I have a friend from Columbia college who got his M.D. and entered the Public Health Service in the Rio Grande Valley. One of his jobs was doing research on crop duster pilots who crashed. “There are old crop dusters and bold crop dusters but there are no old bold crop dusters.”
Anyway, as part of the investigation he’d bring the head to San Antonio for analysis at Wilfred Hall AFB hospital. He carried on the plane with him, packed in dry ice in a small foam beer cooler.
I’d pick him up at the airport and give him a ride to the base. One time we decided to stop at a local gin mill for a beer. After we sat down, the waitress came over and said we couldn’t bring beer into the joint, pointing to the cooler.
Hatcher was a bit of a nut at times and told her it wasn’t beer, it was a head. She insisted so he opened the top and let her have a look. Despite my insistance that he was a PHS official and this was research, I could tell she wasn’t buying it.
Sure enough, within a few minutes we were jacked up against the wall and spent some time downtown explaining to a skeptical detective.
Whoa! Some story! LOL! Sounds like things quickly came to a head!