The Philippine Mars has arrived in Tucson, Arizona.
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Between 1945 and 1948, the Glenn L. Martin Company built seven Mars flying boats, the largest Allied seaplanes of the WWII era. Until 2024, the two surviving aircraft were based in British Columbia and used as firefighting water bombers. Both are now retired and in museums: The Hawaii Mars at the British Columbia Aviation Museum; the Philippine Mars at the Pima Air & Space Museum a few miles south of my home in Tucson.
The Philippine Mars took off on its final flight on the 9th of February, 2025. Flying from Sproat Lake in British Columbia with a stopover in San Francisco Bay, it landed on Lake Pleasant, north of Phoenix, Arizona, on the 10th. Crews beached it on a boat ramp and began the process of disassembling it: the tail, wings, and engines were towed to PASM in Tucson first, leaving the fuselage, the largest section of the aircraft, to be moved last. Using back roads and moving only at night to reduce traffic delays, the final leg took three days, ending yesterday morning.
I expect it’ll be a while before the Philippine Mars is on display at PASM. Several years ago a giant B-36 bomber was moved from Texas to its new home at PASM in a similar manner; disassembled, towed up in sections, then slowly reassembled and prepped for display, a process that took almost two years. In the meantime, though, the large fuselage section of the Mars will be visible to PASM visitors through the fence separating the restoration area from the display grounds, and on my next visit I’ll try to get some good photos of it.
This morning, while the smart watch is on the charger, I’m wearing one of my Timex Expeditions, the blue one in the photo:
On the various wristwatch boards I visit, I’ve noticed that many collectors have a fetish for digital Casio watches. I have a few Casios myself, but my fetish is the Timex Expedition, a line of inexpensive old-school quartz watches that come in different versions and colorways: they may lack the soul of a mechanical wristwatch, but they look good, feel good, and work perfectly. I bought my first one (the one with the black dial) at the Davis-Monthan base exchange three years ago: it cost all of fifty bucks. The others came from Amazon, where they sell for just under thirty; I hear tell of people finding them on sale at Target and WalMart for as little as eleven dollars. The batteries in these things can last for up to ten years … I mean, what’s not to like? Apparently, lots of famous actors share my fetish (fun link; give it a click).
I’ve been hoarse since my surgery on the 7th of May. I remember now that during prep they mentioned I’d be intubated while under anesthesia and I guess that explains the burr in my voice, because otherwise I feel fine: no cold symptoms, no soreness in my throat. Last night I dug out the box of Fisherman’s Friend throat lozenges left over from my museum docent days, when I’d get hoarse from talking all day.
During Covid, I started tipping at fast food drive-thru windows; I figured the folks working at those places were on the front lines, forced to work for very little pay in close proximity to the public, and deserved it. Over the past two years I’ve throttled back some. But now, if you pay with a debit card, they hold out a hand-held device where you can punch in an optional tip; the choices on the one I used yesterday were for 15%, 20%, and 25%, with separate options for “custom” and “no tip.” I guess with the custom option you can make a 10% tip, which I think is about right for fast food drive-thru service, but who’s gonna take the trouble to work that out when you can just touch the 15% button? Pretty sure that when you pay cash, they don’t ask for a tip; sometimes, though, they’ll leave a paper cup for cash tips within arm’s reach.
People love to bitch about the out-of-control American tipping culture, but I’m an American and used to it. It’s having to bribe people for basic services I worry about … having to slip something under the table to someone to get your utilities hooked up or your kid in college or even to get to the head of the line at the DMV … and I think it’s coming our way, trickling down from Washington, DC, where it was already a way of life but is now on steroids, thanks to Trump and his mob.
I checked in with my nieces in Saint Louis after yesterday’s tornado; they’re fine, but Arkadia, my sister Cece’s daughter, has a tree laying on her roof (she thinks there’s no structural damage to her house, so it’ll just be a matter of paying someone to remove the tree).
It’s the third Saturday of the month, which makes it a book club day. We’re discussing The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali, a novel about the lives of two Iranian women, a book I didn’t think I’d enjoy but did. Very much a book club book, sort of like The Life of Pi or The Kite Runner. Book club, by the way, is pretty much my whole social life, and that’s fine with me. Covid turned me into a hermit, and I find I enjoy the quiet life.