Visiting and Visitors

This week was our visit to the SAC Museum with our wonderful neighbors, the Westovers. The Strategic Air Command flying from our base here was in the air for 24/7 for thirty years during the Cold War. This museum was a trip back through our life from the “30 Seconds over Toyko” raid in 1942 to the Link Trainer from Binghamton to the Stealth Bomber to the Space Age. What a trip and what planes we saw.

One of the first things to see is this wonderful flag on the wall made of almost 1,000 squares obviously done by school kids.

The B-1 Bomber looks mighty big next to the little plane in front.

Right out of Star Wars is this Re-entry Pod from NASA.

Apollo Spacecraft gives me claustrophobia. Can you imagine being crammed into that!

Our nemesis—the Russian MIG. They are in the throes of restoring it. Glad it is on the ground!

We are kind of dwarfed between the B-36 and the B-52—the big bombers of their day. They were must massive. Note how we compare in size to the tires.

This is the U-2 of Gary Francis Power’s fame—remember when he was downed by the Soviets. Rather scary time as it was just a reconnaissance plane.

My favorite WWII story was “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” the first raid into Japan in early 1942. All the planes were lost and two crews were killed(only four died) or imprisoned so Doolittle expected to be court martialed when instead was given the Medal of Honor. It was a huge boost to American morale and led to the Japanese changing plans and attacking Midway the turning point in the war in our favor. The horror of it was the Japanese killed 250,000 people in the Chinese villages that rescued Doolittle's Raiders from their crashed planes.

This was the famous “blue box” made by Link in Binghamton. It was the flight simulator that was used for years to teach pilots how to fly invented by Ed Link from Binghamton. We had many friends who worked as engineers there.

This was a season of visitors of all kinds—friendly and not so friendly

Our friendly visitors included friends from the past. Durham home schooling friends of Joe and Janet’s came to see us.

A darling girl from our Winder 7^th Ward, Sarah Funk, our Stake President’s daughter came with friends from Omaha.

Our neighbor’s kids, Craig and Jordan Mangum visited for the weekend bringing their now famous darling daughter, Lucy, who was bitten by the shark (doing well) along with Hazel, Avery and Seth. We had great fun noting that Jordan and Craig were best friends of my niece Lara Watson Alder and her husband Adam, that Craig was Mary’s FHE Dad, and in Kate’s pre-med classes at the Y, and that Jordan was one of Ned and Margaret’s Russian missionaries. What a delightful family and what a small world!

Our neighbor, Sister Westover had her brother, Elder Young, visit this week. He had served here a year ago. He not only wrote our Mission Song, he made the Pioneer Cemetery Map we use daily so families can find where their relatives are located among the over 300 buried there, as well as the “gravestone” we take out to the cemetery for picture taking. (there is only one pioneer gravestone left).

We even had celebrities drop by. Glen Rawson who did the Joseph Smith Papers on TV, came with his family and photographer Bryant Bush, preparing for a new TV series, History of the Saints.

David Fairbanks, an old neighbor of the Hales, and son of Avard, came for a visit with his grandson. He and his wife, Sylvia, gifted our Trail Center with the smaller version of the “Tragedy at Winter Quarters” that his dad did for our Pioneer Cemetery 75 years ago. He told us that the plaster cast had been left by his father in the Manhattan Ward, and it was getting quite beaten up, so on a visit he took it home, and cleaned it up and had two bronze castings done. One he sent back to the Manhattan Ward, the other he donated to the Trail Center. Ours he said is of finer detail because it was made from the small mold that had to be perfect to be translated to the larger one.

Our much loved Sister Evans returned for the temple sealing of a couple she taught. Sister Evans left soon after we arrived but was legendary as a missionary and the best scriptorian in the mission. She is in the middle with Sister Runyon and Sister Naylor.

Our two most recent visitors were from the Missionary Department in Salt Lake, Elder Tracy Watson, and Elder Lee Donaldson, who was our grandson Ike’s interim mission president in San Diego while he waited for his visa to Brazil. He had wonderful things to say about our missionary that Grandma’s love to hear.

Well that was the good stuff!!

Thursday afternoon we kept getting severe storm warnings and were shocked when a hail storm of monumental proportions started. It sounded like it was going to break every window and bring down the roof. We keep bringing in samples from the yard—and they just got bigger—at least golf ball size and solid ice! Not the soft little nothings we call hail at home!

What it did to the cars was the shocker. We have dings like you can’t believe—one on our car looks like someone teed off on our car at twenty feet! We thought we only had a dozen or so dings as most did, but the next day I discovered we had them all over the hood and trunk AND a cracked windshield—all up around the mirror—at least a dozen cracks of various lengths. (most only show when you are inside the car.)

We apparently got off lucky—our car is dark so you really have to be looking to see most of them. The cars at the airport had front and back windows smashed and all the nice street lights along the way were smashed. Several planes were damaged as well, and a pilot was injured as a windshield was apparently broken. I guess it was a sight to behold in Council Bluffs—those Sisters have pictures of hail that were baseball size and were bouncing off the street like tennis balls—a couple of feet in the air!! Apparently there is quite a business in this area for repairing “dings.” I guess these are the souvenirs from Nebraska!!!

The August 2011 Farewell Testimony Meeting was most memorable. It began with the hail storm and was accompanied by a lightning storm that took out our power and many cell phones, brought down tree limbs, and left us with only emergency lighting for this last meeting with our departing missionaries and their friends and families. We could see the lights were also out at the temple where they were doing a session before the testimony meeting.

Creative measures were called for. Elder Watson got his 72 hour kit lantern which we perched on the center case in the lobby which along with our emergency lighting allowed us to see. Folding chairs were set up, our missionaries and friends serenaded us with hymns for a prelude as we gathered (we had no piano in the lobby), and our departing elders and sisters bore their testimonies in front of the entrance door.

Our wonderful mission president, President Kunz, seemed quite at ease with the whole event. He saw it as very memorable-- a reminder of the night he proposed to his dear wife at the Roof Garden at the Hotel Utah (JSBuilding now) and the lights went out. They are smiling here as Brother Sherwood meets Fred. His son, Elder Sherwood in the middle was our “Ike”—our wonderful computer guy who saved our bacon on many occasions. He was the first Elder we met when we arrived and he and Elder Plowman moved us in and set us up. He had been the Assistant and wanted one last time in the field where he spent his last six weeks. This was truly a night to remember as we all, family and friends, enjoyed the light from this joyous occasion.