It took a long time to get to Pensacola, going over to Florida and all. It would be weird to live on the line, going to and fro from two or more states. (I say more because in the west you can have three or more states, and in one of the blogs we'll be there). Really weird. We went over the Pensacola bay to get to Pensacola, FL, where they had a big navy base and museum of Naval Aviation. We drove in a kind of foresty area, with some dwellings. Dad told me as we saw a few dorms and a little BBQ place, where Dad said that he once ate at. He went to that base for photography school, which he learned all the stuff to have his business in Roswell, which made him meet my mom, which made them get together, which made me get born, which made Rebecca get born, which made us go on this trip, which made me write this blog, which made you be reading this right now. A lot of which's. He said that on the weekends when he was free he usually drove back home to Atlanta, and sometimes he would just stay and beat people at ping-pong. He's told me a few stories on that part. Also before he has told me about boot camp, how the guy in charge made him be in the pool and catch people, how he called him chubby, and how he also was the only one with a Bible, so he had to do the sermons for ALL the denominations. Sorry for Dad.
And that even though he wanted to paint planes in the Navy, a guy told him he'd be a photographer. And I'm glad he did. Because then he made the business, and then he met my..., well, you already know that whole deal, so there's no reason in repeating it. But anyway, we were very close to the shore, seeing dry docks with boats in trailers and fences with barbed wire around, plus a little box, and sticks moving up and down, with the Pensacola sign in green. Dad came up to the guard, and told him he did photography school here and if the building was still standing. The guard said that the white building, which Dad was referring to, was now a fitness center, because anyone can do photography in this digital world. We moved on, getting the pass to go the Naval Aviation Museum, and a few minutes later of driving and me trying to finish the Benjamin Franklin biography before the day's end. We came into a large parking lot, where we parked. There was a big museum, white painted walls, and a huge sign on the entrance, with a flat roof. There was a big circular bronze sculpture, with two pilots, one with goggles and another who was just there, and a little fighter plane pointed to the right upward with a pole holding it up. Life sized. We took pictures with it before going in a massive lobby, with a small counter and some uniformed employees, both pretty old. One was a lady with bushy white hair, who said hello to us, as I looked around and saw dioramas of aircraft carriers (I don't think real ones could fit in the museum) and some fighter planes up in the air. Connected to things holding them up, of course.
The lady informed us that you probably couldn't do it in two days, and that we only had two hours before it closed at five and couldn't possibly do it all, that we should do some of it and come back tomorrow. Well Rebecca told her that her birthday was tomorrow, that they couldn't do it that day, she had her own plans! "Well dear they're a lot for everybody to do, even you, like simulators, and things you can get in." She might of just wanted us to come back tomorrow for her to make us pay more money, or get a bundle deal or something like that. Oh well. As you'll see in a different blog, that didn't happen. Rebecca's birthday was one of a kind. And she is too. But we paid, the lady asked us what our interest was, and Dad told her that it was Korea and after. She told us that it was in another building, across a courtyard, and showed us on the map. We went to the right and saw some cool things, along the way, like a WWI camp, with all it's old stuff, burlap straps, crates full of beer, tables, and little cots for the aviators. There were manikins put in there. Rebecca and Mom went in the restroom, which was upstairs, and looked over on a balcony at us among all the cool planes, and took a far away picture. Very cool.
There was a tour guide that was showing people a plane from D-Day, and informing us of island hopping and things like that, as we went on. On a museum dial I saw a tidbit about Disney animals helping in the war effort, for instance Donald Duck promoting grenades and Goofy telling people to volunteer and get in the draft. Mickey Mouse was in none of those, because they thought his character was not for war and it would put a bad reputation, so he was in nurse ads and things like that. It was interesting. While reading about one huge plane with it's four guns and the nose of the plan being smashed and the pilot tragically dying, Mom and Dad were walking on. I rushed up to see them, and saw some more huge planes, with the big tires going inside the belly of it and things like that. Most of these old ones were pretty grey, but others we posed with had gnashing teeth and blue and red and white, and they looked like sharks. I've seen that in Star Wars too. Strange. As I went across the white tile floor, we talked to a lady who remembered when there was the photography school, and she and Dad spoke a little. I got in a small detached cockpit, and it was a long time before I got in the tight small space, putting my feet down to the end, with all the dusty old dials, and numbers, displays, words, switches... man, I could never do that. Maybe I could be in a boat, but not in one of those for a long time.
We walked out and looked over some blue angels, dark blue dark blue and yellow, little things. Then we walked out into a stone opening between the two buildings, and saw a few little fighter planes. There was a tall lobby, and a white missile on the left of us, held up by a stand, plus a black bulky chair, that was attached to the wall. It was a ejection seat for a plane. Rebecca and I later posed in this, our feet hanging free in the air. We talked to some old gentlemen, who talked about some things with us, and pointed to a green long helicopter, with it's spinning blades and bulky figure, saying that both Nixon and Ford rode on it on visits to Vietnam and such, and Nixon did his famous two peace sign pose and Ford's "I-fall-down-stairs-and-make-it- look-good-" pose. We looked in, seeing the cockpit and some of the couches in the back, grey and lifeless, and a table with bathroom. All grey. But it was funny to impersonate Richard Nixon and Gerald B. Ford. Silly President Ford. What did they do with him?
We walked on, and saw a host of helicopters, aircraft carrier small dioramas, with all of the ladders, fighters, and the tower that went up and up. Earlier I'd seen the top of one of these they have had in the museum, but I couldn't go on it because of the tour guide with a big crowd blocking it, plus Mom and Dad leaving for Korea and Vietnam. I had let Dad pick the part he wanted to see, because it was his station and very personal for him. Also, I have been to MANY, MANY aviation museums and have had more than my fill of things I have loved and had delight in seeing. It's like going to an old friend's house, knowing all the parts and just letting the tide flow as it wants to. But at that moment I looked at the aircraft carrier, mystified by it. I asked Dad if I would ever in my lifetime go on an aircraft carrier or something like it. "Probably not," he said. I asked him if he himself had been on one. Yes, he said, but that nowadays they do not allow citizens on there, and that it was only when Dad was in the Navy he did two weeks of active duty. And Dad informed me that, "you're not going in the military. If you try I'll have to shoot you in the leg." Real words spoken. Why did he not want me in the military? For obvious reasons, of course. He doesn't want me to die in the service. That would be terrible. But, as you'll see in a later blog post, I wouldn't have to go into the military to see one of these things.
We took some pictures and I touched a torpedo. It was really cool to touch a torpedo, to say you have touched a thing that blows stuff up.... it's just... flabbergasting, powerful too. Oh yes it is. It wasn't too big an auditorium, and we quickly saw all the cool aircraft from Korea and Vietnam. Most were green and looked like they blended in, with guns on their sides, and most were helicopters. It was cool. When we were done, we saw that there was an hour left, for us to be left to our own devices. There was an iMax Theater, and there was a documentary(if you could call those awesome really cool movies a documentary) about Helicopters. We rushed on over to that counter with the lady, passing by the old men at the other counter, and saw the gift shop across from it, and got the tickets. Then, we got to a part in the huge room where there was a lady taking tickets and a rope holding back a staircase. While waiting in line Mom took pics of Rebecca and I in separated parts of the blue angels, getting on by a silver little staircase. I waited anxiously, wanting to get in before they let us in for the movie. A little girl was in front of me. They did the whole process and thankfully were done in a little while. I got in, and positioned myself in, and played a little with the controls, making poses for Mom. Rebecca was in one by me. We never did end up going on the simulator. Just didn't. Oh well.
Mom rushed us on to go in, as Dad gave the lady the tickets and we went up black stairs, and came by the front entrance a hugely upward seats in a theater, and boy was that screen HUGE. Bigger than the jumbo screen at games, or at least as big. The seats were as steep as the nosebleed section at a baseball stadium, almost as straight up as a pencil. We walked slowly, holding onto the metal railing and going up, slowly, with some people finding rows. The first few were wheelchair rows, to be reserved for the handicapped. We got a little ways up, with a railing looking over the other seats. Mom showed us my art teacher's FaceBook message, about her daughter having published a book about a time machine. It was dark, with the distant mutter of people whispering and joking around. Then the movie started, with the sound of a lady robot echoing, telling us if it is too real to close your eyes till that bad feeling goes away, things like that, no smoking and a lot of promotion of ads. Then it started, with a Aeriel shot of a helicopter in the mountains of Switzerland, and of a mother and son riding through all the snow. An avalanche came down on them, and they got buried in it. The mom managed out and called what a Switzerland equivalent of 911 is, and then they came in a rescue helicopter, got him on a gurney and loaded him on the copter, and then they got him to the hospital. The kid's voice rang out, "I was in pretty bad shape, but if you are in a situation like that, then you want to go to the hospital in...a helicopter."
There was such a real aspect about it all, the video images over a vast screen, moving like choreography dancers, all in place, the things that made you feel like YOU were in the helicopter, all the big tapes from above, and the different scenes of how a helicopter worked in life, going into enemy forces and lifting guys down on a rope, and them succeeding in the mission, and one of a private enterprise that sold some. Every part had a narration, people introduced, but it was not lectury or boring as some documentaries tend to be. There were wondrous Aeriel shots on the sides and fronts of these machines, showing the mysterious world below. There were a lot of cool parts to it, but the ones I liked a lot and thought were cool was one where a guy cut down a tree, had it in the woods, and then after that picked it up on it's top with a dirty crane. It was a strenuous process, but cool to see, with the tree constantly making nosies and falling, and then the guy carrying it up in the air and dropping it for a man to take it on a truck to have it to be logged and used for wood. Another was one with a grey haired man with a mustache, who was literally on a metal horizontal slide on the helicopter, and it was him in the background saying that he likes to be on the slides of the helicopter, in the open air.
He then preceded, before the eyes of the viewer in the theater, to really move toward a power line, a telephone poles, on the shore on an island, feet dangling, and to get a stick and a machine that took out electric shocks, and actually moved a thing that moved around the cylinder, and got on it, and crawled along the whole thing, and he said that it wasn't a job for hot dogs, but if you practice and study and when everything is put into place it's just like riding a bike or crossing the street. You have to gave guts to do that. You have to.
The Helicopter movie ended with another one, with two brother's boat sinking and them out in the water, and how a guy was lowering from a helicopter, with flippers, and found them in the crashing dark waters, and took them on the silver plate, and they went back up. But the cord broke, and they couldn't come back and get another and their gas was low so they left the good diver out there alone, with provisions, of course. He stayed the night in the water, and his voice went over the speaker, that he wasn't thinking about sharks, just trying to think about that he was so glad that those brothers were rescued. Pretty amazing, to stay in those rocking waters of the Pacific. They took him back in the morning, of course, and the movie ended with an inspirational part. Then we came out of the black theater, and came to the gift shop for a little and looked among it's things. But they informed us of the time, and we left after a pretty good visit. I enjoyed going. Learned a lot of stuff. Liked the movie a lot. Well, we went to the car, and found a white building facing the water on a hill, flat with two floors. Dad's old photography school. Where history was made and where everything connected. We saw a bugle call, and even the walkers by the tennis courts (across from the photo school because it's now a fitness center) stop for respect. Well, we went home to the R.V. park, walked the dogs out on the walkway, and looked out as we walked along for alligators. And then...
Just kidding, we didn't see any, but saw the prairie grass and the sunset going down. A day where we saw a sunrise ended with us as the family seeing a sunset. That's how life is, too. Well, we went to bed.
I am literally writing these words (the time it's posted is not the same because Mom edits it later) as there is 57 seconds left in the 47th Super Bowl. Pretty exciting. I don't care who wins, but I guess I like the Giants story and their players, and most of my friends are pulling for them. I have seen the Patriots stadium though... oh well. Only a good minute left. Sweaty anxious coaches, excited fans with their bets in place and their chips smashing against their teeth, and a 12 year old kid in an R.V. blogging away, typing at the keys as people all around the globe watch with peeled eyes at the screen. Football. A game of trial, tribulation, comedy, fun, and buff men tackling each other for an oval ball. Goodbye for now and goodnight everybody, I hope your team wins the trophy.
AND THE WINNER OF THE XLVII SUPER BOWL GAME IS... TO BE DECIDED IN 48 SECONDS!,
Andrew.
9 seconds left. The giants are winning. 21 to 17. 5 seconds left now at 8:52 central time. Gulp. I'm going to save and exit this blog post on the end of it. Here it goes. It's the Giants!
No comments:
Post a Comment