In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Life’s a Candy Store.”
Life can be a true candy store for a guy, if he finds the right person to make his peanut briddle!
Month: September 2015
Night And Day
Wise Old Owl
Ghosts and goblins
and other nocturnal creatures rule the night
the staring and soaring of the owl causes the rabbit fright,
he will be caught by a hawk after first light
the hungry racoon will find your sweet corn patch
what he doesn’t eat will be turned to thatch
the mink and otter dine on frog legs,
undetered by the frog still watching them
the weasel found a hen on the nest
you can imagine the bloody rest
the muskrat buisily digs up cat tail roots and
stores them for his winter survival cache
big juicy bugs smashed on your windshield
best to clean them off before they dry
the burglar is busy checking locks and windows
regardless if the folks are home or not
people look up at the full moon,
footprints got to be there somewhere
North Pole dwellers have very long winter nights
when the sun doesn’t quite rise
truckers move the freight by night all keeping logs
all the night thoughts are filed away for future blogs
Days
sun comes up, give thanks, you have another day
make the most of your day, only going to get one chance at it
say hello to somebody, makes their day better
they saying hello back is your gain
love your neighbor, every day
love yourself too
eat healthy, get extra bonus days added to your life
we get better with age, extra days will come in handy
exercise each day, use it or lose it
go for a walk and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine
plant a garden, be amazed by the way,
watching things grow every day
make each day better than the past
we’ll never know which day will be our last
(“Able Mable Reconnaissance Task Force”).
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USAF_Able_Mable_reconnaissance_pilots_in_Thailand_1961.jpg
First six “Able Mabel” pilots from the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron, Misawa AB, Japan.
Front row (left to right): 1Lt Fred Muesegaes, Maj Ken Harbst, Detachment Commander (45tj TRS Ops Officer), 1Lt Jack Weatherby
Back row (left to right): Capt Ralph DeLucia, Capt Bill Whitten, 1Lt John Linihan
Jack Weatherby – On a later tour was KIA over North Vietnam and was awarded the Air Force Cross (posthumously).
Muesegaes, Weatherby, Linihan and Whitten (in chronological order) flew the RT-33A previously on “Field Goal”
Picture taken at Don Murang RTAFB, Bankok, Thailand in front of RF-101C, 56-079 “Mary Ann Burns” which was my squadron assigned aircraft. We were less than six weeks into growing our mustaches when the picture was taken – probably around the first week of December 1961.
Don Muang 45th TRS
The first six U.S. Air Force “Able Mabel” pilots from the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron, Misawa Air Base, Japan, at Don Don Muang RTAFB, Bangkok, Thailand in front of the McDonnell RF-101C-65-MC Voodoo (s/n 56-079, “Mary Ann Burns”), in December 1961.
Front row (left to right): 1Lt Fred Muesegaes, Maj Ken Harbst, Detachment Commander (45tj TRS Ops Officer), 1Lt Jack Weatherby;
Back row (left to right): Capt Ralph DeLucia, Capt Bill Whitten, 1Lt John Linihan.
Muesegaes, Weatherby, Linihan and Whitten (in chronological order) flew the RT-33A previously on “Field Goal”. On 29 October 1961, four RF-101s and ground crews from the 45th TRS were ordered by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff to deploy to Don Muang (“Able Mable Reconnaissance Task Force”). The aircraft were ready on 7 November and began reconnaissance sorties over Laos the next day.
Date December 1961
Leland
Leland Japan 1961
I was a member of the first Able Mable Reconnaissance Task Force. After leaving Japan we refueled at Okinawa, then spent one night at Clark AFB, Philippines. The last leg of the flight must have been fairly high altitude, there was frost on the walls in the plane. We were packed in like an odd assortment of sardines with equipment and parts all over.
We landed at Don Muang RTAFB, Bangkok, Thailand on 6 November, 1961. Everything we needed to get four RF-101C’s ready to start flying was packed with us on two C-130 cargo planes. When our planes rolled to a stop and the rear of the planes opened. We were surrounded by Thai Army with weapons in their hands. They knew we were hand carrying weapons on the planes and they wanted us to turn them over before we got off the plane. So they took our guns and ammo. We immediately began unloading and setting up our maintenance area in an old hanger. We had the planes ready to start flying the next morning.
We found out the next day we would be eating from a tent field kitchen and using the old G.I. Mess Kits while we were there. We ate real good, the food came in from a Navy ship. Our quarters was an old building the Japanese used for prisoners in the 40’s but it served as a roof over our heads. We set up cots with mosquito nets over them. There were friendly little lizards all over the walls and ceiling eating bugs, It sure beat sleeping in a tent! We had outside latrines and showers, there were boardwalks to get there. Often times there were snakes underneath the boards, I traveled quickly on the boardwalk. Our photo lab crew had a portable lab tent set up processing photos as soon as the planes landed.
These five brave pilots and many more flew low-level reconnaissance flights over Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and received small arms fire almost from the first missions. There were no guns on these planes, only cameras to shoot with. Later they were sitting ducks for surface to air missles. Major Harbst landed one day after a 50 Cal round shattered the canopy right behind his head. I saw some blood on his neck when I was unstrapping him from his ejection seat. A piece of the canopy hit his neck just below his helmet. He might have been the first American hurt by enemy fire. Over 58,000 died before that war ended. We spent two months flying many missions out of Don Muang RTAFB. The Able Mable project later move to a different airbase. Many of those brave pilots were shot down later in the war over North Vietnam. I knew these five pilots personally and helped send them off on their missions. I was the crew chief on RF-101C 56 – 080. A/1C Leland Olson
December 1961, Thailand pictures.
“I’ve Become My Parents.”
ONE MORE FOR THE
ROAD
My parents both drank when I was a kid. My mom and Dad didn’t really do social drinking, they spent a lot of time at the beer joints, bars and dance halls. We three boys were pretty much left to find our own entertainment during these family outings. We would usually find some town kids to pass the time with as a we were farm kids. That was like we were aliens to the ones who lived in town. We would have to make occasional trips into the drinking place were our parents were for a candy bar or a pop, That would be our nourishment until we got home.
It seems odd that many women divorce a man because he’s a drinker or worse a drunkard. Then they get connected with someone who is usually worse and has other bad qualities to go along with it. My parents got divorced and my mother moved to town with us boys, we became the town kids. Latch key kids who had to help with everything while Mom worked. That was quite a change in lifestyle. She married a genuine looser and they kept the bar stools warm together. My brother and I ran away from home, but not drinking.
I never spent much time thinking about the drinking until I got into my teenage years and experimented with alcohol. I found out that drinking created quite a high for awhile on a clean young brain. I still look back at the drinking that went on when I was a child and I know I really hated it. But as I got older I came real close to developing a drinking problem. In the Military Service there is lots of access to low cost booze of every type. Some people claim alcoholism is in the genes. I think it is just a whole lot easier to continue drinking then to make the decision to quit. I was almost middle-aged when I decided no more drinking. Most of my mother’s family had all died of alcohol related problems by that time. My Dad continued drinking until his liver and kidneys failed. He called it his vodka dialysis program.
Most people mature and reach an age of accountability, if they didn’t learn right and wrong from parents, it can also be learned by trial and error, or daily encounters with others. Today it is popular to blame parents for screwed up lives. That is a bad rap in most cases. Isn’t anyone responsible for their own actions?
Take Me To The Moon
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Take Me to the Moon.”
I can’t read a music note, nor carry a tune, even under the full moon.
The best I can do is dedicate this Tex Ritter song to my True Love.
“Just Beyond The Moon” was written by Slate, Jeremy.
I’ll walk just beyond the moon
Then, I’ll stop and wait for you
My mother and my father were in love for fifty years
So, when dad died, we wondered why my mother shed no tears
We asked her once about it but she wouldn’t tell us why
Instead, she’d walk outside each night, and smile up at the sky
And just before she left us, she called us to her side
She told us what my father said to her just before he died
I remember, when you said, you’d never leave me
Through these golden years, I’ve kept the same by two
But now, as I am going, please don’t leave me
You can look up every night, and you’ll see me, light the light
Where I’ll watch for you to join me, someday, soon
We’ll go looking through the stars, for the heaven that is ours
And I know, we’ll find it soon, somewhere, just beyond the moon
I’ll walk just beyond the moon, then, I’ll stop and wait for you
I’ll just sit there by a star and I’ll watch you from afar
Till I see you walking toward me, someday, soon
Then, together, hand in hand, we’ll find our promised land
And we’ll settle down forever, darling
Just beyond the moon
I’ll walk just beyond the moon
Then, I’ll stop and wait for you
Songwriters
Slate, Jeremy
Published by
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Read more: Kitty Wells – Just Beyond The Moon Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Fears evolve over time. What is one fear you’ve conquered?
Fears evolve over time. What is one fear you’ve conquered?
Marriage
I will have to say one fear that I finally conquered was getting married. I have had talks with myself through the years. They would go something like this. Hey self, ‘yes,’ “you sure your not gay,” ‘self, of course not, no way.’
I played high school football and had several different dates in high school. This one young lady and I had a bad case of puppy love that lasted about a year. Then a cheerleader from another town came along and that became more serious. She sent me a Dear John letter while I was in boot camp. I got to thinking later, never hit many home runs in high school, then I didn’t play baseball either. A second cheerleader was very special, she kept in touch with me while I served two years in Japan. I should have been far more considerate of her, for my future and hers.
I told myself dad beating up on my mother every other week had no bearing on me and my female relationships. My stepdad was a sex pervert who liked boys, that should’ve had nothing to do with me, he might have been an altar boy at one time.
I got sent to Japan for two years in 1960, there was a young lady working in our squadron coffee shop and We knew at first glance, THIS IS IT, we grew to be so close, it was as if our souls became one. In 1962 we said goodbye to each other at the train station in Tokyo. Half of me flew home the next day, and the other half never made it back to the USA. We exchanged letters for a long time.
In 1964 my back was broken in a car wreck. If you are lucky enough to get your neck broken there can be some sex after spinal cord injury. My fracture was in the thoracic-lumbar region, bowel, bladder, sex and one leg affected. I have often thought, that was my payback for being inconsiderate of my female friends and a coward when it came to marriage.
I tried living the life of a hermit for a couple years in Northern Minnesota. If you want to be a hermit, you better like lonely, that’s about all I can say about the hermit lifestyle.
My cousin like a brother was driving a refrigerated truck from Sioux Falls South Dakota to Arizona and California every week. He talked me into working with him. If we had a load of meat for Tucson Arizona, we stayed at the same motel every week, it was nice and they had a pool, bar, and a small dance floor. That is where I met my wife to be, this was 1969. At that time the family was even starting to look at me with that look in their eyes, is he or isn’t he, like marriage is supposed to be for everyone? I don’t think so!
Rose Marie and I dated, parked out in the desert, and talked while listening to the Martians, desert sounds, etc. We did lots of dancing, some drinking, then decided to get married, sort of a take care of each other in old age deal, that’s now where we’re at. She had four daughters and a grandson when we got married. After 44 years I have lost track of how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren there are.
My life has been under constant change living with a spinal injury. I lose more ability to do things almost daily. It is an effort anymore just to do daily things that everyone takes for granted. Life is still good and it will go on as long as the creator has something for us to do. We may as well make the most of each new day that we are given.
An older brother said one time, “married men live longer,” ‘no,’ “it just seems longer.” He said it as a joke but I do believe a married man might live a little longer.
The Changing Role Of The Father
Fathers, Present, Past and Future
I felt I should re-post this in honor of all fathers.
The role of the father has undergone troublesome changes in recent years in the United States. The family unit has become fractured because of these changes. Men fathered children, were head of the household and breadwinner at one time. Our changing society has reversed much of that, bringing big changes to the family unit.
Every religion commands the father to guide and bring up his children correctly. My father didn’t go to church or read God’s word. He believed that if you spare the rod you spoil the child. He kept a razor strop hanging on a hook by the kitchen sink in full view of everyone. It wasn’t just for sharpening the razor but it was not used for spanking very often. There was no attention deficit trouble at our house. Fathers today communicate more with their children instead of using the rod to correct them. That is by far the best policy if it is started at a young age. Talking to them, not yelling at.
Fathers who bring up their children in a church environment usually give their children a better chance at being good citizens. The church is really an extended family and where there is more love shown the results are usually very positive. I think my Dad looked at religion like Woody Guthrie, “Who said, when you go to church everyone sings Stand Up For Jesus,” “When you go to the ballgame they say, “For Christ sake sit down.” My dad didn’t take us to church. We are thankful for aunts and a grandmother who steered us in the direction of the church.
The Wright brothers father had a special family sharing time before the evening meal. When they sat down at the table together, he asked everyone in the family to share something that they learned that day. Sharing meals together with a prayer or without a prayer was the super glue that held American families together in the past. Fathers dropped the ball big time when they let everyone in the family eat where they felt like eating, in front of the television or computer game, instead of everyone sitting at the table together and sharing.
The modern-day father in the U.S. has had to learn to share in doing many things in the home as the mothers took on jobs to help pay for things in our need to have more stuff society. The flip side, there are no fathers, in far too many homes today and our country is paying a terrible price for it. Many families today have become a group of individuals, sort of camped together under the same roof, each doing his own thing, not really communicating with or getting to know each other well.
The very high medical costs today cause some fathers to not make wedding vows with the woman they love and who is having their babies. That is a very poor way for a young family to get started. Not getting married because of health insurance has to be very hard decision for a couple to make and then having to live with it. A healthcare system that is affordable for every citizen could put some strength back in many aspects of our society, especially the family unit.
The role of fathers has changed for the worse and society will have to change for the better if we ever expect to see the role of the father improve. Let us all have hope for the true meaning of Fathers Day in the future.
Has Waning Patriotism Caused the Statue Of Liberty To Cover Her Face?
Patriotism
Oh, my country so faithful to me.
Where now is my allegiance more?
Is it in that grand old flag?
“Or is it in my own credit score”
How many who have gone before?
“Fought and died for this great land”
They sacrificed, some gave all,
“so the rest could have a life so grand.”
“We love our Independence Day”
Parades, picnics, and fireworks are all on display.
How much longer can this last?
“Our identities now bring out looks of dismay.”
“Our lives are consumed with trivial stuff.”
We see the enemy each place we look.
How can this be?
We gave up on reading the good book?
“Only through patriotism can our freedom endure.”
“A revived National Patriotism that is real.”
“Not just the use of the word”
“to make a political deal.”
My Mixed Blog 
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