MEMORIES - THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

One of my colleagues brought this picture in today, and it reminded me of my time in the World's Most Powerful Nuclear Navy. Ahh the good old days of the Cold War. If one looks closely at the picture, a Soviet bomber (possibly a TU144, but I'm relying on a very faulty memory) flying over the USS Nimitz, one of the most impressive aircraft carriers of its day.

This incident was generally considered poor form in military circles, but of course, both sides did it with relish.

We never had such incidents in Vietnam - seems like it wasn't so much a Cold War as a rather hot one. Our contacts with the North Vietnamese (the Viet Cong having no discernible air force) were rather limited.

Most nights from midnight 'til six a.m. I was flying over what the Navy referred to as "extreme western South Vietnam". Of course we were so far west that the mid-point of our orbit was an air base in Thailand. For those of you who are geographically challenged, Vietnam and Thailand have no common border, separated by another country, but I'm not at liberty to share with you which one that would be.

Every night as we crossed into "extreme western Vietnam" we were shot at by anti-aircraft fire, which exploded harmlessly several thousand feet below us. I've always wanted to meet the person who was down there. I'd have to give him (or her) an A for effort, but was always thankful that they never got a bigger gun.

Now my nephew John - the adventuresome member of the family is off starting in late October for a year-long trip around the world. I'd love to have that kind of spirit - not to mention the knees to go with it. He asked if his father, Rich, and I would like to meet him in Vietnam for the week or two that he'd be there. It's been 37 years for me, and probably 40 for Rich since we've been there. We're both interested in going back - but looking for a touch more comfort than the first time. I'll keep you posted.

It's not the most spectacular picture ever, but it does show the group assembled for my last meeting as a member of the Illinois State Board of Education.

From the left, Chairman Jesse Ruiz, Dr, Prashand Nandi, liaison from the Illinois Board of Higher Education, Lanita Koster, Dr. Andrea Brown, Illinois State Superintenent of Education Chris Koch, me, Dr. Vinni Hall, Dr. David Fields, my Board (or is it Bored?) wife, Joyce Karon, and Dr. Chris Ward.

This is a very special group of people. We didn't necessarily start out well, but they were class all the way. Most of this group appeared on our doorstep courtesy of legislation that fired seven members of the State Board of Ed back in 2004. Only Joyce and I continued from that group. Original members of that group, Ed Geppert and Brenda Holmes, resigned from the Board earlier. Ed, to take a position with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and Brenda at the end of her term of office, just a few weeks ago.

Ed and I will join forces as members of the Education Funding Advisory Board (EFAB) in the near future, along with three others.

I have enjoyed most of my time on ISBE, and all of the people that work there,

TRAVEL AS IT WAS

In the dark ages, before Frequent Flier clubs, I flew a lot more than I do today. As a matter of fact, I flew just about every other day for about ten months. By my rough estimate, it added up to somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 miles. About 80% of those miles came as a crew member of an EA-3B Douglas Skywarrior (pictured at left).

This was actually some of the most fun I've ever had in an airplane. I sat in the cockpit with the pilot and navigator. Some of the best views I've ever seen from a plane were from that plane. In fact the picture above is a plane that I crewed on several times. PR-15 wasn't my favorite, but it was almost the last plane I ever flew on.

In 1972, while on a mission in the Gulf of Tonkin, the pilot decided to do a touch-and-go maneuver on the USS Midway. My job during this relatively routine activity was to watch for any traffic coming from the rear. I, of course, thought that my time would better used snapping pictures as we hit the deck and took off again.

It seems that I may have missed the approach of a Navy A-5 (a bomber, I think). Since he was at the same altitude (or lack of altitude since we were just above the deck of the carrier) as we were, and banking into us, I assumed, correctly it seemed, that doom was imminently upon us. I was remarkably calm - if screaming hysterically at the pilot can be considered calm. The pilot very subtly nosed the plane down, allowing the errant A-5 to pass over us, missing by about an inch...o.k. is was probably 10 feet, but it was definitely too close for any of us.

The pilots that we flew with were an interesting lot. Each had a unique personality, but each was incredibly professional. Those of us who flew with them have tons of stories - many of them true. Spend six hours a night with a small group of men locked inside a very small plane, and you learn a lot about them.

I was a linguist. My flying partner, whose nickname was Hurricane, was a great guy, but a little paranoid. He was certain that he'd be killed during his tour. It didn't happen, of course, but his antics made our lives more bearable.

Hurricane (a.k.a. Hal Gamble) was one of the people that made life bearable. In a world that was pretty much by the book, Hal wasn't. Everybody in the unit had a "Hurricane" story, and of course many of them have gotten better with age. I believe that my favorite was the night that we had an 11:00 o'clock p.m. biefing before a flight. Few of us paid much attention to the briefing officer, so Hal struck up a conversation with the pilot Lt (jg) Jerry Pate. It seems that a friend of Hal's and mine, Jack Crider, had just returned from R & R in Australia.

Mr. Pate opined that he had served three tours in Vietnam without ever getting to Australia.

Hurricane got this look on his face and we all knew whatever came next was going to be fun. He asked the pilot if he had, in fact, spent three years, "just going back and forth"? (Our usual mission was flying up and down a line that ran through the center of a country that the U.S. Navy suggested was Thailand. We were actually a little east of Thailand flying up and down the Mekong River in Laos).

Pate said that, in fact, before he started flying A-3's he'd done two tours flying A-1 Skyraiders. It was obvious that Hall didn't know what an A-1 or a Skyraider was, so he just said "Oh". I asked him if he knew what one was and he admitted that he didn't. The pilot, trying to clear up the confusion, said that it was a Spad. Again Hal siad, "Oh", and another crewmember asked if he knew what a Spad was. Again Hal said that no, he didn't know what it was.

Pate went on to explain that an A-1 was a single engine low-winged prop plane that carried heavy ordinance at very slow speeds. Hall got really excited and said, " yeah, yeah, one enine right in front of the pilot!!". At this point the pilot said totally straight-faced, "no it's the right wing!" Hal dutifully replied, "Oh".

To this day I believe he thinks that there is a prop plane that has a single engine on the right wing!

THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS

Every once in a while, my schedule gets a little crowded. At the time that I'm scheduling things it doesn't seem like a big deal. Then the appointed week arrives and I have to wonder what in heaven's name I was thinking of.

This week begins a month of insanity, all almost totally within my control. Let's start at the end - it's always a good way to tell how the story turns out. So, Saturday, November 8th, our daughter Liz is getting married to Josh Shambaugh. It goes to show you that not everything in this story is insane. In fact, it's one of the sanest outcomes I can think of. They're both getting a great spouse.

Now, starting tomorrow, in my role with the Civic Betterment Party in Glen Ellyn, we finish interviewing candidates for the Village Board of Trustees. It's expected to go well into the night trying to narrow it down to six or seven candidates for three seats.

Tuesday, I'm off to Macomb, IL - the home of Western Illinois University - for a budget hearing for the Illinois State Board of Education. After spending Tuesday night in Macomb, I'm off to Springfield for a visit to the agency to discuss a work-study program that we'll run the following week.

Since I'm already that far South, I'll continue on towards beautiful East Tennessee and my Alma Mater, Maryville College. Wednesday will hopefully be spend in visiting a few friends in Western Kentucky, while Thursday evening will be spent at dinner with three art students from Maryville, who are the current recipients of the Clark Family Prize. Additionally, I'll be able to spend a little time with the head of the Art Department, Mark Hall and his wife Autumn. They are delightful people who have become great friends.

Friday and Saturday are booked with an event I swore I'd never go to - a college reunion. I got snookered into being involved with some of the preparations for this, not realizing that it would actually entail being there!

Counting the drive home (that's right - the drive) that's six days! And it's only the beginning. When I return to Illinois, I'm off again to Springfield for a State Board meeting and another Budget Hearing. There's two more hearings in October in Belleville and Charleston, and Civic Betterment continues preparations for a Town Meeting in November.

The good news is that much of the insanity ends in January when terms expire for both Civicc Betterment and ISBE. I'm not sure what I'll do with free time, but I'm sure looking forward to it.

OBSOLETE? I THINK NOT!

I came across this picture a few weeks ago while visiting the VQ-1 Squadron website. This sporty little plane is an A-3 Skywarrior (more specifically it's an EA-3B) and I flew a lot of missions in this baby.

For the record, this isn't a picture of a plane just like one I flew, but the actual one - PR-07. It wasn't my favorite one, but it was in the top 3 or 4. The planes were supplied and flown by the guys from VQ-1, but the brains of the operation were the two linguists supplied by the Naval Communications Station - Philippines (Detatchment Bravo). I sat in the cockpit along with the pilot and navigator - and I loved it! I logged 2008 hours, and probably 1500 of them were in A-3's. Our unit provided tacical support to the Air Force and Navy units in Vietnam.

The vast majority of my flights I shared with my roommate, D J Johnson, or our good friend, Hal "Hurricane" Gamble, two of the funniest guys I've ever known. The pilots were a great group of guys that managed to get us back on the ground every morning with a minimum of wild stories to tell and all of our body parts still attached. We also had an Evaluator/Analyst in the back end. A few of them could actually find their butts with both hands if you turned the lights out....but only a few.

Learning Vietnamese was an interesting job - it took almost two years in a variety of different schools - language school at the Defense Lanugauge Institute East Coast, Voice Intercept Officer school in west Texas, Survival school in California, more training in the Phillippines, water survival school in Okinawa and probably another one or two that I've missed. Then 30 days on the USS Chicago (CG11), a truly unique experience - not necessarily a good one! That was followed by three days on the USS America waiting for a flight back to the Philippines and finally a trip to Vietnam to put my skills to work.

Fifteen months of making the World safe for Democracy, and then a return to the World. It was good to be home again.

TRAVELS ABROAD - THE IGNOBILITY

During a recent trip, Susan and I were taken by the certainty by which some cities and villages try to keep us in our place.

Walking from our hotel to the 750 year old Cathedral in Salisbury, England we chanced across this sign. Now, I fully acknowledge that youth is rapidly passing me by. I really didn't need the city fathers of Salisbury to point out the failings of my generation in signage.

Salisbury is the closest city of any size to Stonehenge and is quite near Avebury, which is supposed to be Stonehenge without the fences. This piece of information was courtesy of a riding companion on the train. Of course, we believe that he claimed to have invented gravity, so his claims about Avebury were taken with a grain of salt. The trip to Stonehenge was left undone because of the weather. Maybe next time.

The cathedral in Salisbury is remarkable in size and acoustics. The picture at the right was taken from very nearly the middle of the cathedral, which may give you a sense of scale. It truly dominates the landscape of the entire city, and attracts huge crowds of people. We happen to be there on a Saturday, which is Market day for the city.

Huge numbers of vendors selling everything from produce to books to clothing were out in force. Unfortunately for us, so was the rain. But, we braved the weather, bought some berries that were delicious, and capped off the afternoon with a semi-traditional English Tea at a local estanblishment. The tea was very hot, but the service was not. Since it wasn't tourist season, we have to believe that's the level of service that the locals get yearround!

WHAT IS AN ARTIST?

In my line of work I meet and talk to artists every day. I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to most art. If I go to an art fair, and you're the world's greatest painter, I might not see your work, because I'm looking for printmakers.

I don't care if you are a screen printer, an etcher, lithographer or a relief printer. Mixed media - as long as part of it is a print technique - is great!

But the other day I was thinking about the many other areas in life that we encounter artists. Performing artists abound in the theater and concert halls. Art is everywhere in our lives, and thank God for it. On a recent trip to Lithuania, we were entertained by the opera performers doing Aida in Vilnius. We visited studios and galleries in Vilnius and Kaunas, but I have to admit that my favorite artist is pictured above - my wife's couisin by marrriage - Solis.

The last time Solis drew a picture was probably in grade school, and the last time he sang was likely in the shower, but when it comes to making beer, the man is a virtuoso! In the small town of Vabalinka off of the paved roads, Solis and his wife Alma and their two daughters farm a plot of ground on what was formerly a collective farm. It's not large by corporate farms standards, but it's large enough to support them and hopefully make a profit.

Alma's cousin Sigita was my wife Susan's pen pal during the '50's and '60's. They met for the first time about four years ago. Neither family has a lot of money, but they are rich in many ways....love of family, pride of country and lots of hard work have shaped them into some of the richest people I know