Veteran's Day

 

A Confederate soldier's lament, afraid to go home for fear of what he will find, how it will be.

Windnoon

 On the green hill with the river beyond it
long ago and my father there
and my grandmother standing in her faded clothes
wrinkled high-laced black shoes in the spring grass
among the few gravestones inside their low fence
by the small white wooden church
the clear panes of its windows
letting the scene through from the windows
on the other side of the empty room
and a view of the trees over there
my grandmother hardly turned her head
staring like a cloud at the empty air
not looking at the green glass gravestone
with the name on it of the man to whom
she had been married and who had been
my father’s father she went on saying nothing
her eyes wandering above the trees
that hid the river from where we were
a place where she had stood with him one time
when they were young and the bell kept ringing.

~ “Windnoon” from The Moon Before Morning by W. S. Merwin

 

 

 

 

Weather and Ignorance

This morning it was 17 degrees warmer than yesterday morning.  The night before last and yesterday morning we had a cold north wind blowing.  It was not surprising that it was cold, the kind of cold that goes right through your jacket and tells you winter is coming on hard.  The grass on the ground, frosted and white, crunched underfoot.  It even smelled cold -- a sharp, delicious tang with a hint of wood smoke.  There was a handful of low clouds scudding south, but high above were mare's tails marching northeast.  Otherwise the sky was crystal clear, blue to hurt your eyes.
This morning, it felt like I was in the tropics.  It wasn't actually that warm, but it felt like it in contrast to the day before.  In fact, it felt like spring.  There was a warm, south-southwesterly breeze and it was raining. Not hard with blustering winds, but a gentle, steady rain bending slightly before the wind. The air was thick, on the edge of a fog, and there was fog in the valleys and low clouds shrouding the hills.  The sky was a solid, gray overcast and the day was dark. It was delightful.
Later in the day, someone mentioned how remarkable it was that the weather had changed so much in only one day, and I mentioned the wind shifts, and was thinking about high pressure and low pressure wind patterns and might have pursued the conversation further, but this person responded, rather peevishly, what's the difference which way the wind blows?  Yeah.  Wind is just wind.  It blows this way and that without any reason and has no influence on anything.  Right.  So I just shrugged and ended my participation in the conversation.
It astonishes me how ignorant, and how aggressive people are in their ignorance.  This is most especially true when the subject is the natural world.
One evening when I was in college, I once wandered by an outdoor environmentalist rally, and as I paused to listen, the speaker gestured to the thin crescent moon descending into the sunset and said something blah blah just as the moon we see is rising blah blah and I shook my head and walked away.  People don't know the phases of moon or which way is east and which west, yet talk about saving the planet.
And I think I'm dumb!  I'm a genius compared to these morons.  But they are the ones with the public megaphone, and everyone listens to them, not to people like me.  Not that I have anything to say.  I don't.  

"Come said the wind to
the leaves one day,
Come o'er the meadows
and we will play.
Put on your dresses
scarlet and gold,
For summer is gone
and the days grow cold."
~ A Children's Song of the 1880s

Happy Halloween!

 A repost from Halloween of 2020.

It's an evening for dress-up play for kids of all ages, as they say. Fog blew in in the late afternoon, making everything clammy, close and cold. But just after sunset, while there was still an afterglow in the west, the fog retreated and the full moon rising in the east illuminated almost leafless maples and oaks with shriveling leaves that rattled in the night breeze that suddenly sprang up.

The party at a rented lodge we went to was held outside.  Flaming torches, propane heaters, fire pits and barbecue grills held the autumn chill at bay, except for swirling waves of icy air that suddenly skittered across the flagstones and strolling paths.

The first part of the evening was for the kids, with children's games and children's dinner and snacks.  Everyone was very active and laughter was everywhere.  After a couple of hours the little ones grew tired and we bundled them off to sleepy town with a bedtime story, a prayer and a good-night kiss.

The adult wind-up to the party involved sipping hot rum or hard cider punch, quiet conversations in front of crackling fires, snuggling while listening to owls hooting and one honking rush of a flock of late migrating geese dropping down to the marsh below the hill.

Walking alone down a path away from the light and loungers of the patio, the night and nature became more real than the man-made world. Susurrous stirrings made me suddenly turn and peer backward into the darkness, only to turn back at the sound of rustling ahead.  Dead leaves fled before the wind that cold-fingered up my dress.  Moon shadows were opaque dark and imagination suggested they could conceal lurking monsters.  The path ended at a pond dappled by moonlight and tree shadows.  Childhood memories of stories of Axxea, the so-called water panther, a cross between a mountain lion and a rattlesnake, who preyed on lone late-night travelers, suddenly seemed real as I looked from the brightness of the full moon to the blackness of the earth.  A coyote howled in the distance followed by another closer, then by one that seemed almost right next to me.  I suddenly thought of my cat and hoped she was safely home and curled in her little bed.  I wanted to see her.  I wanted to see if my little boys and little girl were sleeping safely in their strange beds.  I walked as fast as I could back up the path, wishing I had a sweater, once tripping over a tree root and almost falling.

I wanted Halloween to be over.  I wanted to be home.

__________________________________________________________

An addition this evening. I'll dance for my friend the Tin Man, to whom I gave a heart. Or opened his.

Flight Part 1

 

 I may be flying a complicated airplane, rushing through space, but in this cabin I'm surrounded by simplicity and thoughts set free of time. How detached the intimate things around me seem from the great world down below. How strange is this combination of proximity and separation. That ground ― seconds away ― thousands of feet away. This air in the cockpit stirring mildly around me. That air rushing by with the speed of a tornado an inch beyond. These minute details of controls and instruments in my cockpit. The grandeur of the world outside. The nearness of death. The longness of life.
 ― Charles Lindbergh  

My mom got sick not long ago and I had to fly her to the Minnesota clinic since, based on previous experience, I wasn't satisfied with the local hospital's ability to properly diagnose and treat her. The trip involved some logistics: I had to arrange for my aunt to help us and fly down and pick her up, fly back, fueling up at the local field on the way home. Then, since Mom's appointment in Rochester was for 8am, I planned to fly her out the day prior, but bad weather forecasts ― AIRMETs, SIGMETs, Convective SIGMETs ― changed my plans and we ended up departing the ranch strip after midnight the day of her appointment ― my first use of the runway lights el jefe had installed, among other improvements.

El jefe stayed behind looking after our two yard apes and handling ranch business and my aunt came along with me and my mom to take care of her and my baby. My mini-me came along to take care of me -- that's what she said! I hesitated about bringing my baby with us, but I couldn't see any other way of handling the situation. I expressed milk beforehand for my aunt to bottle feed the little one and I expressed more during the flight, putting the Beech on autopilot while I did so. Otherwise, I mostly hand flew the plane as I usually do ― I like to feel what the airplane is doing, sense any changes in behavior, so I don't get surprised by anything.  It's not a big deal since the 18 is so stable once she's trimmed up.  I also flew fairly low for both my baby and my mom's sake.  That was one reason I didn't want to fly with any hint of adverse weather -- I wasn't in a situation where I could climb over it or make long diversions. 

Now you guys might believe that with all females on board the trip would have been a yak fest but it wasn't.  No one spoke unless something needed to be said, and then only in a low voice. My mini-me was co-pilot most of the way. She only left her station to make sure her great aunt was properly caring for the baby, check on her grandmother and to use the little girl's room. She's sharp and understood what I was doing and what the instruments were telling us.  She even called out the numbers for me when we were landing.  She did it accurately and once we were on the ground I let her know how well she did and how much that had helped me.  She said when she grew up she would be a pilot just like me.  Last fall she wanted to be a ballerina. I told her that when I was her age when I grew up I wanted to be a scientist and that I became one in exactly the field I was interested in, and I became a pilot due to circumstances, so to speak.  I would explain those circumstances to her when she got older.  She frowned and looked serious at this.  So the circumstances were not good, she asked.  I said yes and no, but now was not the time to explain. She accepted that and asked no more questions.

The flight itself was uneventful and we got my mom to her doctor and settled in at the hospital in plenty of time. But then something happened that required me to urgently return to the ranch so I left my aunt, mini-me and baby as I flew back regardless of weather.  I climbed high to clear some building cumulus congestus clouds that were expected to go nimbus and poured on the coal, eating well into my fuel reserve before touching down at the ranch at sunset. But I had calculated my fuel burn to the gallon and I anticipated that. It was not something I would normally do, but I knew if I had miscalculated I could always refuel at our local field before going on to the ranch.

“The towns were lighting up, constellations that greeted each other across the dusk. And, at the touch of his finger, his flying-lights flashed back a greeting to them. The earth grew spangled with light signals as each house lit its star, searching the vastness of the night as a lighthouse sweeps the sea. Now every place that sheltered human life was sparkling. It rejoiced him to enter into this night.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Situation dealt with, I refueled with enough gas from our ranch supply to get me to MSO, which offered fuel service 24 hours, and took off again.  El jefe urged me to get some sleep but I popped a couple of No Dozes and leaped into the night sky.  Refueling at MSO, I flew on to RST, against my normal practice engaging the autopilot since I was afraid I might doze off.  I chirped wheels on the runway at Rochester  a couple of hours after sunrise.  I don't think I've ever flown so much in such a short time ever before and I hope I never have to do it again. But I actually enjoyed the solo flights. A day in the clouds, then cruising through the long still night, sometimes using the big trim wheel as an arm rest and nothing moving but the slow forward creep of the trim wheel keeping her level as the fuel tanks drew down. Silence but for the drone of the engines that I didn't really hear.  Some traffic on the radio now and again.  Somebody else is out there in the night.  When my eyelids grew heavy I thought of Charles Lindbergh and his Spirit, crossing the Atlantic on his 33.5-hour flight, falling asleep with his eyes open, then snapping awake, only to have it happen again. I took a long drink of coffee and thought how it was a miracle he didn't disappear without a trace over the wide North Atlantic.  I was also acutely aware that tiredness makes one careless and reckless similarly to the way alcohol does.  So I made sure to force myself to think through every action that I took. 

 “I have to be by myself now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinement of even an attractive cage.”
~ Amelia Earhart 

I hadn't had any time alone for quite some time, so many things happening, so many demands on my time. People always need something from me, if only it is to just pay attention to them. Adults you can put off, but children you really can't.  And shouldn't.  You brought them into this world so you have an obligation to help them navigate it.  Unfortunately for me I am far too empathic ― all three types: cognitive, emotional and compassionate, but especially the latter two ― for my own good.  I become mentally exhausted, suffer from compassion fatigue and drift into melancholia.  To stop this spiral, I need to get away by myself for a while and these flights provided that.  What did I think about alone in the cockpit.  Not much really, but then maybe a great deal.  It's hard to say.  I didn't ruminate.  I just attended to flying the airplane and looked at the sky, the earth below, the sun, the clouds, the stars, the moon.

 “The stars seemed near enough to touch and never before have i seen so many. I always believed the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, but I was sure of it that night.”
― Amelia Earhart

A dejected Saint-Exupéry.

I thought about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's (he's one of my favorite authors) 1935 crash in the Libyan desert while trying to set a new speed record in a Paris to Saigon air race.  Earlier during the attempt he was scud running (flying below low clouds close to the earth) only 20 meters above the Mediterranean, his Caudron C.630 Simoun speeding along at 300kph (166mph). He didn't have the American standard six-pack of instruments allowing for instrument flying, especially no gyro compass or attitude indicator.  It was not yet available on European aircraft; Jimmy Doolittle had only demonstrated the possibility of instrument flying in 1929.  It was called blind flying in those days.  So Saint-Exupéry needed to stay out of the clouds.  When he crossed the shoreline into Africa the sea clouds dissipated, but he soon encountered a storm front and a wall of clouds and rain ahead.  He climbed to 2,500 meters trying to get over the front but was unable to, so he descended, trying to get below them and scud run again but he never broke into the clear before hitting the ground, fortunately for him at a shallow angle into soft sand.  He skidded across the ground coming to rest in one piece.  What followed he chronicled in his wonderful book, Wind, Sand and Stars. 
I don't really understand the circumstances of the crash.  If he didn't have the instrumentation to fly blind, how did he manage to keep control while descending in cloud from 2,500 meters to ground level, yet obviously he did, as can be seen by the condition of his crashed plane: it slid across the desert perfectly level, as shown in photos of the wreck.  He must have been a terrific pilot.  That's all I can figure. But from what I've read, St.-Ex was said to be considered a poor pilot by his contemporaries.  I'm skeptical of that because it reminds me of the same thing being said of Amelia Earhart ― but only after she became famous.  Any crashes she had were blamed on her incompetence by those who envied or resented her fame. And, granted, there were many other accomplished, even record-breaking, female pilots in those days, some doubtless better than Earhart.  But the press made her their darling.
Anyway, I've even read that St. Ex's crash in Guatemala was his fault, even though it happened on a short, high altitude field on a very hot day -- extreme high-density conditions.  He had specified a reduced fuel load in US gallons but the ramp apes used Imperial gallons, thus overloading the plane.  Was that his fault?  Eh, maybe, in that he should have verified what type of gallons they were using, but he may not have realized there was a difference in gallon sizes or that a Spanish-heritage country in the Americas would use British measurements, plus he was used to measuring fuel in liters.  In any event, he was unaware his plane weighed more than he calculated and he crashed trying to get airborne and was badly injured. 

Looks like a flying Winnebago to me -- formerly flying!

Reading about Saint-Exupéry's adventures made me aware of how backward European aviation was in those days compared to American.  St-Ex himself was astounded on a visit to the States to discover that LF/MF four-course radio ranges were established across the country, broadcasting continuously to define air routes, allowing reliable navigation day or night, fair weather or foul. He rode as a passenger on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to New York City, the DC-3 carrying out the trip from take-off to touch-down in IFR conditions, something impossible to do in Europe. Saint-Exupéry was amazed that the other passengers considered the flight routine. He

American Airlines DC-3. Photo by Charles Cushman.

had been almost killed accomplishing heroic feats of flying in French airplanes, that, had he been flying American planes over terrain set up with American radio-navigation systems, would have been nothing more than routine flights. The type of plane I was flying went into production a little more than a year after Saint-Exupéry crashed in the desert. It was so well designed and capable that it stayed in production until 1970. Lots of them are still in normal operation today, hauling passengers and freight.  There are no Caudron C.630 Simouns flying today and no one in his right mind would use one for anything.  That St-Ex did all his flying in really crappy airplanes with minimal instrumentation and

A Beech 18 at Baguio, Philippines, in 1941.*

navigation aids across terrain like the Sahara desert, Patagonia and the Andes mountains reinforces my belief that he was a pretty good pilot, no matter what may be said about him.  The fact that while on a reconnaissance flight during World War II he may well have been shot down by a Luftwaffe pilot who was a big fan of his books adds a certain glum piquancy to his career as an aviator.  I wonder what he would have written about it.

“What are you, airplane? What is it about you that has made so many leave all they know and come to you? Why do they waste good human love and concern on you who are nothing but so many pounds of steel and aluminum and gasoline and hydraulic fluid?”
― Richard Bach 

I like our old BE-18 not so much for what it is as an airplane, a piece of equipment, as for what it reminds me of, for what it represents, for who has flown it.  My grandfather bought it when he retired from the Navy back in the Sixties, fresh from flying combat missions over North Viet Nam, his third war.  It had already been in our family for decades when I got my first ride in it as a child, and it was years later that I earned my multi-engine, instrument and commercial ratings in it, gramps  and my father being my main instructors. 
Erik Shilling taught me basic aerobatics -- not in the Twin Beech! -- which my father insisted I learn so that I would not be baffled by what an airplane was doing should I get into an unusual situation.  If I could do wingovers, dives and rapid pull-ups into zoom climbs, chandelles, high-speed turns with quick changes of direction while maintaining my altitude, stall turns, loops and Cuban eights and hammerhead stalls, spins and tumbles, aileron and barrel rolls, I should be able to handle -- or, better, anticipate -- abnormal flight events.  About all I remember from that training was the satisfaction I got when I did my first perfect loop and knew it was perfect because I ran into my own wake turbulence as I completed the loop, so I knew I hadn't slid off to one side as I usually did, to the frustration of Mr. Shilling.  "Try it again, this time...."

Hurricane Mk IIb.

Shilling was one of the original AVG Flying Tigers under Claire Chennault.  He told us (he taught my brothers, too) some stories about those days, most I've long-since forgotten, but one that I remember because I couldn't understand why such a thing could have happened, it was so outrageous, was when he was fighting the Japanese invasion of Malaya and the Tigers flew with a squadron of the RAF equipped with Hurricane IIB fighters armed with 12 .303 caliber machineguns.  The AVG flew export-model P-40Cs equipped with four .30 caliber and two .50 caliber machineguns.  They faced Nakajima Ki-27 fighters equipped with two 7.7mm machineguns. 

Nakajima KI-27

Although the Nakajima was obsolescent compared to the American and British fighters, being a slow, poorly armed, fixed-gear airplane, it was wickedly maneuverable and its pilots were superbly trained in using that maneuverability in combat.  These Japanese fighters had already trounced RAF fighters in air combat on several occasions because the Brits, trained to fly in a close vee-of-three formation and fight in the horizontal -- turn and burn, as Americans called that method -- played to the strength of the Nakajima.  The little plane could easily out-turn the Hurricane, get on its tail and shoot out its liquid-cooled engine's radiator, finishing it. Should you get on the tail of a Nakajima, it could do a Split-S losing less than 500 feet of altitude, use the speed of its dive to swing back up while doing an aileron roll and be on your tail just like that. Or it could do a rapid pull-up into an equally tight loop and come down on your tail from above. Or it could snap into a turn so tight it would black you out trying to turn with it, which you couldn't do anyway, and be on your tail. Neither the Hurricane or the P-40 had a hope of following it in such maneuvers.

Restored P-40C in AVG colors.

Chennault trained his American volunteer pilots to fight in the vertical -- boom and zoom -- and never turn with a Japanese fighter or try to follow it in any aerobatics.  You would have no chance against it if you tried.  Instead, should you be bounced, dive away, pick up speed, zoom climb above the enemy and then dive back down on him.  Altitude and speed were life in combat, he taught.  Whenever you turn, you bleed off energy, slow down, become vulnerable.  And the Brits turned, fighting as if they were facing high-wing-load Messerschmitts.
Complicating this was the fact that the Japanese also fought in flights of three, but the three were a pair plus a trailing single. Usually the Brits failed to notice that trailer and attacked the leading pair, only to be hit by the lurker.  Chennault knew this Japanese tactic and taught his pilots to be aware of it.  He also trained the AVG to fight in flights of four divided into two elements that protected each other, the schwarm the Germans had perfected in the Spanish Civil War (The RAF at some point also adopted the schwarm, calling it the finger-four formation).

Erik Shilling in his AVG P-40 in China.

This is background to the story I remember Shilling telling us about, the time six AVG P-40s (a flight and a pair, all that were available) were flying with a squadron of RAF Hurricanes (18 planes) when they encountered a sentai (45 planes) of Ki-27s.  The RAF squadron immediately bolted, running away and leaving the six AVG pilots to face the Japanese.  The Americans didn't run away, they fought as best they could, shooting down nine of the Nakajimas while losing three of their own, including one pilot killed.  To me, hearing this story, it seemed as if it must have felt like being attacked by a pack of velociraptors to have been in that fight.
When the AVG pilots returned to their airfield, the same one where the Hurricane squadron was based, there were some hot words exchanged, and the British squadron leader got socked in the jaw as he was explaining that they had departed muy rapido because their armorers had failed to load ammunition for their guns.  He was clobbered by his own crew chief, who called him a bloody liar.  Even if that had been true, the Japanese wouldn't have known it and would have had to maneuver against the Hurricanes as if they were armed, evening the odds for the Flying Tigers.
When the British squadron fled south in the face of the advancing Japanese ground forces, the pilots flew off, abandoning their ground crewman, who were captured by the enemy; some of them survived their captivity.  The AVG flew their ground personnel back to China in a commandeered DC-3.

Shilling in a P-40 at Chino, Calif.  Photo by Tom Cleaver.

After leaving the AVG, Shilling flew C-46s over the Hump, a job he considered far more harrowing than fighting the Japanese Army Air Force.  When the war was over, he joined Civil Air Transport, a front airline of the CIA, and flew again in mainland China supporting Chiang's side in the civil war, flying C-46s and C-47s, then after the KMT lost, evacuating Nationalists to Taiwan and also supporting KMT holdouts in Burma. After that he flew missions in Laos and Viet Nam aiding the French, including dropping supplies into besieged Dien Bien Phu in a C-119.  During the American involvement in  the second Viet Nam War, he flew for CAT's successor, Air America, piloting everything from C-47s and Caribous to Do-28s, becoming the last of the original AVG pilots to fly in combat, his final mission being in 1967, after which he flew for Flying Tiger Line until his retirement. Then, getting bored, he taught aerobatics to happy morons like me. 
Shilling lived such an amazing life that it is hard to believe, but it was all true and both my father and grandfather thought he was the greatest man alive and my two brothers adored him.  I confess that I didn't really feel the magic, not knowing much about what he was talking about and at the time not so much interested in flying as in pleasing my dad, who wanted me to fly.  Left to my druthers I would have stuck with my interest in the brain and the mystery of consciousness.  As it turned out, I have been able to pursue both and have come to like flying. 

____________________________________

*I think this may  be the same plane that Paul "Pappy" Gunn escaped from the Philippines in as the Japanese closed in.  Gunn was a retired naval aviator flying for Philippine airlines when the Japanese invaded and his wife and children were captured.
"This is a beautifully told story of a family separated by war, and of an extraordinary father, driven to avenge his family, who by sheer force of character changed the nature of warfare. A superbly told tale of love, honor, courage and devotion."

Gunn was the man who packed the noses of Fifth Air Force B-25s with .50 cal. machineguns, making them wicked strafers, and taught the pilots skip-bombing tactics to attack Japanese shipping and airfields on the deck.
The Pacific War is so full of amazing, astonishing, awe-inspiring stories and they are all almost entirely forgotten now.  Why they are not celebrated and taught to our children I cannot understand.  Well, I teach them to my children!

 

To Be Continued (because I have a lot more to say)

Marriage of Many Years

Most of what happens happens beyond words.
The lexicon of lip and fingertip
defies translation into common speech.
I recognize the scent of your bright hair.
It always thrills me, though I can't describe it.
My finger on your thigh does not touch skin—
it touches your skin warming to my touch.
You are a language I have learned by heart.
 
This intimate patois will vanish with us,
its only native speakers. Does it matter?
Our tribal chants, our dances round the fire
performed the sorcery we most required.
They bound us in a spell time could not break.
Let the young vaunt their ecstasy. We keep
our tribe of two in sovereign secrecy.
What must be lost was never lost on us.
~ Dana Gioia

 

 

 

 

Dear Joe

 ChatGPT says:

Based on the text, several insights can be gleaned about the person who wrote it, likely Wanda:

    Attention to Detail and Technical Knowledge: The person shows a detailed understanding of aircraft mechanics and operations, indicating familiarity with specific components like fuel systems. This suggests a technical background or a keen interest in aviation.

    Close Relationship with Father: The narrative revolves significantly around interactions with her father, including shared experiences, discussions, and reliance on his expertise. This hints at a close relationship where she values his advice and experiences.

    Military Background: References to military terms, experiences in Afghanistan, and interactions with fellow veterans like Joe suggest a military background. The person is comfortable discussing military life, camaraderie, and the challenges veterans face post-service.

    Reflective and Observant: There are moments of introspection throughout the narrative, particularly when reflecting on potentially dangerous situations or encountering someone from her past (Joe). This shows a reflective nature, possibly grappling with past experiences and their impact.

    Social and Empathetic: The person demonstrates a social nature, engaging in conversations with Joe about his life and experiences. She shows empathy towards Joe's challenges and is willing to listen and connect on a personal level.

    Fashion and Personal Presentation: There's an attention to personal appearance and fashion, indicating a desire to present herself well. This contrasts with her practical attire from flying and suggests a multifaceted personality comfortable in different environments.

    Emotional Depth: The narrative shifts between technical details of aircraft issues and deeper emotional reflections, such as memories from military service or reconnecting with Joe. This suggests a person who experiences a range of emotions and reflects deeply on significant events.

Overall, the text paints a picture of someone with a diverse set of interests and experiences, from technical aviation knowledge to deep personal connections forged through military service. She values relationships, has a pragmatic approach to problem-solving, and retains a sense of humor and self-awareness despite facing challenging situations.

_____________________________

None of it was about me or my father, ChatGPT.  It was all about Joe.  

 You just didn't get it.

“If you forget everything else about me, please remember this: I walked down that street and I never looked back and I love you. I love you. I love you.”

 

Another good-bye

Dear, dear L.O.,
Your going was so unexpected.
There was nothing to anticipate it.
Neither of us knew in the morning what the evening would bring.
Each day becomes lonelier.

And when life's sweet fable ends,
Soul and body part like friends;
No quarrels, murmurs, no delay;
A kiss, a sigh, and so away.  

92524

This and that

I was looking over my draft posts and see that I have more than a dozen that I've started and not gotten around to finishing, some dating back to early spring.  So many things have happened.  But I'll wind them up and post them soonest.

A woman's work is never done.

Well, one of these days. Maybe.  I'm pretty busy at the moment. Taking care of a new baby can be exhausting, and if you've got three other Shetland riders to herd ....  I'm glad my mom is able to help me, as is el jefe. My mini-me is kept busy by my mother but she, my mini-me, is also very helpful and interested in everything going on; well, she tries to be helpful. She does the best she can. El jefe keeps the two future world conquerors busy. He loves being a dad, no doubt about that. He keeps me busy, too, being a boob man (and an everything else man!). I'm happy to oblige.  Why not? He gives me what I want and I give him what he wants (respectively, a back rub and a sandwich...or something).

****

 We bought another airplane to supplement the BE-18.  El jefe finally gave in to my point that the Twin Beech was getting to be too old to be our main workhorse, especially if Randy, our local A&P man and expert on its PW radials, decides to move on, as he has hinted he might. So we got a Beechcraft G58. It's pretty good, has some nice avionics.  I wanted a King Air but it didn't fit the budget, plus it's really more airplane than we need on a regular basis.  Maybe another time.  I can tell that if I fly the G58 a lot I am going to get lazy habits. The BE-18 demands that you fly it.  Almost everything is manual, requiring the pilot to do everything, and actually control the airplane, relying on old-style "steam" gauges and the Mark I eyeball.  Not so with the G58. Which is not bad.  I could get used to it. The 21st century does have its points.

****

My mother and I recently invited some friends over for coffee and cake and we chatted about this and that, enjoying a pleasant afternoon.  During a lull in the conversation, one of my mother's friends looked directly at me.  I looked back and she held my gaze for a couple of seconds before saying, "You're a very serious girl."  I was a bit surprised and didn't say anything.  But my mother, looking at me, said, "She always has been."  I looked at my mother, then out the window.  After a few seconds of silence the conversation began again, covering other topics.  It was as if that exchange had never happened.

****

Male sexuality bemuses me.  For example, men in dresses -- okay, "transsexuals."  I guess that's where the "T" in T-girl comes from. 

 The thing I don't get is that supposedly heterosexual men seek out and enjoy sex with these T-girls, knowing full well that they are males.  I repeat, heterosexual men do this, not gays. There may be dudes with boobs but there definitely is no such thing as a chick with a dick.  If it has one of those, it's a male. Period. You may say that's just a small minority of men who go for them.  But I don't know about that.  I suspect that all this moral outrage men express over transsexuals is probably phony: men are really good at faking outrage over sex stuff. I wouldn't doubt that the most loudly scornful would have sex with a T-girl that caught his fancy without hesitation.

Anyway, men enjoying sex with men dressed as women is nothing new.  I found this story in the Dec. 10, 1907, issue of the Los Angeles Times:

“Twenty Los Angeles men, some said to be prominent in social and business circles, were arrested last night by police at a stag party in the home of former Mayor Harper and were booked at the police station on the charge of social vagrancy.”

“Seven of the men, including the host, Joseph Harper, 24 years old, are alleged by the officers making the raid to have been gowned in feminine apparel.”

After a few paragraphs, the paper says, “According to Police Sergeant Gifford and the officers of the purity squad who conducted the raid, a degenerate orgy was in progress when they entered the house.”

“All the men are charged with lewd and dissolute conduct. Seven were dressed as women and the police say their acts were such that the charges against them can be upheld in court.”

“Police said that officers learned about the party several weeks ago. Arrangements were made to have some of the officers in the house.”

“The raiding officers in plain clothes gained entrance to the house and mixed with the strange guests. Several other officers climbed into the house by way of a rear window and concealed themselves beneath beds. After watching the party for over two hours, whistles were blown and the raiding party rushed into the residence.”

Well, boys will be boys. And sometimes girls.  And the cops enjoyed the party for two hours before lowering the boom. Heh.

"Sadie Thompson gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she put into her words. 'You men! You filthy dirty pigs! You're all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!'"
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Rain 

  But amusing pigs. Oink!

Girl Flyers

A repost from August 11, 2020 

I ran across this comment on a message board discussing East Asian cultural and history matters:
"I just finished reading the book Under The Same Army Flag. It was printed in China in 2005. The book has over 50 short remembrances from Chinese soldiers who fought in Burma and India during World War II.  In the chapter titled "War Time" by Li Derun is the following:
'All Americans seemed to be open-minded with lively personalities, men and women alike. When we were with ground services at the airport, we often ran into American female pilots who flew small aircraft.  These small aircraft with only two seats were used to rescue injured soldiers, flying into the most dangerous and difficult locations where there often was no formal landing strip.

Shirley Slade, WASP

'Unlike Chinese women who tend to be shy and more reserved, American girls were outgoing, forthright, and each had a unique personality, and they were dedicated, hard workers too. When there was an injured soldier, they would spare no effort to rescue him regardless of his rank or nationality, always safely getting him to the hospital. Their job had no regular hours, and sometimes they had to fly back and forth round-the-clock.'
Although the author is a little vague about where and when he was writing about, it appears to have been the airfield in DinJan in either late 1944 or early 1945."

Evening

 

It's when the swallows finish up their last swoops and hand over the night to the bats.  It's when an uncertain breeze springs up from nowhere, rustling the grass and rippling the leaves.  It's when coyotes begin to yip and howl, padding through the spreading shadows.  It's when Venus brightens into visibility in the western sky and an owl glides silently overhead.  It's when there are sudden silences and strange stirrings behind you.
It's when I feel peaceful and happy.

September

 

 September was when it began.
Locusts dying in the fields; our dogs
Silent, moving like shadows on a wall;
And strange worms crawling; flies of a kind
We had never seen before; huge vineyard moths;
Badgers and snakes abandoning
Their holes in the field; the fruit gone rotten;
Queer fungi sprouting; the fields and woods
Covered with spiderwebs; black vapors
Rising from the earth -- all these
And more began that fall. Ravens flew round
The hospital in pairs. Where there was water,
We could hear the sound of beating clothes
All through the night. We could not count
All the miscarriages, the quarrels, the jealousies.
And one day in a field I saw
A swarm of frogs, swollen and hideous,
Hundreds upon hundreds, sitting on each other,
Huddled together, silent, ominous,
And heard the sound of rushing wind.
~ Weldon Kees

 

INJUN SUMMER
John T. McCutcheon
Chicago Tribune
September 30, 1907

Yep, sonny this is sure enough Injun summer. Don't know what that is, I reckon, do you? Well, that's when all the homesick Injuns come back to play; You know, a long time ago, long afore yer granddaddy was born even, there used to be heaps of Injuns around here—thousands—millions, I reckon, far as that's concerned. Reg'lar sure 'nough Injuns—none o' yer cigar store Injuns, not much. They wuz all around here—right here where you're standin'.

Don't be skeered—hain't none around here now, leastways no live ones. They been gone this many a year.

They all went away and died, so they ain't no more left.

But every year, 'long about now, they all come back, leastways their sperrits do. They're here now. You can see 'em off across the fields. Look real hard. See that kind o' hazy misty look out yonder? Well, them's Injuns—Injun sperrits marchin' along an' dancin' in the sunlight. That's what makes that kind o' haze that's everywhere—it's jest the sperrits of the Injuns all come back. They're all around us now.

See off yonder; see them tepees? They kind o' look like corn shocks from here, but them's Injun tents, sure as you're a foot high. See 'em now? Sure, I knowed you could. Smell that smoky sort o' smell in the air? That's the campfires a-burnin' and their pipes a-goin'.

Lots o' people say it's just leaves burnin', but it ain't. It's the campfires, an' th' Injuns are hoppin' 'round 'em t'beat the old Harry.

You jest come out here tonight when the moon is hangin' over the hill off yonder an' the harvest fields is all swimmin' in the moonlight, an' you can see the Injuns and the tepees jest as plain as kin be. You can, eh? I knowed you would after a little while.

Jever notice how the leaves turn red 'bout this time o' year? That's jest another sign o' redskins. That's when an old Injun sperrit gits tired dancin' an' goes up an' squats on a leaf t'rest. Why I kin hear 'em rustlin' an' whisper in' an' creepin' 'round among the leaves all the time; an' ever' once'n a while a leaf gives way under some fat old Injun ghost and comes floatin' down to the ground. See—here's one now. See how red it is? That's the war paint rubbed off'n an Injun ghost, sure's you're born.

Purty soon all the Injuns'll go marchin' away agin, back to the happy huntin' ground, but next year you'll see 'em troopin' back—th' sky jest hazy with 'em and their campfires smolderin' away jest like they are now.

 From his pipe the smoke ascending
Filled the sky with haze and vapor,
Filled the air with dreamy softness,
Gave a twinkle to the water,
Touched the rugged hills with smoothness,
Brought the tender Indian Summer
To the melancholy north-land,
In the dreary Moon of Snow-shoes.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
     Hiawatha, 1855

 

 

 

Oogum Boogum

When I met up with el jefe in Germany last summer, we rode around on a BMW motorcycle he had borrowed via a friend, a former German Air Force pilot he had met somewhere along the way who now worked for the vehicle company.  It was an R1200GS Adventure, which I thought was the ugliest motorcycle I had ever seen, but it took us from Ramstein to Schwarzenau in about two hours, something like 250 kilometers or so.  We were definitely moving, considering the traffic. But we got passed by other bikers as if we were standing still.
We got rained on during the trip and when we arrived at Gästehaus Schwarzenauer Mühle, our spotless and very German hotel, I was embarrassed to step into the lobby, dripping water off my Barbour jacket and pants, carrying my bug-spattered helmet, my boots leaving wet footprints.  Why couldn't el jefe have borrowed a car, I thought, but I didn't say anything. Men like adventure, women like comfort and never the twain shall meet.

Buffet at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard park.

When we were in Portsmouth, NH, later last summer, after our sail out to the Isles of Shoals we nosed around the Naval Shipyard and ran across folks having some sort of get-together at the base waterfront park.  They invited us to join them and partake of their buffet. Most of the folks were retired Navy chiefs with their spouses, but a number were active duty.
Some of the wives gave me the fish eye because of the way I was dressed as my underthings were still wet from my swim at the Isles of Shoals and I was going commando under my sundress, but their menfolk didn't seem to mind. I noticed some of the old geezers maneuvering down sun of me before approaching to chat or offer me a glass of wine. I knew why. It made me smile.  I was flattered.  After all, what's the point of watching your diet and keeping fit if no one notices? 
Anyway, the event was a fun way to end our stay in that charming port city.  I hope I can go back and visit it again. 

Once when I dropped by the house of one of my aunts to say hi, she invited me to come along with her to visit her friend who was stuck in an unpleasant marriage. We sat drinking Lipton tea and looking at the friend's old photo albums, high school yearbook and assorted memorabilia from her early years. She was strikingly good-looking in her youth, with wavy chestnut hair and hazel eyes. Many of the photos were of her with a stolid, glasses-wearing guy who was clearly not the person who became her husband.  She explained that he was her long-time junior high and high school boyfriend whom she assumed she would wed after graduation. They had even decided on the names for their children.
But then a handsome, smooth-talking fellow set his cap for her and took her away from him.  He got her pregnant and in those days that meant a shotgun wedding or shame and social ostracism. So the two became chained to each other. 
Her first love, whom she already regretted being lured away from, humiliated and repelled by what she had done, no longer even acknowledged her existence.  If he passed her on the street and she said hello to him, he snubbed her. 
So she made the best of the bed she had chosen to lie in, and for the first few years of her marriage things went well enough.  But it was clear that her husband didn't really care for her or her child. He became verbally abusive and belittling. He was a philanderer.
Why didn't you divorce him, I asked.  She said what would I do then?  She had no job skills, having quit high school to marry, and had a child to support.  She was totally dependent on her husband and had to stick with him, afraid that he would divorce her.  She couldn't go back to her parents because she had shamed them and they would have nothing to do with her.  So she retreated into a might-have-been world, a world in which she had rejected the handsome Lothario and stuck with the unexciting but devoted boyfriend.  How her life would have been different!
While thinking I had stumbled into a variation on a theme by Flaubert, I asked her what happened to her old boyfriend, expecting to hear that he had married well and was living an idyllic life.  But she told me he had become an alcoholic and had otherwise not done well in life.  She blamed herself.  Maybe, I thought, but also maybe he got over her and considered himself lucky to be rid of her and his later alcoholism had nothing to do with his old high school romance.  And if the man she did marry had been a good husband and father instead of what he was, maybe she would have forgotten all about her old beau.

 I remember the time when I was in Gotham City, Jr. that I blundered into a bordello while wandering around waiting for my uncle who was getting a haircut. It was disguised as a lingerie shop so I had no idea. It had some cute items in the window so I went in to browse. The proprietress wanted to sign me up and a customer wanted to.... 
As I stepped lively out of that joint I was horribly embarrassed by the thought that someone I knew would see me.  How could I explain what I was doing there? Why I assumed they would know what the place was I don't know. I probably figured everyone but dopey me knew.  And I was sure that gossips' tongues would wag. I could see my whole world crashing down as el jefe dropped-kicked my heinie to the moon and my parents disowned me and.... 
But nothing happened. 
I told el jefe what I did and he got a kick out of it, laughing and patting my knee as he said, "That's my Wanda."  But my mother, listening to my tale, caught my eye and shook her head as she gave me her patented, "I can't believe I gave birth to a child with no more brains than God gave a jackass" look.

 When el jefe was chatting with dad about our trip home from Europe, he asked about the thunderstorm we flew through in Wisconsin. Jeff said he responded, "Severe turbulence, rain, hail, noise, lightning, seat belt getting full exercise and colon preparing for full evacuation." I had not known he was that affected.  He appeared totally calm, voice natural and relaxed.  Chuck Yeager had nothing on him.  Ah, dad....

 

Reveille with Beverly

One of the unintended, perhaps unimaginable and certainly unexpected, consequences of American participation in World War II was the spread worldwide of American popular culture, in particular music, which has retained its influence ever since, cementing America's cultural dominance, but also American accents, idioms and lively slang, which most of the world had never heard.  And that music!  Who had heard anything like it before? Rocking clarinets, jiving coronets, wailing trumpets, swinging trombones and boogie-woogie pianos. Solid senders all!

This happened through the creation of the Armed Forces Radio Service, which set up AM broadcast stations in 54 countries, from Egypt to New Guinea, Australia to England, as well as making shortwave broadcasts that reached everywhere on earth, all filling the airwaves 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.  The purpose of the network was to be a morale booster for American troops overseas, most of whom were young, in their teens and twenties, so it broadcast the popular music of the day, swing and jazz from Tommy Dorsey, Cab Calloway, Glen Miller and Louis Armstrong, as well as comedy skits, radio plays and news of the home front.

Jean Ruth, aka Beverly of the Reveille.

The most popular AFRS  show with the GIs was "Reveille with Beverly," hosted by Jean Ruth, the world's first global disc jockey and the inventor of the listener-request format. Her broadcast was heard from Alaska to New Guinea, South Africa to Scotland and in all the ships at sea and planes in the air. Her show became so popular a movie was made about it.

When she was a 22-year-old student at the University of Colorado, Ruth convinced a local radio station to let her host a program aimed at draftees at local army camps. Shortly after she went on the air the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor and her show, first called "Beverly at Reveille," became hugely popular and was picked up by KNX in Los Angeles, then by Armed Forces Radio when the service was created in 1942.  Besides being broadcast in the States over AM radio and world-wide on shortwave, her program was recorded on big aluminum 78rpm disks able to handle an hour broadcast and flown to local AFRS stations around the world. So the program she recorded on Monday morning in Los Angeles would be heard in Nadzab, New Guinea, Foggia, Italy, and Framlingham, England, Tuesday morning.

Between 1941 and 1945, Ruth’s dawn broadcast reached an estimated 11 million allied servicemen daily, not to mention any number of foreign civilians. Her jumping and jiving show was even sometimes used as a replacement for the dawn bugle call that traditionally jarred troops out of their racks. Instead, they could wake up to some hot licks from Woody Herman as Jean would lilt, "Preach your sermon, Herman!"

After the first opening tune, Ruth would begin her show with her signature opening, “Heya, fellas, it's the USA. We’re ready with the stuff that makes you swing and sway."

Ruth posed for cute pin-up shots that she autographed and mailed to the boys overseas. Army Air Force crews voted her “The girl we’d most like to be trapped in the turret of a B-17 with.”

Armed Forces Radio (and long since Television, too, so AFRTS) is still going strong, reaching 168 countries worldwide these days, although it was renamed American Forces rather than Armed Forces in 2017.  I used to listen to it growing up as a Navy brat living overseas, especially in Japan -- Far East Network, Tokyo, 810 on your dial! -- but FEN was disestablished a while back and the service is now called American Forces Network Tokyo.

From the beginning AFRS has had a shadow audience of foreigners who listen to the

Those crazy AFRS boys! They made a movie of this -- Godzilla!

broadcasts.  I recall reading some years ago that FEN Tokyo had an audience of American servicemen numbered in the thousands while the number of Japanese nationals listening  was about a million and a half.  The mayor of Tokyo reportedly once complained that FEN played too much rock and roll and should play more classical music. The head of FEN responded that the station's audience was American servicemen, average age 19, who were away from home for the first time, in a strange foreign country, and the role of FEN was to provide something familiar to them, and play the music that they liked and had listened to at home. 

I can remember as a kid listening to the little spots FEN had scattered throughout its programs, rather like ads would be on a commercial radio station.  I think some of them must have been quite old, maybe decades.  Of course, they had up-to-date items as well, but these others were the ones I looked forward to listening to.  I learned how and when the time zones were established in the US, about the Pony Express, the Kentucky rifle, Sergeant York and Robert Smalls, and all sorts of people, events and things in one-minute featurettes. 

There was also a series of one-minute spots about different small towns and cities across the US, telling what they were like, mentioning local streets and stores and what was going on there (or had been a long time ago).  I still remember the ending sentence, which said, "But if you are from (Hometown), you already know this; we just wanted to remind you that it's still there."  That ending just so charmed me, and I wanted to visit each one of those small towns.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Photos of Jean Ruth's first radio show when it was still in Colorado from an early 1942 issue of Life magazine.

An episode of Reveille with Beverly.
It's a solid killer! Stomp your feet as you listen to Artie Shaw give!
I hear ya talkin', man!  What goes?  Get in that jump groove! Rock it!

If you liked that episode, enjoy a romp and stomp session with another hour of Beverly putting the needle in the groove and spinning those hot licks and mellow melodies.  It's coming to you but fast!