Monthly Archives: April 2021

That’s All, Brother

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Lt. Col. John M. Donalson named his C‑47 “That’s All, Brother” as something of a declaration that the Nazi’s success in Europe was just about over. Then he used it to lead more than 800 aircraft loaded with paratroopers across the English Channel to confront those Nazis on the night of June 5, 1944. When I heard that the plane was coming to the National Museum of the United States Air Force on Tuesday, I thought I might be interested in seeing it. When I woke up a couple of hours ahead of its estimated arrival time, I decided that I was interested in seeing it land.

A one-hour window had been announced for the landing and the plane appeared just about in the middle of that window. It made one pass over the runway without landing. Maybe that was so the pilot could scope things out or maybe it was so people on the ground could take pictures like the one at the top of this article. It then circled the museum and dropped onto the runway without a hiccup. Even with a chainlink fence in front of me, I was able to get a shot of the big airplane slipping safely between a water tower and a tractor-trailer.

The museum’s announcement said that the plane would be available for up-close viewing, inside and out, once it was on the ground and parked. Inside viewing would be limited to two at a time. I figured there would be a long and — with the two viewer limit — slow-moving line to get inside the plane so I anticipated not doing that. I did walk out to the plane, however, to get a closer look and better photos. Next to the plane, T-shirts and other merchandise were being sold from a van. It’s a Mercedes. Maybe no one other than me saw the irony in that, and even I am unsure whether using a German vehicle with D-D stripes to support a U.S. WWII military plane is a major insult or simply cynical.

The line was not as long as I feared and the two-person limit was not in place although there was an effort to maintain social distancing and a mask requirement was being strictly enforced. The C-47 is a military version of the DC-3 so it isn’t completely unfamiliar. Of course, passengers seating in the DC-3s I’ve seen looked considerably more comfortable than this. Information on this plane’s history and future can be found at “That’s All, Brother”.

There was a lull in the boarding right after I exited the plane, and I was able to get a shot of the door. One of the operations “That’s All, Brother” was involved in after D-Day was dropping supplies in relief of the siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. With a touch of awe in his voice, the docent inside the plane pointed out that those supplies were thrown out this very door.

I could say that I took these pictures after checking out “That’s All, Brother”, but the truth is that there was a fair amount of time between the plane’s landing and it being available, and that’s when I went inside the museum. These pictures are, in fact, out of sequence. There are a few hundred aircraft displayed at the museum. Like “That’s All, Brother”, these are three with a WWII connection. The all-volunteer Flying Tigers, organized to fight in China before the U.S. entered the war used Curtiss P-40s. The C-47 in the middle picture was the last in routine USAF use. “Bockscar” is the name of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. A mockup of that bomb, named “Fat Man”, is displayed beside it.

I’ve visited the museum several times and actually spent less time inside it today than on almost any other visit. But, for some unknown reason, I was really struck today by the amount of money, energy, and intelligence that has been devoted to creating machines whose sole purpose is the destruction of other machines — and people.

A friend called on Friday evening to tell me about a related event. “That’s All, Brother” was helping with a celebration honoring a local veteran. The celebration started Friday and would continue on Saturday. The fellow being honored was Jim “Pee Wee” Martin who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day and would be turning 100 on April 29. I decided I was interested in seeing that, too.

“That’s All, Brother” was joined by “Placid Lassie“, another C-47, and “D-Day Doll“, a C-53. All had participated in the D-Day invasion. As the three planes flew over Skydive Greene County, a couple dozen passengers exited. There were other jumpers, including the Army’s Golden Knights, and music, ceremonies, and fireworks were planned. Promised rain made an appearance about the time the Golden Knights finished their jump which prompted Terry, the friend who called Friday, and me to slip away while we were still mostly dry. 

These pictures are from Tuesday and are very out of sequence. When time permits, breakfast at the somewhat nearby (4 miles) Hasty Tasty is a nice prelude to an Air Force Museum visit. Hasty Tasty was a local chain that peaked at thirteen stores. This is the last and may also have been the first.

Trip Peek #108
Trip #101
George for the Holidays

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This picture is from my 2011 George for the Holidays trip. Although basically a Christmas Escape Run, the trip pieced together a variety of elements. It started in Louisville, KY, where the Louisville Slugger Museum, Frazier History, and Caufield’s Novelty are all clustered together about a block from the Ohio River. The first day ended at the 232 (now242) year old Talbott Tavern in Bardstown, KY. On the second day, I drove a combination of Jackson and Dixie Highways to Shelbyville, TN, where I spent the night at a horse farm. In the morning, I took in the nearby Jack Daniels Distillery then headed to Nashville for the trip’s central event.

That event, which supplied the trip’s title, was the Long Players performance of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass in Nashville. I had picked up a good deal on a swankier than normal motel by booking three nights. My original plan had been to simply hang around Nashville but I managed to add a dose of complication. Belatedly, I realized that the southernmost point in my planned trip (Shelbyville) was quite close to where friends lived just over the Alabama border. I looked for a way to simply drive there for a visit directly from Shelbyville but the concert and prebooked lodging made anything but a driveby and wave impossible. So, after spending a night in Nashville, I drove to Alabama for a fun visit and Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas Day was spent back in Nashville, and that’s when the featured photo was taken.

My friend Mary had supplied me with cookies that included an entire gingerbread family that I photographed at various locations along the way. On Christmas Day, I decided to pose one of the Gingers on stage at Legends Corner on Nashville’s Broadway. Musician Buck McCoy not only tolerated the intrusion but participated. Exactly nine years later, I found myself looking at pictures taken by Buck. His apartment was just across the street from where an RV filled with explosives was detonated on Christmas Day 2020. Buck’s cellphone videos were some of the first visuals many people, including me, saw of the damage. The blast destroyed Buck’s apartment and most of its contents but just days later country star Brad Paisley gave Buck a new guitar so he could “get back to work and make a living.” He is doing just that including at his long-time regular Legends’ gig.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #107
Trip #130
Miles of Possibility

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This picture is from my trip to the 2015 Miles of Possibility Conference in Edwardsville, IL. I had made trips to other conferences but this one was different. There had been Lincoln Highway conferences and Jefferson Highway conferences but this was a Route 66 conference. It was, I believe, the first of its kind. Route 66 events I attended previously were called festivals with car shows, vendor exhibits, and maybe some pay-your-own-way group meals or parties. There were vendors and some party like goings-on in Edwardsville but it was organized around a full schedule of presentations that people actually paid to attend. It worked and, although I have only attended one other, there have been Miles of Possibility Conferences every year since with the exception of the COVID riddled 2020.

The conference was a two-day affair with the first day ending in a concert in the Wildey Theater and the second — October 31 — ending in a Halloween Party. I made it a seven-day trip by spending three days getting there and two days getting home. The day I spent crossing Indiana included stops at the state’s three concrete airmail arrows. I spent two days crossing Illinois with stops at both Route 66 and non-Route 66 attractions. Part of the first day following the conference was spent with a group of conference attendees that disbanded in Saint Louis. From there, it was US-50 all the way home.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Birthday Breakout 2021

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I don’t believe I have ever taken a birthday trip before but it seems like a pretty good reason to break away from this semi-hibernation and do a little traveling. The trip is a short one that barely gets outside of Ohio, but it is the first trip of the year and I’m really looking forward to it.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

Big Bunnies and Lunisolar

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Two years ago, I decorated a post about determining the date of Easter with what was claimed to be a new flavor of Peeps. Last year, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I reused the post after augmenting it with another claimed new Peeps flavor. I once again see those two flavors, Root Beer and Hot Tamales, being touted as new. At best I think they might be called seasonal. So what, if anything, really is new? Maybe Peeps Giant Bunnies. Everything is relative, of course, and in the world of Peeps, I suppose it is legitimate to call something about five inches tall GIANT. Plus, at about two dollars each, they can be used in that old pirate joke about a buck an ear.

But, as I said up top, the original post was about determining the date of Easter and the Peeps picture was just decoration. The bunnies serve pretty much the same role in today’s post. The real purpose of today’s post is to reveal just how much ignorance was in the original.

I presented the formula for finding the date of Easter — first Sunday after first full moon after vernal equinox — as something that separated Christian Easter from Jewish Passover when it is simply calculating the date of Easter pretty much the same way that the date of Passover is calculated. At least that’s what I now think. Although I now know a lot more about the Jewish calendar than I did a few days ago, I am absolutely not an expert.

The Jewish calendar is lunisolar meaning it is based on both the sun and the moon. The more common Gregorian calendar is purely solar with no direct lunar involvement. All months of the Jewish calendar start with a new moon. A new moon occurs approximately every 29.5 days so that the Jewish calendar can keep the months pretty much in sync with the phases of the moon by alternating 29 and 30 day months. Of course, 12 X 29.5 is a little short of the 365.24 days that it takes the Earth to circle the sun so every now and then a thirteenth month is added to the year. The timing of these “leap months” is based on a nineteen-year cycle and there are other tweaks as well.

Passover begins on the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan which is the first month after the vernal equinox. Because every month starts with a new moon, the fifteenth of every month is a full moon. Ergo, Passover always begins on a full moon. Being a week long, it always contains a Sunday. Rather than moving Easter away from Passover in 325, the First Council of Nicaea kept the scheduling just the same as it had always been and simply stopped saying the word Passover out loud. Oh wah, tagoo, Siam.