Word: byrds
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...Second Chances. As the Seabees worked, a bulky figure in mohair-lined parka, Byrd Cloth coveralls and heavy boots moved among them, carefully, almost instinctively checking every construction detail. For no man knows better than Paul Allman Siple that the antarctic tolerates few mistakes, permits even fewer second chances. At 48, Paul Siple (rhymes with disciple) has spent more time on the continent than any other person. He came there first as an eager, wide-eyed Sea Scout with the Byrd expedition of 1928-30; when he leaves it for the sixth time, in February 1958, some 5½ years...
...Right Man. Of all the men now living and working on the frozen continent, few are better fitted by character, inclination and background for the assignment than Siple. Even with Byrd's first expedition he quickly won his explorer's spurs. A 19-year-old whose boyhood in Erie, Pa. had centered around Scouting (he had earned 60 merit badges before joining Byrd), he was jolted but not defeated by the salty, four-letter expletives and the sloppy, earthy habits of his hardbitten shipmates on the way south. Big. strong, self-sufficient, Paul ignored them, won a spot...
...badge in skinning." By the expedition's end he was a proficient if dogged taxidermist. He learned, too, how to train and handle a dog team. Among the theories: never bend down, never fall down, and never excrete near them. For 22 months in 1928-30, as Admiral Byrd recalls it, "Paul did a man's work...
...first expedition, Siple re-entered Allegheny College at Meadville, Pa. as a sophomore, soon met a pretty young freshman. Ruth Johannesmeyer. Carrying almost twice the normal academic load to make up for the years he had lost in the antarctic, busy writing a book (A Boy Scout with Byrd) and lecturing before dazzled Scouts and service clubs, he carried on a desultory courtship. But one night he was enticed to a college dance, and as he struggled happily through the steps, a sudden thought struck him: "My God, so this is why people like to dance...
...find it difficult to understand why Harry Byrd and many other Virginians don't take more pride in their Negro citizens and the progress they have made. I have seen other Southern states, where most of the Negroes seemed dirty and devoid of all social graces, but in Virginia, where I once lived, the average Negro pretty well matched the typical middle-class person anywhere. They are a credit to their state and certainly are not objectionable as fellow students for anyone else's children...