Day Tripping

During these endless day of COVID my wife and I have undertaken a series of day trips. We tend to stay rather reclusive most of the time. But once week we take a day trip. Day tripper (the song written by McCartney and Lennon) comes to mind.

This past week our destination was the Hickory Aviation Museum. Nestled in the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains about sixty miles from Charlotte, North Carolina, at the Hickory Regional Airport is the museum.  If you've followed this blog and especially my YouTube channel (http://www.YouTube.com/ty2u) you would know how much I like airplanes. Actually when I was a toddler my mother would take me outside while she hung up the wash. I would stare silently at the sky until I a saw an airplane. With my toddler voice I would scream "Airplane! airplane! airplane!"  

We checked our route and museum details on the internet before an early Tuesday morning departure. We wanted to arrive at the museum shortly after its 10 AM opening time.  Also we hoped to avoid traffic around Charlotte. We packed up some sandwiches and bottled water for lunch.  (As followers of a plant-based diet we can't usually find lunch that is diet compliant.) We left Goose Creek in our aged Toyota under cloudless skies with hint of fall in the air. The trip was faultless and we arrived well within the estimated time suggested by Google Maps. 

The collection of old aircraft was visible as we approached the terminal building. There was a parking space near the entrance gate for the Toyota. The long tail boom of a P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft provided som shade for the car. After only  few steps inside the chain link fence We were approached by a white-haired mustachioed man who welcomed us to the museum. He wanted our names and address for the museums log book. We have visited over twelve aircraft museums and this was the smallest but it had some unique aircraft I had not seen. 

As you enter the aircraft display area you are almost immediately under the wing of the Lockheed P-3C Orion. This plane was one of the reasons for our trip. I had never seen one up close and had a friend who flew one for his entire Naval career. Normally, the large turboprop plane would have been accessible, but not on Tuesdays. All of the planes are from the jet era except for the P-3C and the Curtiss XP-15C-1, Stingeree.  The later is a true one of a kind, a hybrid. Only three were built and the only one to survive is at the Hickory Aviation Museum.

The Stimgeree is powered by two engines,  One is a reciprocating engine and the other is a jet turbine engine. When the plane was built for the Navy in the 1940s the military had concerns about the dependability of jet engines. However, due to the improvements is jet engines, jet powered aircraft did prevail. The Orion began as a passenger airliner for Lockheed. It was the Lockheed Electra, the first turboprop powered airliner. But it was plagued with problems  including two disastrous crashes with many fatalities.  The public lost faith in the airliner and Lockheed could not sell them although they solved the problems. However, the Navy found use for the turboprop plane in its anti-submarine warfare program. Introduced in the 1960s it has served the Navy for over fifty years. 

It was my intent to shoot video of the museum content as is my custom. My preferred camera is an iPhone SE. I was using a new wireless microphone and with the  Filmic Pro app. I also carried a Joby tripod and a Zhiyun gimbal. Claudette was my cinematographer. (A new role for her.) The plan was simple, I would stand in front of each aircraft and talk about it while she shot the video. Those shots not requiring my being on camera, I would shoot myself.  

Claudette did a super job did a great job with her duties as she recorded me expounding of the attributes of the Fury, Shooting Star, Prowler, Skyhawk,Cougar, Orion, and Super Cobra. Soon it was time for lunch and we found a picnic table beneath the wing of the P-3C Orion. 

Claudette had packed a great lunch.  We had sandwiches on rosemary bread of vegan cold cuts with lettuce and tomato with vegan mayo.  A pasta salad with veggies and a balsamic mayo dressing. Desert was a  Gayla apple we had bought previously at Blue Haven Orchard in Long Creek, SC. Cold bottled water was the proper beverage before getting out of the shade and back into the warm, almost hot,  sun. 

I shot video clips of the balance of the aircraft in the museum before we were preparing to leave. We individually would comply with S.C. (Senior Citizen) Rule #3. NEVER PASS UP AN OPPORTUNITY TO USE A RESTROOM. The restrooms were inside the building that housed the terminal.

I found that the museum's indoor displays were closed due to the COVID rules. But I did get a sneak peak at dozens of model aircraft  and other memorabilia. And I met one of the men responsible for the creation of the museum. He was a Navy vet too and naturally we had to swap sea stories. I'm not sure how long we could have talked had I not had a wife waiting for me in the car to head south.

Our trip home was uneventful except we tired of the few CDs we had brought. I can handle only so much Norah Jones!

"Just the facts, Ma'am!"

Like many early television shows such as Martin Kane, Private Eye, Gangbusters, The Adventures of Superman, The Cisco Kid, and The Lone Ranger, Dragnet began as a radio show.  The show was created by a young radio star named Jack Webb. And took its name from the police term "dragnet", meaning a system of coordinated measures for catching criminals or suspects. Webb began his entertainment career as a radio announcer. But while playing a small part in a detective film, He Walked By Night, Webb became friends with the film’s technical advisor, Marty Wynn, who was a detective sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department.  He Walked By Night was based on the true story of the murder of the California Highway patrolman Erwin Walker. Based on the knowledge gained from working on that film and talking with Wynn,  Webb created Dragnet.  Dragnet was a procedural detective drama.  Procedural detective dramas first appeared in print in 1880 but were new to radio.

The major difference in the procedural drama is that they follow police procedure in solving crimes and the perpetrator isn’t revealed until the end of the story.  Dragnet crime dramas presented the cops as the “good guys”, which was unusual in the early 1950s. Webb was adamant about showing the hard work and heroism of the police. He created the procedural police drama for radio initially and was quite successful. However, when the show made the leap to television he didn’t want to reprise his role as Sgt. Joe Friday. He wanted the actor, Lloyd Nolan, to play Joe Friday. Nolan had played a detective in some films in the 1940s. But Webb succumbed to the pressure of his superiors at  NBC and reprised the role of Joe Friday on television. Actors playing the same characters on television as radio added continuity to the transition between radio and television.  

The show ran for eight seasons initially. Jack Webb’s usual partner in his role as a Los Angeles police sergeant, Joe Friday,  was Officer Frank Smith. Smith was played by Ben Alexander. At first, Friday’s partner was played by Barton Yarborough who unfortunately died of a heart attack during the first season after filming only two episodes. Most of the other cast members were veteran radio actors and were used for many different roles. Harry Bartell, Art Gilmore, Peggy Webber, Barney Phillips, Carolyn Jones, Virginia Christine, Kathleen Freeman, Stacy Harris, Virginia Gregg, Olan Soule, Herb Vigran, and many others. Lee Marvin of M Squad, and Raymond Burr of Perry Mason had roles in two of the shows. Burr was in the first television episode playing Friday’s boss. 

Dragnet was unique in several ways by today's standards. The show  began with the disclaimer that the events in the show were true but the names had been changed to protect the innocent.  Today I think we would refer to the show as a docudrama. Webb did a lot of voice-overs for the series. Frequently a scene would consist of actors performing without their voices being heard.  Webb’s first person voice-over would describe the action to the viewer. In a twenty-five minute show there was little chance for character development and very little small talk. Stories followed the police force often encountering the seedy side of Los Angeles, with a steady stream of calloused fugitives, desperate gunmen, slippery swindlers, and hard bitten women. The titles tell much about the stories,  "The Big Lamp," "The Big Seventeen," "The Big Grandma," "The Big Show," "The Big Break," "The Big Frank," " The Big Hands," "The Big Dance," "The Big Betty," "The Big Will," 

Dragnet had a number of well known writers.. James E. Moser wrote the majority of the scripts for the first three seasons. Webb wrote a few and,   he was the show’s producer and director. But after Moser, John Robinson became the most frequent writer of the show.  Although the scripts were written by staff writers each script was vetted by the LAPD for accuracy.  And, of course, to see if it did not reflect unfavorably on the Los Angeles Police Department.  Since all shows were based on actual investigations the results were always revealed at the end as the narrator read the punishment for the perpetrator.  

Remakes have been made of the series but none have reached the success of the original. None quite matched that Webb style. But there are many today who still remember the music, those brass and timpanis.  And  “Dum-de-dum-dum” 

That is if  “Dum-de-dum-dum” is considered music!

There are few accomplishments for a kid as great as pulling a successful prank on an adult. And there are few instances of successful pranks in my childhood which merit remembering. But there were two.

When I was about eight years old we played a prank on my daddy. Family meals together were a big deal at our house. The only opportunity for the four of us to eat together was the weekend except in the summer.  While school was in session, daddy would be at work when we had our evening meal which we referred to as “supper”. Daddy worked in a textile mill on what they called the “second shift”.  He worked from four o’clock in the afternoon until midnight. 

We lived in what I referred to as an ancient farmhouse. Actually, my great grandfather had built it near the end of the nineteenth century. He had bought the land, cut the timber and built the house. We rented five rooms in the house. 

My mother said she had been afraid of my great-grandfather.  He had a long white beard.   Now the house belonged to my mother's uncle. He was an unmarried farmer and lived in the attached kitchen. Houses built in those days had kitchens separated from the main house because of the possibility of fire.The kitchen was attached though by a covered breezeway of about ten feet.  Momma usually invited my great uncle to Sunday dinner. I think she felt sorry for him. Sunday dinner was about one o’clock.

 

Sunday dinner was a big deal at our house. After church we would come and get out of our Sunday church clothes while Momma got Sunday dinner ready. Soon the smells of chicken frying and biscuits baking would waft through the house. Sunday was the only day we ate meat except maybe for ham, sausage or bacon for breakfast. The chicken would have been butchered on Saturday. I was the designated chicken decapitator. Soon the table in the kitchen would have a tablecloth on it and spread with beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn,  and sliced tomatoes. Fried chicken filled the need for meat. I would be hoping there would be some sweet potato pie for desert. My sister and I sat on a bench facing Momma. She was always telling me to slow my rate of food consumption. Momma would tell me, "Slow down eating, Son. Nobody's going to take it from you." My sister and I rarely spoke.  In those days children did not speak unless spoken to. My grandpa didn’t go for table talk either.  He always said. “Let your food stop your mouth!”

Now the beverage of choice for Sunday dinner, or any dinner for that matter,  was sweet iced tea. I'm not sure why Daddy always put lemon in his iced tea. To us it seemed that maybe Daddy thought his tea was too sweet. So with Momma's help, we conspired to serve Daddy unsweetened tea. But Daddy got the best of us. He added lemon to the unsweetened tea and drank it down without a grimace. Yes, the joke was on us.

 

My grandest, if I might say "grandest", prank was the one we pulled on my Momma. 

If I remember correctly, it was in the summertime when this happened. 

When I was a boy prior to the age of twelve the favorite game played by me and my buddies was  cowboys and Indians. I realize that the popularity of this game was due to that time in history. Those were the days when western movies were very popular. Television programming was filled with western shows. I remember them well, The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, and The Cisco Kid.  Playing cowboys and Indians came naturally. And if you didn't have a buddy to play with you would reluctantly recruit your sister. I did it. I recruited my sister to play cowboys and Indians with me. She didn't really know how to play, and she did have some reservations about playing the Indian. She knew enough about westerns to know that the Indians usually lost. Actually, in our games the Indians never won.  I told her we would do something never done before. I announced that we would play a joke on Momma. For whatever reason she went along with my idea. Maybe she was mad at Momma or something. I didn't care. The important thing was she was on board with the idea. Yep the cowboy was gonna shoot an Indian. And I was the cowboy. I found an arrow which had somehow been broken in half. My idea had come from a Three Stooges film. There were a few things I needed from inside the house. With great stealth I sneaked into my room and liberated a pair of my Sunday pants from a coat hanger. Mr. Showalter had delivered them from Star Dry Cleaners  the day before. By using a pair of pliers from the back porch I cut a length of wire from the clothes hanger. My sister obliged as I shaped the wire across her head from ear to ear. After removing it I attached a  piece of  arrow to each end of the wire. When I put it over her head the illusion was almost complete! Just one more thing was needed. With Indian like stealth I entered the kitchen and managed to get a bit of catsup from the kitchen table. I put It around the part of the arrow closest to my sister's head. 

The illusion was complete. Then I coached my sister to go crying to my momma telling her that she had been shot by me with an arrow. I did not get to see the actual delivery of my best work. But when I heard my momma's scream, I knew I had been successful. 

Momma only  said to me, "Wait til your father gets home!"

And that was enough. 

It was my grandest, but last, practical joke.