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The chapter jeffe, Eric, emailed me an invite so I called my uncle and, if he hadn't been excited to see the Corsair and Sea Hawk scheduled to appear, I think I would have begged:p
In the end, he and an old friend (Capt. Jack, a retired river boat pilot) and I hung out in the car hiding from the wind and listening to Capt. Jack tell tall tales about his own days of wine and roses (apparently not over yet)
Jack apparently knew Kermit Weeks back in the day, so now I have my very own Kermit Connection--I guess I'm about seven degrees away from Kevin Bacon now. I'm not sure if this Kermit connection is going to do me any good, as Jack and Kermit were apparently feuding over a lady friend back when...Typical pilot: Big Watch, little you-know-what, looking for a place to cash a check! He claims not to be very computer savy, but I think I'm going to work on getting him a handle here at WIX- he's sure been around, and has a ton of great stories. He'd make a terrific addition to any of the forums here.
The warbirds were scratched due to weather and a little mechanical trouble, but a flight of three Navions dropped by to show off their formation skills, reminding me that I haven't seen an airshow in quite a while. The Madison branch also has a fistful of observation aircraft they're working on, and a couple of T6's. One is called Catch 22 if you can believe it! Of course I came home and cracked it open to finish it. I was left hoping YoYo made out all right! (I swear THIS time I think he did!)
Uncle Jim's war story isn't the war story my Mother tells, sorry to say. Either he's reluctant to brag (hard as I try to pump him :p) or my mother is totally confusing him with John Wayne. I suspect it's a little of both, but whatever he did or did not do, he certainly made it out of Chosin and lived to tell the tale. And he is also a plank owner of VMO6 where he was sent from VMX1. He knows more about marine VTOL than I know about...well, almost anything! As far as I am concerned he makes the stuff I did look like a day at boy scout camp! We are walking on the shoulders of giants, fellas.
Anyway, I invited him to drop in and I hope he will, so if he signs up, please give him the same WIX welcome I got, and keep the barfights to the bars!
Dan and Gary, I pointed him to your threads. I personally think the two of them are important historical documents and certainly are two of the best threads on WIX. Thanks to you both for all of your hard work. Dan, I have bragged about seeing the zero and the F6F ever since that fly in, and I must thank you again for the invitation. It made my day, my month, and almost certainly, my year. You'll never know.
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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."
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