KEVETCHING . . .

Please excuse me for venting (kvetching in Yiddish), but I am sooooooo completely sick and tired of all the hardware and software and just anything that can possibly go wrong going wrong with my Sony VAIO laptop that I bought the last day of the month of November 2011 from Best Buy.  Has been SUCH a lemon and I don't mind who knows it.  But some of it was my fault because it was on sale and a very new customer service associate at Best Buy said that Sony was re-calling that specific model, but I ignored him.

How many other times in my life have I opted for the cheapest or  a great buy only to be disappointed?  Why did I believe that I had to take what I could get and didn't deserve to have the best?

I found in faith that it is not about what we deserve or earn, but that the Lord blesses us.  When we think we are in power we only have ourselves to blame when things break or don't live up to our expectations.  That reminds me of something they tried to teach us at Air Force Officer Training School . . .the dictum was, "Never finagle your way to a new assignment because of the negative "bitch and moan factor" if things don't turn out well.  You only have your self to blame, but if you had nothing to do with it, you can blame whoever triggered the assignment coming up for you."

All in all, there are many times in life where the only real choice we have is how we can change our attitude toward something that happens or to someone who comes into our lives.

Christmas Joys

Lady Bird, our Enlish Springer Spaniel who was also part Irish setter, but could have fooled the American Kennel Club judges by sight if not through DNA tests, didn't just wag her tail whenever she saw our neighbor to the east of us.  She would wag her whole body.  The neighbors came to us when I was ten and the mysteries of a Kharman Ghia in the car park added to the extreme sadness we felt that the former owners, a family from Finland, moved a way from us to a house near the beach.  

The family from Finland were the reason we first found Tower Lakes because the dad of the house and our dad worked together.  Their dad was a doctor and worked in the medical research side of a company where our dad was a corrosion engineer in the industrial side of the company.  Dad would tease the doctor and call him Dr. Dr. because he had an M.D. and a Ph.D.  

The first time we walked into the house next door to the one that became our home one Sunday in the 1960s when we were house hunting because our Dad's and Dr. Laakso's company was relocating to Barrington, we had just oohed and ahhhhed our way around the roads of Tower Lakes  Every lovely vista we saw yielded to another vista even more beautiful. The lake appeared through the boughs of oak trees, and the little hills and curves of the roads were very charming. To our great surprise, there was a room at the end of the living room in the the doctor's house that faced the lake and had three floor-to-ceiling window walls, each ending in a planter plush with all sorts of tropical plants.

We had never see such a thing and it was so very marvelous we could hardly believe our eyes.  The Finnish neighbors have a daughter that is my brother's age and a son who is my sister's age, so we had built-in friends and guides to the strange new world that resembled our city life not in the least. Another son came along later to that family, but he sadly is no longer with us.

So we moved into the house in Tower Lakes on our sister Jennifer's birthday in the summer I turned ten, but we camped out in the house for a month before our furniture got there because Mom had some remodeling and decorating things she needed Dad to do first.

The behemoth of a furnace in the basement was taken out and we had a new heating system based on hot water moving through copper tubing that came into each room at the base of little registers. Dad also tore down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room and smashed out a second doorway to the stairs that led to the basement so that you could walk or run around the whole first floor.

He also painted the stuccoed walls and ceiling of the living room and dining room a very muted blanched out creamy orange.  The northern wall of the living room had a big stone fireplace, so all the worries I had had for Santa Claus' safety when we lived in a house on the south side of Chicago and the chimney ended in the coal burning furnace.

More to come when I get back from the health club . . .

White Christmas

"BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD" [Psalm 46:10 (NLT)]

​Three weeks before Krista, Tommy and I left Alaska in January of 1986, I went on a weekend retreat to a beautiful lodge in the Chugach Mountains near Anchorage with a group of women from Elmendorf Air Force Base's Protestant Women of the Chapel.  I was full of insecurity and worries since that weekend was also five weeks before I went off active duty in the Air Force, and three months of uncertainty before I was able to start working at Kennedy Space Center after the tragedy of the Challenger accident.

The theme of the retreat was "Be Still and Know that I am God."  One of the Protestant Air Force chaplains who happened to have fled Cuba with his family while he was in his teens led the retreat.

The first day of the retreat I took a walk in the darkness of that January winter night on the mountain top.  The city lights of  Anchorage were not visible since we were on the far side of the mountain.  And only a few very scattered houses showed any signs of civilization beyond the retreat center.

The stars of the Big Dipper seemed close enough to touch and the sky really was the luxuriant deep blue of the Alaskan state flag.  The air was very cold and very fresh.  The moon was full, shining brightly on the expanse of snow and ice below us and off into the distance as far as Mt Susitna.  Our view encompassed the beginning of the Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet.

The contrast between outlines of tundra forests outlined against the carpet of muted shimmering moonlight was lovely to behold.

Oh, what a night!

Earlier in the week a friend had told me to look up Psalm 46 and at the time I neither knew the theme of the retreat, nor did I have a my recollection of ever having read the psalm.  So I was touched by the "coincidence" that the same phrase that had stood out when I read the psalm was being used on the retreat as well.

Looking at coincidences as "God-incidences" for the first time came several years later.

The Lord blessed me with peace through the fellowship, teaching and worship of the whole weekend, but my memories of one part of our time together have been especially clear over the years.  That was a time of prayer during the first evening we were at the lodge on the mountain top.

Even though I grew up in a faith-filled family, at the time I mostly thought of God as remotely beneficent.  Except for a few crises and when I was pregnant with each of my kids through the times of their births and the early years of their childhood, my relationship with God was not very intimate.  And I certainly never really "let go and let God" unless circumstances were way beyond my control.

During that first night's prayer time, we all sat on chairs in a circle that included a podium and a table set up as an altar.  On either side of a Cross were two lit candles, the elements to celebrate Holy Communion and a Bible.

During the Communion service the chaplain gave each of us a chance to lift up prayer requests.  He reminded us that by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was present with us because of His promise that when two or more gathered together in His Name, He would be with them.

We were then asked to imagine that Jesus was standing in the middle of our circle. and that we were able to focus on Him as we prayed for one another, one at a time.

SNOW

Our first Hallowe'en in Alaska reminded us how much we were no longer in Florida. Eight or ten inches of snow fell.  Krista was eleven and Tom was nine.  Their costumes were totally overwhelmed by snow suits, boots and scarves.

That was a Friday and by Sunday morning when I attended chapel near our town house, both kids refused to go, still a bit miffed with me no longer to be living in our house with the pool three fourths of a mile from the Atlantic Ocean.  By the time I got home,Tom had all on his own found the little plastic Christmas tree. Unaware of the subtleties of little colored branch tips coordinated with holes in the main pole of the little tree, the result was unusualto say the least.

We kept it up, though.  Their dad was on a mountain top in Turkey as I said earlier, and they were going through a lot of the same kinds of things so many kids of service members experience.  Difficult transitions . . . re-acquiring friends . . . having to ice skate instead of swim . . . face to face encounters with moose.

Like all that.

Not that they hadn't gotten used to the snow.  We had arrived in Alaska on January 28th and Elmendorf had already had about eighty-three inches.  By mid-May when break-up and the melting began there had been over one hundred and twenty four inches.

The beep . . . beep . . . beep . . . of the snow clearing equipment when it backed up was constant day and night and it was very difficult to tell whether it was day or night any way.  The biggest pile of snow from the runways was christened "Mt Elmendorf" and didn't all the way melt until late August.

I miss the sounds and sights and smells of the snow and the jets, the cars and even the skates on the playground, sliding, scraping, knees bumping into boards, hockey sticks slapping along. . . pucks reverberating.

Because of the years in Florida and before that a while in Mississippi  . . . and even in Champaign-Urbana the snow had not been the same as the lake effect blizzards of Cook and Lake Counties.  I was glad to feel the crunch again and to experience all the different kinds of snow and ice combinations.

Three weeks after we arrived in Anchorage, after Mom went back home from helping us travel up there and settle in, after our first Fur Rendezvous, after the daily sunlight was adding up more and more, although bit by bit, the kids came to me and said, "We want to go back home now."

The pool back in Florida was probably warm enough to swim in again.  They were both like fish and had enjoyed that life very much, as had we all.

"Oh," looking at them sideways, "Didn't I make it clear that we were here for three years?"

They wouldn't speak to me for a few days.  For a few weeks they refused to even try downhill skiing.  For a few months they wouldn't use their skates or their cross country skis.

When the other children were wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts they pulled shorts for soccer games over their jeans and wore jackets.  We had perpetual sniffles for the whole first year.  Such a SHOCK to our bodies.

By mid November they had almost forgiven me and joined in with their friends doing all the fun activities. Skiing . . . sledding . . . skating . . . spending all Sunday at the only mall.  

Nordstroms!

Another pair of officers married to each other had a daughter Krista's age. They worked in the group the kids' dad came to when he finished up in Turkey.  Our families combined together in many ways and we are still blessed to be in touch.

Snow

LIEUTENANTS AND CHIEFS

Because twenty-seven was more than abnormally old for a second lieutenant, and because I was a child bride, my kids were both born by the time I was twenty-one and a half. 

By the time we arrived in Alaska for my second post-initiation and career school assignment, coming into the environment of the big family of a tactical fighter wing, my kids were the same ages of a lot of the kids of the majors, the lieutenant colonels and even some of the colonels I worked for and with in the gorgeous, sometimes very icy place. 


Because of all that there were some interesting professional protocols versus personal protocols that had to be worked out to keep everything in proper order and above board.

So if my daughter was going to spend the night at her friend's house . . . or go to the movies or go bowling or go skiing . . . or go salmon fishing or go camping or go and do whatever with one or more of her buddies, it was possible that the man who showed up to ferry them wherever they were going . . . or that the guy who answered the door to a big house on base or at a beautiful house along the Eagle River was someone I called "Colonel," or "Major," or "sir" during our sometimes very long work weeks in various places in the world, but especially in the Great Land.

But he (or they) when in plain clothes . . . about to be the chauffer of pre-teens or teens . . . (same thing for my son going to soccer practices or sledding or skiing or fishing and all those other manly frontier kinds of things) . . . well , those majors and colonels and lieutenant colonels might be Pete, George or Joe, Henry, Chuck.

And I was allowed to call most of them that, though it had to be worked out and they had to give permission.

You get the idea.

It wasn't confusing because the obvious parameters of environment, uniforms and the presence of co-workers, all in the very rigid chains of command that were made obvious when and where whoever needed to be called what.

With respect.

One confusing point, though, was that I got divorced and took back my maiden name the same summer I became an air force captain. So I would answer my phone in the official way, "Good morning, Intelligence, Captain Harris speaking."

And the person on the other end of the line would query, "I wanted to talk to Lieutenant Brown."

"You are talking to her."

Big grins and snickers for the first five or six times from our senior master sergeant, our tech sergeant, and our young airman from Guam, but not from our admin sergeant from an island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. She was a bit more no-nonsense than the rest of us, but as sweet as possible.

And it was always fun to call Navy friends to catch up or check on an exercise and say that Captain Harris was waiting to talk with them. Snappier and more rapid replies than when I was Lieutenant Brown.

(In case you are not up on the rank system of the US armed forces, an air force captain is and O-3--the third level of the officer ranks. But in the US Navy, a Captain is an O-6--a MUCH bigger deal.)

Also, just to round it out, a navy 0-1 is an ensign while an air force O-1 is a 2nd lieutenant. A navy O-2 is a lieutenant, junior grade or j.g. while an air force O-2 is a 1st Lieutenant. And a navy O-3 is a lieutenant while as you have seen above, the air force O-3 is a captain.

Okay. If I lost you, sorry about that.

Never mind.

Back to the frozen north -- in the dark of the Alaskan winter it was more difficult than ever to wake up first thing in the morning. I always say that I don't really get my self together until at least 10 am no matter when I get out of bed. Find my self doing a whole bunch of activities in my sleep.

And if six years on active duty in the military couldn't change that, not much else could.

(For instance, unit tests at intelligence school were given right when we arrived at 0630. Good thing they were multiple guess, mostly.)

So the downside was always that I really have not very many polite social skills until I am all the way awake.

Really.

Our wonderful sharp, clever, West Virginian tech sergeant had been an instructor at intelligence school (enlisted portion) when I was there in Denver before either of us came to be stationed in Alaska. So she not only knew much more about tactical intelligence and fighter pilots than I did before coming up to Elmendorf AFB . . . she also thought she knew about me and my intel school classmates -- grist for the rumor mill.

(Again, in case you are unfamiliar with the way the military services work, at first I been involved in nuclear treaty monitoring which takes a whole different set of skills and training compared to working with jet fighter pilots.)

My desk was in the farthest corner from the door into our office. Our tech sergeant sat across from me and the other desks were around the room, though our boss had a small office under the eaves just so he was sure to have a door of his own to close.

Often one or more of the pilots from one of the squadrons would have some early morning business with us before he needed to brief, before going out to fly. The office door would be flung open and he or they would stride purposefully into the room, aiming for my desk.

Before he or they would get a third of the way across the room, our tech sergeant would say something like, "You're really sure you want to talk to HER so early in the morning?"

Other than a sly look that might have been interpreted "I'll get you for that later," I think I was as normal and courteous and professional as possible.

(You decide.)

That became more difficult, however, as the winter stretched into its fourth and fifth months.

(I may have mentioned before this that during the thirty six months I was stationed in Alaska, twenty-seven months or so were winter.)

Most of the time we could be fairly cheery until Christmas, but as the beginning of January oppressed us we found that cabin fever is not just one person holed up in a place to protect him or herself from the cold and iciness . . . becoming depressed,etc. The grumpiness and hopelessness, etc., was compounded because almost everyone felt that way, the time and snow and bleakness laying out before us until mid-May . . . or longer. We never knew how long.

And the only hope we had was if there was a deployment to any place south.

We got lucky.

Most of us went to Vegas. Some of us went to Korea and Japan. A few of us went to the top of the Gulf of Mexico.

And the luckiest, who lorded it over the rest of us, went to Hawaii.

Living with almost forty jet fighter pilots can be very strenuous.

(That's one of the biggest understatements you will ever read.)

The most difficult part of the whole problem right at first was that the wing had transitioned to a new aircraft and the first readiness inspection, which happened a few months before I arrived, did not go well. The solution was that we had to exercise, exercise, exercise.

We got called in at 2 am.

We got called back as we were about to leave the base.

We got called in at 10 pm.

We were working 20 to 22 hours a day for three days . . . for ten days . . . for four days with five days off and then another three weeks.

We had a telephone tree re-call system. The F-15 pilot who called me so I could pass on the need to get back to base was not one of my favorite friends -- his call sign was Rowdy.

(It's a long story . . . forgiven and reconciled as far as I know.)

For some reason when we moved off base to Eagle River, my landlord wouldn't allow me to put a phone in the bedroom.

(Remember those good olden days when a phone had to be plugged into a wall? Sure you do.)

So Rowdy called me all right, but the phone was in the kitchen and I didn't hear it ring at 0220. Strolling into the office at around 0720 caused quite a stir and we were afraid we were going to have to peal our boss off the ceiling.

But I said, "Well . . . when the balloon really does go up and we are in big trouble, there also may be some who don't get the message."

(Had a sneaking suspicion that something might be up long before I got to the base anyway . . . very little traffic.)

One of those "ULP!" moments, even though as I relate it now it sounds like I am being flippant.

And then also we had two three star changes of command where we had to practice marching again to say good-bye and hello to some Alaskan Air Command generals. Even the guys who had marched around for four or more years at the Air Force Academy needed to get with it again. 

The powers that were in charge were concerned about the light summer mountain rains that could end up to be big thunder storms and for each big ceremony we mostly stood around in formation at attention and at ease any way.

(They didn't really trust us not to mess up, maybe.)

(It was almost as much fun to see all the television news anchors as it was to see President and Mrs Reagan.)

And was fun to get a tour of the inside of Air Force One.

Was amazing to fly on the AWACS.

Was very very awesome to be the first woman to ride and fly (but not land) an F-15 at operational parameters going faster than the speed of sound several times while involved in an air combat training mission with eight planes over the Alaska Air spaces not far from Mt McKinley.

(This was due to kind commanders and the fact that i was qualified to use oxygen, and to eject out of the aircraft because I had been a non-rated air crew member during my first assignment. I know I have mentioned it before this, right?)

Thinking about it a lot now probably because the winter is drawing nigh, triggering memories. Thanks for taking the time to allow me to tell you all about them.

And it's so fun to see more and more friends from those days on Facebook.

And also to see in person and on Facebook the pages of friends of my kids, too.

I was the soccer coach for my son's indoor soccer team (as I had been for the outdoor team, too). This was related to the fact that my kids' dad was on a mountain top in Turkey for a year without us serving a remote assignment . . . he had been the coach of soccer teams for our son and of softball teams for our daughter, so I was trying to keep up the tradition.

The ops officer of one of the squadrons had two sons on the opposing team one dark winter school night during an indoor soccer game. I happened to be standing next to the ops officer during halftime when his boys ran up and commented about what they felt they needed to do to keep Tom from scoring.

(He was very fast and always instinctively knew what any kind of ball was going to do.)

It wasn't very nice . . . though of course they were just ten and eleven and were being brought up to be competitive. Their dad looked down at them and said,"Ah . . . that's Tom's mom," pointing to me.
They apologized of course.

I was happy we won the game after that.

(Competitiveness can extend over the gender line.)

Now I am wondering if the aurora borealis is visible tonight. I miss seeing that amazing beauty.

Don't YOU miss going to Alaska when you have a chance, please.

As is so much of this wonderful earth, the beauty there is beyond belief and description.

MERRY MELE

The little stone grotto had a stone bench across from the sculptural depicting of Mary, Jesus' mother with her gentle shy modest expression and hands at her sides, but turned out, welcoming. Her back was to the stone wall and there was not much space between the cocoon-like alcove and the lowest braces of the A-frame chapel named after one of the first Medal of Honor winners of World War II.  Underneath the brush of piles of long needled iron wood trees, sticks, twigs, and grass the pearly white volcanic sand was shuffle-able.

Leaving the chapel and the grotto after 2100 hours on a clear winter night meant that even the delicate sand reflected the rising quarter-moon and the stars shining more than brightly -- shimmering, lighting the waves, illuminating the wind, coloring the upper edges of needles and branches still on the trees like canopies over the road ways . . . the spaces in between dotted with huge albatross nests, their very large eggs visible if one or the other parent was not occupied on it.

The huge ungainly birds were busy with a myriad of tasks accompanied always by lots and lots of commentary, gossip, exclamations, clicks, clacks and something like afar off whiny of a miniature horse.  The illusion of riding along mid-Pacific was most closely evident as we approached the beach near the O Club where our chief wonk had posted a large sign over the bar reading ___(fill in the blank)___ days --"LET MY PEOPLE GO!"  

To the west of the O club beach was the long Navy pier extending deep into the opening of the crater, but access to the docking facility itself had been carved out of the smallest ledge of the volcano's northwestern ridge.  Walking out to sit on the end of it with the island busy with big birds, ruffled Navy personnel loathe to share their space with over 300 intruders, most of them not even Navy folks . . . there was only the ocean, the sky and the faint ridge of Sand Island.  Water that seemed and amazing turquoise during the day because of the irridescent sand was mottled and burgeoned with bright shoals and deep deep dark centers.  

And fish.

Dolphins sometimes.

A seal or two beached up to rest if you kept walking.  

But jet lag wasn't enough of an excuse to be 2200 . . . 2315 . . . 0230 still sitting on the edge of the dock.  Listening for night birds . . . wondering if the albatross ever quieted down. (Yes, maybe for an hour or so in the very darkest midst of the night, but they always began their cacophony again with the slightest hint of the beginnings of the sunrise.

"Okay, well, so . . . if we're here the usual five weeks or so, we have enough time to plan and rehears a rendition of 'South Pacific,' right?"

Glares and a grimace or two in return.

"We'd rather not."

This was the last little bit of terra firma before the International Date Line. . .  around 30 degrees north latitude -- about the same as Biloxi, Mississippi or so. 

And the iron wood trees DID remind me of the cypress somewhat.

There were also mice.  I guess they came from ships.  Dirt had been brought from Australia in the early 1900s,so the ironwoods and other trees,shrubs and grasses came from "down under."  

She was so restless she decided to go back to the hangar and check the message traffic, walking down the main shell-filled roadway, past the flag pole and the required anchor, past the ship's store, past the scattered VOQ, Navy Lodge buildings, the few houses still left. . . . out from the trees through the path that cut the field between the groves of trees and the hangar, the hangar and the tarmac, the tarmac and the runways.  

Pulling open the biggest door and taking the steps to the OPCON two at a time . . . no lights except in the hallways. no sign of anyone else outside . . . pressed in the catch code, opening the flimsy fiberglass and thick aluminum door to see the map table and the message boards, a few chairs and quiet except for the ticky tack of morse code somewhere else down the hall.

Nothing much new that she hadn't already read after chow.  Waiting.

Waiting.

Time to go back.  Time to try to sleep.  

The short cut back to the Navy lodge was through the iron wood groves where cement slabs that had been the foundations of houses lurked unbeknownst until a week and a half after they got there when there had been a cold snap and the huge pointsettias that had graced the landscaping of the houses emerged magically almost-- bright red and playing hide and seek with the other under brush.

Was really surprised.

Shocked.

Trying to be as quiet as possible coming back into the Navy Lodge.  Everyone else was jet-lagging, too.  Opening the door to her room . . . moving as little as possible, turning on the water to brush my teeth and wash my face as little as possible, quietly putting on her  pjs and finally getting ready to fall asleep.

Dreaming of someone whispering iin her ear.

Or a mosquito?

No.

Some other time before 0700 heading back groggily to get a drink from the bathroom sink and aha!

A mouse was on her pillow.

So much for the gentle intimate whispers in her ear.

Then the bird noise and the noise of one bus and two jeeps were drowned out by the sounds of four props with a fairly high pitch --the P-3s.  Or the lumbering lower groans and deeper whines of the C-130s.

Who was still coming?  The C-141 Starlifter that brought us had headed back long before.

Alarm blaring . . . stumbling up to shower, spiffily turned out in dress blues.  Don't forget anything.

Walking briskly to the chow hall.  Going through the breakfast line.  Greeting crew mates . .  laughing joking.  Or not.

Quiet early morning.  Still getting used to Navy rank . . .identifying air crews or ground crews or the permanently stationed sailors.  Walking into the little area with screens around it for "Os"only.  

Silly.

But the Navy folks said, "No!"  

Not silly.

If you knew how little private space there is on a ship.  If you knew how hard it is to keep rank and position straight in life or death situations.  If you knew what was behind Captain Bligh and Captain Quigley, you wouldn't question us Miss.

(Miss??! But she was an air force lieutenant.)

"Don't you remember 'Mr. Roberts,' Miss?"

Okay.

Ma'am.

Lieutenant.

Who has any equipment to use in the gym?  The tennis courts?  The racket ball courts?

Who has the key to the boat house where the sailing Lasers are?

Let's go down to the Pan Am Clipper Hotel Library and take out a book on the history of Midway.  Or "Clan of the Cave Bears."

Or something.

A tour of the Pan Am crew quarters ghost buildings, all cement and over grown with all the vines and grasses and crawling plants can be planned after the duty day.

Can she go out with the P-3 crews?  No.

CINCPAC doesn't let women on his airplanes.

Oh.

Never mind.  The C-130 crews want to take her along to get ready for the op anyway.

And right before midday chow the most surprising invitation of all from a senior chief to come to the Chief's club that night.  No other Os were going.  They told her they almost never got invited.

No matter who had whatever rank, it was the Navy chiefs who really got things done on land, on the sea, and in the air(except for single seat air craft or other planes with smaller crews -- but the chiefs still got 'em flying and kept 'em flying and all that.

Being invited by some air crew guys to come to their picnic and meet their chief was a little like being brought home to be vetted by mama.

And there was Pachinko in the Chief's Club.  And Acey Duecey and darts as usual.  Usual bar and drinks and tables and snacks.  Very different atmosphere though and she could never tell if they were teasing or humoring her or both.

Usually after a few minutes of conversation about the ops or what had been happening or what she was doing there or something, all of a sudden the expression on the experienced service man would change.  A look that said, "Whoa!  I just really saw you."

"Who ARE you?"

And maybe intrigue.  Not too often admiration.  Possibly giving her a chance he never thought he would have imagined giving to a female.

WOMAN!

Twenty-one days before Christmas and almost thirty afterwards, clinging to the sandy rock lip of the volcano . . . flying from time to time . . . seeing the Southern Cross for the first time when taking off about 0330 into the south/southwest . . . the glow of brightness as the cross leaned on the cusp of the curved horizon gliding up to altitude.

How is it that they say, "Merry Christmas" in Hawaiian again?

Southern Cross

Ask one of the Chiefs.

DESERT BLOOMS

The flat brown dusty plain emitted a mid-morning grey haze as the outlines of the sunrise ridges appeared. Already the sounds of an assortment of processors echoed along the flight lines and the hangars.  Already sleepy eyes were being opened and noses twitched to the infusion of the raw inky caffeine.  Snaking across the tarmac and the concrete and the asphalt were lines of electricity, lines of fuel, lines of chains rolled up and wrapped up.

Long before the sun became bright the underwear came on, the t-shirts were pulled over heads, the flight suits were drawn over ankles, over knees, up hips, hands and arms into sleeves, zippers zipped, pockets checked, life vests pulled on, helmets proved, face masks cleared . . . jump boots pulled on over thick socks and dog tags tucked between cotton and no-mex.  Short hair . . . wet from the shower, covered with the cloth cap . . . sitting in the briefing room . . . finding out the assigned step time, the assigned take off time . . . conversations with maintenance crew chiefs, a last phone call to check on how everyone was at home.

Everyone wearing their proper duty uniform, well identified, sure of their tasks, glad to be part of the unit, part of the mission.  Part of it all.

Ordinance loaded . . . radars checked and double checked. . . confirmation that the FOD runs had been made.  

No more talk of last night at Caesar's, the first I-Max movie, who really flew the F-15 (Mark did).

Briefed . . . stepped . . . checked . . . double-checked . . . cleared . . . saluted . . . the quiet slightly bouncing treks to the end of the runways, the huge noise and thunder and rumble of the take offs.

The fighters, the bombers, the helos, the transports . . . surprised by the joy of seeing a C-130 crew who had last been flying over miles and miles of the Pacific together doing something way different, invited to spend time with them jinking between the mountains, 25 feet above the desert floor, going out of area to refuel helos in the heat and dust . . . breathing in the JP-4 . . . Area 51 . . . etc.  Puking only at rest when the gas fumes clouded in.  All relative.

The new operations building air conditioning system was not working yet so it was hotter and stuffier than the 110 degree heat in midday.  

Deal with it.

"The next time I reach for a styrofoam cup of coffee and it turns out to be full of tobacco chew dregs, someone is going to pay!"

And Buffalo meant it . . . Chaw chewers shook in their flight boots.  Tobacco free folks just grinned.

Then they planes began to come home and it was a thing of beauty to watch them in their orderly fashion: a four-ship flying the pattern and then drifting off one by one as if they were marbles rolling down the sloping sides of an imaginary structure. Power to land, cut power to glide to a halt, turn off the runway . . . do everything backward from the way it had been done oh so early in another part of the desert day.  Don't touch wings, stay away from the APCs, watch out for who is passing you off to whom.

Yes.  Again. 

Watch the guides, slow down, turn, watch the guides. . . pop the canopy, release the seat restraints, sitting in a pool of sweat . . . drops of salty wetness inching down the neck, helmet hair . . . flush from an hour and a half on 80% oxygen or more. Chalks in place.

Relief.

 ENERgized . . . and exhausted.

Turn in the face mask, thank the crew chiefs, greet the step  van drivers . . . wait for the rest of the flight.  Some ice water from the barrel by the ops desk.  Flirt with the ops chicks.  Raised eyebrows, rolled eyes.  No AGAIN!

Decompressing from the approaches to the sound barrier and beyond, remembering what had gone too fast to really notice . . . glad to be safe on earth again, still yearning for the freedom of flight again.  Funny to walk instead of moving feet to help fly . . . torque . . . yaw . . . pitch . . . roll . . . stall . . . quick g's and the thrill of a descending turn with three or four planes in sight from various angles and where was the ground again?

Ablutions and attention to physical needs then into the debriefing . . . words, film, electronic verification . . .

"I shot you first!"

"No, I shot YOU first!"

Right.

Everyone safe.  Everyone home.

Tomorrow morning the Navy guys will be doing a presentation about carrier take-offs and landings.

Film of about twelve or fifteen incidents and the narration to go along with it.  Some so glad they had chosen blue, for sure willing to say that it was much more dangerous on a rolling pitching platform in the middle of the drink . . . but not out loud all the time.

"Questions?"

An air force pilot -- "How much time was it that you had all those times of falling off the boat or crashing into the drink?"

"On, that was just one of the guard weekends."

Surprise,.

Shock.

No, really .  He was just kidding.

Deceased insects.

Later the phone calls. Soul friend from China Lake.  From Pt Mugu.  From points east.  Always the same..  So good to hear your voice.

Just relax and breathe.  Glad you are safe.

Black t-shirts with fantastic schematics of jets visible in black light.

Why do I get to be the driver every time we go to Vegas?  Circus Circus.  Starlight. Dean Martin in person.

The Duke's Sophisticated Ladies.

Two deployments mixed up into one set of memories . . . the first was in the late spring, the second in early fall a few years later.  

Combat naps.

Permission to fly to LAX . . . picked up by a Navy guy . . . a day at Mugu . . . this about that . . . serious talk about the line between mission and personal or all bets are off . . . a day with the navy intel guy . . . a ride up and down the Big Sur hills and then back to LAX, back to Nellis.  One big huge anti-ship missile.  Amazing.

Back to the next day of 110 degrees and no air inside the ops building.  So much sweat out of every pore, slick and smooth and drowning in between the various cloth coverings of our bodies.  

The morning flights, the afternoon flights . . . the electronic parts.  All the other information about the good guys and the bad guys . . . bandits . . . too much altitude not possible . . . not enough altitude, not good.

Gambling.

Drinking.

Dancing

Eating.

The O Club for dinner and then for just re-hashing the day . . . stay long enough and they kicked you out and there were some who wanted to go to Sunrise Cedars so the guy with reddish hair was explaining how to get there, because I was still the designated driver and he was using his hands as if he was describing flying even though he was giving ground directions for the drive . . . and I said, 

"Where are you from?"

"Chicago"

"No, what high school?"

"Barrington"

"You know my brother George."

(But my name tag had my married name, so there was still more explaining.) 

And  then the guy lifted up one hand over his head and said, "Tall. Left-handed."

Right!

You have to be from my home town to understand how unusual it was for two people who graduated within three or four years from our high school to be in the military, to be in the same service, to be working with the same kind of plane, to be at the same base, to be in the O Club. . . to be planning to watch the sunrise over the mountains on the edge of Lake Mead.

Or maybe you have some similar kind of serendipitous story. 

And then still some communication from the soul mate and never worrying how often or how long or when would or might be next.  Because the dreams and the deja vu were more real than the hot hot desert and the meals at Olive Garden and the visit to the Soviet/UNLV basketball game, listening to all the ways the coach said the same things to each team, but in English and in Russian.  Dreams and reality blended together and there was no fine line similar to the way the dust rolled up and then you couldn't tell if it was a real oil slick or just your imagination.

Walking across the parking lot in the desert spring with just the slightest hint of the smell of some desert flower, a full moon and easily catching a hand like it was always going to be like that and would be again, but even if not . . .

Whatever.

"I get a peaceful, easy feeling" . . . you know the rest.

Peaceful Easy Feeling

SAME SIZED HANDS

Even now she could put her hands up and out in front of her as if he was sitting across from her and palm to palm, what was so amazing was that their hands were exactly the same size.

Even now though he was on the other side of the veil, the touch points of nerves from finger tips, base of the place where the fingers joined the palms, all along the edges of the pads to the edge of each wrist if she reached out to connect with him, he was always there.

Even now when it would seem like the memories would have long ago faded a smell or a hint of something out of the corner of her eye or the way someone gave a thumbs up could trigger that feeling of yearning and the impressions of his presence.

A big rectangle of  bright white mid-afternoon desert light spread several yards into the hallway and morphed into a full flash square as the door opened and two figures moved from the invisibility of the light into the shadows of the long corridor.  Helmet bags, flight jackets, and jump boots lined out the silhouettes but there was something more special about the figure on the right.  She made a quick ballet jete right turn and skipped back to the break room very aware that they were both taking her in and very aware they would meet in person in due time.

The others just wasting time waiting for the O Club dining room to open . . . only two days left of the two week course and no home work . . . and the beautiful spring desert afternoon no longer enticing and way past being done with the pool and watching jets and transports and helos take off and land.   But the most noticeable thing about the guys after seeing dozens of guys in flight suits was that they were naval aviators, not air force.  

In one of those lovely serendipitous occurrences, two friends from her earliest days on active duty showed up in the new course.  So that was a lovely connection.  Old stories told to the new people and new stories shared with the old friends.  Surprise and familiarity encroached and enfolded at the same and alternate times.

So the tension was almost delectable waiting for the one on the right to come down and of course he did and of course he  addressed the pop machine and a can of cool refreshing Orange Crush came down with a thunk.

What were the patches?  What was he flying?  What were they doing there?  

He turned a chair around and sat on it as if he had mounted a horse even though he had taken off his chaps, his flight jacket, and of course had not brought his helmet bag with him.

Besides the difference in the collars of the flight jackets, the naval aviators wore mock turtleneck knit shirts under their flight suits. . . . so that had been another indicator.  The conversation was lively and she reached out to rub his neck knowing what it was like to have been in the helmet and in the confined space of the cockpit, but really just wanting to touch him.  And the new friends and the old friends exchanged knowing smiles of the there-she-goes-again variety.

She had heard about soul mates before but the reality was at once more familiar and the strangest it could possibly be.  They knew the sounds of their voices and the sighs of satisfaction because the manifestation had finally been realized.

So even now she felt as if everything she knew or would ever know about him and about life and love and the cognition of eternity had always been ready to be seen by just picking up the telescope or gazing into the mirror of his eyes.

WINTER IN TOWER LAKES

Sometimes the lake would freeze without any snow and over a few windless days.  The dark surface would be punctuated by circles that seemed like large eyes looking up from the depths-- well only about fifteen to twenty feet at the most.  The "eyes' were from the springs.    Stepping off the backyard onto the ice with skates on was tricky because of the low rock wall, but once on the glassy surface, we could glide and race all over.

We could go hand over hand under the big suspension bridge and we only had to be very careful down by the dam where the running water kept the ice thinner.  Lady Bird fell into the icy water once when Mom and Dad were taking her for a walk and Dad laid down on the ice and saved her.

A sweet liver and white springer spaniel/Irish setter mix, Lady loved to roll in the snow and never minded how cold it was.  Little snow balls would affix themselves to the edges of her fringe under her tummy and long white tail.

Sometimes we went out with just a few sweaters, mittens, scarves and a knit hat.  We imagined ourselves Hans Brinker or Peggy Fleming.

We had a cat who loved to dance and jump on the snow-less ice in the moonlight, and the lovely muted tones of Christmas lights shone very differently on crusty ice-glazed snow, on piled up blizzardy snow and on the snow-less ice.

The little suspension bridge between Beach Island and Rest Island had lights as did the huge pine trees on Rest Island, lights suggesting a stylized tree connected to the flagpole, and lights on both wooden bridges.

The lake full of snow was always the best place to make angels and wow! Did we ever have fun when the snow was wettest and heaviest and at that temperature when it was still warm enough to be able to form into bricks for snow forts and for snow people.

The toboggan slide was across the lake from our house.  Boy Scouts helped to build it.  In the months that were not winter you could see that the steps up were made with wooden boards against the packed earth, held in place by long metal staves.  But once the snow and ice covered them, they just looked like an elegant white staircase.

We clumped, clumped, clumped up the steps dragging the toboggan behind us and got in line.  There was a fine tuning to the seating assignments.  The slide itself was packed with snow and ice and after the weather had been between 10 above zero and ten below zero for a while -- and then a light snow having fallen in the night . . . that was the BEST.  The person sitting up in the front looked like he or she was flocked with a fine coating of cold dust.  We had contests to see which ride would go the longest.

When there was three inches to ten inches of snow after the ice on lake had been over twelve inches thick and we had heard that the caretaker had driven his truck on it, we were free to make an ice rink and that was the easiest.  The boys often got hockey sticks and pucks for Christmas and often some of the dads would join in, too.

Cheeks and noses all red . . . coming back into the house with the smells of the fire in the fire place, hot cider and hot chocolate added to all of the sensations as warmed up and enjoyed the beauty then of looking out on the lake.  The huge stately weeping willow on the edge of the neighbor's yard, hanging over the lake was the most beautiful when each delicate branch was encased in ice and then dusted with snow.

I miss it so much.