God, enough cooking already! On Thanksgiving, while Donna, daughter Polly, and daughter-in-law Beth prepared turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, yams, and pies (apple and pumpkin), our son Gregory and I smoked a duck and a ham . . . it would have been a feast for a dozen adults and six hungry children, let alone five adults and two picky-eater kids. The day after Thanksgiving, Donna put me in charge of preparing a pot roast with potatoes, onions, and carrots, forcing me to find the only cooking utensil that didn’t get used the day before: the pressure cooker.
Now the kids are on their way home, Polly to Phoenix and Gregory and family to Las Vegas, loaded up with leftovers. We kept the ham bone to make a pot of split pea soup, and a few turkey and ham scraps for sandwiches. Someone (no, it wasn’t me) must have gobbled up what was left of the duck. To my surprise, Donna kept part of the apple pie . . . not on our food plan, but we won’t let that stand in our way.
But it wasn’t all cookin’ and eatin’ . . . on Friday the girls made gingerbread houses, while the boys visited the Pima Air Museum.
Not to change the subject, but I’m curious about the fighting cock logo on the bomber’s nose. When I flew F-15s at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, one of my sister units was the 67th Tactical Fighter Squadron, the “Fighting Cocks” (I was a 44th TFS “Vampire”). The fighting cock on the bomber is similar to the 67th TFS’s fighting cock (both wear boxing gloves), but according to my research, the 67th squadron has always been a pursuit or fighter unit and has never flown bombers. Nor can I find any WWII bomber unit that used a fighting cock logo. So it’s probably just a bit of nose art, but it brought an interesting story to mind.
In 1979, the US Air Force was still politically incorrect, at least when it came to homosexuality. That year the fighter pilot grapevine was abuzz with the story of a Kadena F-15 pilot who got caught propositioning a male crew chief and was summarily chucked out of the service . . . a pilot who just happened to be assigned to the 67th Fighting Cocks. Well, I reckon you can guess what that squadron’s been called ever since.
When I arrived at Kadena in 1988, pilots assigned to the 67th still had these little rocker patches they could stick to the velcro beneath the Fighting Cock patches on their flight suits. Wear of the rocker patch was forbidden, but they’d put them on in the officers’ club late at night, or during deployments to Korea. The words on the rocker patches were “It Wasn’t Me.”
Some day I’ll be able to share this story with my grandson Quentin!
Life is good. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!