Dennis Murphy

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Biography

• First-hand information. Entered by Dennis Murphy at registration.

I was born June 21, 1946 where the Glendale (Los Angeles) Hospital and Sanitarium once stood, and replaced by the 134 freeway. Our family lived with my grandparents for a few months, but felt it necessary to move out on their own as soon as possible. My grandfather worked for the City of Los Angeles on the Freeway Planning Commission at the time. My dad would ask grandpa where any homes were being built locally, and grandpa always responded with that he didn't know of any new construction going on anywhere locally. The real reason was that grandpa really did not want to be left alone with grandma, as she could be a bit abrasive at times.

My father had been stationed in England during World War II as a B-17 bomber pilot in the 8th Army Air force, bombing the ball bearing factories in Schweinfurt, Germany. Consequently, he was able to drive out to the San Fernando, Valley to the Van Nuys Airport, and rent an airplane to search the Valley for new home constructions. At the far west end of the San Fernando Valley, he found a little town called Canoga Park, where most of the roads were two lanes and most of them were still dirt in 1946.

Amidst the Orange Groves and Onion fields he found our new family home, a two bedroom house with one bathroom. My dads brother, my Uncle Bill also bought a home across the street, which lasted for a few years before they moved away. We lived there until 1953, and moved about a mile further to the west, due to my having a new baby sister, Linda. After that it was just growing up as kids in a tiny town that started to expand very rapidly due to two major industries opening factories on the south end of town, which was Rocketdyne and Atomics International, both Divisions of North American Aviation. Atomics International had relocated from Downey California, because they had been constructing an experimental Sodium Cooled Nuclear Reactor in the Santa Susana Mountains just to the west of our house by two or three miles. By 1955 that Reactor was commissioned, and connected to the Southern California Edison Power grid, and powered the city of Moorpark until 1965, which was located just a few miles further to the west, in a vast farmland. Since Atomics International and Rocketdyne were in the same facility in Canoga Park, Rocketdyne was also building Rocket Engine Test Stands at the same facility in the Santa Susana Field laboratories. While growing up, it was a daily routine to see the hills and the sky light up with a huge beautiful orange yellow glow, and the house would shake day and night. One night in October 1957, I went outside at dusk to play and my dad told me to look at the sky right overhead around 7, and sure enough I saw Sputnick fly over and it was lit up like a star. I will never forget that.

I spent a few years in the Boy Scouts, doing all of the Boy Scout things, and at times it was a lot of fun, but I must say that I really would have preferred to stay home than go on those camp-outs, though, but I really did enjoy many of the building activities. At the same time, I was building “Free Flight Airplanes” and flew them in the local flood control basin, and never did grow out of loving to build and fly model airplanes. By December 1960, I became the number 186th Boy Scout in the San Fernando Valley to achieve the rank of Eagle. Even today, if I ever say to a Boy Scout or their Scoutmaster, that “I used to be an Eagle myself”, so often their reply would be “when did you stop being an Eagle?” "Once an Eagle, always an Eagle" is the motto, but after so many years it is easy to forget.

When I was 19 years and 2 months old in 1965, I received a notice for (my third) Draft Physical. I was told that I had 30 days before I would be inducted into the US Army. In those days there was no “Draft Lottery System”, you grew up always knowing that you would probably be serving your country. So, I waited 27 days and joined the US Navy, and it was not long before I had a new life in the US Navy's Boot Camp, in San Diego, California. In hindsight, I realized at the time, that the Boy Scouts were a great mental resource to draw on in many ways.

Then it was on to being assigned to a ship called a “Destroyer Tender”, numbered and named the USS Piedmont, AD-17, which at the time while home ported in San Diego, had the Admiral of the 7th Fleet on board while stateside. How great that was a Canoga Park boy, off to see the world, It was not more than two months preparing for my first “WestPac” Cruise, which really meant that we were going over to maintain the United States Navy ships running off of the Vietnam waters. The ship was more like a mother ship when we tied up at a pier, or buoyed out in a harbor, we would have from between 4 and 8 Destroyers tied up alongside being maintained with fresh water, fuel oil, repairs and feeding the crews while their mess decks were being refurbished. Personally, as a "Machinists Mate Third Class, I was duty Water King, turning seawater into drinking and Boiler Feed water for the ship and crew. Word around the Navy was that a “Tender” carried enough supplies to build a complete Destroyer, however I always took that with a grain of salt.

In 1968 after my final WestPac Cruise, we arrived back at our San Diego home port and there was a big difference in America. In my early days of being in the Navy I was proud to be a sailor and proud of my uniform, but when we arrived home the news was full of war protesters and now I am embarrassed to be seen in my uniform with all of the protesting going on. That was a much deeper hurt than I ever realized. It took 40 years before a person ever said "Thank you for your service" to me. I cried, but I was mentally thanking the Iraqi Vets for making that happen. After that, to this day I wear my Vietnam Veteran Hat everywhere I go.

As a young kid that grew up watching my grandpa designing houses and apartments in his sun room when away from his city job, and I would hang over his drafting board watching the drawings come to life as he drove me around town to see some of these buildings. So when I got out of the Navy, a high school buddy from Drafting Class told me that his company was hiring Drafting/Design people, so I was thrilled to take that job for $2.20 an hour. After a few years of Printer and Hard drive (36 inch diameter disks) design I landed a job at Atomics International, where I had worked for ten years designing and inspecting Boiling Water Reactors and developing myriads of energy producing concepts. But again, now in 1980 the TV News Crews are filming the Nuclear Power Protests at the employee gate, so it was time to leave. However, the upside was the amazing design Experience and Engineering Training that I received what management called the equivalent of a Masters degree after the first four years alone. As a reactor/robotic designer and inspector I had been licensed as an Ultrasonic Weld Inspector with a Nuclear suffix tacked on, which got me my next job that I loved designing Automated Commercial Ultrasonic Inspection Equipment. The San Fernando Valley had actually become the Commercial and Manufacturing Industry hub, until “Silicone Valley” had become the new manufacturing hub, so once again it was time to move on.

One day a “Head Hunter” said, “what about working for a company like Disney, because I know a guy”? I had never thought of it before that. Fast forward 35 years of mostly engineering consulting to the Themed Entertainment Industry, was quite a ride, designing and building or managing construction of over a hundred theme park attractions in 5 or 6 countries. In 2004, I had a beautiful son, that is half Japanese, thanks to Universal Studios Japan, where I happened to be finalizing a project in Malacca, Malaysia for the Singapore Project, and over the Thanksgiving 2010 weekend I made a video call home. That night my son is showing me his new Boys Day Kimono, and his latest music that he can play on the keyboard, and suddenly he stopped, turned at the camera and pointed at me and said” Papa, after this trip, I never want you to leave me again”. That was all that it took, in that the owners of that Malaysian company that I was working for was not very nice or gracious to any of their “overpaid professional Engineering Staff”, so at the end of the working day I went back to the apartment and called a Taxi for the next morning for the three hour trip up to the Selangor Airport for a flight to Singapore. Once in Singapore, I took another taxi to my old hangout hotel, then caught a flight home the next day. The trip was a two day total trip home and such a treat to be back home, where I completely reduced my travel drastically after that chat with my little Treasure of a son.

About that time, I had realized that I was actually eligible for health care through the Veterans Administration. I got signed up and after my “Vesting Physical” my new primary doctor called me in and told me that the results of the "vesting Testing" was that I have Leukemia, an Overactive Thyroid and a Skin Cancer spot on my cheek. The Leukemia turned out to be a cousin to Leukemia called Polycythemia Rubra Vera (or PV). So, I attribute the Thyroid to working in my laboratory next door to a Test Reactor for many years, unaware that the Reactor was even in that room. Of course, the entire place and all of the locations were not exactly “Ice Cold”. So that was burned out with a large dose as the doctor put it, (Radioactive) Iodine-131. The strange result in my mind was that the dose must have been perfectly calculated because, my Thyroid was actually what I would call, normalized, in that now I am completely off Thyroid medication. The Polycythemia Vera, issue is not the same, due to my having “Bad Bone Marrow”, as the Hemo/Onc Doctor described it, requires Chemo Therapy daily, in pill form so that really does not affect my daily life.

So you finally reach an age where the phone quits ringing, and you have a lot of time on your hands to create a family history in tree form, to pass down to your children and anyone else that may be interested in the near or far future. My father was a great lover of history, but sadly did not have access to the technology that affords us all today the ability to find ancestors that we never would have known about.

What a fantastic thing it is that we can leave our history to our generations that follow.

Dennis A. Murphy

Sources

• Dennis A. Murphy Birth Record 21 June 1946, data sheet only no cert attached:

<https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V27L-8BT>

• Dennis Marriage record:

<https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VVKN-7H3>

• Dennis residence record 10 Jan 2009:

<https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJKG-Y5Z3>