tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-161869542024-10-25T02:37:22.504-07:00JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1150677793568334212006-06-18T17:41:00.000-07:002006-06-18T17:48:32.960-07:00

“The past is never dead: It’s not even past.” William FaulknerThe war had been safely fought and won over a kitchen table. For the chroniclers of history, the good guys won and the bad guys had lost. Great Britain and her Commonwealth partners had pitched a good game; managing to keep the score close. But in the late innings America stepped up to bat and smacked a home run with two men on. A new

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1149586114930220402006-06-06T02:27:00.000-07:002006-06-06T13:43:43.310-07:00

I was running down my list of questions. I knew from my reading, that during the Battle of Britain Bob Doe was credited with 14 1/ 2 kills: making him one of the highest scoring Aces during the Battle. As a policy, Fighter Command frowned upon the practice of recognizing individual records, as opposed to the Germans, who tended to glorify personal triumph, often at the expense of the squadron.

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1149371975015406162006-06-03T14:57:00.000-07:002006-06-04T01:12:29.383-07:00

Some estimates placed the number of German fighters and bombers at 2,500. The RAF had roughly 650 Spitfires and Hurricanes. If England were to achieve victory in the air then these fresh-faced boys of 19 and 20 years of age would have to shoot down battle-hardened veterans of the German Luftwaffe at a ratio of 4-1. Anyone could do the math. Fighter Command would be asked to do the impossible.

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1148545090534593122006-05-25T01:16:00.000-07:002006-05-29T02:19:36.313-07:00

In the years leading up to this moment the prevailing winds from the Air Ministry held that any invasion of England would be proceeded by a softening–up campaign from the Luftwaffe. They were correct. However, for the British, the assumption had been that the Heinkel, Junker and Dornier bombers of the Luftwaffe would have to carry out their missions without the benefit of escorts as the German

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1146901793473686132006-05-06T00:39:00.000-07:002006-05-08T20:59:45.173-07:00

Robert Francis Thomas Doe was born March 10, 1920 in Surrey, England, just 16 months after WWI ended. In 1914, when the “War to End All Wars” began, the population of Great Britain and Ireland was 46,089,249. By the time of the next official census in 1921 the population was only 42,769,196; reflecting the 3,190,235 causalities suffered. The ensuing drain on manpower, material and manufacturing

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1145864179832775212006-04-24T00:12:00.000-07:002006-04-29T15:03:03.216-07:00

As Betty was escorting me toward the house I suddenly remembered the flowers and wine that I had brought. I ran back to the car and popped the boot. I also grabbed my backpack with cameras just to be safe. I joined Betty near the door and presented her with the flowers. “They’re lovely aren’t they?” she said as she admired the bouquet.“They seem so inadequate after all the help you’ve been so far

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1145437559798101562006-04-19T02:04:00.000-07:002006-04-29T15:02:34.970-07:00

With Gatwick airport receding in my rear view mirror….Wait a minute! Where is the rearview mirror? Oh, for Pete’s sake, I keep looking up and to my right. This is going to take some getting used to. So is shifting left-handed. So is just using a manual transmission regardless of where it’s located in the bloody car. I remind myself that the driver side stays closest to the centerline and I repeat

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1145235557997296272006-04-16T17:53:00.000-07:002006-04-29T15:02:18.626-07:00

Nothing about the flight from Tenerife to London-Gatwick etched itself into my memory. Not the movie. Not the meal. Not the people that sat beside me. After the events of the past 24 hours I was just happy to be on a plane. It was half past midnight when we landed in London. I bid adieu to Jo #2 and headed out the plane. Immigrations and Customs were a breeze. Claimed my bag from the carousel and

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1144974777293911022006-04-13T17:27:00.000-07:002006-06-05T06:04:07.640-07:00

My stay in Purgatory was drawing to a close. After 12 hours in the Tenerife airport flight BA6997 was finally boarding. I dutifully stood in line as we were funneled into a long glass hallway that ended at a security booth where a uniformed official checked our passports. Then we proceeded to the gate agent who scanned our tickets before we made the last journey down the jet-way. I had once again

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At 5:00 AM my alarm clock went off just like, well… clockwork. The only other things that I had taken out of my suitcase last night were my toothbrush, paste and razor so I didn’t have to waste time getting reorganized. I smiled as I stepped gingerly into the shower. It was a private joke. When I was married, and Jennifer would tell me that she was going to go hop in the shower I would playfully

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1144658739927067792006-04-10T01:43:00.000-07:002006-04-29T15:01:16.726-07:00

So down the hillside, from the bus station, I trekked; row upon row of banana plants on my left, the Atlantic Ocean to my right. Dusk was dawning as the sun slid into the ocean and disappeared, like a red plastic bobber pulled under the surface of the water by some unseen fish. The only remnants of the day were the crimson brush strokes that streaked the clouds hung above the horizon; a ball of

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The next day, morning dawned, as it is likely to do, and I felt remarkably unaffected by the events and maladies of the previous night. Cerstin got the coffee going and set out the meat and cheese. I walked down to the market to buy fresh bread and some orange juice. The unsmiling girl that rings up the purchases tried to short change me. When she handed me my change I looked down at my palm and

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1144124465432729802006-04-03T21:12:00.000-07:002006-04-29T15:00:35.206-07:00

By now we were just like the Three Musketeers, the only difference being that there were four of us. And we weren’t French. And we didn’t have swords. Or muskets for that matter. And one of us was a woman.Hum…. We were like: The Flying Wallendas. Based on some of our daring-do today that might actually be a more apt comparison.I had just finished showering when Cerstin returned to the apartment

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1144028741335569282006-04-02T18:42:00.000-07:002006-04-29T15:00:19.986-07:00

The next morning we awoke, seemingly no worse for emotional wear. We laid out the requisite breakfast of bread, cheese, meat, Nutella and coffee. Avocadoes have been added to the lineup as well. Ule and Radiger came over and we all headed out for a group hike. I asked them how today’s hike compared to the one that Cerstin and I had taken two days before.“It will be different.” Ule volunteered“We

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1143694455647819222006-03-29T20:52:00.000-08:002006-04-29T14:59:39.133-07:00

I opened my eyes to a shaft of light flooding in the room through the slightly opened drapes. Where was I? Oh yeah; the Canary Islands. I roll over on my side to look at the other bed. Cerstin is blinking her eyes.“Morning.” I volunteer softly.“Oh John…” “How do you feel?”“Sick.”I could tell that this was going to be lazy day, which actually suited me just fine. The less I had to walk the happier

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1143601026441029072006-03-28T18:53:00.000-08:002006-04-29T14:59:23.610-07:00

We started our trek inland, walking up the narrow roads of the neighborhood where the actual residents of La Gomera lived. The houses followed the natural elevation and contours of the ever-rising landscape. Halfway up one of these quiet, winding roads Cerstin turned left and began climbing up a wide set of stone steps that ran along side one of the houses.“Where are you going?” I asked. Not so

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1143525361234077482006-03-27T21:50:00.000-08:002006-04-29T14:59:09.213-07:00

It had been 16 months since we had seen each other. We last met in Paris in late September of ’04 and then traveled back to Berlin together. We went to the island of Usedom, on the Baltic Sea, and walked the beach to the border of Poland. It was a wonderful trip. After that, Life got in the way. I had rotator cuff surgery in February of ’05 so I couldn’t travel. Cerstin was supposed to come to

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1143438995938285122006-03-26T21:53:00.000-08:002006-04-29T14:58:13.386-07:00

After an all too brief, much to expensive stay at the Gatwick Airport Clarion I awoke at 3:30 am to prepare for my flight to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. £105 for 5 hours of sleep, or roughly $40 an hour. I was so paranoid about over-sleeping that I requested a wake up call and set my travel alarm clock. It seemed that I had just fallen into a deep slumber when my alarm began to blare the

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1143328016518544552006-03-25T15:02:00.000-08:002006-04-29T14:57:53.710-07:00

Sunday was to be my last day in Manchester. I awoke early and went downstairs to read my Roald Dahl book. I quite like his autobiographical style and found myself wandering why I had never read any of his children’s books. In my early reading days I was a Dr. Seuss connoisseur, with my favorite being The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. I must have gone straight from Dr. Seuss to the

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1143259950649631732006-03-24T20:08:00.000-08:002006-04-29T14:57:36.730-07:00

Friday passed like a whirlwind. Tina got home from her ski week with Louis. He seemed excited to see me again. Even more so after I gave him a bunch of emblems and medallions from NASA. I had earlier given Elli a pink t-shirt that said Hollywood on it. Okay, so I bought in the airport…. She loved it. Some of the best gifts my father ever gave me probably came from an airport store on one of his

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1143183132161986092006-03-23T22:41:00.000-08:002006-04-29T14:57:19.670-07:00

The next day I returned to the Lowry Theatre, which is located in the Salford Quays. This newly developed area is part of the Manchester Canal, which, over one hundred years ago, was built as a direct route from land-locked Manchester, forty miles, to the Irish Sea. Now it is an upscale center for restaurants, stores, theatre and condos. I walked around to the back of the theatre knowing that’s

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1143006437957909432006-03-21T21:44:00.001-08:002006-04-29T14:57:03.260-07:00

Arrived in Manchester around 1:00 pm and took a traditional black cab to Tina and Alan’s house in West Didsbury. My cabbie, Brian, was a very pleasant chap who had been brought up in London but moved to Manchester many years ago. Learning that I was from America, which probably took him about 2 seconds to discern, he told me about his experiences there. He had been to New Orleans, Las Vegas and

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1142925923975566682006-03-20T23:23:00.000-08:002006-04-29T14:56:46.726-07:00

So I’m at this Hollywood party talking to Tera Lipinski. Normally, not 10 words that I would string together when forming a sentence. In fact, the concept of me being at a Hollywood party, let alone talking to a cute Olympic gold-medalist is, in and of itself, something of note. The occasion, of this particular circumstance, was the annual pre-Valentine’s Day dessert party that an ex-girlfriend

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1126242603626105512005-09-08T22:08:00.000-07:002005-09-08T22:10:03.636-07:00

…. Suddenly, I’m stopped in my tracks. Across the street I catch my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, peeking over an apartment building, It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I know that sounds like hyperbole but the sight of that structure rising up from behind the classic architecture of Paris absolutely astounds me. If a chunk of the space station fell on me right now I would die a

JGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02767971615789977934noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16186954.post-1126082407339904212005-09-07T00:37:00.000-07:002005-09-07T01:49:37.213-07:00

Like everyone else I've been following the news coverage, good and bad, of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As a Southerner I feel a kinship with the people in those regions hardest hit. My family, both immediate and extended was affected, though all, I'm happy to report survived. For over a week now I watched the looters, or the survivalists, whatever you want to call them. I've seen a

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