Air Show

Uncle Bubba has drifted back to Montgomery and this weekend there's an air show. Being a heavily populated area of military bases, the show is a big deal. The news has warned of traffic issues and urged patience in getting around the city. Now if y'all have been reading this blog, you'll know the Uncle Bubba is not fond of crowds. It didn't take him long to decide that he'd be avoiding the area off the air show but would also keep an eye to the sky to perhaps catch an awesome sight of aeronautical daring. Uncle Bubba really enjoys flying and has soloed himself. This got him thinking, or should I say reminiscing about some great moments of his childhood. Growing up in a time that now seems so remote from our present techno-culture, it was a time of no cell phones, no PCs, no video games, and 4 stations on TV. Every so often little Bubbie's grampa would take him to the small community airport out beyond the boundaries of their town. He recalls his grampa strategically parking near some hangars and inviting him to get out of the car. Bubbie would poke his little fingers through and hang onto the chain link fence and peer through the diamond shapes to see if an airplanes were around. His grampa would keep reminding him to look to the sky to see if he could spot any. Every so often they'd get lucky and one might be circling and landing or just taking off. His grampa would always spin a tale of adventure to accompany each event; the folks on the plane may be returning from a safari or taking off to land on a far off indian reservation. Young Bubbie somehow knew that the ephemeral moments that he and grampa shared were more wondrous than the mysteries of flight they each marveled at. And now, in Bubbie's view, later in life, the lessons of a few quite hours shared with someone you love seem far more precious than texting, shopping online, virtually killing people for entertainment, and tuning out to 500 channels of stupidity.