Search and Rescue Sikorski Utility Helicopter
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Outside Hanger One at the Pima Aircraft Museum, in a dirt field, helicopters, prehistoric looking birds with rotating wings, are on display.
This Sikorski Utility helicopter was used at U.S. Coast Guard search and rescue stations in the seventies.
On night duty in U.S. Coast Guard Air Station radio rooms, part of my watch was relaying messages from aircraft to the Officer of the Day, answering calls from fishing widows wondering why their hubby wasn’t back in his easy chair with a beer in one hand and the channel changer in the other looking for football games.
Weather is always a consideration, and, in the gulf, squalls come up unexpectedly.. Hurricanes shut down oil rigs and personnel are routinely evacuated. Around water, you can always become a grisly statistic.
In those Vietnam years, us six foot sailors wore dress blues for ceremonies – dungarees, denim shirts, and white Dixie Cup hats for daily work.There were angry protests on the nightly news, signs in the streets, and burned American flags.
Now, decades after the tragic war, Vietnam is a thriving country instead of a place Americans had to lose a war in order to win it.
Some obligations can’t be run from, no matter how odious.
Countries, just like people, are not always smart about what they choose to do, or not to do.
Bomb’s Away Pima Air Museum, Tucson, Arizona
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The Pima Air Museum is an equal opportunity museum.
It has fighter planes, bombers, helicopters, experimental dreams, cargo planes, There are hangers filled with donated airplanes of every vintage, staffed with volunteers, and a large open field where aircraft have been retired from service. There are early primitive planes, and then more modern sleek riveted birds made out of metal, plastic and fiberglass that fly higher, faster, quieter.
From the bomber’s seat in the nose of a museum B-52, tattooed with buxom women, the bomber squinted through his viewfinder at the enemy target below. In his gun sights were manufacturing plants, bridges, military bases, railroad tracks, airstrips – strategic targets.
With the gentle push of a button, the bomber dropped his death packages, watched his bombs spiral towards Earth like wounded birds.Airmen, long after their missions were complete, could still hear screams in their mind as metal and stone ripped into people and pieces of cities fell like a child’s blocks knocked over by a careless hand.
Most planes on display in the museum have curved lines and their angles are sharp. Rivets on the older planes were done by hand by women in California factories and a volunteer tells Alan and I how Los Angeles plants, in WW11, were turning out one B-52 bomber a day that were immediately put into the war’s service and turned the war effort around.
Old dreams of flying like birds have come true and old dreams of conquering the world haven’t gone away.
The next Caesar, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Hitler is just around time’s bend, and, when they arrive, there will be plenty of firepower at their disposal.
Making weapons is a human obsession.
Chili Fundraiser 450 happy diners
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We spend lots of time waiting in our lives.
We wait to be born and wait to be buried, wait to graduate, wait to raise kids, pay off a mortgage, retire, serve and be served,break par, get money back on our taxes.
If we are lucky the line keeps moving and we have more people behind us, than ahead.
This line started forty five minutes before six, the scheduled time for the chili fundraiser for the Lapidary Club. In the auditorium, attendees visit old friends and make new ones. You would think that with less time left in their hourglass old people would be in a bigger hurry.
The Chili Fundraiser is a success.
The chili isn’t spicy enough for some but we’ll wait till next time to see if the chefs get bolder. The older we get the more bland our food has to be.
Raising funds is always a challenge, but tonight they SOLD all their tickets.
People watching beats television any time.
jackalope Picacho Peak Plaza
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Interstate 10 runs through Tucson and angles northwest to Phoenix.
Once you leave Tucson, the first spot of interest, higher than rabbit’s ears, is Picacho Peak. This peak is actually a group of peaks ringed by saquaros. For miles surrounding this congregation of peaks,there is nothing but dead flat dirt, mesquite, cactus.
At the exit to the Picacho Peak RV Resort, and an Arizona state campground, is Picacho Peak Plaza – a Shell gas station and curio shop. These knick knack shops scratch out an existence throughout the west and if you can get in and out without buying something that will forever gather dust on a shelf at home, you are far too disciplined.
Near the front entrance, I am confronted by a stuffed Jackalope, a mythical American West animal that is part rabbit and part antelope.
According to Wikipedia, the Jackalope prefers whiskey as a drink, can cause a lot of damage to one’s shins. There is a man in the Dakotas who still makes them and sells in bulk to Cabela’s for around $150.00 apiece. It is said that Jackalopes are good mimics, and, at night, cowboys singing around a fire under the stars, can hear them harmonizing.
My T or C friend, Kirk, buys himself a candy bar for sugar energy and we hit the road again for Tucson, on an expedition to a camera shop to look at a new lens for Kirk’s camera. He photographs homes for sale, for Green Valley real estate agents.
I think I see a Jackalope waving at us as we pull back onto the freeway, but Kirk says I am mistaken.
The human mind, our real-unreal world keeps reminding me, is more frail than some people want to admit.
Getting out of this tourist trap without spending a dime tells me I’m tougher than I thought I was.
Drones In your neighborhood
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Drones, as defined in middle school, were worker bees who served the Queen, built and maintained the hive, and lived a dronish life.
In high school, drone became a word describing people working in cubicles who did jobs the CEO hadn’t figured out how to eliminate.
Now, much older, drones are flying in my neighborhood, rumored to be delivering packages but mostly collecting data for the C.I.A and Deep State..
Original drones were for hobbyists who moved to them from model airplanes. Drones have flexibility. They can hover, do quick turns, are lightweight, easy to maneuver, and can go places planes can’t. In later incarnations, surveillance cameras were added, and, in warfare, missiles were mounted that could be triggered in Virginia to take out insurgents in Iraq.
These DJI Phantom’s are for sale in Best Buy, not any more expensive than a computer,or a nice camera lens,or big screen TV. In the right hands, drones take breathtaking videos around the world that you can see on You Tube.
The move to make machines to execute our desire for power, pleasure,spying and money intensifies.
Drones are now a reality we are going to be hearing more about, whether we want to, or not.
Technology, as we all know, has lots of plus, and lots of minus.
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