Enough to Make a Grown Man Cry

We got home late last night–almost 11:00, and my day started at 5:30 this morning.  That’s the price of having a daughter who is a competitive swimmer.  I get up to get her up and to the pool at 6:20 in the morning–long before the sun gets its lazy butt in the sky.  Needless to say, all the caffeine I dare to ingest has not alleviated the fog in my brain enough to concentrate on job searching.   Therefore, I went to surf the Web, and that’s where my heart broke.

It’s said that there are only three occasions when it is OK for a grown man to cry in front of other men.  One is when watching Gary Cooper in the role of Lou Gehrig making his “Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth” speech in the movie Pride of the Yankees.

Another is when Billy Dee Williams as Gale Sayers dedicates his George S. Halas Courage Award to dying teammate Brian Piccolo in the original 1971 TV movie Brian’s Song.

I never remember the third, but room should be made for viewing the damage caused to the Lone Star Flight Museum on Galveston Island by Hurricane Ike.  Click on the name of the museum above to read on the home page about the damage.  Scroll down to click on the links to the photos.  Pay special attention to the last offering:  the “36 Hours after Ike Photo Gallery.”  If this doesn’t break your heart, go to your nearest cardiologist.  He’ll be very interested to meet someone who functions without one.  You’ll redefine “life” itself.

On a purely selfish note, thank God the B-25 was spared and is safely ensconced, along with the B-17, at the Commemorative Air Force’s museum in Midland, TX.  All other airworthy artifacts were removed to safety as well, and are being generously housed until such time as the LSFM can reopen.

I blogged about our too-short visit there back in June.  See, my daddy was a radar operator in PBJ’s (the Marine name for the B-25) back in WWII, when radar “didn’t exist.”  I got a couple of detail shots of the PBJ, but spent most of my digital storage on a MiG-21 not too far away.  I guess my own service memories distracted me.  I at least thank God I got to see it before Ike came a-callin’.  Something is better than nothing.

Folks, I know full well how the economy sucks right now.  I’m jobless and broke.  Still, not everyone is.  The LSFM wants and intends to reopen, but they admit that it is possible that the chasm between income and damages may become too great to sustain it long enough to repair, replace, and retool (it’s not just a place to display vintage warcraft, they actively restore them as well) themselves.  Then the rest of the island has to be ready not only to sustain itself, but tourists as well.  That’s a tall bill, Sports Fans.  Can anyone help with the tab?  I know everyone and his brother is begging for relief of some form or another now.  Still, it is a poor testament to the sacrifice of the Greatest Generation if we let the Lone Star Flight Museum die.  We just can’t let it happen.