Got lots of mail about the essay about my Dad. He’s much more interesting than me.

I wonder if my son will say that about me someday. In a way, what people are always trying to accomplish is making the lives of their children less interesting than their own. I hope I succeed in that, too.

I found a YouTube video clip that might actually have my father in it. Long odds, but that’s exactly the place he was in and the the type of plane he was flying.

There’s what appears to be a “friendly fire” massacre in that clip; it looks as if the bombs from one plane cut another in half. People need to keep in mind that it’s sometimes dangerous to sit and have a glass of water in the military, never mind fighting. My friend’s father was a cook in the military. In my mind, there isn’t a lot of difference there. That’s the reason I can’t stand wide receivers dancing around like fools in the endzone, while ignoring the other 10 men that put them there.

Some more housekeeping:

Commenter Billy Beck pleasantly points out that the plane in the picture is not a B-24. He’s correct. It’s a B-17. There were three planes at the airshow, including that one. It was just the best picture I got of him there.

Here’s a YouTube clip someone made of the actual B-24j that we saw at the airshow:

I wrote that essay more than a year ago, and re-ran it for Veterans Day because it was appropriate and I’m busy and lazy and obstinate and obtuse sometimes. The (Still) at the end of the title was all the hint you get if you’re a regular reader. I’m an essayist, not the New York Times.

Come to think of it, the facts and sentiments in my essay are all accurate, appropriate, and timely, so it really is nothing like the New York Times.