100 or
so. That is about what I was making as an E-3 in 1965 before my pro
pay and sea pay.
Maybe a $100 after extras. Seems like I made about $75 as an E-3 in
1965-66
I must have been thinking of take home pay. When I was drafted, June of '65, the base pay for E-1
was $83.20. I believe my take home was about $72.
I did kind of remember it because when IBM asked me what my salary
expectations were, I gave them my monthly pay as what I wanted a week
($100) and that is what I got. ($430/mo) It turned out they got me
cheap (other guys started at $475) but that was a good thing for me
because I got a lot of early raises. ;-)
My boss would call me in every few months and throw another $20 or $30
at me. I felt like a millionaire.
I made about $110 a week when I started as a "cub reporter" summer
intern for the KC Star. This was in the mid-1960s. In those days, you
could get a decent steak dinner at a "family restaurant" for about
$3.00, and a first-class breakfast for 99 cents. Really. Best of all,
several nights a week the city editor sent me out on assignment to cover
someone making speech at some dinner, and, of course, the reporter from
The Star got to eat there, too. Sometimes I worked at the cop shop,
police headquarters, and got to joke around with Clarence Kelly, the
chief, who later became head of the FBI.
Ate a lot of chicken dinners. At the end of that summer, I decided to
finish up my senior year of college (I had already completed almost all
the courses I need for graduation) and keep the night job at The Star.
Got a $25 a week raise. So I'd drive to KC to arrive at the paper at 4
pm and I'd drive back to the campus at 1 am. Did that five days a week.
It really was a terrific job. When I finished my writing assignments for
the night, I'd volunteer to copy read for a couple of hours on the wire
desk or fill in wherever help was needed. The last year I was at the
paper, the world news editor decided to take a year of vacation and I
was "promoted" on temporary basis to fill in for him.
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At the end of that summer, I decided to 
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