Dusting The Cyclone

I love my life! Who else do you know who gets to dust a Wright, R3350 Cyclone, 18 cylinder Two Row Radial Engine? Or, in other words, who gets to dust a 3, 050 horsepower engine!

I've been hosting at the aviation museum and one of the things I try to do is dust everything not in a case once every week, or two. It gives me the chance to focus on different things and learn about them while I do it. Of course I also water the flowers and do a little dead heading, harking back to my flower shop days. And I am reading a book about Russian girls who became fighter pilots during world war two, in my spare time there.

Add in the people who come in to work on different projects and the stories we share, or the visitors who drop by and share even more stories and I think I have found just about the most interesting volunteer job in the world. Not to mention that when I leave, the private part of the airport is right next door and they often have a personal jet, or two over there warming up, or being worked on.

No flying for us though. Our airplanes are museum quality and while they may fly in initially, like our F-14 did, they seldom fly out. When I get back from Denver we are having a Day At The Airport when all of our cockpits, except the F-14 will be open and people will be there to talk about them. Some of our people actually flew in these particular planes during active duty. I had a man drop by today who flew in our Huey helicopter! Some of it's missions saved a lot of lives.

The reason our F-14 Tomcat, that's a Top Gun type plane for those of you who don't know, won't be open is that there is nothing left inside of it. Part of our acquisition required the Navy to send people down to remove anything that might still be sold on the black market, because there are still quite a few of these being used in other parts of the world.

Today, when I raised the flag, I had to lower it to half mast. Another young corporal was killed in Afghanistan and I thought how sad it is that for all the good things planes are used for, and there are lots of them, like the Berlin Airlift, and sea rescues and all sorts of other things, they are also used in wars. Our young people, led by this disastrous economy and incredible poverty are still signing up and being sent over where this monster gobbles them up and spits their bones back at us.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. A rule that is much more than a physics lesson. Life just isn't black and white and no amount of philosophizing is going to change that.