How Time Flies

I was reminded, yesterday, that it was fifty years ago that President Kennedy announced to the public that our nation was blockading Cuba. Aerial reconnaissance had revealed that missile bases were being established on Cuban soil - facilities so close to America that our nation was endangered. And I was there.

Not because I wanted to be. I had just returned from a Navy deployment in the Mediterranean. I was informed of our new departure right after lunch one day - told that we needed to be aboard the USS Enterprise in four hours. I called home and told Joyce to pack my bags. She responded that they hadn't really been unpacked and where was I going. We had been told that the ship was pulling out of Norfolk on a hurricane evacuation. That included my squadron's aircraft as well. I never stopped to ask myself, "Why do field engineers (civilians) have to go on a hurricane evacuation?

I did what I was told - skidded cruise boxes of support material down the stairs at NAS Oceana, rushed home and on to Pier 12 at NOB (naval operating base) Norfolk and shortly after we were under way out of Chesapeake Bay and into some rough weather. I began to think it was a hurricane evacuation. Until the next day.

Then came aircraft changes - A3J Vigilantes from Florida were flown off the ship - A-4 Skyhawks came aboard. The announcement came to us - "We're going to blockade Cuba and we have no idea how long it will take."  Communication from the ship to home was not allowed and so, knowing what we knew, we were unable to let our families know. That is, until they heard the Presidents announcement and all they knew then was that we were in harms way. That was hard on loved ones but that is service life and though we were civilians we were no different in our responsibility from any active duty Navy personnel in the same situation.

We remained on combat readiness for some time. The ship was assigned south of Cuba where we went back and forth between Cuba and Jamaica. Finally the Russians backed off. The tension of combat readiness eased and then boredom set in. We still maintained flight operations but it was obvious that the worst of the deployment was over. Now it became a waiting game. It finally ended not long before Christmas.

Now, fifty years later Enterprise is still sailing. It served in the Vietnam conflict. It served in the Middle East conflicts. But ships get old. Many ships do not maintain effective operations longer than 20 or so years of service, For Enterprise it's been over fifty. Newer ships have been deactivated but Enterprise sails on. I've heard she will be retired in 2013. If true, she will have amassed a significant record. And I'm proud to have been part of her history.

A Lovely Cottage in the Country

It's been a busy week. A couple of days ago we checked out houses that Vic and Amy have been looking at should his job keep him at Headqurters. Our greatest impressioin has been that the stories about the DC traffic appear to be true. To be sure, we haven't been in the capitol city itself yet - but Alexandria and Arlington traffic has convinced us that Indianapolis traffic isn't so bad after all.
Needless to say, the Beltway congestion has lived up to all the stories we've heard.

So, our visit yesterday to George Washington's home at Mount Vernon was a breath of fresh air. A lovely home with a marvelous history. There was a strong reminder that our first president had some great dreams for the future of our country.

The first time I ever saw Mount Vernon was way back in 1941, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. My dad was making a stop at the War Department to initiate his return to active duty in World War Two. The house itself remained as beautiful as ever, and this time we spent hours roaming the plantation rather than the few minutes we had in 1941. I loved the view from the front porch looking down over the Potomac River. It was easy to see what made the estate so special to Martha and George. (Am I being a little flip usaing their first names?)

But the trip was more than sightseeing trip - it was an emotional trip in history.
A reminder of where out country came from and the values that were so important in the formation of thiss nation.  One of my favorite reminders of the greatness of George Washington was a painting of the General at a dark moment of the Revolutionary war. I've included it in this blog because it says a great deal about our first president. A reminder that in our darkest moments prayer still matters. Even today - and maybe especially today.

On the Road Again - Again - Again....

We've completed a trek to the Washington DC area. The picture is a random one on Interstate 68 as we crossed from West Virginia to Maryland. It was a beautiful ride though the better half did not enjoy the winding roads even if the Interstate didn't have too much traffic. See, the problem is that we have gotten accustomed to the straight-as-an-arrow highways of the Midwest..

Then as we began to get complacent when we got down hill and the roads got straight - we discovered that there are a few other cars in the DC area. Actually - a lot of cars all moving at least 10, 20, or 30 miles an hour faster than we were going - and we were going the speed limit.

As I've said before, a GPS sure makes a trip a lot easier. We used the mode for quickest routing andall went well. That is, until we got close to Washington proper. Someone in the GPS programming department must have been to DC before because it kept routing me in any direction other than the Interstate. But I found they knew more than I did as they guided us down the Washington Memorial parkway. What a lovely ride with quick views of he Washington Monument and the Potomac River.
Not a chance for a picture - but it took us where we wanted to. Then we got a really good look at the Pentagon - nut not good enough for a picture.

But we got to Amy's - knocked on what we thought was her apartment door and guess what - Some
young guy who didn't look anything like Vic opened the door. (By the way, Vic was on the Gulf Coast on FEMA business  so we didn't expect some man) When it suddenly dawned on us that Amy lived in 306, not 305. Oops.

Making life more interesting - when we got to the apartment complex there was no daughter to be found - turns out I had said we were (according to the GPS) 20 minutes to destination (which I conveyed to Amy by cell phone) and which she thought afforded enough time to make a run to the store.  Another oops - but all ended well - complete with a slobbery welcome from Pippa - the tiny guard canine of the estate.

Anyway, we're here and have been surrounded by rain all day. Our wish for the evening:  better weather programmed for tomorrow and a good chance for capital (or is that capitol? photos.
Watch for then next exciting chapter.

WHERE, O WHERE, HAS MY BLOGSPOT GONE?

I had a computer glitch a few weeks back that necessitated my doing a lot of backtracking and reprogramming and restoring and has created situations involving some holy words not really worth putting into type. At any rate, I just wanted to ring out the tidings (glad I hope) that we will be back in the blog business and should have a few new ones for you in the next few days and weeks.

Meanwhile, tomorrow we will crank up the Caliber tomorrow morning and head out for Alexandria, Virginia and a visit with middle daughter Amy. Keep us in mind as we try to take in the Washington DC sights and we will try to come up with some pictures and text for your entertainment.

Thank you staying with us the past four years and welcome back.

Now, if I can just remember to get the laptop and power pack (just though of THAT) out of the confusion (sorry, I meant the COMPUTER) room and into the car.......

Tell Me Where To Go

Well, the title opens a lot of opportunity for someone to tell it like it is. But should you choose to do it now, I can assure you that you won't be the first, and most likely, not the last.

Any husband probably has experienced someone advising them what turn to make or what speed to drive at. Or the common statement wives sometimes make. "I told you so."

To ease the burden on my good half, I have invested in a new GPS (a global positioning something or other). The new one replaces an older model loaned out which was lost when a car was broken into.

I was very selective this time. True, no GPS unit is completely free of being stolen. But one can really compare to see which one has what seems to be the best capability and potential for the future. I checked out size, specifications, battery life, and supportability. But this time another factor was added: price. And, whether it was a new unit or a reconditioned one.

I won't name the manufacturer - they all produce good units but I finally made a choice. But then someone with doubt in mind said, "We better check it out to see how it works." So off we went yesterday for the proof test.

Now, I need to go back a few years to when we were given our first unit. We were using it to guide us on a long cross-country trip. For the most part I used it with a great deal of appreciation. But on the second day I didn't believe what it was saying when we sought directions to a daughter's house in Minnesota. We stumbled around a main highway with the GPS screaming out, "recalculate" or 'recompute" (I can't remember which but I know it was very insistent that I had made an error in my driving). First it kept saying, "turn around and go the other way." I kept thinking, 'that can't be right' and I became more and more frustrated. Eventually we called our daughter on our cell phone (which didn't always work) and had her meet us at a certain intersection. It turns out that the GPS was right - I just denied what it was telling me. I went through the same kind of exercise a few more times
eventually admitting that the GPS was right and I was wrong.

I little like the time in Florida when my good half remarked that we had passed a particular church before and it took another time around to realize that we were going in circles on the same route.

Anyway, yesterday's test worked perfectly. To be sure, it didn't warn me of a downtown festival in one town which required following detour signs. But the GPS kept following where I was and we ended up right where we wanted to be. It even guided us to a fast-food restaurant for lunch. And when I deviated from the projected route it accurately guided us back and compensated for any deviation pleasantly and accurately. Not once did it say "recalculate" or recompute" but it did get us home easily. And it never said a nasty word -
it just told me where to go. Even my good half liked it - so what more could a man ask for?

Meanwhile, Back to the Real World

We've gotten home from a vacation from retirement. Spent three weeks in our former home in Oscoda, Michigan which now belongs to our daughter who lives in Virginia. Needless to say, the house has sat idle for quite some time. We spent quite a bit of time painting, trimming shrubbery, repairing, and replacing. The picture below may tell some of the story.

I proved to myself (to my surprise, and to others) That there is still some life and limberness in the old body.

But I learned something else in the process. We had no TV service in the house. If I wanted to check e-mail or on-line banking I had to go somewhere that had a computer I could use since I had not brought my laptop with me. The Kindle son Jeff gave me gave some access to e-mail but I still needed a WiFi connection. I found, to my surprise, that life's stress levels went way down without television. I was reminded of the time, many years ago, when we had no electricity and there was little access to the outside world apart from personal contact. No soap operas - no mysteries - no 15 minute kid shows like Tom Mix or Jack Armstrong - and most of all, no news of any kind other than the weekly paper with all its gossip columns.

I found, in my three weeks in Michigan, that there was less stress, and more communication, and it was good.

When we got back and had all our modern systems available again that the stress level went back up again. Political stuff was filling the airwaves. Commercials were still as monotonous as ever. And the news was just as bad as ever. Then we became involved in the horror of the movie theater massacre.

For all the good TV has produced, it seems to me that the stresses and tensions of today's world that TV offers isn't always worth the time spent watching. Perhaps the same can be said for movies, and even music in today's world. I think at times I could easily and happily slip back into a life like when we had no electricity, no radio, no TV, but we had family communication. Alas, as one of our sons once said (and it is true), we live in a different world - and we have to live with progress and its products. But it is good once in a while to be put in a situation where God's quiet still rules.

School Daze

There are a lot of graduating classes celebrating exodus from high school this month. My graduation was sixty-seven years ago. The smiling faces of my class are shown above.

Sixty-seven years is a long time. I remember that we all had high hopes for the future. It had been a challenging four years. Three months into our Freshman year Pearl Harbor was bombed and our country became enveloped in World War Two. When we graduated it was a couple of months before the war ended. Several of my classmates were called to service in the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, or what was then called, the "Air Corps". Most came home - a few did not survive

In 1980 the class had a reunion. Most of the class was able to attend. I was the one who came the furthest. A few had passed away. a few were 'lost' - no one seemed to be able to track them down.
But I was able to recognize most of those who were there - a little older and perhaps a little chubbier. The cheerleaders were, for the most part, able to lead the school cheers albeit with a few protesting muscles and joints. My senior class English teacher, who later became principal of the high school, remarked to my wife that "Bruce is the last person I would have visualized becoming a minister".

One of my classmates, married to the son of the local Lutheran pastor, remarked that I should not bask in an ego trip in the ministry because she "knew what I was like when we were growing up together". I have no memories of knowing much about her in school. Maybe she was talking about mischief that some of us would get into and I confess that I did get into some mischief. I do recall that when I went to the reunion a few of my classmates were at the bar on the way back to the reunion room and one of them mistook me for a photographer from the paper - not a classmate. But if you go back to the yearbook, I was credited with being in charge of photography for the yearbook.

As I looked through the yearbook (a half-size volume intended to conserve paper for the war effort) I saw all of the projections and individual intentions of people. Moving around as much as I have over the sixty-seven years since graduation, I've lost touch with almost everyone. I've wondered how many classmates achieved the goals they set back in 1945. I know a lot of them had done well by the time of the reunion. One or two are on my internet list but I wonder what many of them have done in the meantime. I wonder, in fact, how many of us (now in our middle eighties) are still alive and I wonder, as well where they are and what they have done, or are doing with their lives.

There are those who say I dwell on the past. That those days are passed so why even think about them?  I don't dwell on the past - but I treasure good memories. My high school class was in school during a terrible time in history and we made the best of it. I am proud to have been a part of my high school class. I look at the picture and realize that it was a class filled with hope for the future. And it was a class filled with wonderful classmates. I am thankful to have known them, and treasure my memories of fifty-some young people who dreamed dreams and optimism for the days ahead. It's great to have memories celebrating positives - the world today is filled with too many negatives.