When I was three…

Shortly before Christmas when I was three, I saw a tiny, cast iron, model of a Navy Corsair, painted navy blue and white. I badly wanted it. "No," Mom said, "it's too expensive." I brought the issue up with Dad, a veteran of the US Army Air Corps who fought in the air war over Europe and was now in the United States Air Force Reserve. "Show some respect to your mother," he scolded me. "If she says it's too expensive, then it's too expensive!" But on Christmas morning, there was that Corsair, complete with folding wings, under the tree, waiting for me. I was so damn happy.

Airplanes, my dad, me, my wife and grandsons…

Can I tell you how much I love airplanes? I can't! I can't! You know already. Or you don't know. Nothing I can say can add to or subtract from your knowledge of the subject. But why? Why did I make that bad landing and put my airplane into the black spruce of Mentasta? When will I be able to get another? And what foolishness has overcome me that I would leave my Canon 5D Mark III hanging from my shoulder and shoot this rare instant with my iPhone? Just so I can Instagram it and post it quickly to my blog? One frame shot in the time I could've got off eight? Seven megapixels when I could have had 20? A flimsy, shallow, JPEG when I could've had a deep, resonant, CR2 RAW? I will probably regret it – no I already do regret it – but either way, these boys will know what their great-grandpa did.

On Veteran's Day, I meet a 22-year member of the Air Force at Abby's; I remember another Air Force Veteran, five years gone

On this Veteran's day evening, I stopped in at Abby's Home Cooking and had a

Click to read more ...