We understand it was 55 degrees and sunny in the Twin Cities today. In Santa Fe, a blizzard of some sort appears to have moved in. No matter, we were on a museum mission today, trying to visit as many of the museums in the city as we could in a short period of time. But we ran out of time before we ran out of museums.
The weather held off long enough for me to get a panoramic shot from the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. (For those of you reading this from the Facebook page, please go to the actual Stirrings From the Empty Nest blog to view it. I'm not sure this exports into Facebook properly.)
But we started the day in the Plaza area of downtown Santa Fe, where the Santa Fe trail ends. I had read earlier in the day a piece in the New York Times a few weeks ago about Santa Fe which mentioned the New Mexico History Museum and described it as "magnificent." They weren't kidding.
On the drive down, we heard a piece from National Public Radio on the conservative Texas School Board's decision to rewrite textbooks to emphasize things like the Reagan Administration, the Moral Majority and the NRA. Look, I'm not going to get into a big political discussion on this but whatever boogeymen people have been warning us about in the last year is nothing compared to the threat to this country posed by ignorant morons.
Why does it matter? Because the Texas textbook business is so big that it becomes the de facto school board curriculum for the rest of the nation. So our children will again learn that underpinnings of the United States are the Europeans who settled here and that Manifest Destiny was something to be proud of, that the U.S. military didn't hang Native Americans in New Mexico because they weren't Catholic, that the Mexican culture that many believe is stealing the jobs of the U.S. worker is a more historical culture to this country than the one some people think is superior.
It says a lot about New Mexico that it isn't as afraid of history -- knowledge, you might say -- as these Texans and the people who support them. The history in the museum is told honestly and, from what I can tell, completely.
It's a shame the people who are positioning themselves to be put back in charge of America aren't the museum-going types. It's not left vs. right, it's not conservative vs. liberal. It's whether we want our children to be informed or whether we want them to be ignorant. How can there possibly be two sides to that?
I couldn't take any pictures inside but here's a few of the day. Here's the Plaza:
When New Mexico tried to become a state, it was rejected many times. It was considered too Mexican and too Catholic. Religion does play a big part in life here. This is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi downtown, which -- we learned -- was funded by the many Jewish merchants in Santa Fe at the time it was built.
Love one another constantly, it says.
Over the entrance, the Jewish word Yahweh is inscribed, the word for God in the Jewish bible.
Outside is the statue of the first Native American saint.
After a fine lunch, we stopped by the Loretto Chapel -- admission $3 -- to see the miraculous stairs which do not have any outside support. We browsed the gift shop but avoided buying the glow-in-the-dark rosary beads.
Then we headed for Museum Hill (see panorama above).
I took this picture of a sculpture on the way in. Note the snow coming over the mountain.
And on the way out...
Tomorrow morning -- if we can get over the pass to Albuquerque -- we head for Phoenix. Perhaps by then I can brag to my Minnesota friends about the weather.
We started the day a little late in North Platte, Nebraska after breakfast and a stop to visit the local celebrity.
... and we arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico around 8:30 (Central Time). I like flying in an airplane as much as the next person but there's something you miss when you get on a plane in an airport that looks like every other airport, and get off in another airport that looks like every other airport.
I'm a small-town guy who still thinks it's pretty cool to go places you've heard about and watched the transition of the geography along the way.
Here's what I mean.
You can be driving along Nebraska -- which at this time of year smells of manure, but that's OK, I grew up around cows. Cameras don't do it justice. It's just a big hunk of sky from one end to the other, with the occasional tree.
You cross into Colorado and the geography instantly changes to high desert.
And you drive for a few hours and you start to see mountains a hundred miles away...
Then, around Denver, they get really big. We drove south to Colorado Springs and stopped for a shot with Pike's Peak (we think) in the background.
Just behind us is the U.S. Air Force Academy. When I was a kid, that's where I wanted to go. But they needed people with perfect vision flying jets back then. Now, they'll let anyone fly those things. (g)
Then the geography flattens a little bit, and from a long way away, you see the Spanish Peaks. There was snow on the ground here and it was interesting that there was no snow across Nebraska and northern Colorado, and more snow the farther south we went.
Farther south, near the New Mexico border, we stopped to read about a massacre of miners and their families, at the hands of the U.S. government, at the behest of the coal mining companies. It outraged the public and that led to the beginning of labor laws, the laws that people nowadays consider unnecessary intrusion of government in private business.
We climbed up through a pass, into New Mexico and from the shadows of the mountains we saw the most amazing sight (again, not properly captured by little cameras): Below us, bathed in sunlight, was the desert of northern New Mexico.
You get across by putting the speedometer on about 80, and waiting about two hours.
Eventually, some small hills start popping up, and as the sun set, we headed into the mountains again, about an hour from Santa Fe.
1,265 miles so far -- about the same distance as Woodbury to The Berkshires. Tomorrow, we play tourist in Santa Fe.
A few years from now, we'll probably make this trip again -- in an RV airplane currently under construction. It'll be different, but it won't be better.
(I urge you to click each image to see the larger version)
We've put up for the night in North Platte, Nebraska, at an out-of-the-way motel, run by an old-timer with a drawl and a beard, and rooms that Carolie says reminds her of the '50s. In other words: It's perfect.
Driving through Iowa and Nebraska has been exactly that. Nebraska rewarded one of our interests -- bird watching -- on the drive near Grand Junction with a massive migration of sandhill cranes, which we learned occurs each year between February and April. Thousands of cranes darkened the sky and were landing -- presumably for the night -- in fields along the North Platte River.
After entering Nebraska we stopped on the other side of Omaha for a look at the Great Platte Valley, which -- the marker says -- was the route of the fur traders and others, including the Mormons, on their move westward. Only the good people of Nebraska can explain why they plopped a public works building in the middle of the vista.
Highway historical markers are another one of my weak points. I stop to read them. In Glidden, Iowa, for example, there was a sign for the Merle Hay Historical Marker. So we stopped. It was a cemetary and this is only marker we could find.
So who was Merle Hay?
Wikipedia has the answer:
Merle David Hay (1896 – November 3, 1917) was the first Iowa serviceman and perhaps the first American serviceman to die in World War I, along with Corporal James Bethel Gresham of Evansville, Indiana and Thomas Enright of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
All three men were a part of Company F, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division (aka "The Big Red One") and in the trenches near Bathelémont-lès-Bauzemont in Lorraine (east of Nancy, France).
On the night of November 2-3, Germans trench raided their trench where all three were killed (possibly with Hay & Gresham initially and Enright when he resisted capture).
The outnumbered Americans were caught by surprise as they emerged from their wood and earth shelters to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat amid darkness and confusion. After 15 minutes the Germans withdrew and the barrage ended. Reinforcements reached the beleaguered Americans soon after to discover five wounded, twelve captured, and three killed.
Private Hoyt Decker saw Merle Hay battling two German soldiers with a bayonet in the dim, twinkling light of flares during the battle. Private Merle Hay was found face down in the mud after the attack with a .45 caliber pistol in his hand. The cause of death was a single 9 millimeter bullet wound beneath his right eye. His throat was also deeply cut. The watch his mother had given him had stopped at 2:40 a.m.
Hay, Gresham, and Enright were buried on the spot with a monument built which was later destroyed by Germans in 1940. Hay was then re-interred in July 1921 in West Lawn Cemetery in his home town of Glidden, Iowa. The West Lawn Cemetery was later renamed the Merle Hay Memorial Cemetery. An 8-foot monument commissioned by the Iowa Legislature marks his gravesite.
Shortly after Hay's death, the highway running from the west edge of Des Moines to Camp Dodge was renamed Merle Hay Road. A memorial boulder was placed along Merle Hay Road in 1923 and remains up today amidst the commercial development along the road.[1] Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines was also named for Hay; the local Kiwanis club placed a memorial plaque near the entrance to the mall's Sears store in 1979.
The first American military casualty in World War II was also an Iowa native. Andrew, Iowa, native Robert M. Losey, a military attache, was killed on April 21, 1940 during a German bombardment of Dombås, Norway. Captain Losey had been attempting to complete the evacuation of the American diplomatic legation from Norway to Sweden in the wake of the German invasion.
We didn't see Mr. Hay's grave, but came across a recent one. These things sure tell a story....trailer, pictures, beer, and Iowa Hawkeyes. (Click for larger image)
We stopped in Kearney, Nebraska for dinner. Once you get past the strip of chain restaurants and over the bridge over the railroad tracks (the Union Pacific freight trains come speeding through town without slowing down), there's a charming downtown with about 4-6 square blocks of actual retail.
As we drove across Nebraska, Carolie had a good thought, "Couldn't they have given the Indians some of these states?
Denver by lunchtime tomorrow, and Santa Fe by night
Is this heaven? No, it's a rest stop in Iowa, about 130 miles north of Des Moines. My sister, Cheryl would like this rest stop as it's in a giant "barn," and the kindly woman who runs the snack bar wears a holstein apron.
And it has free wireless Internet access. Minnesota? We've got dumpy cinder block rest areas that aren't shaped like anything.
Carolie is presently getting a tour of Iowa from a greeter.
I haven't been on TPT's Almanac in about 13 years, but tonight I was asked to sub for a regular media panel member and dispense my wisdom, as we try to figure out why the world doesn't operate exactly the way I'd like.
Don Kent, the man who practically invented weather on TV, has died. Another one of those icons from my childhood. We boomers all grew up with Don Kent.
Of the many whiz-bang gadgets of my youth -- who can ever forget the push-button telephones at the Boston Museum of Science -- was a window display at the old Worcester North Institution for Savings in Moran Square in Fitchburg. It featured Don Kent weather instruments.
I love flying in the winter, probably more than any other season. In another month, the combination of dark and light ground in Minnesota will make for uneven thermals and turbulence, a few weeks after that the geese will be on the move, and after that, hot and humid weather will diminish aircraft performance -- not that I'm complaining, mind you.
Today the temperatures got well into the '30s with a gorgeous blue sky and little wind. In February in Minnesota, that brings people out like Key West at sunset.
I'm trying to fit in a flight review next week, so I went out in this perfect weather and ran through a few flight maneuvers -- stalls and steep turns mostly -- and a couple of landings out in Glencoe and did some sight-seeing on the way back to Flying Cloud Airport southwest of the Twin Cities.
On Lake Waconia, I found this ice-house neighborhood... You can click the image to see bigger versions. This is the day Minnesota requires ice houses to be removed from lakes in the southern two-thirds of the state. You can see trucks pulling a few off.
And from this shot, you can see that there were probably more ice houses here before. Some of the "streets" remind me of suburban corn fields that have been subdivided for housing developments.
Of course, it's also manure-spreading season. A few weeks ago, a farmer down in Albert Lea made news because he spread the manure in the shape of a heart for a valentine for his wife. Do you suppose this guy got an earful?
Of course, as this picture attests, there's still plenty of winter left in Flyover Country. That diagonal black line in the middle of the picture is the Glencoe runway.
Here's a typical farm on the prairie. A windbreak around the house. It's needed. There's nothing between here and the Rockies to stop the wind. You'll want to click the image to see the bigger version.
As I approach this lake, if you look way off on the horizon -- straight ahead -- you can barely see the buildings of Minneapolis.
Today I began the process of wiping out the last vestige of evidence that kids used to live here. It's time to renovate and repaint the family room in the finished downstairs.
For the last year, Patrick's large couch sectional was stored there and it made a good place to fold laundry and occasionally sit. But he's moved into a new place and came to get it while I was in New Orleans last weekend.
In years past, the room (it's an L shaped room) also housed a set of airplane wings and a canopy. But those are now out at the hangar.
So, it's as good a time as any to repaint the room, pull up all the carpeting, put down new carpeting, add a fireplace of some sort and an HD TV, as well as buy some new furniture.
Today I tossed out a lot of old stuff and packed up kids VCRs and various games which will likely never be used again, as well as saved Sean's 4th grade poetry and other assorted art work from Patrick and Sean.
I haven't updated the blog lately because life is either work, which means you can find it on MPR's News Cut. Or life is building an airplane, which means you can find it on the Letters From Flyover Country blog.
But this weekend I've been in New Orleans for, ummmm, work. The boss said on Wednesday, "How'd you like to go to New Orleans to cover the Vikings game?" I actually didn't want to. I like the Vikings fine but I intensely dislike the cliches surrounding football games.
But it was New Orleans and I wanted to take a look at post-Katrina. And, I found out when I got here, it gave me the opportunity to explore this connection this city has with its football team, which is unlike any other.
I also got a chance to spend some time in the Lower 9th Ward and, as usual in this "go do what you do" assignment I got, met some really nice people.
I sat in the press box at the Louisiana Superdome and enjoyed the game, despite having to miss watching overtime and the last four minutes of regulation because I had to get set up down in the media facility for the post-game news conferences.
I'd have loved to have Sean or Patrick with me for an event like this (and, of course, Carolie), but this is a work assignment. Still, I made sure I followed the advice Terry Bradshaw gives when he recounts a critical Superbowl play during his career. "I said to myself, 'Stop, and realize where you are,'" he said, just before he gave the ball to Franco Harris to win the Super Bowl.
I think back often to working those early days in Southbridge, and Fitchburg, and Pittsfield and if you'd told me then I'd be in New Orleans to meet nice people and cover an NFC Championship game, I'd have rained on your parade.
Retirement still seems like a good deal to me; I'm on the downside of the career and all. But I've still got the greatest job in America.
But when you're on assignment -- especially when you're on assignment alone -- you work all the time. I put in a 15 hour day on Saturday and 20 hours yesterday, and that's OK; I love working and feeding material to the blog and back to MPR. But when I looked at the Web traffic stats this morning (I'd told the boss there's no online audience at MPR on weekends and he said that's OK), all of my stuff got beaten out by some webcam of a bear giving birth to a cub.
And that's what keeps one's head on straight in this business. You can always be replaced by a pregnant bear.
Carolie and I had our anniversary night out tonight. I bought tickets last month for tonight's Brian Setzer (and his orchestra) concert down at Mystic Lake Casino in Shakopee. I had never been there before; it's quite an operation.
And Setzer was Setzer. This was the encore before they ended with Jump, Jive, and Wail!
A few years ago -- 2004, if I recall -- Carolie and the boys headed East for a celebration of some sort with her folks in the Berkshires and I figured it was a good time to replace some rotted stair posts on the backyard deck.
When I removed the stairs, however, I found some rot in the deck plankings. So I started replacing the deck plankings. I noticed the railings weren't very good because, well, there weren't any posts holding the railings up; only the ballisters nailed to the joists.
It was clear that the entire deck -- minus the footings and joists -- would have to be replaced. A little here. A little there.
I had a lot of goals for the "good weather" this year. One of them was to get the deck (mostly) finished, five years later.
Earlier this summer, I replaced the upper part of the deck.
This weekend -- thanks to great weather -- I added the railings and posts to the stairs. This actually required about five separate cuts per post, that made each post look like part of puzzle for Mensa members. But it got done:
The structural rebuild is now complete. I still have to finish adding ballisters (I'll be making a design in one panel) and adding the railing cap. I also have to add lattice. And I'm thinking about adding some railing boxes for flowers and such.
Famed RV-6A builder/pilot Alex Peterson (you may have seen his aerobatic video here) is like Batman. I -- and I guess this makes me "the commissioner" -- put out the Bat Signal a week ago on Van's Air Force. I needed a motivation flight. Alex saw the signal and stopped by South St. Paul today.
I've been stuck on the project lately and when I went to putter around today, I just ended up sorting nuts and bolts and screws and such; not something that's going to get a plane built. But that's the way building an RV can be; sometimes you need a nudge.
So Alex dropped in and took me for a spin. Here's the takeoff out of South St. Paul. Note the glider in the grass we pass on the way out.
Alex let me fly a little bit and I was consciously trying not to exert any backpressure on the turns, but I increased altitude so I must have. It was weird to look over at the airspeed indicator and see 160. I'm used to plodding along at 90 in a Warrior.
We flew up the St. Croix River, looked for Doug Weiler's house in Hudson (Doug heads the Twin Cities RV builders' group) and then headed back -- a half hour of good flying in which -- for the record -- neither Alex nor I opened our laptops during the flight.
After he dropped me off, he advised, "just start on anything and plow forward," and he and his friend, Benny (who was visiting from Israel) headed north back to Anoka.
REMARKS AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR DON THURSTONSunday October 11, 2009
Delivered by Bob Collins
I am deeply honored to be asked by the family to speak to you this afternoon about Don Thurston. I've been known to put a couple of words together from time to time, but there's nothing in my experience that has given me the ability to put Don's life -- as I've known it -- into words.
In 1976, I got a letter which said:
"Dear Bob: Thank you for your interest in WMNB. Unfortunately, we have no present positions. We will keep your resume on file. Sincerely, Don Thurston."
I wish I'd saved that letter. But I had so many of them.
Three or four years later, I met his daughter when we worked down at WBEC in Pittsfield, and I didn't care for her that much, and she didn't much care for me. So, naturally, we were married about three years later and I became Don Thurston's favorite son-in-law.
Years later, when I went to work for him, I asked him where he kept that resume and he acknowledged that he didn't.
Life is funny. And life is to be marveled, even when it ends.
A guy grows up in Gloucester of modest means, goes to school to be an electrical engineer, goes to Vermont to work in radio; even does a morning show from a barn -- with a dog -- then strikes out on his own and works his way up to owning a radio station in North Adams, and he put an FM station on the air -- WMNB, which he used to stood for "We May Never Broadcast." And from his home base, he became one of the most influential people in his field in America.
Radio was the medium that united America's communities, and it selected Don Thurston as its leader. He knew mayors, and governors, and presidents, and people who wanted to be president and they knew him by his first name. He could spend a day listening to Yo Yo Ma down at Tanglewood, and another in Nashville swapping tales with Dolly Parton.
But up on the hill here, at the highest point beyond the hairpin turn, there's a red light on top of a tower that flashes: on…and…off. All night. Every night. We refer to it as "Papa's Light." They were going to shut it off a few years ago because it's not required anymore. But pilots over at the airport -- bless their hearts -- asked that it be kept on because when you're flying around in the dark over horrible terrain, it's the beacon that says, "This is where home is. Right over here." So, Don and Cory kept it on.
Like Papa's Light, Don reminded us through his actions and words, that no matter where you are, no matter the route of your life, no matter the terrain you encounter, this is where home is. Right over here.
Lesser men have left the Berkshires and never looked back.
Others have seen success as something you find somewhere else.
Where others saw danger, he saw potential, which is the number one reason why Don saw so much success himself. He saw in us things that we didn't even see in us. Nobody loved our success more than Don. He was loyal to the people who worked for him at those radio stations and they were loyal to him, and to these communities, and that did not happen by accident.
Don Thurston was living proof of what can be accomplished with a bucket-load of optimism and a woman named Oralie.
If you were a contemporary of Don's -- and especially if you were an in-law -- your God-given survival instinct compelled you to a life with a singular purpose: Not to disappoint Don Thurston, a man with that voice that would make you sit up straight.
I say that not to imply that there was a price to be paid from Don for disappointing him; there was a price to be paid from you and your mirror. That's what a role model does. He provides the big shoes. The rest is up to us.
He made us want to be better.
Don was brilliant. He made us want to be brilliant, too.
He was a man of more integrity than any person I've ever met. And he made us want to act with more integrity, too.
Don felt an abiding sense of service to his community, whether it was his church, his city, his county, his college, or his country, and he made us want to serve our communities, too.
Whoever you are and whatever life you've lived, when Don Thurston talked to you, your life was the most interesting in the world -- not because it was some technique of a guy who knew how to close a deal, but because Don found the same wonder in our lives as we found in his. If at times we thought we didn't measure up to our role model, the cure was merely to spend a few minutes with him.
Nobody deserved a happy and healthy retirement more than Don Thurston. But I'm not going to lie to you; he didn't get it. The last few years were a struggle. The last few months were the very definition of "unfair."
They required us then -- and require us now -- to make a withdrawal from a bank account into which Don made a regular deposit of wisdom.
There is a well-embellished parable that says that one day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah, his most trusted minister. He said to him, "Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. It has special powers. If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy."
Benaiah searched for the ring, and finally passed a merchant in Jerusalem, and said, "Have you by any chance heard of a special ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy, and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?"
The elderly man took a plain gold ring from his display and engraved something on it.
Benaiah took the ring back to Solomon, who read the inscription that made his smile disappear. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band -- Gimel, Zayin, and Yud -- which begin the words "Gam zeh ya'avor." This, too, shall pass.
These words were Don's mantra, and as we reflect on our sorrow today, they can make a sad person happy. For we know that Don was right. This grief will pass.
For now, however, I share it with Oralie. And Allen. And Carolie. And Cory. And Marie.
The largest part of Don Thurston's loving heart was reserved exclusively for his grandchildren.
If you didn't know Don Thurston, then meet Sarah, in whom Don's optimism, smile, and wisdom lives.
If you didn't know Don Thurston, then meet Tom, in whom Don's dignity, love of family, sense of responsibility, and curiosity lives.
If you didn't know Don Thurston, then meet Sean, in whom Don's brilliance, and standard of fairness and justice lives. If your grandfather ever rooted for the Yankees (and I'm not saying he did), then it was only because you did.
If you didn't know Don Thurston, then meet Ross, in whom Don's love of music, resilience, and ability to accomplish great things without forgetting his roots lives.
If you didn't know Don Thurston, then meet Patrick, in whom Don's ease around people of all stripes, high expectations, joy, and determination to serve others lives.
If you did know Don Thurston, then today we share a common sense that we have been the luckiest people in the world.
In this hour… at this moment… this family… this community… this world … has never needed the likes of Don Thurston more.
He has given us the example of a life well-lived, in service to us.
My father in law, Don Thurston, is dying and now that I've written it, it looks worse in print than in my head. Carolie has gone back East to be with him and her family.
If there was ever a guy who deserved a healthy -- and long -- retirement, it was Don Thurston. But it was not meant to be. Instead he got Parkinson's. Mysterious ways? Yeah, I've got your mysterious ways right here.
The boys and I are back in flyover country, waiting for a call that has no choice but to come. In the meantime, the only thing I could do early this morning was the only thing I know to do.
The original (slightly bigger) version can be found here. You can also look at it in full screen, although the movement and loading degrades when viewed in full screen.
We went to the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum (we're members) last spring and I got some ideas for the gardens. Lots of purple and lots of petunias this year. How did it work out? Not so good. Lots of slugs. Not much grew except for the perennial garden.
So today -- Labor Day -- we went for our late summer/fall visit. The Arboretum had a better year, I guess. For the slideshow below, I recommend the full screen version. Just click the icon with the four arrows on the bottom right. Hit play and the rest will display automatically.
I got some nice coverage of a tour of college campuses from the magazine of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System. It's on page 14 here.
If I could pick one place to be today, I guess this would be it. On my brother's porch overlooking Cape Cod Bay. I probably wouldn't be reading. Or sleeping.
I left Oshkosh yesterday morning and have returned home. Unfortunately, I didn't get to say goodbye to the half dozen or so people who are pretty much the reason I go in the first place.
So if you're reading this -- and you know who you are -- they should make a video about you all. Planes are nice. Airshows are nice. Fancy gadgets are nice. But they're not what makes Oshkosh Oshkosh.
You can't throw a rear spar down the street in the campground at Oshkosh and not hit an RV builder and/or pilot.
I met Jim Davis, right, this morning as I was breaking down the campsite for the return to St. Paul. Jim is an RV-8 pilot (I think he also built an RV-6). He's from Tulsa. A few minutes later a group of his friends stopped by to visit with him. That's U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, who may be one of the biggest supporters of general aviation in Washington. We may see a lot of RV builders here in the campground, but we don't see a lot of U.S. senators showing up for a cup of coffee.
His son, Jim (shown below) was kind enough to take our picture, and tell me about his RV-8 and flying into Oshkosh. He's been coming here for 23 years, I believe he said.
It's time to pack up and head for home. Fifty-one weeks to go.
We had about 100 people -- I'd guess -- at the scaled-down annual get-together of RV builders at Oshkosh. For all of the glitz and glamour of the show, it's people sitting around shooting the breeze that keeps people coming back to a spot in Wisconsin every year. Or at least I like to think so.
It's very late as I upload this and I haven't had a chance to put captions to all pictures. But if you see yourself here, write down the number and e-mail me and I'll add you.
Internet service is very spotty, so I'll do the best I can to get it updated.
It was a real thrill to see a skywriter write "Welcome, RV airplane builders" today. Unfortunately, the school levy up here failed recently and he spelled it wrong.
One of the interesting things about Oshkosh -- at least for aviation types-- is every morning you step out of your tent and into your screensaver. Most of the EAA monthly screensavers through the year are images shot during this week. This morning, I'm sitting at the campsite watching the powered parachutes flying overhead; every now and again a bird will join the procession.
I've generally been unable -- and probably will continue to be unable -- to provide significant updates here because the wiFi at AirVenture simply isn't very good. Last evening I parked under the gizmo that provides it and I still couldn't get online. It's free, so we really have no right to complain, and in the big scheme of things it's a small complaint. But the EAA probably should stop advertising "free WiFi" to entice people to camp until it reaches a certain level of performance.
Even at the press office, the system is so overloaded, many of us can't file our stories and accounts. OK, EAA. You've worn me down. I'll gladly pay for wiFi that works rather than free wiFi that doesn't. You know what would be great? If Ford or Honda or any of those big conglomerates that EAA is now synonymous with would get into the broadband business.
Yesterday was a combination of work and play. I documented -- slightly -- my lunch with Lane Wallace. I then interviewed Joe Balzer for about a half hour. He's one of the Northwest Airlines crew members of a 727 flight from Fargo to Minneapolis in 1990 who flew drunk. He did prison time and now he's written a book. I have the interview on tape and at some point I'll bang out a story for the day job and post it here as well.
Then it was off to dinner downtown with my friends from Trio Avionics -- Jerry Hansen, Chuck Busch, Sid Tolchin, and Paul Ross. This is always the highlight of my stay at Oshkosh and one of the highlights of the year. They're fine people and I enjoy their company, partly because they're among the few that enjoy mine. I've decided, by the way, to take the TruTrak single-axis autopilot out of the RV-7A project and replace it with the Trio Pro Pilot autopilot. It's robus, can do more things, perhaps, than an around-the-patch flyer like me need it to do, but it comes from a good company with good people and because it does, I have no qualms about flying with it.
By the way, they said business -- which is mostly indicated by the number of people who stop to talk -- has been very good and this is the emerging theme of AirVenture this year. It may confound the economists but business is booming here. The airport was closed to any more incoming arrivals on Monday because there's just no place to put them. The campground is packed solid and people here apparently have money to spend.
Now one can argue -- as I have -- that aviation is for people with money anyway, but even comparing apples to apples (previous years of AirVenture), this is a significant uptick in the economic reality here. Jerry attributed it to a couple of things including the fact that there are a lot of airplane builders like me who have reached the point in the project where there's simply too much invested in it -- time, money and emotion -- to quit, no matter what the economic reality is.
Back at the campground last night, a steady trickle stopped by for "happy hour." A group from Massachusetts caused -- then cured -- a case of homesickness (you can do that to me with a Boston accent). A nice couple from The Netherlands also stopped by. They're building an RV-7A, and learned to fly at the same time. And the "RV compound residents" like Paul Trotter, and Chris Stone and John Porter were there. So we had about a dozen people and that was great fun.
And this evening will try to increase that with the RV Family Reunion Piece of Grass 2009. I've bought watermelon (I always do at these things and nobody ever wants any) and a cheap grill from WalMart and we're encouraging RVers to simply stop by and sit a spell. No big BBQ. No door prizes. People come simply because they want to sit around and make up lies about our homebuilding prowess.
So today I'll mostly hang around the campground, buy some firewood (it feels like the '40s here at night), and get things ready.
Then this evening, I'll take a bunch of pictures and make my own screensavers.
I started out today taking some pictures of RVs to share, then I got sidetracked. I'll go back and add some later on...
LUNCH WITH LANE
I got sidetracked because I had lunch with Lane Wallace in the Flying building, an air conditioned, catered lovely meeting spot full of the who's who of aviation. But I was most interested in a conversation with Lane, whose writing I've admired for many years.
But she's more -- much more -- than her Flying Magazine columns, or her column on The Atlantic's Web site. Her Web site -- No Maps, No Guide, No Limits -- is a great site full of interesting material on passions and risks and life.
Why do we do the things we do? Why do we persist through the "dark nights?" What is the difference between succeeding with our dreams or giving up? That was the substance of our conversation and, no, I don't have a picture of us together because that's lame.
Still, even in the "must pass through the bouncers" environment of the Flying building, several people came up to us -- well, her -- during lunch to tell her how much her writing means to them. That's saying something.
MONDAY POSTSCRIPT
It was a happy happy hour on Monday afternoon even though the storms rolled through right on schedule and wiped out the air show, which -- from what I can tell anecdotally -- a lot of the veteran Oshkosh attendees don't watch anyway.
The Doobie Brothers were set to perform in AeroShell square and while we figured the show would be canceled, they went on, from what we're told. It's better, however, to sit under the canopy in a patch of a field a half mile away, though, and discuss the finer points of bucking bars.
And so we did. Bill Settle from North Carolina wandered over and we had a delightful happy hour with Paul Trotter and John Porter and Chris Stone and then went out for dinner.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Sitting around over the morning coffee, the comparative quiet of an Oshkosh morning was broken by a couple of P-51s taking off and flying over the campground. The QOTD goes to John Porter:
Of course, the truly great campers by now have already calculated what time the Porta Potty cleaning brigade cleans a particular Porta Potty and adjusted their schedule accordingly. Another art form lost.
WALLET UPDATE
The wallet was found. In Chris Stone's van. Stand down.
THE CROWD
At least in the campground, this is one of the bigger crowds I've seen in recent years. I talked to Jerry Hansen at Trio Avionics yesterday afternoon and he said it was a steady stream of people to talk to. Now the key, of course, is whether that translates into business.
I'm generally not a big fan of ripping out systems already installed in an RV-7A that hasn't flown yet, but the Trio Pro Pilot looks to be a superior autopilot.
Will head out to buy a lottery ticket later on.
PIECE OF GRASS UPDATE
The weather looks like it's savings its best for Wednesday. However, wiFi is way too spotty for posting pictures right away so the live "chat" is canceled.
FORMATION FROM THE AIR
I wouldn't know a good formation from a bad formation. I thought the 37 ship formation of RV airplanes that arrived Sunday was excellent. But these are particular fliers with a skill far beyond me. There apparently was some dissatisfaction with a ragged tail. Couldn't tell it by me.
I'm realizing after three days here that I really don't have that much to do this year. Most of what I need to buy for the RV I've already bought and that which I haven't bought I can't afford. That takes a great deal of pressure off.
Frankly, though, for working stiffs like me, it's difficult to walk the AirVenture grounds and not get the feeling that everyone else did something right and somewhere along the line, I got derailed. Money is exchanging hands like crazy. There's giant RVs (the kind on wheels) worth millions and enough toys to handle Christmas around the world this year.
For an old New Englander with a Protestant work ethic, sometimes the self-indulgence can be overwhelming.
THE LOST WALLET
My camping neighbor and RV friend, John Porter, lost his wallet somewhere last night. We went over to the Fly-In movie theater and he figures it fell out somewhere over there, he figures. A trip to the lost-and-found yielded no success. I can't imagine a bigger pain in the neck for someone visiting AirVenture.
I'd like to think that some EAAer found the wallet and turned it in but the longer we go without a happy ending, the less likely there's going to be one.
FLYING DRUNK
The one forum I'm going to take in today is with the gentleman I'm interviewing tomorrow for the day job (and this blog). Joe Balzer was on the flight crew of a Northwest Airlines flight from Fargo to Minneapolis in 1990 with 91 passengers aboard. All three of the pilots were drunk. He's been sober for 19 years and I'll be telling his story here and elsewhere this week.
EAA AND THE MEDIA
Dick Knapinski does a fabulous job with the EAA media department and it's easy for a journalist here on media credentials (this year it's for this blog via RV Builder's Hotline) to feel guilty for not working harder to dig up stories. The LED Aero folks are catering a luncheon here in the press tent in a few minutes. I don't accept free food (other than some water) so I'm vacating to make the rounds on the grounds and see what average folks I can run into.
But the EAA deserves great credit for its effort to get people to tell the story of aviation. It's important to note that the organization does not pressure media in any way to bend the message of any of the "working media."
PAPA GOLF'S PAPA
Dave Gamble of Columbus, Ohio writes one of the better aviation blogs out there. With a gift for the printed word and an airplane that actually goes places, Dave has made PapaGolf Chronicles one of the daily must-reads.
His daughter is up here working the Girls With Wings booth all week and they're staying at a hotel in West Bend, an hour or so away. It caught my attention a week or so ago when he "tweeted" that flying his RV-6 here would be too much of a pain in the neck. But there's probably more to be said for a nice hotel than a small tent on the hard ground of Wisconsin.
If you've got an IFR-capable RV-9 that you'd like to unload for next to nothing, contact Dave.
Bob worked for Minnesota Public Radio for 27 years, until his retirement in 2019. He now lives to give baseballs to kids as an usher at Target Field, works on an airplane he is building, and a camper he bought for Oshkosh.
