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Posted on 01/09/2017 5:51:03 PM PST by laurenmarlowe
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I guess I forgot about it being Blue Monday. I saw a few posts but it didn’t connect. I always think of our poor first responders who are trying to keep us safe and are in peril themselves. :(
This cop-killing has GOT to stop! I hope Trump makes good his promise that if Chicago doesn’t clean itself up, he’ll send the feds in to do it.
LOL, thanks for indulging me. Just brought back a lot of memories! I am in one of those moods tonight...
I have always been into aviation. The first book I ever read for pleasure when I was six, was “30 Seconds Over Tokyo”...and I was hooked.
I lived in Subic Bay when I was older, and at Cubi Point, whenever I was down a the beach, I would walk around on the tarmac above the beach, sticking my head into the wheel wells and exhausts. Every once in a while I spoke with a pilot, and one guy let me sit in the plane with his helmet, then grinning at me said “Watch when I take off!” then took off and did some aerobatics in his F-8 Crusader when he took off.
I love thinking about that now, there is no way I would be able to get near the planes like that now as a kid, but back then...nobody gave it a second thought.
Heh, I got picked up by a jeep and taken to the control tower building for walking across the active runway. I crossed it like I would cross a highway...I just paused, looked left, looked right and walked across. A jeep with a black checkered flag came out, two guys got out and grabbed me by each arm and took me into the building where some officer chewed me out. They asked who my dad was, and I gave a fake name and number because my dad was the XO, and he wouldn’t like getting a call.
I used to go down to the docks and try to get a sailor to take me on a tour of his ship...there were long hours of hanging around, but I got a few tours that way. I was just a junkie...:)
But one of the most memorable times was when my buddy and I went out to Oskosh, WI for the fly-in, and it was the 25th anniversary of the moon landings in 1994, and they had all the surviving Apollo astronauts there, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Frank Borman, the whole nine yards. The Gemini crews had some funny stories. one of the guys (Jim Lovell) was talking about how Borman used to completely suffocate him in the capsule with his “gas problem”...:)
Oddly enough, the most memorable part of the evening wasn’t actually the astronauts per se. This event was taking place in a large, covered outdoor amphitheater with open sides that was probably 100-200 yards away from the darkened twilight of the runway IIRC. Pretty close. As the astronauts were talking on stage, behind us (in the direction the astronauts were facing) there was an enormous roar. While one of the astronauts was in mid-sentence, the entire crowd ignored him and craned around to look. The Concorde took off, all four engines in full afterburner with four large cones of sharp blue flame stabbing the air behind it. It was deafening.
The thing that made it most memorable was not the Concorde, but the reaction of this famous astronaut in the middle of his reminiscing and story telling. He said over the microphone before he was drowned out “Go ahead and look! We are all looking up here on the stage too!”
It was wonderful. You can imagine that someone in his place on stage might get offended, but that was the last thing on his mind. He was like us, and even with all his years of flying and activity as an astronaut, he and his fellow astronauts still got a thrill out of that loud, hot spectacle of a giant plane taking off belching flame. I think every person in that crowd felt a degree of kinship, a common love of aviation with each other as peers with those men on the stage.
Ahhh, man! I would have LOVED to see a Concord take off! Or the Blackbird. That is my VERY favorite plane in the world! I was so ticked when they mothballed it.
My hubby took me to an airplane graveyard once at Sheppard AFB and it was a blast walking among all the planes that were not flying anymore. His favorite that we looked at was the B-66. He loves planes and had to tell me all about it and the others.
My favorite older plane is the Corsair.
You have some wonderful memories and a storytellers way of describing them! :)
((HUGS))Good morning, Ladies. Thanks for this morning's thread, Lauren. How's it going?
Lincoln Labs bump
Wow! The B-66! I was in the USN early enough to see a few of those fly off the carrier (the A-3 on which the B-66 was based)
We called the “The Whale” because they were so darned big for shipboard operations...:)
Good morning, Everyone.
Good morning to our
Military, our Allies, and their families.
Thank you, Lauren, for preparing the
Canteen for today’s activities.
Just checking in.
Not going on this road trip!
It's cold enough at the homestead.
Although, a warm up – albeit a temporary one – is on the way.
My Flame Girl will need a bath,
so in the next day or two I'll have to fight others
for a bay at the car wash.
Please stay.
Grab a cup of joe or tasty tea.
Chat with the military
and/or the family they left behind.
The FR Canteen is
Come on in and sit for a while.
There's always plenty of coffee, tea,
pancakes, conversation,
silliness,
and plain old BS
REMEMBER THEM ~ DEFENDERS OF FREEDOM
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and while the world slept...
and while the world slept...
and while the world slept...
((HUGS))Good morning, Beach. How’s it going?
December in Massachusetts is not fun, especially after a tour at Hickam! What a shock...
I know exactly what you’re saying; as a kid I’ve lived in the flight path at Wright-Patterson AFB (Ohio) and at Wheelus AFB (Libya).
You know you’re living a different life when your school bus route passes the live fire range for Sabre Jets.
Ha! Now THAT would be cool! (I would definitely be trying to climb over or crawl under some fence somewhere...of course, I was a stupid kid...:)
You were a brat like me, I see...:)
Yep...my problem was, I liked to run along after Ol’ Smoky Joe. That was the pest control truck at Wheelus. I wonder if I can claim service-connected disability with the VA from pesticide contamination when I was 7 years old?
((HUGS))Good morning LUV W. How’s it going?
LOL, we ALL did that! I remember breaking into an old abandoned building on the base, and ripping off a huge section of asbestos covering from around some pipes and throwing it against the wall...it would explode in a huge cloud of white asbestos dust, and be covered all over with it (probably breathing it in, too)
I also remember my brother found a small bottle of mercury (probably about 200ml) and he brought it home and we would pour it on the floor and into our hands...scoop it up with a sheet of paper and pour it back into the bottle when we were done. (to this day, me and my brother both have elevated liver functions and have had our whole adult life...probably caused by something like that)
But what are you gonna do? Such is the stupidity or ignorance of youth!
Howdy, EGC! ((((hugs))))
All is well here...nice and warm, though it’s kind of cloudy now. Looks colder than what it really is.
Hope you and Bo can get out today. Is it warmer than yesterday? I don’t imagine that there would be many turtles to find, but a nice walk clears the cobwebs. Sometimes that’s a good thing!
It’s a little warmer today. Good day to get out and do stuff.
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