So How Bad Was the Traffic?

Vehicles from 7. Panzerdivision, France 1940
Bundesarchiv

We had originally planned to head back north on Thursday last, but...

The Nuke was on travel and Tuttle was working from home, hard to do with a one-year old inquisitive toddler running rampant through the household. As Tuttle had a rather important meeting to call into, The Nuke asked us to reconsider our travel plans.

So we did, leaving Friday morning instead of Thursday.

Not a real big problem except for the rain.

At 0400 it was drumming on the roof hard enough to nearly drown out the sound of the air conditioner (central air for those who want to know such things). How did I know what it sounded like at 0400? Don't ask, it's an "old guy thing." Those who know, well, they know. Those that don't, just wait, you'll get there someday.

Anyhoo.

When it came time to pack up the vehicle, the rain had stopped. Except for the mass quantities of moisture dripping from the numerous trees in the neighborhood, that was enough to sound like rain without actually being rain.

Car was loaded, farewells were said and off to the highways we went for the trip north.

I had thought to switch from the New Jersey Turnpike to the Garden State Parkway in the vicinity of Woodbridge Township in the Garden State. That way I could avoid the mob scene in the vicinity of the George Washington Bridge.

Now Google will let you plot a route, then email it to one's self (like via one's cell phone). If you open the email, you can see a choice to "Open in Google Maps." Which works, more or less. But then try to use that route via the phone to vehicle hookup.

Yup, fails every time. Effing Google always seems to ask "What route?"

So went back to Waze and rolled the dice. (And yes, since Google bought out Waze, the latter app had gotten worse. No more, "take this route because there's an accident ahead." Now it's "Take this route." No reason, just trust me. No thanks.)

Now the traffic wasn't all that bad, until we got to Connecticut, where if someone taps his brakes, so will everyone else, making traffic stop and start to the tune of "We're all going 75, okay now we're all going 10, then speed back up again."

As an experiment, I tapped my brakes at one point, nearly everyone behind me immediately slowed down, even though the car behind me was a good 100 yards distant. Something in the brain I suppose makes people react to the flash of brake lights.

Not a bad thing mind you, but if there is no reason to slow down, sometimes merely lifting one's foot off the accelerator is sufficient to arrest the vehicle's forward momentum to maintain spacing in traffic. However, it seems my countrymen are incapable of such reasoning.

So there was a lot of stop and go throughout the Constitution State. Let's leave it at that. Oh, one last thing, Tesla drivers are assholes. At least every single one I saw on Friday. Not sure why, perhaps because they think they are "saving the planet" with their electronic cars. (I'm sure the child laborers in Africa mining all that lithium would beg to differ.)

But I digress.

I should mention the beginning of the trip and the rain. Lots of vehicles on the road, lots of mist being thrown in the air. Trucks are the worst, all those tires. You couldn't actually see the trucks but you could see the moving cloud of mist which contained a truck at its core. Very scary. The first 100 miles was nerve racking to say the least.

New Jersey was, well, it was New Jersey. People weaving in and out of traffic at insane rates of speed. I'm used to it. But it always amazes me at the people who seem to have no concept of the safe operation of a motor vehicle. God truly does watch over fools and drunkards. (Sometimes one and the same.)

But hey, we made it home, in less than record time to be sure. But in one piece and with most of my sanity intact.

As for the GW Bridge and the Cross Bronx Expressway? Piece of cake heading north. But I observed the southbound traffic and I have to say, I pitied those folks, I'm sure some of them are still out there. That was me the week before. Two hours to get from the outskirts of NYC to the New Jersey Palisades. Going north? Maybe a half hour.

Dang. Well it's over, until I do it again of course.

Sigh...

Rings

So, earlier this week, juvat shared with us some historical stuff that his DIL had ("Hidden Treasure" at Chant du Départ: Hidden Treasure (oldafsarge.blogspot.com) and in the comments section I talked about a peculiar ring that my wife, Mrs. Andrew, has from her family, her good side of the family.

(This would be several pictures of THE RING, but Mrs. Andrew is busy futzing with it and not sending me any photos because she's trying to clean them up and isn't taking "It's okay, it's for a bunch of people who don't see well anyways" as an excuse so, well, I'll post the pics as soon as she sends them to me.  No, she's not persnickity at all...)

That is a ring, made from a stainless nut, supposedly, from the supply that was used on Little Boy, the first war dropped atomic bomb, the one that was an enriched uranium gun bomb (basically a gun fires one chunk into the other chunk of uranium and makes the boom.)  Or it was from the machines that separated all the uranium.  From Plant Y-12, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  

Y-12, you know, being the electromagnetic isotope separation plant that made enriched uranium.  It was part of the Clinton Engineer Works, built as part of the Manhattan Project.  What? You didn't know what Y-12 was?  I blame the socialist teachers for that.  No, seriously, once the secrecy veil was lifted, our accomplishments should have been lauded and held in high esteem by our educators for at least a couple hundred years.  

By Department of Energy Oak Ridge - http://www.oakridge.doe.gov/em/ssab/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1931232

Seems Mrs. Andrew's mother's father was a machinist during WWII, at Plant Y12, in Oak Ridge, during the whole Manhattan Project. And, being proud of his work, once it was known what the work was, he made said ring out of said nut using the machinist tools he had access to.  Putting his last name, the year, the plant onto the ring.

Really friggin neat, I think.  So does Mrs. Andrew, who wears it proudly.  Problem is, well, all her mother's side of the family has either passed or are not good family, so what to do with said ring when, eventually, Mrs. Andrew passes.

My suggestion has been, for the last few years, to contact whatever museum or historical unit that is in Oak Ridge, TN, that deals with said neato stuff dealing with the Manhattan Project.  Or the museum at Los Alamos (if there is one) or some other museum (juvat suggested the National Museum of the Pacific War in lovely Friedricksberg, TX.)

So, well, she wants me to hang photos, I want her to contact museums, I still haven't finished fixing the sink.  Yes, we have issues with procrastination and 'getting to it.' 

Then there's the other ring, besides her wedding ring, that Mrs. Andrew wears.  My dad's wedding ring (I have huge fat knuckles) that comes from his mother's side of the family that was her great-grandfather's ring.  Old gold, more rose than bright yellow, just a plain thick ring. That came to me after my dad passed.  5 generations, and we have no kids.  So what to do?  

Fortunately, my Godson, who is also my #1 nephew, from oldest brother, is getting married, finally, to his fortunate maid, come March 2022. So ring will go to him for his wedding.  It's not a present from Mrs. Andrew and I, since it's more of a trust being passed down from one generation to another. 

What's kind of weird, but isn't for my family on either side (mom or dad) is that we've always had this hand-me-down attitude of generational stuff.  My eldest brother's house is chock full of post Civil War/Gilded Age furniture, including a huge corner china cabinet that was at one time a built-in (possibly pre-CivWar) that was made into a stand-alone.  End tables in the living room?  Gilded age with marble tops.  A sideboard and a huge expandable table (and chairs) that can fit 12 easy, and if one can stretch out the whole thing, will extend to 20' but eldest brother would have to have new leaves made for the spaces, else things would fall down.

We've lived with it, used it, taken care of it. We have a Singer sewing machine, one of the treadle models, that we've used before (punches through thick cloth or thin leather better than modern electric machines.)

My favorite pots are the ones my mother got, stainless steel, as a premium for buying a Kirby upright vacuum cleaner in the 50's.  Thick stainless, strong, holds heat well, cleans well.  Sure, some of it is damaged (the non-stainless handle attachment points rusting out so the handle falls off, one of these days I'll take it to someone who welds stainless and get them to weld a stainless nut or something) but the pots are still very useful and work with my nice induction cook plate (if you don't have an induction stove top or cook plate, well, it's like cooking with gas, that much of a quick response, without, you know, using gas. The apartment-provided stove can't get hot enough to heat a wok to good stir-fry temp but the induction cook plate, well, if I'm not careful, I can burn off the seasoning from my wok, but at that temperature it almost makes new seasoning by itself.)

I see people, daily, shedding their ancestral stuff and going with modern garbage.  Which I understand.  It's nice to minimize junk in the house, and junk in one's life.  But, well, how much is too far?

Ancestral stuff.  It's what allows us to keep in touch with our ancestors. I feel sorry for people that don't have ancestral stuff.

Dark Thoughts

(Source)

I feel the need to have a sword close at hand. Too much darkness on the horizon, too many wanting to tear down this country that so many have built. The enemy within is the worst of all.

I was trying to remember a song which fits my current mood and outlook.

This is it...

Broadsword - Ian Anderson

I see a dark sail on the horizon

Set under a black cloud that hides the sun

Bring me my broadsword and clear understanding

Bring me my cross of gold as a talisman

Get up to the roundhouse on the cliff-top standing

Take women and children and bed them down

Bring me my broadsword and clear understanding

Bring me my cross of gold as a talisman

Bless with a hard heart those who surround me

Bless the women and children who firm our hands

Put our backs to the north wind, hold fast by the river

Sweet memories to drive us on for the motherland

I see a dark sail on the horizon

Set under a black cloud that hides the sun

So bring me my broadsword and clear understanding

Bring me my cross of gold as a talisman

So bring me my broadsword and a cross of gold as a talisman

(Source)

It's a travel day, back to the shores of Narragansett Bay after a nice trip down to see the kids in Maryland. Not sure if I'll post Saturday or not...

So Beans, if you wish...

Remember

US Army Photo

The old soldier leaned heavily on his cane. He grew slightly misty eyed as he looked down at the gravestone sitting in the sunshine just outside the nation's capital. He had known the man buried there, had served with him in two wars. Had held him as he died on a snowy hilltop in Korea.

He knew his own time was coming, and soon. He was nearly a hundred years old, he carried shrapnel from a Chinese grenade in one hip and had been scarred badly on his right leg when a friendly aircraft had dropped its load of napalm an instant too soon. All of his friends were dead. Just that morning he had attended the funeral of his great-grandson, killed in action in yet another foreign war for which he could see no good reason.

Perhaps he had grown cynical over the years, who could blame him? He had killed, he had seen the men serving in his unit be killed, or worse, maimed so that the rest of their lives were dogged by pain and regret.

He had been lucky, neither German, North Korean, Chinese, nor North Vietnamese bullets and grenades had injured him to the point that he couldn't function. Sure, he chuckled to himself, he could tell when it was going to rain well before most folks. Some of that was the damage his body had had inflicted upon it in three wars. Some of it was, he chuckled again, simply the irony of making it to old age.

Many of the men, and now women, that he knew hadn't been so lucky. He'd also lost a son and a great-grandson to the wars which the politicians had said were "necessary." Two of his grandsons, and one granddaughter, had seen the elephant. They didn't talk about those things with their spouses or their friends. But they did talk with their Grandpa, usually after a bad day or after some new outrage on the news.

The old soldier was beginning to wonder what had happened to the country he had spent most of his adult life fighting for. Had the suffering and all the death been worth it? He was no longer sure.

But as his youngest great-grandson had said that morning at the funeral of his brother, "We can't quit Grandpa, otherwise all this has been for nothing."

Young Stephen had shaken his head, then wiped a tear from his cheek as he had said that, then he'd straightened his uniform, he was a midshipman at the Naval Academy of all things, and returned to rigid attention as Taps was played.

The old soldier sighed, saluted the grave of his oldest friend, then turned to limp down the hill to where his family awaited him. It all had to mean something, didn't it?

He was no longer sure. But he and his family served and had always served, he still felt that they lived in the best country on Earth, regardless of which crop of politicians were in charge. Something had to change, he knew that, but he doubted that he would live to see that change.

As his grandson, father of the man they had just buried, held the car door for him, the old soldier looked back up the hillside one more time. He knew that his next visit to this place would be in a casket, drawn by horses, the mournful thump of the drums taking him to his final rest. He would be in fine company here.

He regretted nothing.

No, I Didn't Forget...

(Source)

I was just up late, editing the book. Once I realized that I hadn't posted anything here, I noted the hour. Rather than give you some half cocked, written while half asleep post, I decided to wait until morning. And give you a half cocked written while wide awake post.

And so it goes...

I've made it to page 290 of 1003 in the editing process, that latter number will either shrink or grow (probably the latter) as I continue editing. Remember I've got to continue (and finish) the stories of the Brits and the Poles. Another thing to keep in mind is that the book as written in Word is in what I like to call OG font. As in, "Old Guy" font, big enough to read comfortably while editing, small enough to fit the page without being too ostentatious. So the final length is anybody's guess.

So I'm off, sorry for the short post, back to enjoying the grands and the heat and humidity of Maryland in the summer. No, it isn't a "dry" heat, it's pretty damp. Which is why, I suppose, the area around Annapolis is so green.

I like it.

Greetings from Maryland and the weather vane atop the garage...

Why yes, that is a flying pig.

Wonder what that portends?

Doing It Right...

American infantrymen seek shelter from German shells in the town of Geich, Germany. December 11, 1944.
(Source)

As I spend time with family by the shores of Chesapeake Bay, working on my novel (and yes, that sounds somewhat pretentious to me, but it is what I'm doing), I do stay somewhat in the loop on what's happening in the world. I've even stayed in the loop with work, though my boss has told me to lay low and enjoy my time off. I'm trying George, really, I am.

But the world situation just pisses me off, especially the events in Afghanistan. We should have never gone in there, some bright boy thought, no doubt, that we would succeed where so many others had failed. A pipe dream.

But politicians have ever been assholes and will always be, pretty much doesn't matter what party they belong to. Yes, yes, there are exceptions, but not enough to be worth a bucket of warm spit. There's a reason I stay away from politics on this blog. It's like wrestling with a pig, you get mud all over you and the pig likes it.

Anyhoo. The book, let's talk about the book.

I remember the day I decided to stick with the Americans and the Germans as the major protagonists in the book and left the Scots and the Poles out in the wilds of Belgium somewhere. Quite frankly, I knew more about the American campaign in Western Europe than I did of the other participants. I wanted to focus more on the story than on the history behind it all. I could do that with the Americans and their German opponents.

After all, I had two relatives who had been in the ETO as combat infantrymen. The character of Charlie Gammell is loosely based on my Uncle Charlie (63rd Infantry Division) and my Great-Uncle John (4th Infantry Division), last name Gammell. I wanted to focus on my impressions of what they might have gone through and seen during their time in combat. Both were wounded, both received the Bronze Star.

I still have Uncle John's helmet, bullet hole through the top, which he'd been wearing in the Hürtgenwald when he was wounded. I also worked with a German whose father had been captured in that area during the same battle. So there are some strong connections there.

I really want to continue on with the stories of Sgt. Billy Wallace, Cpl. Kowalski, and Sgt. Fitzhugh and his Sherman VC (aka Firefly). I left them dangling (so to speak), so I'll be adding more to the book during this editing session to continue their stories. Kowalski will probably get his own tank at some point, I mean my buddy Paweł in Poland actually wrote one episode and promoted Kowalski to corporal! So I need to follow up with those chaps.

Going back through the book, I'm remembering why I wrote things a certain way. Also, not to blow my own horn, but the story flows nicely in spots. Very riveting, lots of action but there are the poignant moments as well which make the characters more human. I have to say, I'm enjoying rereading this tale while I edit it.

I also recall how when I introduced Charlie Gammell's character, I had him relating his part of the tale in the 1st person. I stopped doing that after a while. I'm not sure why I stopped that, perhaps it was to signal that Gammell was no longer "the new guy" but a valued and talented soldier in his own right. Remember, when he was introduced he was "only" 17 years old. I'll be revisiting that device to see if what I did makes sense. It certainly seems to flow.

To me at any rate.

Thanks for all of the tips as regards Word, style sheets, and getting rid of hidden formatting characters. I knew all of that setting out on this journey. Word is a tool which I've been using for a very long time. It has its strengths and it has its weaknesses, like most tools. The advice reminded me that I don't know everything. Keeps me humble it does.

Most of all, I want to do this right. Since 1945 our nation has fallen into "Great Power" status, something which, no doubt, has our 1st President spinning in his grave. Avoiding great power entanglements and trying to be the world's policeman is all well and good. But we sometimes stick our noses in to places where it really doesn't belong. We also tend, since 1945, to do so half-heartedly. If you're going to fight, then fight goddamn it. Blow things up, kill people, and let the devil take the hindmost.

Or stay out of it.

World War II was perhaps the last time we "did things right."

So the book is intended to be a tribute to those ordinary men and women who rose up, did the job, then went home.

We could learn from that.

Hidden Treasure

 First a little background info to set the stage.  Little Juvat has successfully transferred to his new location and has entered self-quarantine in his apartment.  The good news is the grocery store is on the first floor of the apartment complex and delivers.  Evidently, they recognize the severity of the situation as they also deliver the essentials.  Beer, Wine and Whiskey.  So, the British Empire's influence is still there.

As most of the long time readers here know, their Dog, Tex, was with them in Kuwait.  Kuwait falls into the list of countries that has a history of Rabies.  If a dog transfers from those countries to HK, they must go into quarantine for 6 months. But if the dog transfers from a country not on that list, they go right in.  Therefore, DIL and Tex have been living in one of our guest houses for close to 6 months now.  But...the time to rejoin with Little Juvat is nearing.  So, she's been making the rounds saying hello/goodbye to family and friends throughout the state lately.  She just got back from one of those trips to visit family in Wichita Falls.  

When she got back, she came up for dinner.  (It's more fun when the three of us get together, so she does it regularly.)  While I'm cooking dinner, she's telling us about some railway journals her father had discovered a while back.  

Note the Dec 42 publication date

Her great-great uncle had been an engineer on the railroad prior to WWII.  I thought thumbing through those would be interesting, so when I got to one of those lulls in the cooking process, I wandered over and opened one up.  This was the page I opened it to.

Her great-great Aunt, had used the journals as photo/clipping albums while her husband was away in the South Pacific during the war.  That picture was kind of spooky as I was in the middle of reading Kevin Miller's "The Silver Waterfall", a novel about the Battle of Midway told from the point of view of the little guys, not the guys with stars. That afternoon, I had read the section of the novel that described  VMSB-241's attack from Midway on the Japanese fleet.  This was a picture of that squadron taken shortly before the battle.  If you read the picture's caption, it's obvious that it was taken from before the attack.

What startled me was that while I had known that the first attacks on the Japanese during the battle had been disastrous for the US, seeing this picture from a newspaper from that time period induced a "OMG, it REALLY happened." feeling. They were REAL people. Not just names and numbers. I pondered that through dinner and the next morning got up and went through the rest of the journals. Most were full as "Scrapbooks" not railroad journals, and it was interesting to see the depth and breadth of war subjects that the Wichita Falls Newspaper covered at the time.  The variety of subjects was undoubtedly helpful in understanding the magnitude of the war.  Although WWII in the Pacific has been an interest of mine since I was very young, I still learned a few things from this exercise.

 I liked this picture as I've visited several of the islands at the top, including two where not nice things happened, Wake and Camp O'Donnell in the PI. 

I've been here.  Eerie
Source

Tucked a couple of pages into the journal/album was this envelope which was filled with snapshots.  Apparently Great-Great-Uncle Berry was a photo buff, as well as a SeaBee.  Cool!

I shook out the pics and this one was on top.

On the right, a hometown boy that had done well and has a phenomenal Museum named for him in town.  Not sure who the two other guys in the picture were and the only annotation on all the pictures was:

Other pictures in the envelope:

According to this site, the 16th Naval Construction Battalion (from the return address on the envelope) was involved in operations on Tarawa albeit after serious combat operations had stopped.  So these could have been taken there.  I don't know what the guys were looking at in the sky, nor do I have any idea what the explosion was from.  But...It's a pretty darn big one.

I liked both these photos,  Cover, but no shirt, and a bit of quiet Sunday celebration, in the midst.

I thought this picture was unique, actually fairly accurate on the places invasions came from.  (Yes, Beans, Churchill's Balkan's plan was scrapped very early on.)  But it does make an interesting graphic.

The paper seems to have done a fairly good job in trying to explain the how's, why's, when's, and where's of the war to the civilian populace.  I think these next few do a pretty good job of graphic explanation.

Lotta land to cover.

Roughly the same size as the Southwest Pacific Theater

This one really put's WWII in perspective. I know for a fact that the bottom line there from Hawaii to Japan will take 10.9 hours (and 15 refuelings) flying in an F-4. It's a LONG way!

There were also clippings of locals involved in the festivities.

I got a chuckle out of this picture (which also has a "not for distribution" censor stamp on the back.

Not how I remember Waikiki

Shortly after this picture was taken, USS Wasp (CV-7) was transferred to the Pacific Fleet to replace losses from the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway.  Unfortunately, on September 15, 1942, she and Japanese Submarine I-19 got into a duel.  She lost and had to be scuttled.

I found this picture to be illuminating.  War affects everybody involved.

Look at the name of the game!  I guess it helps them cope.  

Finally, got to the bottom of the stack and found the SeaBee Battalion's yearbook, and found Great-Great-Uncle Henry's photo.

Official Name but he went by Henry

Survived the war and married rejoined his bride, DIL's Great-Grandmother's sister.  They had no children and that's how the stash came into DIL's hands.  Unfortunately, I have to return it to her.  There's still an awful lot of "clues" I'd like to investigate therein.

On a lighter note, I texted the family a "Dad Joke" I stole from Powerline Saturday.  It went like this.

Source

I got official groans from Mrs J, Little Juvat and DIL, and MBD and SIL.  For which I received this trophy.

Thank you, Thank you, you've been a great audience, be sure to tip the maître d'.  He traveled all last week and needs the gas money.