Archive for Aviation

Shame on Boeing…

Seattle used to be a company town. One company. Boeing. The names were almost synonymous. But in 2001, under new leadership, the company relocated its headquarters to Chicago with the disingenuous explanation that it was closer to the big financial centers. In truth, it was a renegade takeover by executives from McDonnell Douglas, the financially troubled company Boeing had rescued and purchased three years earlier. It was a case of corporate sleight of hand. Overnight an aircraft manufacturing juggernaut was transformed into a financial services company slavishly pandering to Wall Street’s emphasis on shareholder value. read more

Living and Dying in 3/4 Time…

It’s not hard to explain my devotion to Jimmy Buffett. Everything about him is sheer exuberant joy. I jumped on his bandwagon in ’73. My first album was A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean album and it was followed in ’74 with AIA. When he released his album “A Pirate Looks at Forty I was 37. I wasn’t thinking mortality, but the album and the title song struck a note with me, and they’ve long been favorites of mine.

His death, on Friday, from Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of skin cancer, reminds me that no matter how good life looks at any moment it’s never guaranteed. As the survivor of six melanomas I know that. I’m sure he had the best medical care money can buy. He had plenty, but that doesn’t matter when those insidious cells slip in under the radar. I’ve just been luckier. read more

Zipless Death, PTSD, and Suicide…

The guided missile attacks that are an important part of Putin’s assault on Ukraine remind me of my own sharply contrasting experience as a fighter pilot in the 1960s. Combined with a recent story of a University of Washington graduate turned drone pilot, it’s brought the horror of today’s remote killing machines home in a heart-wrenching manner.

For seven years I flew state-of-the-art Marine Corps fighters in air-to-air combat, but it was peacetime and my aerial combat took place over California’s Salton Sea. It was the Marine Corps vs. the Air Force. We flew out of MCAS El Toro and the Air Force from bases in the So Cal desert. Engagement was unplanned but both sides entered the restricted area over the Salton Sea looking for targets of opportunity. Our F8s would jump their F-100s or vice versa, and the fight was on. Then, having burned thousands of gallons of JP4, we would return to base and regale comrades at Happy Hour with “war stories” of how we kicked Air “Farce” ass. read more

Reunion Follies…

I hope it doesn’t sound arrogant, but I’m not a fan of reunions. I’ve always thought they were too focused on the past – and often more sad than joyful. Lately that feeling’s been reinforced as a consequence of Stephen Sondheim’s death. Sondheim’s musical theater work is not traditional in the Rodgers and Hammerstein sense. No tunes to whistle. No catchy one liners. No surrey with the fringe on top. I had a philosophy professor who told me Kierkegaard was hard work but worth the effort. I feel the same about Sondheim. read more

Baseball Memories…

When I was a kid, cameras had become common and affordable. Brownie box cameras were the rage. My parents bought one, but rarely took pictures. There are a few of me as a baby, a gap of a few years, and a few more from my elementary school days.
 
When my mother died, I inherited the scuffed leather photo albums, pictures yellowing under acetate, that had been gathering dust in her bookcase. Now, they’re in a box under my desk along with more personal history – journals, notebooks, old letters, and other memorabilia.
 
As an only child, I’m always alone in those early pictures. Most were taken behind our house on Capitol Hill and might be seen as a posed series because of their similarity – all taken against the hedge backdrop in a corner of our backyard.
 
In one photo I’m dressed as a cowboy with chaps and sheepskin vest, six-guns, boots, and a cowboy hat. In another I’m a soldier with a helmet and rifle and yet another shows me in a baseball uniform with long socks and a choked-up bat. read more