Spring Grove resident Darrell Sinclair proof that life is a verb

Numerous sites on the world wide web defend the notion that life is a verb and not a noun. One such website, MBS Performance Counseling, argues that “life, as a noun, is a limiting way to define our existence.” Listening to 93-year-old Darrell Sinclair’s stories illustrates that he was an active participant in his life.  Sinclair did not wait around for life to happen. He lived life by the choices he made. MBA Performance Counseling shared a quote from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). Dumbledore knew life was a verb when he stated, “It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.”

Active participant in high school

Sinclair graduated high school from Mabel in 1944. His current wife, Oranda, also a student at Mabel High School, was not Sinclair’s girlfriend in high school. She did play Sinclair’s girlfriend in the senior class play. She rode behind Sinclair on his Harley Davidson across the stage.

During high school in Mabel, Sinclair had three keys.

The first key was to the Castle Theatre. As the projectionist, he would “change over” from one reel to another every 20 minutes. In between reels, he studied. 

Every morning during the school year, Sinclair used the second key to open the co-op gas station for the owner, as he was also a bus driver. As soon as the driver dropped the kids off at school, he would head to the station so Sinclair could dash off to school. In the afternoons, Sinclair would head back to the gas station so the owner/driver could leave and drive the kids home.

The third key was to the drug store where he worked for the druggist, Norris Hanson, cleaning the floors, dusting, and making fountain drinks. He also assisted the town doctor, Dr. J.C. Lannin.  Many of the area residents were teetotalers, so Sinclair would wash the wine labels off the bottles and replace them with prescription labels. The new label instructed patients to take ½ cup 30 minutes before dinner.

Work at the drug store abruptly stopped on December 7, 1941, as the men, including Sinclair, gathered around the radio in the back of the store. Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

He never understood why

Sinclair’s father served in WWI, and he would not sign papers for Darrell to leave school and join the Navy. During the war, Sinclair’s father worked in the medical field, picking up wounded and bringing them into the hospital. The senior Sinclair told his son to wait until the military called him. In 1944, a few months after he graduated from high school, he was called up by the draft. After having a physical and completing the required tests, he came home to Mabel and waited for the call. He reported back to Minneapolis and was asked whether he wanted to be in the Navy or Marines. “How about the Navy?,” Sinclair was told, “We don’t want to waste your mathematical talents with the Marines.”

Sinclair and five other men from Fillmore County took a train from Minneapolis to the Naval Station, Great Lakes, Ill., for boot camp. There he was selected to be his unit’s secretary and never had to participate in live shooting, as he was a clerk, and paperwork came first.  Why he was chosen for that position, he never understood.

After boot camp, Sinclair was sent to electrical school in Gulfport, Miss. Again, not understanding why.

Sinclair served on the USS Astoria (CL-90) in the shop.  After a fast trip back to the United States to take high ranking folks to the states, the ship headed out to Saipan and Guam via Pearl Harbor. At Pearl Harbor, they picked up food as well as dysentery. He was sent to Guam to maintain generators.  Sinclair emphasize that you “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

In 1946, the ship headed back to the states.

Before heading to Washington D.C. for Interior Communications school he had time for a brief stop in Mabel to visit his parents. One year later, Sinclair and his first wife headed to Long Beach, Calif., where he served on the USS Iowa. Sinclair was one of the last electricians that stayed on board until the USS Iowa “was put in mothballs.”

Sinclair served five years in the Navy, never imagining that 23 years later, at the age of 46, he would join the Navy Reserves; providing him with a small monthly check when he retired.

The best thing that could have happened

After leaving the Navy, Sinclair spent the next six months in Mabel deciding what to do. He thought he wanted to be a mortician, but his wife did not think he would make a good mortician. He decided to use the GI bill and went back to school for electronics. After graduation, both Bell Aircrafts and IBM made him a great offer. He took the job with Bell Aircrafts; it was the best thing that could have happened to him.

Throughout this time in his career, Sinclair spent time in Roswell, N. Mex., where he was responsible for a missile silo during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He worked 24 hours on and 24 hours off. Thankfully, the missile was never used.

After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Sinclair went to Topeka, Kans., where he did the same thing as he did in Roswell. He then was hired over the phone by American aerospace manufacturer, North American Aviation, and spent one year conducting tests before heading back to test equipment at White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico Sinclair led a crew that tested the equipment used on the Apollo space shuttle.

It was a shock when the three astronauts of Apollo 1 lost their lives during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station on January 27, 1967. Two of the three astronauts had visited White Sands, and Sinclair got their autographs.

He spent one year working on the F106 program in San Diego, Calif., when Los Alamos National Laboratories hired him and asked him how soon he could be there. He worked for Engineering 4 until he retired.

Retirement the next phase

At 47 years old, Sinclair learned to golf. Even though he started playing golf late in life and did not have the strength of younger men, he was glad he started playing as he did not have any bad habits and was very comfortable playing.

After retirement, he went to school to learn the rules, and became a rules official for New Mexico’s Sun Country. So, what story could he tell that would be as amazing as the stories he already shared? Well, guess what? Sinclair was an official when Tiger Woods won his first tournament as a college player. Native American professional golfer, Notah Begay III, from Albuquerque, N. Mex., played on the Stanford University team in the same tournament.

Final thoughts

Throughout the interview for this article, Sinclair mentioned numerous times that he did not understand why. Why was he assigned to be secretary of his unit? Why was he sent to electrical school? Why was he sent to Interior Communications school?  Why? It immediately became clear that he was engaged in everything he did and said, and it was obvious to his superiors.

“Life is a verb… engage!” -Debbie Taitel, www.dailymuse.spiritlightinsight.com.