Time passes

 My brother, who lives in Alaska, sent me this claw from an Alaskan brown bear.  He shot it with the Ruger .375 Alaskan that I gave him for his birthday when I flew up to visit him. I should have put something alongside it to show the size but it's about five inches. Definitely do some damage. Those bears will kill and eat people.

I don't know what I am going to do with this thing.  My uncle suggested I put it in a shadow box and hang it in my boys' room, so I may do that. They think it's cool.

Funny thing about men and animal body parts as trophies.  When I shot a mountain lion that was attacking my dog a few years ago my dad, who went and checked the carcass, wanted to cut off an ear and give to me as a souvenir. Fortunately, my mother put the kibosh on that.

And that reminds me that I have suffered more and more-serious injuries since I  have been back on the ranch than I ever did in the service, including in Afghanistan. I've been hospitalized twice since I've been back, suffered broken ribs twice, a lung puncture, broken leg, broken arm, broken wrist, all sorts of soft tissue damage, innumerable bruises, gashes and cuts. This can be a tough life, believe you me.

And now that I think about it, despite the drumbeat of news stories about sexual harassment in the armed forces, the most brutal sexual attacks I've suffered were all carried out by civilians...of the, um,,,,dusky...persuasion. I avoided a third of the same thanks to my trusty S&W snubbie, my pal, my buddy.  

********

I got my trip to Argentina out of the way, finally getting all the holes in the cheese lined up so I could get it done. I couldn't take my uncle or cousin, as I'd planned, because I filled the plane up with men I needed, including a guy who is going to handle building a landing strip on the estancia.  He's the same guy who expanded and improved our ranch strip. I was lucky he was willing to take on the task. He charges a pretty penny but I know I can trust him to do a good job.

Our Chinese buyer, whom I've written about before, visited the estancia and has us on the approved import list or whatever it is, so we have a solid customer, which makes the operation profitable from the get-go. To me, this illustrates the value of relationships.  We knew each other.  We had chatted and eaten and worked together.  He knew how we ran things in the states and had seen that in Argentina, too. So it was easy for us to work together with this new operation. Had he never heard of us, I doubt that would have been the case.

Once I completed my business there, I rushed back home. I only stayed one full day there.  I had meetings set up beforehand, got through those, checked out everything, got a good night's sleep, drove back to the airport where I'd left my plane and took off before dawn, earlier than I had planned, but I had a weather window I couldn't miss.

Besides having a lot to do, managing the ranch and our other interests, I didn't want to leave my kids, especially my two-year-old, alone, er, I mean without me, any longer than necessary. Thank the Lord my mini me is old enough and responsible enough that I can rely on her.  My mother is much improved but she still has some mobility problems. I do think the fact that I have to rely on her for so much has actually improved her mental health.  Busy hands are happy hands.

******** 

I'm due next month and will shortly head out for Destination City and our house near the hospital.  My mother will come with me.  My mini-me wants to as well, and I'd like her, too.  But she may be more valuable looking after the toddler.  My aunt will come up to stay with the boys, but the little one is going to need a familiar face with him.

I'm glad we have a Tesla at the house with it's self-driving capability.  When it's time, my mother can just have it take us to the hospital and let it go park itself while she helps me.  Bless you Elon Musk! 

******** 

This months marks the half-year of my widowhood. The anniversary day was hard on me. It's good that the time has passed, that those worst days are over, but also it's shocking to me how quickly it has passed. It's been a very difficult time for me. That's all I'm going to say about it. I just wanted to note this down for myself.

******** 

I have recovered from my most recent broken rib and lung puncture. I had pain for weeks, had to sleep in a chair, then in bed on my back, no rolling over onto my side, too much pain.  But then, one night, suddenly, I could. No pain. It just  happened like that.  Not gradually.

Bu while it was healing, I was walking outside, trying to exercise and get my lung back to full functioning and I tripped over a root and fell hard on rocky ground, breaking my wrist and arm. Son of a.... But fortunately, the left ones. I flew myself to the hospital, more worried about what harm I might have done to my baby than my own injuries and they were like, oh, it's you again.  What did you do to yourself this time?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Authority

These guys did not resent a woman hanging with them.

 Women serving in the armed forces is an old, old story now, but whenever I am dumb enough to think I will find something worth reading on the social internet I find women saying they oppose women in the military.

Well, okay, fine, don't join.  But no, that's not enough.  They want to forbid other women from serving. They want to tell other women what they can and cannot do. Be the boss of them.  And they don't want women doing things they believe they could not do.

Actually, they probably could.  They could be a PS-1 (Personnel Specialist First Class) screwing up people's careers in Norfolk as easily as they could  be a human resources staffer doing the same thing with Acme Industries in Phoenix.  I mean, come on, it's just a job. 

Civilians seem to have the belief that every person in the military is a Navy SEAL or is Sylvester Stallone blasting away with a belt-fed machine gun in each hand. Nope.

Delta Force G Squadron women operators in
Afghanistan dressed in traditional female garb.

Of course, there are combat specialties and, yes, men fill the majority of those just as they fill the majority of every other position. But there are exceptions, plenty of them. Some of them you never hear about. Some you are not supposed to hear about.

There were plenty of American women in Afghanistan.  At Camps Leatherneck and Dwyer, there were at any given time probably several hundred.  And they didn’t all stay inside the wire.  Female Engagement Teams went on patrol with Marines as did assorted IAs with specialized skills.  There were also female operatives with the SEALs and even with Delta Force.  

As for my own experience with Marines, I visited Torbert when it was just a Patrol Base with one infantry squad — three fire teams — 16 guys all alone against the world (later it was expanded to a Combat Outpost with two rifle platoons when I visited it later on).  The guys certainly did not resent me. I still hear from some of them. Friends for life.

One objection I read from a woman is that females should not serve because men would refuse to obey them. First off, doesn't this person know that women have been serving for decades, issuing orders that were obeyed.  I know of no incident where a male disobeyed an order given by a woman because it was given by a woman.  If he did, he would find himself in a world of hurt.

When I was a naval aviator aboard an aircraft carrier, I was also the assistant maintenance officer.  I gave men orders all the time.  It was routine.  The obeying of those orders was also routine. And sometimes men gave me orders and sometimes women did. And I obeyed them. Without resentment. Of course. If my superior tells me to flemish a line, I flemish it. What's the sex of the person issuing the order got to do with anything?  Until recently, a woman, Captain (now Rear Admiral) Amy Bauernschmidt, commanded the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. I think she gave an order now and again.  None were disobeyed because she was a woman.  She graduated from the Naval Academy in 1994. Thirty-two years ago! Why is anybody still howling about women serving in the military today? They've been serving well, with distinction, for decades, generations.  What the hell is wrong with you people? Are you all resentful, clueless, neurotic losers? Apparently so. 

Nuts.

This is from 1944 for crying out loud.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Test your American ancestry

 I found this quiz on-line.  My answers in italic. Yours?

An identity-classification system relevant to Whites in the USA, aiming not for 1492 but for more like 1892 (ca. 1870s to ca. 1920s):

Questions:

— (1.) Ethno-Identity: In the 1880s, what were your ancestors’ (1a.) ethnic identities, and (1b.) religious affiliations or identities (for 1b., maternal lines more important)? 

1a. American. 1b. Brethren, No-Hellers, Quaker, Methodist, Presbyterian, Evangelical Lutheran. (Why is the maternal line more important? What does it matter?)

— (2.) Languages: In 1910, what language(s) were spoken by your ancestors who were nearest to being young-adults at the time (1910)? (2a.) What language did they speak at home? (2b.) What languages could they understand?

2. English. 2a. English. 2b. Aside from English? I don't know. What they studied in school I guess, probably Latin and French, maybe classical Greek.

— (3.) Cultural-political: In the 1880s to 1910s, what were the (3a.) political- or ideological-identities of your ancestors, wherever they were in the world? (3b.) In the USA, what political party did your ancestors tend to support before the 1960s?

3a. Um...Americanism? Pro silver? Pro gold? William Vaughn Moody anti-imperialists? Teddy Roosevelt imperialists? Prior to the Civil War, I know that at least some were Abolitionists. After it, some were Mugwumps who supported Grover Cleveland. 3b. Some were Taft Republicans and some were FDR Democrats. Some didn't care one way or the other.

— (4.) Economic/Class: What were your ancestors’ (4a.) economic areas of activity, and (4b.) economic classes, in: 1875? 1900? 1925? 1950?

4a. Ranching, farming, mining, soldiering, this and that, I guess. I don't know. 4b. Does America really have economic classes? Isn't that trying to impose British social structure on us? Anyway, some were doing pretty good and others were barely making it in each of those periods. But I'd say, by and large, ever upward.

— (5.) Geography / Length of U.S. nativity: Where were your ancestors, geographically, in the early 1880s?

America, beginning in the early 17th century, scattered hither and yon. 

— (6.) Recent-formative: Where were your ancestors who were then-closest to being young-adults living in: 1925? 1950? 1975? 2000? 2025?

America, scattered hither and yon. Some were in California, some in Montana, some in Wyoming, some in Colorado, some in Texas, some in Pennsylvania, some in West Virginia, some in Maryland, some in New Hampshire, some in New York, some in.... 

 No gol-durned furriners amonst 'em.

_________

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bah, nuts and phooey!

 Feminists claim we are living in an oppressive patriarchy but I know that's not true because I have lived and worked in countries that actually have such a thing. It's horrible and under no circumstances would I dare go out in public in other than the most modest attire.  I recall in Afghanistan a female naval officer, an IA assigned to Camp Shaheen, Mazar-e-Sharif, newly arrived, went for a run wearing a tee shirt and jogging shorts along with two companions.  She was shot and killed by an Afghan army soldier, one of our dear allies.  Dressed that way she was was an offense to Allah or something. That is your patriarchy. 

And, you know what, feministas? American men are like LTjg Francis Toner, God bless him, who won the Silver Star posthumously. Look him up! No woman could ask for a better man, a man, dammit.

To the left is his Silver Star citation.  It is inaccurate in that it states the killer was an insurgent. He was not.  He was an Afghan National Army soldier who shot LTjg Florence Choe in the back after she and her Navy companions had passed by him. No wonder we called that God-damned place Asscrackistan. Those....

 Let it go, Wanda, let it go. 

No.

We have done with Hope and Honor, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
~ Kipling 

By the way, it is common for medal citations to garble the actual events or, as in Toner's case, "massage" them for political purposes.  A few posts ago I reproduced Lt. George Schuncke's Navy Cross citation. It reads, in part, "Lieutenant Schuncke valiantly launched an attack against two Japanese armored cars firing on a U.S. Navy seaplane. Despite the terrific and concentrated anti-aircraft fire he flew in low to attack, holding persistently to the heavily armored targets...." The statement is true with the clarification that he was firing on tanks, not armored cars.  But it doesn't really explain why his command put him in for the Navy Cross.  The actual situation was that a TBM, a plane with a three-man crew, had been hit and ditched close in shore and the PBY, God bless it's crew of nine, went in to try to rescue them. It came under fire from the Jap tanks and LT Schuncke, flying an FM-2 fighter plane, went after the tanks to draw their fire to him.  He knew that his machine guns could do no serious damage to tanks but he did it anyway and it worked. The tanks shifted their fire to him, the PBY was able to rescue the downed airmen and get away. But Schunke was killed, something he had considered, no doubt, accepted, and did what needed to be done, an act those who knew him believed worthy of honoring with the Navy Cross.

Now in LTjg Toner's case, the Silver Star citation is fudged, attributing his death to an "insurgent" rather than to our most worthy and glorious ally so as to avoid telling the public that we were fighting a pointless war with no good guys on either side and nothing to achieve, no victory for truth, justice and the American way to be had. It was all a damned....  Okay, Wanda, calm down, easy there, steady, whoa now...that's a girl.... 

 Ah, phooey.  I should write about sex or politics or some stupid crap like that.

*********

A while ago some dumb broads called me hyper-masculine and I was all like as if I'm sure. But now I've been referred to as "ultra-masculine." Okay, fine.  Whatever. If you say so.  But do please allow me to say in my defense that the other day I went for a walk and passing by two robust young ranch hands said hello and they nodded greetings.  After I had walked on, I heard one say to the other, "I would fuck her shadow on a gravel driveway," and the other guy said, "I would do that in the rain." They  were college guys working weekends, maybe 19 or 20, healthy, fit and, um, gorgeous. Very, very yummy. They didn't think I was ultra-masculine. No siree bob. Maybe I'll contrive to walk by them again, maybe even Mae West them. Heh. Gotta try to kick start this widow's fire thing somehow.

Okay, I won't do that. When it comes down to it, I don't want to. It's kind of fun to think about, though. Fun....

**********

 I discovered I could orgasm just by using my imagination -- no touching! -- when I was a teen. I can't remember what triggered it, so to speak, but it was about the time I discovered boys, as in boys! And they discovered me -- not just boys but males of all ages. They all began directing their male gaze upon me.  Heady stuff, almost overwhelmingly so for my undeveloped brain and naive personality. 

Anyway, some high school dreamboat I had a crush on would be talking to me, maybe while I was leaning up against my hall locker, he looming over me with his arm resting against the locker door and I would be gazing into his eyes, not really listening to what he was saying but enraptured by the sound of his voice, and suddenly everything would go out of focus and I would feel dizzy and then Boom! Orgasm. 

It must have shown in my face or something because the guy would ask if I was okay and I'd drift back to reality and say yes, sorry, and he'd walk away and his pal would ask what happened and he'd say he thought I was trying to hold in a fart.

********** 

All this chatter is a way to distract and amuse myself, so that I don't start thinking too much and sink into melancholia, then depression. It's been a tough year. And it ain't getting any better.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos then and then

 I found another photo from my Afghanistan days that probably needs to be run through ChatGPT to clean it up (left).  I'm posting it just to show you that even one of those early days cheap digital cameras could screw up photos. And to share them we usually had them printed out, which didn't help matters.

So, okay, here's what ChatGPT did with it (right). If you look closely at those trucks on the right they look kinda weird, don't they? But you can see the Danger Ranger on the left pretty clearly.

Why did I take this dumb photo? I don't know, man.  Something must have been going on over there.  But I don't remember what anymore.

This photo (right) is also messed up. Why I took it I have no memory. Again, something must have been going on that caught my attention.

Here's another photo (left) that came out better, but why I took it I have no idea. Maybe I was just trying out the camera to see how it worked. Ya know?  Notice those HESCO barriers have done their job. Probably shrapnel from a mortar attack. Anyway, it looks like marines and Brits, probably from 40 Commando, planning some fuckery.  

Here's yet another photo (right) I have no idea why I took.  It's the interior of a C2A, used for COD -- Carrier Onboard Delivery. I think they've all been replaced by V-22s now. 

I've lost so many photos over the years.  They've been on laptops that failed or have gotten lost in all the moves I've made. Ditto cameras and thumb drives.  Maybe the old film cameras were better. I can find photos from a hundred years ago that relatives took, but I wonder if a hundred years from now any of these digital photos will have survived. A natural disaster or war could bring down the internet, or wipe out all electronic storage, formats could change so that even DVDs could no longer be read.  I remember the trouble I had helping my newsman relative transfer his old articles from 5¼ - inch floppy disks written in Xywrite to thumb drives in Open Apache Writer. In a century....

Now here's a photo (left) one of my relatives took when he was in the army back in the 1930s.  Clear as a bell, just in black and white.  It's survived in perfect condition for some 90 years, perfectly viewable without any need for hardware or software.

And you know what I notice about it? Two things: rifles in the barracks unlocked and unguarded, with no worry that someone would steal them or grab one and start shooting up the place.  A memory of a now-lost high trust society.

The other thing is that the rack appears not to be made up. Oh, boy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He loved his country as no other

 Re-post from Jan. 14, 2022.

A story from the days of the America that used to be and that still lives in the hearts of her native children.  Who punishes treason now?  Is there even such a word, such a concept anymore?  Is the very concept of a country, a nation, a motherland, obsolete? Should it be?

"Remember that behind officers and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to her as you belong to your own mother."

 I suppose that very few casual readers of the "New York Herald" of August 13th observed, in an obscure corner, among the "Deaths," the announcement,

"NOLAN. DIED, on board U.S. Corvette Levant, Lat. 2° 11' S., Long. 131° W., on the 11th of May: Philip Nolan."

I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old Mission-House in Mackinac, waiting for a Lake-Superior steamer which did not choose to come, and I was devouring, to the very stubble, all the current literature I could get hold of, even down to the deaths and marriages in the "Herald." My memory for names and people is good, and the reader will see, as he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember Philip Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who would have paused at that announcement, if the officer of the Levant who reported it had chosen to make it thus:—"Died, May 11th, THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY."

 Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
~ Sir Walter Scott

 Radio play:

The Man Without A Country 

 

The original story in the December, 1863, edition of The Atlantic: 

The Man Without a Country

 

 

Devolution

I ain't stoopud.  It's them other guys!

Reading on-line stuff -- which I used to not do and now really need to stop: it depresses me -- I got to wondering if a lot of those posting their laments would have, in the past, died in infancy or childhood.  All the improvements in sanitation and nutrition, as well as medical care, especially antibiotics and vaccinations, have allowed people to survive to reproductive age who would have perished early in past generations.  

We forget how common it was for babies to die even as recently as a century ago.  In the 19th century, a common practice was to photograph your deceased infant in its coffin, as, I guess, a last memory.  You can find the photos on-line.  

One of my great aunts was one of 10 brothers and sisters.  Four died in the influenza epidemic of 1918-19.  Two died of scarlet fever.  One got what was  called brain fever and lived but was "slow" after that, as she said, and had to leave school. He never learned to read or write and lived his whole life on their ranch, a sort of gentle giant who was most at home with animals. He had no children.

Of the three remaining who reached adulthood sound in mind and body, one, who worked on the railroad, was killed in a railroading accident, had three children.The other died of cancer, had one child.  Only my great aunt survived into old age, dying in her nineties. She had three children. All seven children of these three survivors  grew into adulthood and had children themselves.

From what I've read, that sort of family history -- many children, few reaching adulthood --  was more the norm than not.  You could get a minor cut and die from the infection. Women commonly died shortly after giving birth of what was called childbed fever. Giving birth itself often proved fatal. Babies died of whooping cough, measles, mumps, flu.... Tuberculosis was a common killer. In earlier times there were such scourges as smallpox and cholera. 

Then there were accidents.  Children worked on the farm or ranch from an early age, then once the industrial age began in factories. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick -- or die.

Those with weak immune systems, genetic defects, a propensity for cancer, heart disease or other maladies, the clumsy and inept, the uncoordinated, the dull-witted, fell victim to disease and accidents more often than the coordinated and clever, the sensible and strong. Those with disagreeable personalities, an inability to get along and cooperate with others or other social defects were ostracized, killed or driven off. Only the fittest survived it all.  Darwinism in action. 

What I'm getting at is that we are in an era now in which several generations have lived to reproduce who never would have in bygone days.  So not only has the gross rising IQ measure of the Flynn Effect reversed, but we have legions of the inept, incapable, mentally weak and neurotic. When such people reproduce, even though they are terrible parents, cruel, neglectful, incompetent, indifferent, their children survive, carrying on their...deficient...characteristics.

And.... Sigh. 

I was going to write a lot more about this, what I'm thinking, but what's the use? I know I sound like an arrogant snob, writing this stuff, but, honest to God, I think it's true. Devolution in action. It's real.  I know you will mention that movie Idiocracy. I haven't seen it but I have seen clips from it, and the scene with the smart couple deciding to delay having children for rational reasons seems spot on.  The only objection I would have to the movie, from what I have seen of it, is that it scrupulously avoids race.  I need not say more.  

But the solution, if it really is one, is too terrible to contemplate. Mass abortions, euthanasia, or, at least, neutering and spaying on a colossal scale.  It will never happen. If you say war is the solution, I say absolutely not. War takes away lives indiscriminately.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with this

 

What y'all is?

NeoValues Test

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of the Past

From my early days I was always interested in digital art. The first images I saw fascinated me. They were unlike any other art I was familiar with and I had to learn how to create them.  Smilies also fascinated me and, likewise, I had to learn how to make my own. Then came digital animation and that topped my list of cool things to learn to do.  So I jumped into Blender (a software program) and mocap (motion capture). I got pretty good at making meshes and have made steady income from selling them for many years now. I specialize in, not realism, as I at first did, but in realistic animation.  That gives me a chance to be expressive without the confines of what actually is. I do use myself as the model, or one of my friends. Even the hairstyles I use in my animations are based on my own. Zoë Mozert, the woman who invented the pin-up -- and the term "pin-up" -- used herself as her model, so I'm in good company. 

Of course, with the coming of AI and LLM all those skills are obsolete.  It's progress, I guess, opening up the most sophisticated creative processes to everyone. And AI will take those creative processes in directions I doubt we can imagine.  These are just the early days.  

But us old timers will remember the thrill of creation as it was in the golden days of yesteryear. This, using myself as the model, is from my high school days when digital art was, I suppose, no longer new, but it being available to anybody with a PC was. It got over 250,000 views when I uploaded it to an old blog I had, which was pretty good in those days.

 

 

 

 

Dancing the days away

I went into town, invited to a dinner and dance affair, lots of chatting and slow dancing before chow. I was the only solo dame at the shindig and I danced with every one of the husbands there, some of them two and three times.  The boys exhausted me.  I thought it was merely a matter of courtesy that they offered to trip the light fantastic with me, or I did until I noticed the looks, or should I say glares, that their wives were giving me.

It took me a while to notice that while the husbands spent a goodly amount of time shoulder-tapping each other to get their turns with me, a lot of the wives were never asked to dance even once, even by their husbands. That was not my fault. I was invited to a dance party and I danced.  I was amused by it because it was the wives who had invited me. They planned to solicit me to become a financial supporter.  I knew that was their plan and I probably would have but they became so resentful over nothing they forgot their goal. Ladies, emotions and business don't mix, especially nasty emotions. Keep your eye on the prize. Will I become a financial supporter? Haha. Ha. Ha. Will I recount this episode? Well, I is, ain't I?

 

Incidentally, or maybe not, the venue was an opportunity to notice how many women let themselves go once they've been married a while.  Don't do that.  It's an insult to yourself, and, even more, it's an insult to your husband.  You should always make sure he considers you his prize and never has cause to look at another woman and think he made a mistake with you. 

They reminded me of some woman I read on the internet who was advocating what she called "duty sex" with husbands.  Don't even pretend you're interested, just let the sad sack climb on you and do his thing for three minutes. That's what she did with her husband, whom, apparently, she had not a spark of interest in. I wondered why she married him. Just to get a room mate to share expenses with? Was that why he wanted to marry her?

I really and truly do not understand that. I just don't. I've written before about how I felt about my dear husband. And that included sex.  I wanted him and I wanted him to want me. All the time, anywhere, however he wanted it. His desire for me was an enormous turn on for me. We were on an endless honeymoon. You think that's an exaggeration. It's not. It was the way it was. As I've mentioned before, he photographed me, carved and sculpted me and every session involved me teasing him to turn him on, and every session I got turned on just by the act of getting him aroused, and every session ended in him well and truly nailing me to both his and my great satisfaction.  I was crazy about the big lunkhead. The years we were together never diminished my affection and desire for him.  I think English has a four-letter word for that emotion.  One's not supposed to mention it, though, so I won't.

******

I've been dancing a lot with my second cousin.  He belongs to a ball-room dance club at the academy and has gotten very good and wants to stay in practice. We dance mambo, Cuban salsa, bachata and freestyle club as well as the more traditional styles, including the tango.  Sometimes my uncle drops by and I dance with him.  He is, as I've mentioned before, an excellent dancer. We work up quite a sweat. Sometimes I wish I had somebody to dance with who wasn't a relative, but then I think it's best I don't. 

My cousin has suggested we go somewhere with a live band like we did a while back, so we might do that. I'm going to have to fly down to Argentina pretty soon, and I've invited them both to come along. It will be fun to tango in its home country.

Yeah, I bought the estancia.  It's a sheep operation with a good return.  I'm going to have a landing strip built so I can fly directly to it, gravel, 100x5,000 ft. is what I'm looking at, a hanger, fuel facility (eventually), PAPI, REIL, MIRL with PCL and an AWOS among other goodies. That may sound like overkill, but the weather there is a bitch and the terrain will get your attention. 

By the way, I love, love, love my KA260. I don't want to fly anything else. I do still enjoy the Baron, but...you know....

Oh, another by the way: In the actual world -- not the stupid on-line "world," men are supportive and encouraging and even pleased to see me engaged in the endeavors that I am, while -- not all, but a significant number of -- women react with coolness, nay iciness, when they discover what I do. That used to puzzle me, but I've come to expect it. I think the main cause is that I represent a challenge to and a reproval of them for slouching through life or something.  But that's not true.  I have no opinion on their lives, their achievements, lack of them or anything else.  We each live our own lives as fortune steers us. My own life has certainly not been smooth sailing along my desired path. It's gone this way and that, uphill and downhill until, for the nonce, here I am.

Some things I am and some things I can do, but others I am not and yet others I could not do even when I tried.   

Okay, I do have at least one strong opinion about others:  Anybody who puts Ph.D after their name is an ass.  I have a Ph.D in a hard science, one that was hard-earned. Both my Ph.D mentor and thesis advisor were on the short list for the Nobel Prize. My research focused on traumatic brain injury, the signature injury of the GWOT, and I helped discover the cause of battlefield PTSD.  And Uncle Sam paid for everything. No student debt. But I would under no circumstances consider putting Ph.D after my name.  In my field, everyone had a Ph.D.  It wasn't even table stakes. It was one white chip. You would be laughed at if you pranced around telling everyone you were a Ph.D. It was assumed if you were doing that research you had a doctorate.  Nobody would be impressed by it.  It would just be something to list in your resume. People would be more interested in who your mentor was.  That was important.

 So why ain't I doing Ph.D stuff now? Well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. I've written about it before so I shan't go over it again. But maybe why I'm not is why I don't judge the life paths and achievements or lack of them of others. Fate, luck, circumstance, decisions made by others outside your control, bad decisions you've made yourself...and on and on.  Life can be like walking a tightrope while playing dodgeball. You're lucky to keep your balance as long as you do, and nobody ever makes it to the other side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, y'all!

Apparently, I do, indeed, have a southern accent.  I was not born in the  South.  I was a Navy brat and picked up the accent from the descendants of the Johnny Rebs I hung out with as a child. I found this explanation on line:

"It's a common belief that accents are passed down from parents, but that’s not typically the case. Instead, kids pick up accents from the people they interact with daily—usually their peers, teachers, and neighbors. While parents play a huge role in language development, accents are more about social adaptation than family influence. In fact, many people may not even realize how much they adapt to fit into their social groups, subconsciously choosing speech patterns that help them feel connected."

Well, a blonde with a southern accent might as well be carrying a sign saying, "I'm dumb."  I've been called a corn pone and laughed at because of my accent. That wouldn't be so bad if I actually was from the South.  But not to be a Southerner and to catch their grief...  No fair! Gee whiz.

Apparently the second, I am what they call a Third Culture kid, and one of that particular subset the military brat, with no particular place to call home. So I can equally be a southern California surfer girl, a Montana cowgirl or a Southern Belle gobbling goobers and grits -- or none of the above. Whatever, man.  But southern gal is okay.  I'm fine with that. Boy, howdy, I tell you what...wait -- is that southern or Texan?

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fifty years ago today

Marion Haley plays the
lady cop. She was Brenda
in the 1970 movie
Lovers and Other Strangers.

 Half a century ago, the country was celebrating it's 200th anniversary.  It was a big deal and people were proud of the accomplishments of our country and the sheer fact that we had made it for 200 years.  That was despite the fact that in 1976 there was, it would seem, not a lot to celebrate.  The country had just lost a war for the first time ever, and a brutal one that had lasted a decade and torn the country apart, with radicals setting off bombs, battles between "students" and "hard hats," the Kent State thing, and on and on.  There had been in recent years race riots in which dozens had been killed, political assassinations.  There was the Patty Hurst-Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapping and bank robberies.  There had been a bird flu outbreak with mandated vaccinations that the public rebelled against, there had been the oil crisis and gas lines, there was a national speed limit of 55 mph, stagflation was in the news, unemployment and inflation were rising, Red China was admitted to the United Nations and Taiwan thrown out, Watergate and Nixon's resignation were fresh in memory, there was...Lord, I don't know but probably a lot more. Oh, right, disco. 

A postage stamp today costs 78¢

And yet the country seems to have been in a great mood.  My mother remembers it as a time of relief and celebration.  The bad old Sixties were in the past.  The gas lines were gone, the seemingly endless Viet Nam War was finally over and who cared if we won or lost as long as the damn thing was done with. We were sure never going to get into another mess like that. We had learned our lesson.

Anyway, here is a radio drama from this very day 50 years ago.  It's a routine cop story but does provide a window into what the world was like as our 200th anniversary approached.  Before the story begins there is a news commentary anticipating the very first Mars lander, expected to touch down on the Red Planet on July 4th, talking about what we might find there, including -- people really thought this was possible -- actual Martians. Notice that 50 years later we went to the moon again after two generations and nobody really seemed to pay much attention.

The ads are interesting relics of the times.  For instance, there's a commercial for a pressure canner.  How many people can their own fruits and vegetables today? Fifty years ago, it was common enough that a national radio program carried ads for canners, as it did for women's magazines promoting recipes.  CB radio was the hot new thing. I find the style of songs backing some of the commercials also interesting, very sweet and pleasant.

The story itself has interesting elements.  The cop duo who solves the crime consist of the old, jaded guy looking forward to his retirement and a young, eager-beaver girl cop new on the job. I know, what a yawn.  But I guess back then it wasn't.  Then there is a reference to the new phenomenon of public pornography, X-rated, explicit, as they called them, movies.  And an amusement park that features a professional chess master that customers pay a dollar to try to beat.  If they do, they win two dollars.  Do amusement parks today tout, "Try to beat our chess master"?  Does the average amusement park-goer even know how to play chess today? 

Anyway, for old time's sake, give it a listen. 

  "Checkmate," first broadcast over CBS Radio Mystery Theater on June 21, 1976.

 

 

 

 

California roots

 My first ancestor in California that I know of was William Wolfskill who came to Los Angeles  in 1831 (yes, it existed then) and tried hunting fur seals, but the Russians, who were all over the California coast with their Aleut sidekicks, had pretty much cleaned them out (as well as killed off the Channel Island Indians). He married a Spanish señorita and settled down to develop vineyards and citrus orchards, then got into cattle ranching, doing quite well in all his endeavors.  One of his descendants helped finance the Chaffey brothers in establishing Etiwanda and had extensive citrus groves in that area.

 Years later, another one of my ancestors, part Northern Cheyenne (I've written about how this came to be a couple of times), scouting for the Bartleson emigrant wagon train, made it to California in 1841.  Years later, one of his sons participated in the  second  Pitt River expedition of  1857 against the hostiles under Gen. George Crook. When the Civil War broke out, he tried to go east to join Crook's boys in the Army of West Virginia but ended up joining a cavalry unit in Nebraska that didn't serve with Crook but fought the Cheyenne and Sioux in the war that erupted after the Chivington Massacre. So he was probably fighting some of his own distant  relatives, a kind of civil war of its own, if you will.

Another of my ancestors, who made his fortune in ranching and mining in Montana, came to southern California around the turn of the 20th century and invested in real estate, oil, the early movie industry and the rising aviation industry.  He hired the architect Horatio Cogswell to design houses on his real estate projects.  Cogswell created the quintessentially classic Los Angeles bungalow as well as such houses as Pickfair for Mary Pickford, who was a good friend of my great-grandmother.  I have seen a photo of her (my great-grandmother) with Pickford and Anne Morrow before she became Mrs. Lindbergh at some social function at Pickfair.

 He invested in the Keystone Film Co. of Mack Sennett and sprung for $100,000 in 1915 to build Mabel Normand a studio at Fountain and Brae. He was driven out of the movie industry by the arrival of gangsters from back east, specifically the goons of Murder, Inc., the Bugsy Siegel mob.

My great-grandfather became friends with Donald Hall when he worked at Douglas in Santa Monica before he moved to Ryan in San Diego and designed The Spirit of St. Louis.  While he was serving in the Navy as an aviator, he (my great-grandfather) met and became friends with Charles Lindbergh at Panama in 1929 when he (Lindbergh) visited the USS Saratoga after the completion of Fleet Problem IX, probably in part because great-grandpa knew Hall, so they had a mutual acquaintance to spark the friendship.

Bits and pieces

I'm not sure, but I think I may have mentioned that in my wild and woolly days I was a photographer's model, even was a calendar girl.  Well, Some people have asked me if I am not concerned that my boys might come across these photos and wouldn't that be...awkward, and rather embarrassing?

Honestly, no.  It's unlikely they would ever see them, but if they did, so what?  They've seen their mom in her birthday suit before. As I've mentioned before, my husband photographed me in the nude and also used me as his model for his wood carvings.  He displayed the photos and sculptures in his office and workshop here at the ranch. The kids don't even notice them.  They prefer the ones he made of wolves, mountain lions, dogs, horses and bulls, not their dopey mom.

Also, we all used to go skinny dipping. I don't do that with them anymore because they are growing up, faster every day, it seems.

And anyway I make sure they they meet lots of pretty girls to focus their attention on, not their dumb old mom.  Pretty soon they will have girlfriends and be deep in puppy love and their mother will fade into the background. Which is how it should be.

****** 

My second cousin, of whom I've written, has come to spend his summer vacation on the ranch, working the odd jobs that always need doing.  He broke up with his girlfriend but doesn't seem upset about it at all.  He just shrugged when I asked about her and said it was fun while it lasted but you know how those things go. I suppose it wasn't that serious. Then he said he still had a crush on me and I said, oh, pshaw, when did you ever have a crush on me and he said you know. But I didn't. Not then, whenever it was, and not now. 

I do see echoes of the diffident, shy guy he was before he went off to the academy, but he is much more of a self-confident person than he was. It's hard to believe he's just 21. He takes charge like a much more mature man. 

My boys look up to him and hang out with him whenever they can. He takes them out in the sailboat and teaches them how to sail it, tacking and reaching and so forth. He also teaches them water rescue techniques and lifeguard stuff that he has learned.  They all go skinny-dipping. I'm tempted to do it, too. But I just stay on shore fixing the picnic lunch.  My daughter doesn't swim with them, either, let alone go skinny-dipping with them, although she used to.  She's getting to be all grown up and instinctively knows it's not wise.  The innocence of childhood passes so quickly.

****** 

I came across the assistant ranch manager, good old Mr. Shoe, sitting in the shade looking rather glum and I asked him what was wrong. I was afraid it was some ranch trouble, but he asked if I had a minute, which I did, so I sat down beside him while he told me of some of his personal problems. I couldn't help him with any of them, but just getting things off his chest seemed to lighten his mood. To help cheer him up, I told him I had some old shoes I was planning to throw away, but if he wanted any.... 

He perked right up and we went up to the house where I let him browse my shoe closet (yes, I have a shoe closet) and pick out a pair of heels.  I really wasn't going to throw any away, I just said that.  And no he doesn't wear them. He has a shoe fetish.  It's a harmless quirk  -- which I can kind of understand; I love shoes, too, but not in that way, heh. He is valued and I need him so I let it go. He said he would return the shoes after he was done but I said not necessary, you can keep them. He seemed a bit disappointed so I said okay bring them back. That made him happy and he asked if I would wear them after he returned them and I said sure I guess and that made him really happy.  But I won't. Maybe I won't. Well...they are really nice shoes.  It would be a shame not to wear them anymore.

 ******

My mother and father are both baby boomers and they have always been the best in my mind. I love, admire and respect them more than I could ever express. They have always been my role models and from as far back as I can remember I always wanted to have the life my mother has had and always wanted to marry a man like my dad, which I did. The people who educated me, trained me, helped me achieve my goals, develop my abilities, were almost all boomers.  All good people that I looked up to and relied on.

So I really can't get my head around all this hatred of boomers I see whenever I venture onto on-line sites where people let fly with all their resentments, hostilities, complaints and just plain bitchiness. I don't get it.   

Oh? You're going to explain it to me? Listen, kimo sabe, I don't care. Put a sock in it.  Talk to the hand because the face doesn't care. ¿Comprende? 

These Sixties kids had no idea that they would become the target of burning hatred from their ungrateful spawn half a century later just for living their lives as best they could, making their way through a world they never created.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 How to Regain Your Soul

by William Stafford

Come down Canyon Creek trail on a summer afternoon
that one place where the valley floor opens out. You will see
the white butterflies. Because of the way shadows
come off those vertical rocks in the west, there are
shafts of sunlight hitting the river and a deep
long purple gorge straight ahead. Put down your pack.

Above, air sighs the pines. It was this way
when Rome was clanging, when Troy was being built,
when campfires lighted caves. The white butterflies dance
by the thousands in the still sunshine. Suddenly, anything
could happen to you. Your soul pulls toward the canyon
and then shines back through the white wings to be you
     again. 


So Much of the World

by Gregory Djanikian

So much of the world exists
without us

the mountain in its own steepness

the deer sliding
into the trees becoming
a darkness
in the woods' darkness.

So much of an open field
lies somewhere between the grass
and the dragonfly's drive and thrum

the seed and seedling,
the earth within.

But so much of it lies in someone
standing alone at the edge of a field
with a life apart

feeling for a moment
the plover's cry
on the tongue

the curve and plumb
of the apple bough
in limb and bone.

So much of it between
one thing and another,

days of invitation,
then of release and return.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, yes

 

 

  

So there!

I'm not hyper masculine.
In fact, I'm quite feminine.
I've been tested! 

 

The Fleet

  I found this photo of the Fleet Model 2 that my grandfather was posing with when he was a young man.  It looks like the kind of picture you would take of your new car, doesn't it? Maybe this was taken the day he got it. I don't know. But it's a nice-looking airplane.  It's in pretty rough shape now, neglected for I don't know how long, decades,probably.

It's kind of sad to see it that way, but that's the way all our material possessions end up. Things we dearly longed to have eventually finish as just some old junk, stored in the attic or basement and forgotten, tossed out, donated, hauled to the dump. All the wishes to have, all the work you do to save the money to buy the most wonderful thing in the world and it ends up just being trash.

Oh, stop that, Wanda. You're going to depress yourself.  So okay, maybe I will have the Fleet restored.  It would make another great project for my boys, especially if they know once they get it in flying condition they can take to the skies in it and zoom around like Ace Drummond in the 1930s. ♫"Oh give me a ship and a song!"♬  Knowing them, one will pilot the Fleet and the other the Waco and they will dogfight each other. And their mom will be on the ground shouting up at the sky, "Be careful!"

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dead at 24

Forgot to publish this! 

For the week of Memorial Day

Today, May 30, is the real Memorial Day, as my grandparents assured me.  They hated that all our holidays were turned into three-day weekends, erasing their importance and meaning.  Memorial Day used to be a day everyone took off from work specifically to take them out of their ordinary lives to remember and honor those of their fellow Americans who no longer had lives, ordinary or otherwise, because they had been killed in our wars. There were parades, speeches, prayers, visits to cemeteries.

Oh, well.

Then 2nd Lt. Stiles when a B-17 co-pilot.

Here's one of my relatives from the Colorado branch of the family killed in World War II, lst Lt. George Wilbert "Bert" Stiles.  He flew 35 missions as the co-pilot of a B-17 with the 401st Bomb Squadron of the 91st Bomb Group from March through August, 1944, then volunteered for a fighter squadron flew P-51s with the 505th fighter Squadron of the 339th Fighter Group, which he joined in late October, 1944.  He was killed November 26, 1944 on his 16th mission in a dogfight with FW-190s over Hanover, which was defended by 400 Luftwaffe fighters.  He is credited with shooting down one FW before he failed to pull out of a dive while pursuing another, probably because G forces caused him to black out.  That was a common occurrence in those days before the invention of the G-suit. He was 24.

 Bert's passion was to be a writer. The Saturday Evening Post  published four of his short stories about life as a forest ranger in Estes Park, and he had others published in Liberty, The Writer and The American Mercury. While in England, he wrote articles for the Daily Mail as well as Yank and Air Force magazines.

I've read “Portrait of a Guy Thinking About an Island” which was published in Air Force, November, 1944; “Situation Normal” also in Air Force, February, 1945; “It’s a Sad World, Cardwell” published in The American Mercury, April, 1942;  “The Case of the Lucky Amateur” published in The Writer, June, 1943; “Solo” published in Yank, October 15, 1943; “You Can’t Win with Women” published in The Saturday Evening Post, November 22, 1941 (guys have been writing the same lament forever!); and “The Ranger Is a Dame” published in The Saturday Evening Post, February 27, 1943, about a female forest ranger (Do take note trad wife enthusiasts: even back in the good old days you'd be hard-pressed to find one. Women worked "men's" jobs even then.).

 I think Bert would have been a successful and popular writer had he lived.  He had an easy, friendly, conversational style, evidenced in his autobiographical Serenade to the Big Bird. If you want to know what a difficult job it was to fly a B-17 in formation, give it a read.

I can't help but wonder how much talent we lost in that stupid war that was none of our business.  Even the Pacific war, where the Japs attacked us first, we could have avoided if we had not started the Spanish-American war, and thus acquired the Philippines and Guam.  So the fighting in East Asia wouldn't have affected us. And had we adhered to the Neutrality Acts, we could have avoided any involvement in the European fracas.  Yeah, fracas.  Those Euros are always going at each other; they're doing it today.  It's what they love best, slaughtering each other.  Not our business.