Travles with Harley

Well friends, here is my tale of my travels with Harley.

A few years ago I was scheduled to start a new job and I had two weeks to kill. What shall I do? I know! How about riding my new Harley Davidson motorcycle to California and back in the middle of winter! Yeah, that's the ticket!

So, off I go with my wife's blessing and admonition "don't bend the new Harley". More on (moron?) that later.

For those of you with busy schedules, and since this is one of my long-winded stories, here is the executive summary of the trip:

- Tornados in Atlanta

- Lost my wallet in El Paso

- Wonderful visit with Jim and his family

- Blizzard in New Mexico

- Corralled in Gallup

- Armed robbery in Gallup (not me)

- Wrecked my bike in Amarillo

- Duct tape, bungee cord and four miles of frozen hell

- The last dash home, 19 hours, 1,000 miles, 21 degrees

- What a GREAT trip!

Here is the long version:

Harley and I departed Virginia on Thursday, January 18th. Since there was snow west of us, I decided to take I95 to south of Richmond, then head southwest via I85 to Louisiana. From there we would catch I10 west, circumventing all the foul weather.

Not.

It seems that there were severe thunderstorms and tornados hitting the Atlanta area on Friday, January 19th. Not craving that much of an adventure, I elected to hole up in a motel room in North Carolina for an extra day. The storms passed and on Saturday Harley and I continued our trip (south) west. There were a few snowflakes in Atlanta as we passed through, but none sticking to the road. The good news is that native Atlantans(?) view the invasion of snow to be just as unsettling as Sherman's visit a few years back. Thus, traffic was light and we made good time. Now a day behind my self-imposed schedule, we pushed on through to Lafayette, Louisiana, bedding down for the night.

You know how when you enter a state there will be a highway sign telling you the miles to the next few cities? And how sometimes the highway sign will tell you the miles to a town on the far border, giving you and indication of how far you have to travel if you are just passing through? Well, upon entering Texas I knew I was looking at a long day in the saddle when the sign said "El Paso ... 875 miles". 875 MILES!!!! No wonder Texas used to be its own country.

Anyhow, Harley and I made it all the way to El Paso that day, where I managed to lose my wallet.

What happened is this: Since Harley's odometer was showing 8,400 miles, I figured it was about time for his 7,500 mile check up. El Paso has a pretty decent Harley Davidson dealer, so I located myself at the service department door by 7:30 the next morning. When they opened the doors I immediately tracked down the service manager by the name of Mike and whined and sniveled about how I was on the road and just passing through and was hoping to get the quick and easy 7,500 mile check up and how soon could he take me in and how quickly could they do the job because I needed to get back on the road because I was heading out the California and still had many miles to go and ... and ... and ... Finally, Mike interrupts me and says that they always give travelers preferential treatment and he would take my bike right away. I suspect he meant whiny travelers but whatever. He told me to get lost and go someplace for breakfast and my bike would be done by the time I got back. Cool.

Off I go, walking about ½ mile to the local Denny's. I was traveling all dressed up in my powder blue snowmobile suit, which, by the way, was doing nothing for the bad biker image I was trying to project. Anyhow, I have learned to take the suit off in the lobby of restaurants to reduce the stare factor as I walk to my table. I unzipped the snowmobile suit in the lobby of Denny's, took it off, folded it up and walked to my table. I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, reading the paper, sipping countless cups of coffee and generally pissing off the waitress because I'm taking so long. I decide it is finally time for me to leave and I reach for my wallet. Hmmm, now where is it? I generally keep it in the upper left breast pocket of the snowmobile suit so I can gain access to it when buying gas. However, my wallet is not there. That's funny, it was there at the Harley dealer. Hmmm, must have moved it to another pocket. I start calmly searching ALL my pockets, but with no luck, no wallet. Now I start to get worried. I stand up, somewhat calmly, and start searching all my pockets again. And again. NO WALLET!!!! Uh oh. I look under table thinking maybe it was on the floor. Nope. UH OH!! Now, I know I can wash dishes at Denny's to pay for breakfast, but how do I get Harley out of hock?!?!? I, less calmly, walk to the lobby and look around the floor. Nope. I then look under the bench seat in the lobby, and there sat my wallet. It must have fallen out of the snowmobile pocket when I took it off, and I then must have unknowingly kicked the wallet under the bench. I checked the wallet and all my money and credits cards where there. Whew! I pay for breakfast and walk back to get my buddy Harley. Sure enough, Mike lived up to his word and Harley was ready to go. (Mike to mechanic: "Do this job now, and do it fast. I don't want this guy hanging around the dealership whining to everyone who makes eye contact with him".). Kudos to Barnett's Harley Davidson in El Paso.

Harley and I continued our travels west and two days later met up with my son Jim at a gas station near Edwards Air Force Base, where he and his family live. Jim was on his bike so we teamed up and rode to the base, where along the way we raced a train to the next crossing, but I'm not allowed to talk about that. (We won).

Sue flew out to meet me at Jim's and we had a most wonderful visit with Jim, his wife Lorie and their daughter Jordan. What an incredible family! We got to see Jordan and her basketball team battle it out with an opposing school. One of Jordan's teammates made the winning shot as the buzzer was sounding. How exciting!

Excellent visit with a most excellent family.

As I was packing to leave California there was a storm hitting the west coast and it was raining at Edwards AFB. That's the base in the middle of the Mojave Desert. You know, desert as in dry and parched. That figures. Jim and I worked it out that if Harley and I left right away and rode hard we could stay ahead of the storm as it moved east. I head out on Friday, January 26th and end up having dinner in Flagstaff, Arizona. Flagstaff radio is telling us to expect a foot of snow that night. I talked this over with Harley and we decide to move on, finally stopping for the night in Gallup, New Mexico. My plan was to get up early the next morning and head out before the storm hit.

My plan almost worked.

I was up and dressed at 4:00 a.m. When I walked outside to wake up Harley I found the parking lot to be slick with a light covering of snow. Rats. I know that if I head out now the highway should be okay and not covered with snow. However, I just don't like riding in the dark in the wintertime as you cannot see ice on the highway. I make the wise and mature decision to hang there an extra day to let the highway dry up.

Big mistake, this wise and mature decision thing.

As it turns out, this was the worse snowstorm in something like ten years. New Mexico shut down I40 throughout the whole state! There were hundreds of semi trucks parked all up and down the road by the hotel, stranded there for a day and a half.

I ended up stranded in Gallup for two and a half days.

Well I woke up Sunday mornin' with no way to hold my head, didn't hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I shaved my face and combed my hair and stumbled down the stairs to meet the day

From "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" Performed by Kris Kristofferson

Okay, okay. It was only three Bud Lights during the Super Bowl, but you catch my drift.

The only entertainment the hotel offered was when the poor guy above me was robbed at gunpoint during the storm. It seems that he was followed into his room by a bad guy with a gun who proceeded to tie the hotel guest up with shoelaces, covered him with blankets and took his cash. Ouch.

Harley and I finally left Gallup on Monday, January 29th, headed towards trouble. It was my plan to ride to Amarillo, Texas and stay there for the night. The highway was clear and dry, and I did not leave Gallup until noon, allowing the sun to warm the highway.

Yet another wise and mature decision, and you know how THOSE work out.

Because Harley and I left Gallup so late, we were still 21 miles from Amarillo when the sun set. No problem. The highway had been in excellent shape all day, so we pressed on towards our destination. We came upon a highway construction site where the right lane was blocked. Just as we entered the construction site I felt Harley drop a couple of inches and the light colored concrete roadway disappeared. Apparently the open left lane had some unfinished work and the snowplows were not able to clear it. The road suddenly turned to a dark sheet of rutted ice. Harley immediately started to swerve left and right following the icy ruts. I decelerated Harley without applying brakes while attempting to maintain directional and vertical stability until we found clean pavement. Such was not to be. Harley and I had a Jersey wall to our right and a snow bank about 18 inches high to the left. I don't know about you, but I've never been particularly fond of Jersey. Harley started to go down to the left towards the snow bank. We were going 50 mph when we came upon the ice, and I would guess that we were still going about 25 mph when we crashed into the snow bank. Harley hit the snow bank on his left side and flipped sideways 180 degrees, ejecting me into the median strip.

You know .... I had some interesting thoughts as I was flying through the air with the greatest of unease. What I was thinking, and to quote one of the most brilliant and gifted writers of our time, "I am not making this up":

- "Oh no, I'm going to wreck my beautiful new Harley motorcycle."

- "I bet this is going to hurt."

- "OOOF!!!!"

The last one was more of a comment than a thought, as it was at this precise moment I started to make a 25 mph snow angel through the median strip.

I was not injured and stood up, running over to my friend Harley. Harley was on his right side, against the snow bank, facing the wrong way. A big truck was coming up on us and I tried to flag it down but he couldn't stop, so I walked back into the median strip, away from my friend, knowing he was going to get run over by the truck. The truck driver squeezed between Harley and the Jersey wall, missing him by about an inch. Good driver. As I found out later, the word went out over the CB radio that a biker (powder blue?) was down. A westbound 18-wheeled Good Samaritan stopped his rig and ran back about 1/8 of a mile to give me a hand. He waded through the median strip (ruining my snow angel) and helped me pick up Harley. Harley fired right up. Since we were still at risk in the icy construction zone, I figured that any of Harley's pieces that broke off would just have to be picked up by highway workers in the spring. I was not going to take the time to look. As an eastbound truck blocked traffic for us, the Good Samaritan and I got Harley pointed in the right direction, I shook the Good Samaritan's hand and was off.

I got off at the next exit and pulled into one of those old Route 66 type motels to stay the night, lick my wounds and bandage Harley.

The battle damage is:

Bent front fender

Broken windshield (I suspect I did that on my way off)

Broken upper fairing

Bent engine guard

Bent rear fender

Scraped saddlebag

Scraped touring trunk with latch torn off

Various leather components scraped and cut

Pride

In actuality, it seems that the damage is slight. The engine seems to be okay and I am hoping that the frame is not bent. I'll know more once Harley visits the dealer. The hard part was calling Sue and asking her to clarify what she meant by "don't bend the Harley".

The next morning the motel owner was kind enough to give me a roll of silver duct tape. Between the tape and bungee cords I was able to put Harley back together again. Bike by Harley: Graphics by Don

As it turned out, this day would be worse than the previous one.

I don't know what it is about the Texas plow truck drivers. They did an exceptional job plowing I40. However, and I'm just speculating here, it seems that once the highway was cleared they took a passive swipe at exit ramps, on ramps and access roads. I guess they then go off together to rope a cow or something.

While looking at the access road in front of the motel it was most evident that the road was literally a sheet of ice. Looking east as far as I could, it was all a sheet of ice. However, there was an intersection about ½ mile down the road and I figured there would be an on ramp there. I just had to make it the ½ mile. As I checked out of the motel I asked the owner about getting back onto I40 east bound. He said that yes, there was indeed an on ramp at the intersection but it was closed due to construction. There's that dirty word again..."construction". Well, I ask, how far down is the next on ramp. He says, four miles.

FOUR MILES!!!

So I say to him "FOUR MILES?!?!?"

And he says yes, four miles.

Then he gets this look on his face like "I'll be renting you another room in about a half hour, won't I, Powder Blue Biker Boy".

Good grief.

Well, if I use my legs and feet as outriggers Harley and I should do just fine. This was not a wise and mature decision, but it worked. Sort of. And off we go for four miles of frozen hell. The road showed some patches of pavement every 50 to 100 yards, each patch about 3 by 6 feet in size. All we had to do was slowly, and I'm talking walking speed here, make our way from patch to patch.

As you no doubt expect, reality now clashed with theory.

We really were doing pretty well until we came to a curve in the road. The highway engineers, doing their job, graded the road at a slant at the curve. Even with outriggers Harley was not designed to stay up right on an icy graded curve and so he suddenly decided to take a break. Harley going down this time reminded me of that guy on his tricycle on the TV program "Laugh-In", only slower. So now I have an 800+ pound bike lying on his side on an icy road and not one big strong Texan in sight. However(!), I had learned something from one of my trips to Bike Week. Actually, I have learned a lot from my trips to Bike Week, but most of it was anatomical in nature and not very useful on an icy road in Texas. At a demonstration in the Honda tent in Daytona a Honda rep showed us how to pick up a fully loaded Gold Wing that had fallen over. So I tried what he had shown us. Position the handle bar here, hold it there, place your left hand here, bend at the knees and lift with your legs. Ignoring the creaking, popping arthritic knees it worked like a champ! Yes! Powder Blue Bikers rule!!! Fortunately Harley had fallen over so that the tires were over one of those rare patches of pavement and he didn't slide as I picked him up. Otherwise I would still be scootching Harley on his side across some farmer's frozen field on my way to Dallas.

I don't even want to talk about the icy hill we had to traverse.

Harley and I finally made it to the on ramp and rejoined eastbound civilization. The trip went well through Amarillo, but then turned sour once again. The left lane became ice and slush, there was ice in the right lane as you passed under an overpass (shielding the road from the sun) and there was a strong wind coming from my left, gusting from 20 to 30 mph. Plus, I was moving at a moderate pace and when the trucks passed me they threw up ice and slush onto Harley's windshield and my helmet, blinding me. This was usually followed by an enthusiastic gust of wind. After a few miles of this I knew that I was being unfair to the truckers, making them pass me in an unsafe lane, and I knew that I was just going to get Harley and myself into serious trouble. Really serious trouble. Suddenly a beautiful sight appeared. Another one of those old Route 66 motels with a welcome sign "Check out our winter hourly rates" or something like that. Anyhow, beggars can't be choosers and after only an hour on the road I stopped to let yet another day pass, allowing the snow plow drivers and the sun to continue working on the highway.

During that day I would periodically walk out to the highway and watch the traffic flying by, whine a little bit and go back to my motel room. The snow plows and the sun worked hard that day and all the next morning. So, at noon that next day we hit the road.

It was wonderful.

The road was clear and the wind gusts were mild. Harley and I just kept putting the miles behind us. We made it all the way to just west of Little Rock that day. The only downside was that the wreck had bent the engine guard upon which I had bolted highway pegs, which allowed me to stretch out my legs. I thought that cramped knees were bad until I discovered that one of the wires running to the speakers in my helmet had broken in the wreck and I couldn't listen to the radio.

1,600 miles to go and NO RADIO!!!

Oh, the humanity!!!

On Thursday morning, February 1st Harley and I left Little Rock at 8:00 a.m. (Eastern time) and didn't look back. We traveled over 1,000 miles that day, arriving home at 3:00 a.m. the next morning. The temperature the last five hours was just over 20 degrees through the Appalachian Mountains, but Harley and I were headed back to the barn and we weren't about to stop.

All in all it was an incredible trip lasting 5,810 miles, most of it right side up. We live in a most beautiful country and I feel fortunate to have seen some of its beauty.

What's next, you ask? Well, the first thing is to get Harley fixed up. Then, my son Ross tells me that he plans on racing his motorcycle at Daytona this year during Bike Week. The next trip with Harley will be to watch Ross race.

I look forward to enjoying the warm Florida climate as I continue my travels with Harley.

Ftt.

Don

Tales from the USO

Entry in our USO diary:

A Mobile Lounge operator made a point to come and donate $200.00 cash to the USO. This money was given as a tip from a Saudi prince for delivering him to the airport.

Who's your Daddy??

Did anyone notice the small article on page 3B of the recent "US Today" about Buick (of General Motors) and Jaguar (recently of Ford) tying for FIRST PLACE for reliability in the JD Powers survey?!?

Knocking Lexus out of first place after 14 YEARS?!?!?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Why wasn't this front page news??

Wouldn't better coverage have been a shot in the arm for our own heavy industry during a time of need?

Dang.

http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzauto206076145mar20,0,1526728.story

Failure

It just seems to me that the US automobile manufacturers should be allowed t0 fail, in order to succeed.


http://dreams.honda.com/#/video_fa

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Can you imagine?

A national treasure died a few weeks ago. A Tuskegee Airman.

Tuskegee Airmen are my heroes. Fighting two wars: one war just to be allowed to fight for their country and the other taking the fight to the enemy, succeeding beyond all expectations. I have been fortunate to meet many Red Tails, collecting autographs like some star struck groupie.

My uncle (once removed) flew B-17s out of Italy and I asked him if he ever met the Tuskegee Airmen. He said “Met them?!?! I ate with them, played cards with them. Yes, I met them.” I then asked him if he ever felt any animosity from the other bomber crewmen since he was white and hanging with the Tuskegee Airmen. He replied “Animosity? No. Every time I got shot up and was trying to make it back to base I would radio for help and up would come a P-51 Mustang flown by a Tuskegee Airman. He would have the canopy back, goggles up and a big smile on his face. He would escort me all the way home. Animosity? Hell no.”

Pretty cool.

One of the Airmen told me one time that he was on a base in the USA where German POWs were quartered. They performed grounds keeping duties, etc. They, the enemy, were allowed to use the base store, and he, the fighter pilot, was not. Fried my butt. Still does.

And now this guy, this hero, lives to see President Obama sworn in as the Commander in Chief and then dies. A free man.

Can you imagine?

The Last Samurai

I never thought of my father as being an exceptionally courageous man, except for that one time of course, when he took his own life.

I did think of my father as exceptionally intelligent and talented.

When he graduated from high school his teachers wanted him to go to college. He declined, choosing instead to work with both his mind and his hands as a tool and die maker. Shaping complex things out of metal. One of his greatest accomplishments occurred during World War II. He was employed at the Lewis Research Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor of today's NASA. The lab's charter was to explore aeronautic propulsion. With his own hands he helped to build one of the US government's first research jet engines. He took a solid block of metal and, working 12 hours shifts at night for a whole year, cut out a unit of turbine blades from that block.

Think about that.

We are not talking about many separate blades. We are talking about a unit of multiple blades from one block of metal; all the curves, all the angles; all the perfection necessary to literally grind out these blades as one single unit. I wonder what type of grinders were employed in 1943. Incredible. The next time you board a jet airliner, take a look at the blades and think about the skill it would take to carve them out of a single block of metal. By hand. My father worked for NACA/NASA from World War II until after men landed on the moon. Pretty good career.

After the war he also built our home with the help of his life partner, our mother. A brick home with radiant heat rising from hot water pipes running throughout the concrete pad upon which the house stood. Radiant heat constructed in 1950, a time when furnaces were welcome. Then he built the large two car garage out of concrete block. Then added the large family room when the family grew larger. He wanted a boat so he acquired the two halves of a mold for a fiberglass boat and then built a boat out of the mold itself. He then went to a tool and die shop in the evenings and hand build a complex, hinged trailer that tilted to ease the launching of the hand built boat.

In the 1960's he prepared for retirement by buying run down apartments and renovating them, teaching me the fundamentals of plumbing, wiring, painting and more. His last few years of his career included 80 hour work weeks. Forty at the lab and forty at the apartment buildings. He was like a locomotive.

Up until recently he and my mother would travel in a motorhome for at least six months out of the year. Most people sell their motorhomes after putting 12,000 to 18,000 miles on them over a period of years. My parents traded in their motorhomes for a new one when the old one hit 100,000 miles. They were rock-hounders. I'm talking about traveling out to the Wild West and attacking hills and mountains with pick and shovel. Then, take the rocks they found, clean them up in a cold mountain stream to then polish and facet the rocks. My father took the motorhome so far back in the rugged hills one time that he broke a rear leaf spring. They just sat there in their sagging motorhome until friends eventually wondered what happened to them and came looking.

And his intellect just kept going.

He once read an encyclopedia for fun. Later, we hooked him up with the mother of all encyclopedias, the Internet, and he was off and running. Have you ever seen the commercial where the guy reaches the end of the Internet? We were a little worried about that. Every once in a while I would throw a topic his way just to see him research it and tell me what he learned. "Hey Dad, did you hear about this guy who has walked 25,000 miles in the wilderness? Wonder if he wrote a book, could be pretty fun reading". Bang, here comes the results of my Dad's research AND a book from Amazon. He was 86 years old and could have taught a youngster how to surf the net.

Every year when Sue and I would visit my Mom and Dad in Florida, I would challenge my father to a nightly game of Jeopardy. And every year he would kick my ass. He just sat there and quietly gave the answers to old Alex. I kept waiting for my father to develop dementia so I would have a fighting chance. Never happened.

He was an eternal source of wisdom, quietly dispensing praise and hope.

But of course, humans are not eternal and his body started to fail him. This is a guy who studied body building when the pundits were warning against becoming "muscle bound". He skied, he canoed, he boated, he camped and hunted. He was an active outdoorsman. And his body began to fail twenty years ago. First the heart, then the hips and knees. He had so many manmade parts in his body that we started to think of him as the Bionic Man. But, the locomotive kept losing steam and was coming to the end of the line. He took sick a while back. We thought we were going to lose him then. He ended up in the hospital for a few days and then physical rehab after that. He had always shunned the thought of living out his days trapped in a failed body while remaining intellectually strong, cared for by strangers in a nursing home. The hospital stay and following rehab cemented in his mind that he could no longer let the chance of a debilitating illness define his destiny. For his whole life he planned things to the nth degree, and so it was that over a period of weeks he carefully planned his own death. That's my Dad. I'm not surprised. When we went to Florida to help my mother, all we did was follow my father's written instructions.

However, even knowing the depth of my father's talent I just can't comprehend the courage it took to end his life. Stone cold sober. Of sound mind and failed body. How did he take that final step? I just don't know.

I will miss his praise. His advice. His wisdom. Who will look over the family now? It will now be more of a committee than a patriarch. I guess that's not bad, but I could have used more time with the patriarch. I would like to know from where did he find such courage? Was it always there? Am I that blind?

I have so many questions.

........

Come with me now to the movies.

I present to you one of the final scenes from the movie "The Last Samurai". Our hero Katsumoto lies mortally wounded on the field of battle. His former antagonist, and now good friend, Captain Algren is next to him. Katsumoto fought the good fight his whole life. He was a patriot, skilled at his job and a natural leader utilizing intellect and good sense. However, times change and now Katsumoto has lost not only his life, but has also lost the battle and ultimately the war.

It is his time to go, but he is not willing to die by the hand of his enemy.

Why give the enemy such satisfaction?

Where is the honor in that?

Rather, it is his desire to die by his own hand, on his own terms, thereby frustrating his enemy. Captain Algren urgently wants to stop his friend from taking his own life, but realizes that death is a very personal thing, and therefore a personal choice. Captain Algren comes to this realization in the face of unfathomable conviction. He does not try to stop his friend from suicide, but rather allows him the peace of his decision. Upon this final realization, Captain Algren looks to his friend and says:

"I will miss our conversations."

Amazing Grace

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90cfMSqAj0o


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Shoot the dogs and save Fairbanks Alaska!!!

So I had dinner recently with a guy who grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska. He was a volunteer EMT there for 5 years as well. Very cool guy.

Jason, my dinner companion, told me about Ice Fog. Have you heard of it?

It seems that ice fog is a phenomenon that occurs in very cold weather. Tiny ice particles, rather vertical in nature, form and hang in the air close to the ground. If you find yourself in an ice fog bank(?) you cannot see around you. However, if you look up you can see the sky. If you are flying over ice fog you can look down and see the ground. But if an airplane comes in to land, flying through the ice fog, the pilot can become disoriented and crash. Apparently many have, hopefully years ago and not a recent occurrence.

So, Jason said that when they responded with the ambulance to a call, it was generally outside of city center where the fog was less intense. However, the hospital was inner city and they would enter the Stephen King like fog bank on the way to the hospital, thus driving blind. They always tried to have three staff on the ambulance: a driver, the EMT in back with the patient, and a lookout with his/her face pressed to the side window watching the curb. The lookout would count how many times the curb disappeared, thereby indicating a cross street. Counting the missing curbs would tell them when to turn into a missing curb (cross street) on their way to the hospital.

Once presumes they would make it all the way to the hospital while not bumping into parked cars, dunks or polar bears.

A study from the mid-60s (URL below, or as our vice president would say, the web number) indicates that moisture is the culprit when it comes to ice fog.

Duh.

However, the researcher found that power plants, evil cars and people contributed tons of moisture to the air in Fairbanks every day. He also found that dogs at rest contributed 500,000 pounds of moisture to Fairbanks’ air every day!

And this was in 1964 when there were only 2,000 dogs in Fairbanks!

At rest!!

Goodness knows what moisture these dogs exhaled while frisky!!!

Can you imagine how many dogs live in Fairbanks now?? Over forty years later?!?!

Normally I’m not a fan of harsh treatment (except for bozos on people movers) but has anyone considered eliminating the dog population of Fairbanks? I think just the idea alone could generate a conversation inspiring bumper sticker, don’t you?



http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF13/1319.html

Timeless Youth

Letters from a young airman, Ensign William Evans, USN.

Excerpts from "A Dawn Like Thunder - The True Story of Torpedo Squadron Eight" by Robert J. Mrazek. A gift from my youngest son and his family. I recommend the book.

........................................................................................................................................................................


"December 7, 1941

My dear family,

What a day -- the incredulousness of it all still gives each new announcement of the Pearl Harbor attack the unreality of a fairy tale. How can they have been so mad? Though I suppose we have all known it would come sometime, there was always that inner small voice whispering -- no, we are too big, too rich, too powerful, this war is for some poor fools somewhere else. It will never touch us here. And then this noon that world fell apart.

Today has been feverish, not with the excitement of emotional crowds cheering and bands playing, but with the quiet conviction and determination of serious men settling down to the business of war. Everywhere little groups of officers listening to the radio, men hurrying in from liberty, quickly changing clothes, and reporting to battle stations. Scarcely an officer seemed to know why we were at war and it seemed to me there is certain sadness for that reason. If the reports I've heard today are true, the Japanese have performed the impossible, have carried out one of the most daring and successful raids in all history. They knew the setup perfectly -- got there on the one fatal day -- Sunday -- officers and men away for the weekend or recovering from Saturday night. The whole thing was brilliant. People will not realize, I fear, for some time how serious this matter is, the indifference of labor and capital to our danger is an infectious virus and the public has come to think contemptuously of Japan. And that I fear is a fatal mistake. Today has given evidence of that. This war will be more difficult than any was this country has ever fought.

Tonight I put away all my civilian clothes. I fear the moths will find them good fare in the years to come. There is such finality to wearing a uniform all the time. It is the one thing I fear -- the loss of my individualism in a world of uniforms. But kings and puppets alike are being moved now by the master -- destiny.

It is growing late and tomorrow will undoubtedly be a busy day. Once more the whole world is afire -- in the period approaching Christmas it seems bitterly ironic to mouth again the timeworn phrases concerning peace on earth - goodwill to men, with so many millions hard at work figuring out ways to reduce other millions to slavery or death. I find it hard to see the inherent difference between man and the rest of the animal kingdom. Faith lost -- all is lost. Let us hope tonight that people, all people throughout this great country, have the faith to once again sacrifice for the things we hold essential to life and happiness. Let us defend this principle to the last ounce of blood -- but then above all retain reason enough to have "charity for all and malice towards none." If the world ever goes through this again -- mankind is doomed. This time it has to be a better world.

All my love,

Bill"


.........................................................................................................................................................................
A letter written to a Wesleyan professor:


"The Fates have been kind to me. In a war where any semblance of pleasure is, to say the least, bad taste, I find many things that would please you. When you hear others saying harsh things about American youth, know how wrong they all are.

So many times now that it has become commonplace, I've seen incidents that make me know that we are not soft or bitter; perhaps stupid at first, but never weak. The boys who brought nothing but contempt and indifference in college -- who showed an apparent lack of responsibility -- carry now the load with a pride no Spartan ever bettered.

Many of my friends are now dead. To a man, each died with a nonchalance that they would have denied was courage. They simply called it lack of fear, and forgot the triumph. If anything great or good is born of this war, it should not be valued in the colonies we may win or in the pages historians will attempt to write, but rather in the youth of our country, who never trained for war, rather almost never believed in war, but who have, from some hidden source, brought forth a gallantry which is home-spun it is so real.
I say these things because I know you like and understood boys, because I wanted you to know that they have not let you down. That out here, between a spaceless sea and sky, American youth has found itself and given itself so that at home the spark may catch, burst into flame and burn high. If the country takes theses sacrifices with indifference it will be the cruelest ingratitude the world has ever known ...

My luck can't hold out much longer, but the flame goes on and on -- that is important. Please give my best wishes to all of the family, and may all you do find favor in God's grace.

Bill "

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And this from the same book:

"Bill Evans never knew which Japanese pilot killed him. He probably would have wanted the chance to write down what those last seconds were like, the sounds of the screaming engine, the flashing images, the colors of the tracer bullets hammering into his fuselage. But he would never have the opportunity. At twenty-three, he had run out of time. A hint of smoke temporarily marked the place where he went into the sea. A few moments later, it disappeared."




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I did not include the above in my blog to make anyone sad. Rather, to honor a young warrior who was brave and who could certainly turn a phrase. One way to honor him would be to compare his generation of youth to today's. Is there in fact much difference between this span of several generations? Are our current youth not as brave? As patriotic? As proud of their country as their forefathers?

R.I.P. Ensign Evans. A hero of the Battle of Midway