11. May 2008 by Andy.

Well another month and enjoying life.   

Reed, found another duck recipe.  Actually it was for venison, but those who braved the taste said it was great.   

Its call Quick Sauerbraten 

1. ½ cup chopped onion
2. ½ cup brown sugar
3. 2 tsp salt
4. 2 tblsp pickle spice
5. 1 cup vinegar
6. 3 cups water 

Put everything in the crock pot all day.  After taking the meat out, I added 12 ginger naps to make gravy out of the juices.  I think next time I’ll drain some of the liquid to make thicker gravy.  The meat was tender and tasted wonderful…but WOW, did the house smell great!  Next month…BBQ-ed duck! 

Great job Bob earning your law degrees! 

Chuck – two year olds will always continue to amaze me on what they do or don’t do – especially in the unpredictable category… 

Elwood – I hope & pray your health gets better.  I know, as I’m approaching the date when one turns 50, my body reminds me about getting older.  I’ve also watch co-workers lose loved ones – unexpectedly and release how frail our bodies are. 

James – your still in my thought and prayers… 

Finished another model; Bf-109 or Me-109 – again another Battle of Britain participant. 

I’m looking at building a DH-4 biplane 1/72 scale.  I haven’t decided what unit markings yet.  I also have a MB-2, the kind Billy Mitchell used to prove his theory of bombers versus ships.  The DH-4 can be made with 11th, 20th, 28th, 49th, or the 96th Bomb Squadron.  That leaves the MB-2 with 11th or 96th marking.  I have a B-50 that can be made with the 20th, 96th, or 340th Bomb Sq (Blytheville later Eaker AFB).  Well I have some time to think. All my bombers were built in 1/72 scale and with unit markings that were active when I first came in the service.  True there was a lot to chose from back then, but still I like to research to find the correct marking for the model.  I have to go back and re-do my B-17 with Fairchild’s unit marking – didn’t realize it until afterwards that they had a white triangle with a black “B” and not the other way around.  O’well learned the hard way. 

Did I mention that I’m collaborating with a guy to make B-52 decals in 1/72 scale?  We’re looking at all the variants, from the XB/YB-52 through G model.  I know I missed the H, but there are several companies that have H models decals out and they are pretty good…I have three of them. 

Finished reading a book on Medal of Honor recipients.  I was amazed by their stories and several things stood out; although what they did was truly amazing what they went through, but it was more of what they did or didn’t do afterwards with their lives.  Most did not set out to be a hero, it was the situation they faced and how they dealt with it.  Most would tell they didn’t want the recognition, they just wanted to be left alone.  Most felt a huge responsibility to maintain a certain image afterwards – as not to tarnish the significance or reputation of the award.   

Still a few took a less than honorable path…one that was sad…I wish I could do it justice here, but here’s the condensed version of his story.  He was a Vietnam vet who was reassigned a new tank the night before an engagement, next day his new tank takes a hit & is disabled, he gets out only to see his old tank on fire, goes over to help pull his old buddies out to the burning tank, it explodes while the others were still inside, chard bodies go flying everywhere.  So he starts fighting the enemy with a .45, runs out of ammo, grabs another gun and continues to fight.  As he’s running through the jungle fighting, he comes up to an enemy with an AK-47 pointed at his chest & pulls the trigger – nothing happens – jammed, so he kills that guy too.  When he’s finally pulled from the line he’s a wreck.  When he does get home, he tells no one of the ordeal, just locks it way.  Through circumstance, he does go to a VA hospital to get help, but it’s a constant in & out and he never stays long enough.  From what was written he was struggling with the “why me” syndrome, why was I re-assigned the night before to another crew, why was I spared when others died, why did AK-47 jam at that moment in time? He gets to a point of despair and tries to rob a convenient store only to be killed by the owner.  His mother put it best; he was trying to have someone else pull the trigger. 

For some it took 40-50 years after the event to receive the recognition they deserved, especially the African-Americans in WWII.  Some did well trying to shoulder the responsibility, some just tried to fade away from the public.   

Good book… 

Well until next time, take care…

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11. May 2008 by The Chuck.

I hope this writing finds all of you doing well. James still running marathons, Jim finally moving around with a walker.

Bob Goss graduated with two advanced degrees in Law. Good job, Bob.

I’ve probably got a dozen things hanging on my agenda that I should be gabbing and worrying about, but I’ll choose not to share those for now. I’d rather keep it light hearted this month, but don’t let that sway you from sharing you stories.

I joined a writers group in LA last month. Each month we have a writing assignment, for this month it was humor. Most of you know that I’m not much at humor …

… so I just did the best I could. Here’s my humor piece, I hope it brightens your day:

The Way of The Two-Year Old

Somewhere between high school and going back to work after retiring from the Air Force, Saturdays became critical. I’m not sure when the transformation began or when it finished, but I do know that if I didn’t have Saturdays for my yard work, to prepare the lesson for my men’s Bible study, and to type a few lines to satisfy my muse … I would live in a jungle, surrounded by heathens, and I would most certainly go hopelessly insane.

I try to learn something new ever Saturday.

Occasionally, Cindy, my wife, and I get the added pleasure of caring for Malachi and Asher, our twin grandsons. It is usually when they are too sick to stay in the day-care center while our daughter works. I believe the nursery is a breeding ground for super-bugs. I suggested a while back that the Department of Defense’s Biological Weapons Division visit my grandsons’ day-care to collect those superbugs and use them against the global terrorists. They would surrender in weeks, and we’d be done with the war.

Drippy noses and hacking coughs aside, I love my grandsons. They were born in Arizona in October of 2005, shortly before my daughter’s marriage crumbled into dust. Now they live on the other side of Shreveport, so Cindy and I get to see them fairly often.

After they moved here, we transformed our backyard into a playground. There is a redwood swing-set with a spiraling sliding-board, complete with ladders, a sandbox at the base, and a small fort on the second floor. We also have a grey, plastic castle with a blue door, a secret passage behind the fireplace, and a collection of plastic swords and baseballs in the tower. Our patio is populated with two of those kiddie-cars designed to be powered with busy little feet, a kitchen set filled with pots, pans, and dishes, three small push mowers that make different sounds as they move along, and a smorgasbord of balls, blocks, and brightly colored things. Yeah, they like coming to our place. It must be because they love us.

I think they would love us even if Cindy didn’t bake such great cookies. There is something about watching a 2 year-old eating a cookie large enough to hide most of his face that makes a grandparent happy. Smokey, our dog, appreciates the boys too. He gets excited when the boys get cookies, because he has learned the way of the two-year old. They will eventually grow tired of the cookie, or they will drop large pieces of it as they push a toy mower or drive their little car around the patio. And it is nearly impossible to climb a spiral slide and to maintain a good hold on fresh-baked cookies. When the inevitable happens, Smokey is there to pick up after them. He must love those boys.

This past Saturday, Smokey was a bit over-zealous in guarding the boys’ cookies. I had to confine Smokey to our sun-porch before I procured replacement cookies for the boys. Asher surveyed the yard from the lofty fort, while Malachi was below in the sandbox. I gave them each a fresh cookie and sat down in an Adirondack chair, hoping the sweet treats would keep their attention long enough for me to finish reviewing my lesson plan for Sunday.

Malachi sat in the shaded sandbox holding his new cookie in his right hand. He carefully inspected the raisins in the sweet, oatmeal disc. I imagined that he was savoring the moment. I smiled, watching with great anticipation for the impending big bite. Then, as if he was pretending he was a giant excavator, he bent over a took a big bite of sand. Totally unexpected.

This Saturday I learned that it’s nearly impossible to get all the sand out of a two-year old’s mouth, especially when he wants to keep it there.

I may never understand two-year olds. — Charles Sutherland

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