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old git -> RE: Mom's day and grassy fields (5/17/2008 12:04:34 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Toad
Happy Mom's day!
Out here in the desert, there are no grassy fields close by, so on Moms day, I take the lovly Mrs for a long drive to find a grassy field [:D] then after, before we leave, I fly a 1/2a or a Sloper, even named one of my slopers's "Nature Nookie" [8D]
I hope all here have a great day and a chance to fly
My wife wrote the following and sent it to Aeromodeller magazine (in 1975) It was ublished later in 1984 and she had to ask for the cash for the article (she didn't forget)
1975 FAMILY FLIGHT
(Published in Aeromodeller, Feb.84)
My husband is addicted to aeroplanes – well, more obsessed with them really. As a result I too have become an expert, though not a very willing one. But I reckon I could write a book on Airfields of South-East England – perhaps “Muddy Fields I Have Known” would be a better title.
John had the sense to keep quiet about the subject before we were married and although I knew his parents’ house was littered with stray wing sections and skeletal looking fuselages, I assumed these were merely remnants of his childhood. It was after we were established in our own place, when it was too late, that I found aeroplanes were by no means a thing of the past but very much a current affliction. It seems to go in phases, rather like those illnesses that have a period of remission and then come on again, worse than ever.
Anyway, one of the fringe activities, the one which the whole family gets involved in, is air displays. This doesn’t sound too bad if you say it quickly, and occasionally it isn’t. You need a fine summer day, preferably at the end of a long dry spell, a high resistance to boredom, good eyesight and a well-trained bladder. This last is an essential – I’ve never known an airfield yet where the toilet facilities were anything but abominable. The good eyesight is needed when your husband points to a small black speck vanishing into the clouds and expects you to admire its undercarriage mechnism, engine mountings or any other endearing little features it may have. As I need glasses to see to the end of the garden I don’t do very well at this bit.
The fine day is necessary, not just so you can sit and sunbathe, if you manage to escape for a few minutes, but also because every airfield I’ve come across has this ambition to become one vast mudpie. Most of them succeed. A typical day at one of these shows consists of hopping through ankle deep mud, losing the odd Wellington boot as you go and picnic in an east wind. You see the occasional aeroplane vanishing into middle distance with a noise like Concorde and you’re told every half hour how much you’re enjoying yourself.
Once you have children the emphasis shifts a little. At last you can feel you’re really being of some use. How else could your husband have that virtuous glow which comes from taking the family out for the day and still be free to watch every event of the afternoon? So Dad is able to leap happily from Rat Race to Hand Launch Gliders, from Open Rubber to the Pylon Race while Mum sits snugly in the car, feeding the baby with one hand, eating her own lunch with the other and mending her son’s broken chuck glider with her teeth. This lot should keep you fully occupied – along with several trips through the mud to those unspeakable toilets. And when your husband staggers back to the car loaded down with leaflets on five minute epoxy and thermatic glowplugs, you will both be able to feel you'’e had a full and satisfying afternoon.
Another hazard for modelling wives is the trip to the local flying field. In some ways this is better than the more formal occasions – it’s a lot nearer and needn’t last so long, although somehow it usually does. Against this is the fact that it’s always there. You can’t claim you promised to help out at the school jumble sale because that only takes care of Saturday afternoon. I know you don’t have to go at all, but if you stay at home you will quite definitely have to look after the kids, while if you all go out there is that faint ridiculous hope that your husband might do sentry duty for half an hour, while you curl up with a good book.
Actually you know quite well how it will be. The toddler will be trying to catch the planes as they come in to land, the baby will be screaming encouragement, while your husband swears he’ll-never-bring-that-adjectival-brat-anywhere-near-the-field-again and what’s-he-trying-to-do-now-kill-himself? But somehow, in spite of all this, there you are again next Sunday. I don’t know, maybe those models do have a sort of fascination, after all.
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