BASE 10

Thank you for the links to your blog. I've been reading the material there consistently, and it's all very fascinating. Thanks for taking the time to actually find and put the stories on your blog,
Since you've been doing this for a long time, and you have probably seen it all. There's one incident that happened to me about 20 to 25 years ago that I'd like to relate, and I'd appreciate any feedback from you on it, especially regarding other people that have had similar experiences.

Back in the early 1970s, probably before 1976, I was asked to go to a small business mall for a job interview. You know the kind of mall which has a couple or few one-story office buildings, with parking lots and such, usually the type that high-tech companies rent? I think I was in Winnipeg at the time, but it might have been Toronto too, since I was living in Toronto during 1974 to 1975. In any case, I was invited to one of these offices in a mall that was in a pretty quiet area. Not much going on there at the time i visited and not any people around. I don't remember how the interview was initiated, but I remember walking in the front door of this office, and standing in the front entrance, I could see a small to moderate size office space in front of me. Inside there were the standard office cubicles, but the odd thing was that all the office chairs looked brand new and still had the transparent plastic wraps on them. Also, there was absolutely no one else there except for me and two twenty-somethings, a young man and a young woman. They both were wearing very dark business suits (the lady was wearing the kind of woman's business suit with a skirt down to about her knees or a bit above the knees). The lady was blonde and very good looking and the guy had black hair (I think) and was also a "male model" type. As I stood at the entrance, they both looked at me and both had really big ear-to-ear smiles on their faces, something like "boy, are we happy to see you!".

The woman mentioned something about my involvement in Mensa to me (I don't recall exactly what she said about it) but what is odd about it is that at that time I hadn't yet joined Mensa (I quit shortly after I joined, yet another story), and I wouldn't until about 1980.

The outcome of this "interview" (I don't remember anything beyond the initial greeting and big smiles and a very brief conversation), was that they sent me for a more in depth job interview to New Jersey of all places! I must explain that at the time, I didn't have my engineering degree yet and all I had was my high school education. Also, I am a Canadian citizen and I didn't have any legal right to work in the US. So, anyway, I ended up getting on a plane and flying to Philadelphia International Airport where I was picked up by a guy in a black stretch limo. I was the only guy picked up. I had never ridden in a limo before then, so this was an extraordinary event for me.

To set the time frame, this happened in the morning. After about an hour or so (not quite sure of the exact length of the trip, but about an hour seems right, not much longer), we end up driving into another non-descript small business mall in a fairly off-the-beaten-path location. I remember being interviewed there by this one engineer. I sat next to him at his desk and he asked me a series of engineering-related questions which I was not adequately able to answer. I was really embarrassed for not being able to do better than I did.

At the end of about 20 minutes, maybe a half hour tops, he tells me that he's finished the interview. Two other guys come to get me, and I remember we were walking towards the building entrance (this building was a fair size). In walking back to the entrance, one guy was behind me and one on either side of me. I remember seeing these F-14 Tomcat posters on the walls of the interviewer's cubicle. As we were walking in the building, we reached an open area that had no cubicles and there were no other people around at all, which at the time didn't even register. However, at one point we came upon what I can only describe as a "small room" in the middle of the building, too small to actually be an office. There were no windows to this room, and the door was rather unique: it was one of the big rounded rectangular steel doors you'd see on a battleship, no kidding. Above the door was a big red light which was on (glowing) and next to the door was a rather large, armed Marine standing guard. I was taken by surprise at this and as we were walking by, I remember remarking "cool" or something to that effect, to the guys next to me. The next thing I remember is that I am walking out the front door to the same limo, but now it is night outside.

On our way back to the airport in Philadelphia, the limo gets pulled over by a state trooper for speeding. We pulled over onto a large gravel area beside the freeway and just as the trooper is coming over to talk to the limo driver, another unmarked car pulls up in the area we are stopped, and another uniformed guy, another trooper I think, gets out, walks over to the first trooper and asks if he needs any help.

The thing about the second trooper was that I saw he was wearing a white pearl-handled revolver. It was the first time I'd ever seen one. Another detail I remember is that the second "trooper" not only had a pearl-handled revolver, but he was wearing those knee-high boots, like riding boots and the pants thighs "bloomed" out. You know the kind of outfit I mean? The uniform colour I remember was tan or beige primarily. After a brief conversation, the first trooper comes back and lets us go, no ticket.

But I promptly forgot all about this whole thing for 20 or 25 years! The memories suddenly came flooding back to me about 3 years ago, and I don't know what triggered it. You know, nothing about the whole "job interview" has made any sense to me. First of all, why select a non-degreed person from Canada, who has no work visa, pay for a flight to Philadelphia, send a limo, and take him to New Jersey for a 20 minute interview? How did the initial interviewers in Canada know about my joining Mensa when it wouldn't happen for another few years? And how could I forget something as exciting as that happening to a young man (me, at the time)? I would have thought that this might have been a dream, except that my mom remembers it and I clearly remember the name of the company (Base 10). That company is no longer around.

After I did remember the incident and the company name, I went online and searched for it. After a lot of searching, I found information about the company saying that in the early 1970's, Base 10 was a military contractor and was based in New Jersey! Then, about three or four months after my web searches, I tried looking again for the company on the internet but didn't find anymore references to it. Maybe I didn't use the same search criteria as I used before, I don't know.

Have you heard of anything like this before? If so, I'd like to hear about it. I know something out of the ordinary happened that day, but I can't fathom why a NJ company would fly a guy like me out there, at the expense of airline tickets and limo, for a 20 minute interview, knowing I did not have either the academic qualifications for the job nor the legal status to work there in the first place.

Anyway, hope that you might be able to shed some light on this, or someone you know might.
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If anyone has heard of Base 10 Company or has any idea about what happened to this person while he was back in NJ, please come forward and maybe we can figure it out!

Thank you for the report!