Happy birthday to me! I'm old... enough said. For my birthday I wanted on thing: For my Dad to spend time with his long-time friend, Jeff. Dad had a profound impact and blessing on Jeff's life. He has always thought highly of our family and appreciated Dad's willingness to pour into his life. They haven't seen each other in 16 years and since Jeff lives in Phoenix I arranged a surprise for Dad to have dinner.
My birthday was a success because Dad was able to sit next to Jeff and look in his eyes as Jeff expressed gratitude for Dad's pivotal role in helping him be the man is he is today. We met his wife and son also for the first time. We had a great time getting to know them, catching up on the status of each other circle of friends, and reminiscing about old times.
I convinced Dad to join Easton and I for a day trip to the Pima air museum in Tucson. I mentioned the plan to Easton the night before and he was super excited to go. I blocked off the whole day so we had time to see several exhibits we never saw before including the space gallery. While inside we got a private tour of the moon room where kids attend classes. Since we were the only people in that particular gallery and Easton is so friendly she hooked us up with back stage passes. We took a trip to... The MOON!
Easton dove into the pretend moon surface exhibit, which for some reason had hot lava flowing out of a volcano. That's what he liked most about this trip to the Pima air museum.
Easton also put his hands on the cockpit of an F-14 Tomcat. When he looked inside at the statue pilot he matter-of-factly said, "I want to fly this one." as if he here picking a dog from a humane shelter. I said, "Yes, you can fly this one if you want! Study hard and practice and you can do anything you desire"! He liked that answer.
Another big hit was the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Easton introduced Papa to the fastest air-breathing manned aircraft in the world. It travelled Coast to Coast (2,404 miles) in 1 hr 08 with an average Speed of 2,124.51 mph. Now THAT'S movin'...
Papa introduced Easton to the A-1, which is the type of aircraft Papa saw flying in the Navy during the Viet Nam war. He was a part of the team who rescued downed pilots of the A-1.
My favorite part of the trip was hearing Papa's personal account of rescues and situations he experienced during the war. Stories I never heard before...
We wandered through the World War II exhibit and inspected the B-17.
The biggest surprise of the trip was meeting John, the war vet. He flew 25 missions on this B-17 bomber as a Ball Turret Gunner.
This is THE actual dude who curled up in a ball hanging from the belly of the B-17 shooting shells at the enemy planes. Here is the poster describing what that looked like from a side cut-out view. John said it was surprisingly comfortable to fly that way for 6 hours per mission (seriously).
Although Easton has no idea what it means to meet a WWII ball turret gunner, it's great experience none the less.
In a similar story Papa, Easton, and I went to a car show in Scottsdale. One of the most awesome cars there was a Lamborghini Diablo VT. As Easton stood in front of this magnificent piece of machinery he said, "Look at my snake!" He was completely unaware of the car behind him and that is the magic of being 3 years old.
Simple life and loving simple things. There are many lessons I learn through parenting and many more to come.
See you soon!
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