Heading out in an hour or so with Son Number One on that long drive to Pensacola, Florida – the cradle of naval aviation. No intention to post over the next few days, so you’re welcome to talk among yourselves. Here or over on the other side. Which, by the way – and I know that an “off the air notice” is a bad time to rattle the cup – but what with the server spikes we’ve been enduring the tip jar has been drained, and it’s out of pocket, I am, keeping this place humming. If anyone felt inclined to throw a fin in the jar, that’d be taken as a kindness.
It should be an interesting trip. I’m heading back to where it all began, and my son to whatever it will be will all begin. When you’re at the end of a path looking back, it’s easy to see how all the holes in the Swiss Cheese lined up just right, from that first make-or-break flight physical at the Naval Aero Medical Institute, to standing on a podium at the end of a 20-year flying career passing command of your strike fighter squadron over to another man who will take your people to war. Everything in between – the first solo check ride, basic and advanced jets, instrument checks, NATOPS checks, first CQ, first night CQ, first mission in combat, first friend you lose to the deceleration sickness – all of those things lay behind me, and before him. From the bottom looking up, it’s less a sun-dappled path overhung by willows than a climb up a rocky mountain whose lower approaches are obscured by fog. Now he’s the man in the arena and I’m the cheering section.
I’m OK with that. He’s a good man.
The bags are packed, both physically and psychologically. The latter are weighed down by the burden of a son who follows his father. The father hopes that it will be as good for his young man as it was for him, that the Navy may not have changed too much, that he may bloom where he is planted. That he’ll be safe. What burden the son carries from following a father whose career was marked here or there by some modest measures of success I do not know.
But hopefully, by Sunday evening, I will have relieved him of whatever is in his bag. It’s not about me anymore.
Hasn’t been for a while.
Update: Stage 1 complete at Las Cruces. Tomorrow, Houston! And thanks awfully for the generosity, the bandwidth fund should be good to go for months. Private thangas forthcoming.
Update 2: Las Cruces to Houston is a hard pull. There is a very great deal of Texas.
Got in late last night, ate decent barbecue at a place y-clept Beaver’s in the Sixth Ward. Got a lovely eight strait at the Alden in town. Letting SNO sleep in. Eight hours and a bit to Pensacola, a mere hop, skip and a jump from here. Oh, and for those concerned, it’s flying back I am. After a day of recuperation, hopefully on the golf course at NAS Pensacola.
Update 3: Mission accomplished.
“The sun has riz, the sun has set, and here we is, still in Texas yet.”
Godspeed to SNO. Keep us informed as to his progress.
Hey Lex, I was away for the weekend and stayed at a hotel without computer access (can you imagine?!). I wondered what I was missing over here. Hoping the road trip was a great success for both of you, both physically and psychologically. It’s been an honour over the past few years to watch your family grow up and see your son follow in your steps. Thank you for sharing. May he do half as well as his father… then again, I’m sure he will. After all, he comes from a good family.
PS Did you manage to meet Marianne?
Enquiring minds and all…
Haha, I remember doing the LA to Milton FL drive, essentially the same thing, and staying in Las Cruces too. It really is the best place to stop distances wise. It’s also really the only placed I stopped I was afraid my car wouldn’t still be in the parking lot in the morning.
Did San Antonio instead of Houston and thought that was a GREAT city, put it on the list of places to consider living later in life.
Did the opposite run, P-Cola to Sandy Eggo with The Doctor (before She was Such) more than once in a Honda Civic hatchback. Hours and hours and hours and hours of Texas. And yes, I remember a New Year’s Eve in Las Cruces!
May he achieve the successes he desires, he is a prepared as he will ever be.
VR.
Comjam
Swooped from SD to P’Goula in Jan 80…in the GunO’s Mercury Cougar. Lead Detachment (of 1) for PSA/RAV on a run to SD once DD963. Four days…and yes…Texas was about 1/2 if I recall, but I was younger then.
Glad to hear you arrived alive…
Someone questioned if Florobama was still open: yes, still open and still a dump.
Lex, I’m sure your SNO has friends a’ waiting here in p’cola, but if not he’s always welcome ’round my porch. Called Countrywood, out the back gate it is.
Best of luck and safe travels.
Don’t forget to get him a mug, and dust yours off if you have one. ;p
Woo! I want to sample some of those fine McGuire’s microbrews myself now.
And, yeah, Florabama is still there; still the most mullets per square mile of anywhere in the world.
Mullet…my best friend in high school and high planned to go dove hunting. To get “in shape” for the fast flying birds, we went to a local slough that we knew was full of mullet. We had our shotguns and birdshot, and when a mullet jumped, you had to get him by the third jump. If you can hit a mullet on the jump, a dove ain’t nothin’
BRAVO ZULU USAF! BRAVO ZULU US ARMY!http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/overcoming_the_odds.html
Michelle, my friend … No, he didn’t manage to fit us in that punishing schedule of his. Until you’ve tried to drive across Texas, you can’t comprehend what a huge tract of land it is. Guess I’ll just have to concentrate on staying alive until I can meet him. And you, and some of the others too, my dear.
Now we have to find someone to drink the Guinness in the fridge. I’m a Jameson’s woman myself, when I indulge at all.
Marianne
I’ve been there once or thrice Marianne. I know you’ve said but where is it you live … is it around Houston? My uncle lived in Texas for many years and we visited him both in El Paso and Houston. Drove down from Saskatchewan both times; actually I did all the driving on the way down when we went to Houston. Which made me quite proud of myself, since I was only 17. Anyway, I am sure you will find a few takers around here to get that Guinness off your hands!
Glad to hear the return is by air; that would certainly be a much longer drive back by yourself.
Glad you enjoyed your stop in Houston. I’ll have to check out the Beaver, but don’t get to that part of town often. I just did the Houston to El Paso and back by car about 2 months ago for a family matter. That’s a hopefully once in a lifetime experience. As has been said here earlier, “The sun as riz, the sun has set and here I is in Texas yet.” Can you imagine doing this with a wagon?
Michelle … We live in the heart of Houston, about a mile and a half from the Texas Medical Center, in the southwest quadrant of the city, where all the fun stuff is — downtown is 15 minutes away by car, River Oaks [our Gold Coast] is about 10 minutes drive away from us], the Galleria is about 15 minutes away in the other direction and we live on the bank of a little bayou called, appropriately, Poor Farm Ditch. The subdivision was built right after World War II, and we have one of the original houses, a pretty little one-story tract house. We are now surrounded by giant two story mansions of the McMansion variety, because even though the city is 50 miles across, people began to discover how convenient it is to live in the heart of the city, if the ‘heart’ is as pretty as this is.
I love this house because it is only one storey and that makes it ideal for a lady with a bit of arthritis. When you come to see us, we’ll be able to move around freely to enjoy your company.
Wish we could expect you soon.
Marianne
For some reason I thought he was already in Pcola and I’d just missed the post. I love McGuire’s. I’m not into crowds, at all, but really enjoy going there… the food, the atmosphere is so positive and fun. When I was young hanging with my crowd, whenever harassed to kiss the moose, I’d never kiss it on it’s mouth, thinking that surely it was the nastiest spot with all the drunks kissing it. I picked the cheek, only to find out most did that too. Blech. If he’s tall enough, he should try to kiss it between the eyes. Probably safer… Milton has changed considerably. There is much more out the way of Whiting than there used to be.
He hit P’cola during a beautiful time, with Christmas coming. Tell him to try to hit the Episcopal Church downtown, called Christ Church. It is a haul from Whiting if he is staying in the Q, but it’s a beautiful old Church. I was married there and the services always touched my soul. My best to him. I’m glad y’all’s trip was safe. We are so blessed to have him serving our Country.
Glad you both made it safe, Lex, and enjoyed an entertaining night there in P’cola. Ne’er did pass through the town myself, but St. Pete is an acceptable consolation prize.
To offset the dearth of postings here, it was entertainment of a different sort I sought; preamble to a certain book I’ve been hearing about.
Well Lex, with SNO now safely in Navy hands the next thing in life is him finding a nice girl, marriage, then grandkids. Then you gets a lot of fun. You’ll wonder why you didn’t have grandkids first
P’cola is my home port – raised and educated there. All the pretty teachers I had seemed to marry flight students, often leaving in mid-term. My childhood buddies were mostly Navy Brats. I almost drown once while rowing a cement mixing trough over to Fort Pickens from Sherman Field yacht club.
My step-dad built the first Dilbert Dunker and my first job out of high school as at the Navy Yard fixing pipes for the Public Works Center. (We locals never called it NAS – it was always the Navy Yard.) I remember that before McGuire’s it was the Old Firehouse.
Have fun now that the heat and humidity have subsided.
Did the Gravatar work? Yes it did! Cool!
Whereabouts did you gents tack your dollar bill?
The Dilbert Dunker was barely a C ticket ride. Panic in a Drum is the ride! Worth taking at least 4 times.
Our group did so well they held us over shivering in the bleachers (Feb ’84) to do a 5th run show&tell for the CNO of Netherlands.