Saturday Bag o’ Memories & Updates
When I drove handicapped patients for the Tucson VA Hospital, I had one skinny old guy who took three trips a week to University Medical Center for radiation treatment.
Thursday Bag o’ Stories
Friends are sharing kitchen stories with me, and no wonder, since that’s all I seem to have been writing about lately.
Air-Minded: Counting My Squadrons
I completed four operational flying assignments as a pilot in the United States Air Force. My career, with its balance of operational and staff assignments, was more or less typical for USAF pilots of my generation. What was different … and I’m sure it was nothing more than happenstance … is that the flying squadrons my family and I called home were not only low-numbered ones, but came in ascending numerical order: from the 8th Flying Training Squadron to the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, then on to the 43rd TFS and finally the 44th TFS. How many USAF veterans can say that?
Air-Minded: PASM Photoblog XVIII
I don’t know why, with my fighter and trainer background, I should be drawn to this old Buff, but it fascinates me and I come back to it again and again.
Air-Minded: The Acorn Days
I first saw this document, unsourced, crudely edited, and incomplete, in an email sent around to volunteer docents at Pima Air and Space Museum. It grabbed my attention immediately, so I took the trouble to track down the source and obtain a complete, unedited copy.
Air-Minded: Puttin’ on the Hustle
This Air-Minded post was originally published in June 2012. I’m moving it back to the top of the blog after removing some link rot and adding new photos. —Paul If my fighter pilot friends are wondering about me after my earlier post on the F-101B Voodoo air defense interceptor, they’ll surely think I’ve lost my […]
Air-Minded: Starfires, Scorpions, Mighty Mice
I grew up as an Air Force brat in the 1950s and 60s, and one trend or theme you may have noticed with my Air-Minded posts is that I keep coming back to the jets of my childhood, plastic models of which hung from the ceiling of my bedroom.
Sunday Bag o’ Sputnik
I have an older but sharper memory of Grandfather Estes dragging me and my sister Sue outside one night to see something that had never seen before. It was October 1957, and the Russians had just launched Sputnik.