H-XM-2004

2004 Christmas Greetings to Family & Friends:

I hope this finds each of you in good health and excellent spirits as we end one and begin another year. Recipients of prior Christmas letters will be relieved to find this truncated – little photos in lieu of big ones – to reveal last years dabbling.

Upgrades were made to above CD’s, and a new one on the right began.

Old records, tapes and CD’s were combine into MP3 format, sadly car radio doesn’t play this format.

B17s to PI Oct-Nov 1941 Disposition of 30 B17’s Dec 6 1941

Philippines Clark Field Dec 8 1941 Philippines Dec 9-28 1941

Java Jan 1942 Aircraft via Africa & Pacific to Java 1942

Java Feb 1942 Java to Australia Mar 1942

The above are from a 19^th BG history set I’m preparing – hopefully these will be used with visitor activated screens at places like the Smithsonian hanger at Dulles. They are parts of a new single volume book, in lieu of the six volume present set. All participants stories will be on CD in back of the book. The above set will include a Roster of some 4000 names of persons in the 19^th from 1941 to 1943 showing their status: KIA, DIP, MIA, POW, AGOM plus path: US >PI>JA>AU>US showing squadron, rank & remarks. Visitors can look up uncle Dudley. This is a very tedious process from partial and imperfect data.

This photo is one of several sent in response to a History Channel request for “Black Bottomed” B-29 photo’s. The History Channel Video interviewed fellows at our Oct 19^th BG reunion in Philadelphia.

This year began with an awareness that the world population was expanding more rapidly than people realize and that change is taking place much faster than I realized. When my grandfather was born, buffalo roamed the pastureland that became his homestead – at that time others were creating the periodic table, the “registry” of atoms. It was 150 years after Columbus discovered America that Kepler discovered where we really were – on a space ship orbiting the sun. When grandfather was born there were 1.092 and in the year 2000 5.607 billion people on our space ship and growing. This awareness began an effort to write a “CD book” I initially called “New Species” then “Hybrid Species” now renamed “A Race with Time”. The story began with what’s been learned in our life time – where we came from – our components were made before there was an Earth! I wondered if automatic replication and resource consumption could be brought under control before society plummeted out of control – natures way of saying enough! Plunging us animals into a primitive fight for survival.

The story was based on the idea that humans are self replicating computers for which there is no production limit or quality control – each is born with a blank memory – capable of learning & believing what ever they are taught. Replication is an automated process, there is no qualification test to replicate or vote. These ancient animal models, the survivors of animal competition, are at the controls of powerful machines. To an outside observer these critters are overwhelming Earth’s resources, nothing like them had previously existed. With population exploding in auto mode, only major disasters can impeding his continued expansion. I was seeking a happy ending when distracted.

The distraction was the pursuit of ideas for a plaque telling the 19^th BG history, for the entrance of the new Smithsonian Hanger at Dulles Field WDC. When attending a October 19^th BG reunion in Philadelphia we were interviewed by the History Channel – and made a trip to WDC to see the new WW II memorial and the new Smithsonian hanger. We were disappointed in what the Smithsonian offered for a plaque location – so I began a new approach. The revised method is a sequence of 19^th BG history displays a visitor can call up and step through – like the examples above.

*** End of His, start of Her’s ***

Dear Friends:

Do hope you are enjoying this holiday season & looking forward to being with your family. The year seemed to go by so quickly but I’m so grateful we have managed without having any operations or serious health problems. We celebrated our 55^th wedding anniversary and feel blessed to have had so many years together.

We enjoyed our usual spring stay in Oberlin for the annual Alumni Banquet and Memorial Day. The ceremony at the cemetery is a reminder of loved ones we’ve lost but we are also thankful we can decorate their graves.

Darrell and I still have many friends in Oberlin and enjoy getting together for dinner and good conversations. This year I was invited to a tea at one of the beautiful refurbished old homes with some of my classmates, it was fun and I enjoyed the delicious food served on antique dishes. Oberlin is quite an old town in NW Kansas and still has some beautiful homes that were built by the founding fathers – as well as some lovely new homes.

On our way back to CA from KS we stopped for a cousins reunion in Estes Park CO. We stayed in a lovely hotel and had such a great time visiting – and of course lots of good food. Our hosts were cousins Barton & Helen Bobbitt. Estes Park is a quaint town with loads of places to shop, I found some unique gifts – by the way, Elk have the right of way.

We cousins have all since paused in tribute to family members lost since that reunion. Geraldine Bobbitt Probst and John Kump, son of Don and Jean Ann, have passed on – memories of them will live on in the thoughts and hearts of those who knew them. Photo of Geraldine taken at 2004 reunion. Photo of John clipped from 2003 reunion video when the “Kump Kids” sang.

Our Garden Grove Art Guild juried show & dinner was Dec 7, it was fun and the food delicious. We had good participation in the juried show. There were so many beautiful paintings – just wish everyone could have won an award. I’m always grateful when I’m one of the lucky ones.

We always enjoy having our family visit us and Thanksgiving was special. The girls and husbands were here. Julia and JR came Tuesday and left Friday returning to Walnut Creek CA. We missed having Mary & David but hope they can be here for Christmas.

Thanksgiving we (girls) decided to use all or our good china, crystal & sterling for a change. I must say the table looked so pretty with fresh roses & flowers. I know we should do it more often – I may make this a new years resolution. Ha!

So much I’d like to tell you but will let Darrell tell you of our other ventures.

Best wishes for the coming year – love and blessings to all of you.

*** end of Hers, continuation of His ***

As back office help for Mary’s Art Guild News Letter, it’s become natural to enter her thoughts into the machine. It’s also a pleasant reminder of how much we fellows, and families, owe to the gentle gender. Their world of pretty things, such as the Thanksgiving dinner setting, are often overlooked – especially by those such as me – who feel’s he’s fully ready to go out if dressed, shaved, hair combed and zipper up. Recycling is usually required to meet higher standards, such as being sure colors and patterns match.

Following the Art Guild dinner we attended our Annual Flight Control dinner – that began as Flight Control and now includes all Autonetics retirees. These fellows are getting on in years, many starting as North American, then Rockwell, now Boeing – worked in many facilities and many different programs. They are a special lot – and I find great pleasure revisiting past experiences with them. This time there was a special case – I stop to say hi to one of my friends, he was going over Minuteman hydraulic pump performance data? I was introduced to, and visited with some 5 fellows, Boeing employees located in Utah, who are engaged in refurbishing Minutemen vehicles in the silos! I started to leave and asked if any of them would like a CD of my recollections of when we developed the Minuteman – I was immediately given 5 cards. That night I could not get to sleep, my thoughts kept replaying things we had talked about. I got up and started a letter to those fellows – saying you guys are probably the only ones in this world who give a hoot about how the equipment your working on came into being. I finally got to sleep, then the next morning finished the 4 page letter.

I wrote this event reminded of me when I was working on loan to do Maintenance Trainer equipment for the B-1B. The current B-1B mechanics came for the design reviews and I developed a special friendship with them, as a fellow airplane mechanics. At the time I had developed a word processor for Commodore computers, written in machine code. They had their own Commodore 64 club and were interested in such things. I’d modeled a B-1B electrical system on the computer and they were fascinated with it. At a next meeting they said come with us at the end of the day – so I followed them to their motel. There, one by one, they brought the parts from their luggage and assembled a system in one of the rooms. We had a very enjoyable two hours together.

I’m frequently reminded of being blessed with wonderful family and friends – over the years there have been different groups of friend, due to many places and kinds of work. I very much value each of them – and hope this Christmas letter can serve to express that with Best Wishes to all.

Let me close with a poem from one of these many “old” friends, this one an airplane pilot named George – who’s still paying, every April 15^th, for a couple of B-29s he crash landed.

HOLIDAY LIFE AFTER 80

The season's fast approaching, Though I'm trying hard to fight it .

If there's to be a Christmas poem, I wonder who will write it.

I rack my brain for happy thoughts, to put down on my pad,

But everything that comes to mind borders on the sad .

There was a time in history when life was quite a blast.

Now I fully understand “Living in the Past."

We used to go to weddings, football games and lunches.

Now we go to funeral homes, and after funeral brunches.

We used to have hangovers, from parties that were gay.

Now we suffer body aches to while the night away.

We used to go out dining, and couldn’t get our fill.

Now we ask for doggie bags, come home and take a pill.

We used to travel to places near and far.

Now we get sore butts from riding in the car .

We used to go out shopping for all new clothes to show.

Now we never bother, there is no place to go.

We used to go to taverns and drink a little booze.

Now we stay at home alone and watch the evening news.

That, my friend is how it is, And so my tale is told

If you haven't guessed it, we are just getting old.

We used to send out greetings, very warm and true.

Perhaps you won't believe it: It is something we still do.

Wishing you & yours a marvelous 2005

Of Health, Wealth and Happiness !