An Adventure in Vintage Flying or the Long Way Home for a Martini
In layman’s terms, there were only six airworthy Jennys in the United States; now there are five.
By John Griswold
Happy Day, Fathers
I have tried as a father myself to fashion the best of both modeled worlds. If I have made homes comfortable, cooked, done domestic chores, and served all roles in raising and supporting sons, I have also headed out to have a look around and brought back my own answers, which I try to communicate.
Kevin Will Never Stop Looking for Love
Kevin “belongs” to the farm family across the county road and fields. Lee hears that people think peacocks are pretty, but they are supposedly good with pest control too. There used to be three more, but Kevin is now a rare bird in these parts.
Betting on Armageddon Then and Now
The Cold War was a depressing fact, and we did practice duck and cover sometimes and other times were taken for drills to the nuclear fallout shelter under the adjoining junior high building. Divine or no, Armageddon could happen.
Off On Some Trip
As a child of the ’60s, I am finding phrases of that era useful again. One of them—“Everybody’s off on their own trip”—did not necessarily mean drugs even then; it meant we walk our own paths. Sometimes these are mysterious to ourselves and others, even when they intersect.
The Caring Application of Force
There is tremendous loneliness in free will and its consequences, in deciding to play a certain game and then defining what it means to win or lose.
Riding in the Jenny Biplane, an American Icon
It was all safe as houses, and twice as fun—an opportunity of a lifetime, and powerful enough an experience that I still have a hard time overlaying it on my childhood dreams of flying in a Jenny. For now, let me say that on this day a complicated little freedom machine called the Jenny—built to aid warfare, at once fragile and powerful in its utility, and as beautiful as a moth in the daylight—transported me through time and space and let me return to people I love.
Bridging the Gap
The construction of two new bridges to replace an existing bridge joining Illinois and Missouri, on the north edge of St. Louis, is midwifed by expertise, daring, and trudging drudgery.
Guardians of the Galaxy’s Knowhere Citizen #65
Sixteen months ago I worked as an extra on the third installment of Guardians of the Galaxy movie. It has just been released, and we went to see it opening weekend.
Joseph Heller at 100
In Joseph Heller’s writing no one games the system entirely, but in Catch-22, one unlikely person, by cunning, ingenuity, and hardship, wins a temporary stay.
Treasures of China
China sets are no longer valued as they used to be. Young people often do not have space to store things that will be rarely used, or do not like the ornateness or implied waste of resources.
My Talk on the Centenary of the Grievous Event
I have come to my own conclusions about the meaning of the event, and using the narratory and rhetorical tricks of a writer and former teacher I may temporarily make you think you agree. But I stand here filled with distrust of stories in general, having waded through so many of them. It is a time of strong beliefs in shallow stories.