Off We Go

Here we go again. Off to see the world, or at least a bit of it we've not seen before.

I hate long airplane rides. It's not that I'm claustrophobic...maybe a little bit.  For miles and miles you simply sit in a very small space with severe limitations on movement. I think any flight over 2 hours is cruel and unusual punishment. However, until we get one of the Enterprise's transporters it's all we have.  So, the best we can do is an eight hour flight. At least it is less than our longest flight to date: fourteen hours.  That flight was nonstop from Atlanta to Tokyo. I thought we were caught in a time warp and the flight would never end. 

There is packing, which I am not fond of. What to carry? I never know. What will the weather be like at our destination?  Who can tell? A television weatherman told me once that weather forecasters were right 85% of the time. Which means they are WRONG 15% of the time. Should I pack according to  what the weatherman says the weather "may be" or carry too much stuff to cover 100% of the possibilities? I do not pack, my wife is much better at it than I. What camera should I take? Or Just take my smartphone for capturing the images of breath taking vistas? How much cash will I need? Should I have gotten some Euros at the AAA?  It gets stressful. 

Have you noticed that lately that you can book a flight on a particular airline but when you get to the departing gate it is a completely different airline? Coufusing? It seems the airlines have partnerships with other airlines. When I book a flight on Delta I expect to get on a Delta plane not Air France.  But, then again, Air France has better food. Once upon a time you could use seat layout diagrams of various planes and airlines to pick a seat with a little bit more leg room.  But no more! The airlines have become wise to this procedure and now charge a premium for this little bit of extra legroom. Thinking about it is stressful.

And then there are the government agencies you must deal with in air travel. They operate in the name of security. I for one believe in airline security. I don't believe you can be too safe flying through the air at 30,000 feet at 400 miles per hour. But that does not mean I like to go through security checks. Kinda like going to the dentist. You hate the pain and suffering but you love the results. TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, is the biggie. Yep, that is where you take off your shoes and put all other stuff you have in your pockets in a plastic wash basin and place it all on a conveyer which goes through an x-ray machine. I always seem to forget to remove some small item from my person. Once a TSA employee found a pocket knife in my carry-on bag I had been looking for for two years! Usually going through security is relatively painless.  But what if I look like somebody on the "no fly" list. And then there is the possibility of the dreaded body cavity search. Flying can be stressful.

I have a friend who refuses to fly without medication.  Let me rephrase that.  He refuses to fly without being medicated. But not me.

Perhaps tonight you will look into sky in and see the blinking lights of an airliner and think of me/us as I/we have climbed into the "big sewer pipe with wings" and taken to the sky.

Bon Voyage!

Bubba letter.

Dear Tony,
I seen your blog post about NASCAR Hall of Fame on the internet. I want to tell you what me and Darlene done not so long ago. "Bout three weeks, I guess it was.  We went to a dirt track race like the kind we used to go to way back  before stock racing got so popular. Back when you never seen a driver that didn't walk with a limp or had some scars from wrecks.  Before all the cars looked alike and drivers spoke better english than I do. And there was drivers like Fireball, Little Joe, Banjo, Junior and Fearless Freddie. You Remember them days?



We was at this little dirt quarter mile track up near the mountains. They was having what they called "Old Timers Day".  Me and Darlene went.  She said we ought to dress up like we did then. Well I slicked back my hair back in a duck tail, rolled  up a pack of Marlboros in my white T-shirt sleeve and pulled on a new pair of Levis. I had on my black penny loafers with white socks. Oh, yeah, I hung a well used church key on a chain around my neck. I looked like a worn out teenager from the fifties. Darlene on the other hand looked pretty darn good.  She had her hair tied back in a ponytail and wore a black T-shirt that was about a size too small with white short shorts. Solid white tennis shoes was on her feet. She had a good summer tan on her legs and looked as good as she did the first time I seen her.

When we got to the dirt track the crowd was gettin' pretty big and there were a lot of folks dressed up in the late fifties and early sixties style. The water truck had just pulled off the track and some of the cars were starting warm-up laps.  I knew we would be dodging chunks of red mud for a while when the cars went into the first turn. It was looking like old times as the sun went down and the lights come on. They lit up almost the whole track. Willie Johnson, the promoter, would save a buck anyway he could so the backstretch was kinda dark. Some said Willie would rig a race if he could. Everybody knew Willie liked to have Charlie Chappells win because the  fourteen-year-old from Lincolnton, Georgia, would really draw a crowd.
But that was many years ago and Charlie was retired now after racing in NASCAR a few years. They had found a few of the old race cars like we had watched back in the day. It was quite a show as the old coupes from the thirties and forties with their flat head Fords and inline six cylinder Chevys barrelling into the turns. Many of the superstars of NASCAR got their start on tracks like that. It was back in the day when a guy running  a filling station or garage could build a car in his spare time and really be competitive. I don't think that happens any more. There were three heat races before the main race.  We watched the cars as they entered the first turn with engines roaring.  The chunks of red mud rained down on us and the smell of exhaust pipes and oil filled the air. Darlene and me managed to keep the mud out of our faces but got some red stains on my white t-shirt from marble sized bits of red clay. Heat races were short bout ten laps I think.  There was a lot of banging and crashing between the cars. We got us a hot dog between the races. Between races we saw Woodie and Shelly Winthrop. We hadn't seen them in a coon's age. You remember them don't you? Used to drive a black '60 Chevy coupe with "Mister Lonely" painted on the rear quarter panels. It was said to pass everything on the highway but the gas pump!  We enjoyed talking with them about old times. They said Buddy Johnson's daughter would be driving today. She's about our age you know. Remember that when we were in high school that her daddy was such a dirty driver that nobody would talk to her! The other heat races for the cars were just like we remembered. Yep, there was even a fight in the infield after one of the heats. In this kind of racing the driver has to beat 'em on the track and then sometimes beat 'em in the infield. Darlene always gets excited at these events and jumps up and down yelling.  At the race she was attracting considerable attention. Darlene does not believe in any restraining undergarments. That used to bother me.  You know, the men staring at her but not anymore.  You see, she always goes home with me.
For the special main event they had rounded up a bunch of "skeeters". They were the little early thirties coupes and sedans whose bodies were chopped, channelled, and sectioned.  They were powered by small block Chevys or Fords with fuel  injectors and burning alcohol. (All the alcohol at the track wasn't being burned in the cars!) They didn't have transmissions, just in-out boxes. They were called "skeeters" because of the wing they had on top.  When they were racing it sounded like a swarm of bees.  On a quarter mile oval the straightaway ain't not very long. They put on a great show.

We were on our way to the truck to go home after the races when we happened on a fight in the parking lot. It seemed two fellas had a different opinion over who the greatest race car driver was and were sluggin' it out. But then the law came.  She must have been nigh on to 200 pound and a good six feet tall.  She walked up behind one of the fellas and grabbed him by the collar and said, "Git into my car over there!" She was talking about her county car with the star on the side.
Before he could say anything she had reached between his legs and grabbed a sensitive part of the male anatomy. His voice was a couple of octaves higher as he asked, "What car do you mean?"

As we drove away from the track we talked about going by Tastee-Freeze for a dipped cone.  She tried to find Dick Biondi on the radio but couldn't. I guess Dick is gone.  But he sure was great back in the early sixties on WLS Chicago.

That's all for now
Your ole buddy,
Bubba

Iron Men in Horseless Carriages

In Charlotte,NC is a museum dedicated to the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing. There, on Martin Luther King Boulevard is homage to the men and machines that created the second most watched sport in the country. In the 175,000 square foot structure designed by Peter Cobb Freed and Partners are many displays of which many are interactive. We visited on Wednesday which was less crowded than the weekend. There was considerable activity due to  television technicians setting up for the evening telecast from there. (The 2016 group of inductee into the Hàll of Fame were to be announced.) When we bought our tickets we received a small plastic card about the size of a credit card. It's called your "Hard Card". We were told that when we activated these cards they would grant us access to certain interactive displays. After completing these tasks, which I did not care for*, we began to look around. The first thing you see is hat appears to be part of a racetrack. Upon this track are race cars beginning with a 1952 Hudson Hornet. As you continue along the track the walkway is inclined as the track is banked. The cars represented are noteworthy. Fred Lorenzen's famous "Yellow Banana" Ford and Buck Baker's "Black Widow" Chevrolet and the cars of famous drivers past and present. It is easy to see the evolution of the NASCAR racer. It is also interesting to experience banking of the track as you allowed to attempt to stand on the 33 degree banked surface.

Once you walk pass the last car on the track you find yourself on the second floor. On this floor are the simulators. There are more than a dozen cars on a small section of track. You pay your money and pick your ride. Then the race is on and the spectators can watch the action on a large screen television. The leader board changes as the race progresses although the cars never move. We did not do this. I had once driven an actual race car at Darlington. Nearby was a place to have your picture take driving a race car. For many all these activities you use your "Hard Card". There are many kiosks around the area in which you can use your Hard Card to test your

skill knowledge and performance. One such test is to see how fast you can change tire and refuel a race car. One activity i enjoyed was testing an engine on a dynamometer. You can punch in changes to the engine and then test it to see improvements. In the raceweek area you see cutaway version of the racecars which allow you to see "under the skin" of these 200 mph machines. The Hall of Honor is where the inductees into the NASCAR hall of fame are featured. the cars of the recent inductees are displayed along with drivers bios and videos.

You could probably take from opening to closing to read all the captions, watch all the film, and participate in the interactivities. There is a lot to see and do. However, I knew much of the history and rather lacking in physical ability so our visit did not last all day. But, itis a "must see" for any stock car racing fan.