My father was a pilot of a B-17 flying out of England during WWII. I grew up with all the WWII stuff Dad brought back; knapsacks, goggles, oxygen masks, all kinds of pictures and other stuff. From all the movies of the time like “12 o’clock High”, I would have nightmares about being stuck in the bottom turret of the B-17 as it had to crash land.
I had only ever seen one in my life; and that was at a distance. I had missed all the air shows in Muskegon. Well, Executive Air along with the Yankee Air Museum brought a B-17 to Muskegon. They gave me a chance to actually get in one and fly. The price was out of my range but I did it anyway.
My fellow blogger The Muskegon Pundit was instrumental in ginning up local support. The rides were expensive but with Gordo’s help they not only had enough support for a flight but had Three. Thanks to Gordo for helping me make my childhood dream possible
Below is Gordo and HoneyBunch waking up with a cup of Java. Next the B-17 as it taxied up to us.
Click on all pics to enlarge.
I would like to say a few words about the crew that put this on. To start we had a continental breakfast set up on the runway. This introduced us to the idea that this was going to be a friendly and non formal type of thing. No cavity searches here. This was set up by Executive air.
The “Yankee Lady” crew and the Yankee Air Force museum in Ypsilanti, MI" crew were all low key and very friendly. They not only appreciated our money but our interest as well. I bought a coffee mug, tee shirt and hat.
Once on plane the feeling was the same. We sat where we were told; I was lucky and was given a seat right behind the Captain’s. Once airborne we were allowed to walk around and we rotated up to the nose section actually under the cockpit. What a view.
That is the Bomb sight in the nose and those shiny things in the next pic. Are the 50 caliber bullets snaking out of an ammo. box up to the two machine guns left and right of the bomb sight in the nose.
They also opened the bomb bay doors and we could all look down!!
Talk about bringing back my boy hood dreams. A big WOW is all I can say.
The rest of the Pics are pretty self explanatory; the guy in the red shirt is me and the guy next to me is Gordo. The hardest part of this post was narrowing the 100 pics down to just these. The photos of the land below remember, were taken from the cockpit with my arm against the Captains chair, right out the window he was looking through.
************************************************
After that I changed and picked up a 50’ bucket lift from Redi-Rental and went to work taking down the rest of the tree, part of which had “brushed” my fellow PD and friend’s house on 5th St. in the Hts. I’m putting this in just as another example of the high flying I did this weekend. Lol. This was also pretty informal, but a lot scarier. I had never ran one of these before or been up that high, outside of a building and not on solid ground. Sat. we managed to clean off all the branches except the very top ones which we saved for Sunday. Believe me I said my prayers that Sunday.
Any way with Larry’s help we managed to get the job done without wrecking either house, or fence or garden or wires.
The neighbors made a party of it; grilling up some good chow which they shared with us. The last thing Sunday we all got together to pull the 20’ trunk the direction we wanted it to fall as I finished cutting it. What a thump it made as it fell right where we wanted it to.
Click on pics to enlarge.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Monday back to Earth
Monday morning 10:30 marked our last visit from the Park and Rec kids coming from Nelson school to our “Love Garden”. The Love Garden run by Morning Bear, facilitated by Pastor Phillips and the Love Fellowship Community Baptist Church and all of us gardeners; put on a special picnic for the kids. We broke the kids up into groups of 5 and they picked a handful of lettuce, then an onion and a carrot which they took to a cleanup area, where some volunteers from the church cleaned off the veggies and the kids put them in their own bag with their name on it. We’re hoping they take them home, some will; all had fun.
Morning Bear out did even herself Monday. She harvested local mulberries and the rhubarb from the garden and baked two of the best pies I’ve tasted in a long time. She also made up some mulberry jam or syrup to put over angel food cake. Along with that were celery stalks with peanut butter, with apple juice as a refresher.
Keep your eyes open for the Muskegon Chronicle. They had a photographer , which I reported on, come over last week. Monday they had a writer and a photographer that stayed all day. They will be doing a feature article on our Garden.
A warm thanks to our two neighborhood police officers. They pulled up on their bikes and were there; helping us a lot by helping get the kids over to the garden. There was a scheduling mix up and a couple of uniformed officers tended to smooth things out efficiently. It was nice to see the police taking a hands on approach and it was obvious they were there to help us.
Again click on pics to enlarge and they are self explanatory.
Thanks if you stuck with me for your patience with this long post.
Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative
Ps. My daughter Liz Carr is a professional Disc Golf player. The World’s is in Kansas City this year for a week long tournament. Over 900 players from 12 countries will be playing on 11 different courses in and around KC. Liz is ranked on the tour this year at #10.
Last year the World’s was held for the first time in Michigan, Battle Creek to be exact and she came in 3rd. This year’s event started Tuesday and she is tied for 5th after one round. As in regular golf, the tour is long and global. Liz has several victories so far with the best being in the Lexington Tournement. She has 5 rounds of 18 hole golf to play yet. I’m wishing her well.
Link to Liz’s spot on Team Disc Craft
http://www.discraft.com/team_carr.html
PDGA link
http://www.pdga.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment