Zero Two Fifteen.

“180 seconds to go.”  The radar-navigator speaks with a faint country-music twang.

“Roger, RN,“ says the pilot softly, “you have second station.”  The radar-navigator is now controlling the flight of the B-52 with the tracking handle of his computer-radar bombing system.

Over the radios we hear an urgent call for action:  “Attention all personnel, this is Crown on Guard, there is an Arc Light strike in progress at 18-08N 105-37E; all aircraft evacuate this area IMMEDIATELY!  I repeat . . .”

“Roger, pilot, this is RN, I have second station.”   The aircraft ripples quietly and seems to move imperceptibly.

“120 seconds to go.”  Two minutes until bomb release.  We fly straight into the storm. 

Great White Death, indeed it is, and it rises above us and it eagerly reaches out to grab and enfold us.  

We fly Great Black Death, penetrating like a lover, and we close together at ten miles every minute.

A dark shadow falls across our flight deck as a thunderstorm moves between us and the moon, and the B-52 ripples with a change in the currents of this high tropi

cal air.  The faces of the crewmembers glow red reflecting the light from the instrument panels.

“Sixty seconds.”  The aircraft moves again, tucking a little to the left.

Some of the flashbulbs can be heard, and some of them seem to be above us now.  Hope not.

“Thirty seconds.”  We now seem to be flying into a great white canyon.  The thunderstorm has risen far above us like an enormous Christ of the Andes with its great arms stretched out to receive and destroy us.  Great violet crystal rays radiate from it and race up and down its length into and out of the ground.  Snow blossoms out of its great white shoulders, and antiaircraft explosions reflect back from its clouds.  Our own artillery can be seen off to the right - looks like it’s right off our wing.  The aircraft shudders with returning turbulence, and it is fishtailing a little.  And we fly straight into that Great White Death.

“Fifteen seconds.”

Far off to the right, through two other great thunderstorms, lies the ocean, the Gulf of Tonkin.  Moonlight shines on its surface.  Memories of days by the Florida gulf coast rise in my memory.  Some day, I think, some day soon, I’ll be back there again.  Back on the beach with my kids, camping in our trailer, and the sea will look like that.

“Four, three, two . . . “ and as the Radar Navigator punches the release button on the tracking handle, which releases the bombs,  “Hack.”  

The aircraft shudders, and a fast impulsive ripple runs through it as each bomb releases.  The B-52 is striking its target, quivering and hunching as if in orgasm, 108 times in 22 seconds. 

Now, the right wing drops deeply, pointing at the target, as we enter and leave the high-flung snow of the storm and sweep the night air out of the arms of that great thunderstorm. We sail briefly through its mist as we soar lazily, languidly into a great turn that will take almost three minutes to complete and which will head us home.  From far below comes a very faint “fumph-fumph-fumph-fumph-fumph-fumph,” cadence five times a second that lasts for more than twenty seconds, a sound that seems to be heard and also not heard.  The great thunderstorm lights up like a grotesque, pulsating, neon bonfire.

Mission accomplished. 

Page 312+ from "Into the Sun:  Air Force Memories, 1956-1976 – The Rise to Power" by  John Womack.  Available through Amazon

Camber Park, Naples

Visited Cambier Park downtown in Old Naples.  Lots of artistry on display, most of it was photography.  Some of it was pretty good, most of it clearly designed for visitors from the north to buy, take home and show their poor relatives and friends where they had just been.

It was a relatively large display area, all of the presentations being under tent awnings.  Besides photography, there was a lot of art, paintings, watercolor and other types and several displays of sketches.  There were also a lot of mugs and other ceramic displays.







Some of the displays had been crafted out of palm fronds and other yard and tree debris that had been gathered and modified to reflect the "real" world.  Not necessarily what a Neapolitan would need for the inside of his house, but a real conversation piece in most of the rest of the world.








The only people with clothes on, you know what I mean, REAL clothes - like what most of humanity wears in December - was a quartet singing Christmas music.  And they did an excellent job.

Him

I saw him unexpectedly.  Really, I wasn't looking for him because I didn't expect to find him here.  But there he was.    Already high.  I walked around a palm tree to get a better look.  And sure enough, it was him.  And on such a warm night, too.

I remember late summer nights, around two o'clock in the morning, taking the doggies out for their last whirl of the day, and seeing him slowly emerging from the horizon, already with a coolness that made me shiver.

Tonight he could have been wearing a sombrero, perhaps with a shawl carelessly draped over a shoulder.  He looked down benevolently, breathing an unexpected sigh of warmth.

New Home.

Made it so far.  Talking about the great transition from Hickory, North Carolina to Naples, Florida.  We put our house on the market and lo and behold, it sold in three days.  Now we needed a place to move to quickly, and thereby hangs a long tale.

Suffice it to say that we are now in our new home, almost a month after we severed our ties with Hickory.  There will be more to come very soon.  We are now in a different world and there will be comments about all that!

Soul and Spirit

I meditated today on soul and spirit.  Ten minutes worth.  Wrestled with the meanings, and relaxed to let reason come.   No result.  I “forgot” about it.

Later I went on the web and googled “spirit”, then went on Wikipedia, mentally grimacing as I noticed the comment “you’ve visited this site many times.”  I glanced through the first paragraph, then on to Etymology which I hastened through but then a word caught my eye:  “nafs”.  I wondered why I hadn’t noticed that before, but then blasted onward.  And then, backtracking to another word, listed as being the part where the item was reading “The distinction between soul and spirit also developed in the Abrahamic religions, Arabic nafs opposite ruh”  I thought I knew what a “naf” was but was not sure about a “ruh”. So I looked up “ruh” on the teaching database of Hazrat Inayat Khan.

That led me to a remarkable discovery wherein both he and Pir Vilayat both explain that the soul is like the seed of the rose while the spirit is like its perfume.  

A Hickory Day

Beautiful morning on the back porch and rear deck.  Great place to welcome the new day to Hickory and to begin tuning up your mental and emotional worlds.

Then a morning dog-walk.  Much fanfare as I gird both my loins and my lions.  Then we’re off.  I call Hickory “The Friendly City”,  and today it shows its true colors.  I meet the new dog on the block, a tiny puppy that barks and growls “ferociously”, his owner grins at us as she works on her front yard.  Then the goat-keeper has comments for me about the “goat-nappers” currently at work around around here.  Roxie’s owner waves me a “great day” as Roxie comes charging out. He’s an old guy, fought in some of the big sea battles in WWII in the Pacific.  The gal across the street from him is catching some rays, and she smile and waves.

Then off to the YMCA and yoga lessons. Nine women are here today, I am the only man.  Our guide takes pity on us as we groan and grunt through the easy class of stretching, breathing and trying to balance.  (This is a “beginner’s” class.)

Now to Hatch Restaurant and Bar.  Great Bhan-mi sandwiches with pulled pork.  We put a little bit of beans from a meal a couple of nights ago on the plate and eat one-half of the sandwich.  The other half of the luscious sandwich, still heavy with pork, shaved carrot drenched in goodie juice  and enveloped in cilantro will be out meal for tonight before we head off for the play.

The world has become so dry we have to sprinkle the yards and garden and especially the back yard where the green green grass is pushing up through the straw.

Finally, after supper with a bit of Riesling to augment the Bhan-mi sandwich and a salad, we’re off to the Hickory Community Theatre to see “Cage aux Folles”.  It was a stupendous production, lasting some two and a half hours with amazing singing and excellent acting and full of mood swings, catastrophes falling on top of each other, surprises leaping out of surprises – well, it all ended with a kiss.  So I guess that was good.  Only thing bad about the play is they wouldn’t permit photographs.  

So – another day in Hickory comes to an end.  

                                   

Early Computer, AD1960

This computer is one I used to write with about 50 years ago.   In fact it was in the early 1960’s.   It consisted of a large screen (blackboard), a keyboard (portable typewriter on a TV tray), memory (card catalog behind chair), internet (books in a precious library),  and flash memory (notebooks and looseleaf binders to the left of the typewriter) to record information taken off the “screen”  before it was trashed (with an eraser).  From such as this came great works.  And at this time it was about as good as a computer could be, and it laid the groundwork for that which followed.

A New Picture of Muhammad

Now being presented to the world by a group who call themselves Muslim is a new picture of a person they claim to be Muhammad.  

This new picture depicts their prophet as one who has no respect for human beings, a figure firmly rooted in the fifth century (except for AK-47s), who wants the world to carry on indefinitely as it was back then.  It is  the presentation of a man who has no respect for dialog or progress, one who rejects government by the people.  

It is the picture of regimentation,  of force and killing for the single purpose of imposing submission on other people in other countries and of a different religion.  It certainly has no comprehension of the separation of church and state, or of a government of the people, by the people and for the people.  According to this new picture, Islam MUST rule all the people of all the world. 

The recent actions in Paris and the French Kosher store are not the only pictures depicting their prophet.  The slaughter of innocent people including children are now adding to this new description, and the beheadings of journalists are now changing the world's perception of who they thought Muhammad was.

By definition the word “submission” requires yielding, acceptance or consent.   Otherwise, imposition of one’s will upon another is a universal declaration of war.   Is that the new picture of Muhammad? 

Presence

There are days like this every so often. We saw such a day on what America calls 9 - 11, when the twin Towers came down.  The world stood by America.  Le Monde ran a headline "We Are All Americans, Now".  

It was a day like this in certain ways.  The world stood by ready to help.  The American president said "You are either with us or against  us!"  And he dragged the world back into the fire of war.  A war that is still going on, still boiling and bubbling and still destroying lives and hopes.  Still part of the events today in Paris.

Could tomorrow be that day?  The day the world has been aching for, dreaming for, searching for, several thousand years and more?  It doesn't really have to work completely.  But a start would be nice.  It would give us something to build on and hope for someone else to come along and add to it.

I would like to feel that Pope Francis is at work tonight, that Barak Obama is in contact with leaders tonight, seeking ways and reaching out to other leaders in government and religion and philosophy.  Tonight, the day after the sun is reborn.  A night, not just to give peace a chance, but a night to create a new world.  

Islam Today

The shooting deaths of 10 journalists and 2 policemen in Paris today appears to be an attack by Islamic terrorists against one of the most prized and necessary parts of the democratic process, the freedom of the press.  Why?

In the Czech Republic a Member of Parliament urged Czechs to walk their pigs near Mosques.  That was two weeks ago.  

Sweden has seen an increasing number of fires set on mosques and a rapid growth of an extreme right Democrat Party.  That was last week.

This follows on the heels of significant demonstrations in Germany against what they call “The Islamisation of Europe”.  The German people responded to the 20,000 demonstration with a counter-demonstration by some 30,000 Germans against the anti-Islam march.  But that was two days ago.

France had had mounting demonstrations against Islam also.  Nothing serious yet.  But that was yesterday. 

Granted, the depictions in the French newspaper, “Charlie Hebdo”, apparently went way too far.  Perhaps they represented the old concept of using a right, in this case the right  of the free press, “as a sword instead of a shield”.   Nonetheless, what happened today in Paris is a significant event which will have serious repercussions.    

In a very large part this event represents what can happen when a religion – ANY religion – runs out of control and is responsive only to one of its extreme fringe elements. 

Howl

The first howl was a long slow moan that slid down deeply into the cold, moon-lit valley. 

It rolled all the way to the other mountain and then echoed down through the valley between the two.

Its answer came from a rocky crag high on the other side, a piercing scream thrown at the moon; but it rode easily through the dark fir forest, like a great savage beast chasing prey. 

My next howl was higher than my first, and its answer came back lower, and as the moon rose in the sky we filled the valley with sad songs of lament, me and my dream, as we remembered another time, another way, another world - and those wild, free spirits we miss so deeply.


© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Maiden's Chapel Church

Winter winds blow cold with snow,

frozen darkness covers the world.

The year is ending, the sun is dying,

The world gathers and kneels to pray.

But holy light is burning bright 

in Maiden’s Chapel Church.