I sat down earlier today and blubbered for a while.

I've just come back from a 36 hour whirlwind road trip. From here to Camp Perry to the Air Force museum and home again. Perry was rather depressing and the Air Force museum was a VERY emotional experience. Why later.

Four active Marines had been sent to Perry this year and a couple went to shoot on their own leave time and their own nickel. Three of the four were armorers.  I did leave my obligatory case of beer with the armorers. We'll talk about the team (or lack of)sometime later on. 

Late afternoon I left Perry and headed towards Dayton and about an hour out of the Air Force Museum I grabbed a fleabag in Sidney and camped in for the night. I needed a double shot and a beer to settle down and get some sleep because I was keyed up with white line fever.

I hat the rack early and woke up early. After a breakfast of gas station sushi from some third rate gas station specializing in booze and various tobacco products I headed to the museum.

For the entire last half of my life I had wanted to see a live and in person B-29 and that's what I was headed to do. After all these years I wanted to see the airplane I had learned to navigate as a child. At one time I could navigate a flight from Tinian to Osaka, Japan round trip because I was doing poorly in math and it bothered my father.

I was either in 8th or 9th grade when Dad casually asked me if I wanted to learn to navigate a B-29. Being a sucker I took the bait and found myself at the kitchen table with him between 3 and 6, sometimes seven nights a week. Over about the next year I (literally) amassed a pile of Big Chief writing tablets four feet high full of calculations. 

My final took me 21 long hours at the kitchen table and started at 0100 and ended at 2200. 

During my 'final' Dad had thrown every single wrench he could think of at me and had me on my toes.  Jet stream, cross winds, vectors and the whole mess of navigation over oceans. We 'landed' at about 2000 and then there was the debriefing. Like the aircrew were I was given a double shot of whisky to settle me down and debriefed. I choked it down and almost heaved. It DID settle me down. Big time.

Questions about cloud cover, fighters, flak, and a bunch of other things that I answered.

At 2200 dad gave me a wide grin and said, "You did it son! You passed. Now hit the rack."

I was probably 13 years old with a double shot under my belt following a 21 hour day and I went out like a light. I slept like a log for probably twelve hour and woke up feeling like a million bucks. 

Because I learned to navigate that damned thing I was set for life and got three careers out of it, surveying (spherical trig), carpentry (applied plane geometry) and my captain's license. When I tested for my captain's license I didn't have to study the navigation and I aced it.

Here I was at Wright-Patterson sitting in front of the airplane that I learned to navigate as a child from my father. I welled up and the guy near me asked me if I was going to be OK. Yeah, I just need a couple minutes. Help me be left with my thoughts.

"I got your back," he said.

What a kind, understanding soul he turned out to be! I sat down for a minute or two and blubbered my eyes out for a couple minutes and he kept the 'want to be helpful' types away from me. He gave me my privacy. After a couple of minutes I got up, dried my tears and thanked the man and walked off to a quiet corner for a few minutes.

My mind was on the wonderful gift my father had given me as a child.

Incidentally , the fact that it was 'Bocks Car' and had dropped the bomb on Nagasaki meant little or nothing to me. It was simply about seeing the airplane Dad had taught me to navigate one. 

After I was back to normal I wandered around with specific goals. I wanted to see a SPAD, a Gooney bird and an SR-71 Blackbird.

Actually the museum itself is totally overwhelming and  I could have spent a week there and only scratched the surface. The place is totally amazing and if I can find a week I'll return.

The staff is amazing, too. As usual I asked a trivia question and was surprised he knew the answer.

I asked him if he had the airplane that shot King Kong off of the Empire State building.

He said there are none inexistence today but they have the later model of the aircraft and pointed it out to me on the map.

That was pretty sharp if you ask me!  

An add-on. A friend just asked me about the wisdom of giving a 13 year old boy whiskey along with a 21 hour final exam. Years later I asked dad about it.

He laughed and said it was a last minute decision made when he saw I was pretty punchy. He figured I was going to have one hell of a time getting to sleep because I'd be too damned tired to sleep coupled with being excited about acing my final. He said he did it simply to knock me out when I hit the rack.

Looking back on it, doing that proved to be a pretty good idea because I went out like a light!

As for the 21 hour final? My mother was upset about it after about the first 15 hours and he snapped "The boy won't know what he's capable of until he's pushed!"

 

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY