contributed by Richard Konizeski

I recall being stationed at the 637th in Othello, Washington in 1967. It was a hot summer with a bad mosquito infestation that year, and daily temperatures in the 90s and 100s. A crop duster was hired to fly low over the town once a week at 6PM and drop a load of fog to keep the mosquito population down. It was advertised in the paper and on TV, but we somehow missed the warnings to stay inside at that time of day.

We lived at The Willows Apartments on East Cedar Street, just a short distance to the local swimming pool.

I was working nights in the 26 Tower at that time, and on the morning of the 4th of July I took my wife and three nieces over to her sister`s place in Bellingham and then hightailed it back to Othello so I could be at work on time. It was a long day`s run and I was dog-tired.

I had gone over to the pool to sit on the lawn for a while before heading out to the base, unaware the crop duster was going to fog the place. I was too tired to notice that nobody else was around, and it was then that I heard the sound of a low-flying aircraft. I looked up just in time to see this bright yellow low-winged monoplane heading straight for where I was sitting, and then was covered in a fog of stuff that just about took me to the ground. Talk about first hand accounts of chemical warfare! That`s what I felt it must be like.

It only took several microseconds to make it home and into the shower. I found out later about the crop duster fogging the town once a week to give the residents some relief.

I mistakenly thought this was a weekly occurrence in Othello during the hot summers until just a few months ago. While scanning 1967-68 microfilms of the Othello Outlook for articles relating to the 637th to send to the Online Museum,

I noticed a column relating to the worse-than-normal mosquito population that year, and the need for the town to be fogged once a week to keep the mosquitoes to a minimum.

Ain`t it funny about the misconceptions we have about those sorts of things.