Squig got a haircut yesterday.  The dog groomer opened.  Squig is a Schnauzer.  Schnauzers don't shed.  So his hair just grows and grows and grows.  He was starting to look like a huge fuzz ball.

He is getting older.  No longer jumps on me to wake me up in the morning.  Now I wake up first, and he just lays there and watches me put my house shoes and robe.  He waits until I pick him up off the bed and set him on the floor.  I don't want to think about what might come next.  I adore my dog.  He is 12 years old.  They say that is 84 in human years.  He's older than I am. 

My friend Jeanette calls me every day between ten and noon.  We neither one have anything new to say but manage to talk for awhile about nothing.  My friend Carolyn calls and we do the same.  One thing is for certain.  If we didn't have a phone, this quarantine would be miserable.  

Pat called to tell me that a mouse somehow got into the glove compartment of her pickup truck, (she lives on a farm) made a nest, then gave up the ghost.  She doesn't know how it got in there because the compartment was closed.  It had to come in from behind.  She said the smell is horrible and she can't find the mouse.  It's in a vent somewhere.  The car is not usable at the moment.  Windows are open....  But.....

I've started counting the number of cups of hot tea I drink every day.  Darjeeling.  I'm addicted.  Basically when I finish one, I get another.  I'm at around 6 to 8.  I hope hot tea is good for you.  

Just rambling today.  

Once the idea that being a Jew is not enough, and that keeping the law is not enough, (which no one could do) Paul goes on to one of his famous "Therefores," and concludes:

"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." 3:28   That pretty much sums it up.  Does that mean the law has no importance in our lives.  Absolutely not.  The law is a guide to for our behavior.  We are to obey the law.  Christ obeyed the law.  But it is the Spirit of God within us that redeems us.  His blood payment for sin.

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."  No worry; no dread; no fear----just peace.  Thank God.

Paul says in 5:3  "...tribulation produces patience..."  So don't pray for patience!!  That is what Ken's mom told me.  You'll get more tribulation.  Just endure what is coming your way with the patience you already have.

We all want instant solutions.  Instant answers.  Instant gratification.  Instant relationships.  Instant information.  We live in an instant generation.

But as we are learning--in the middle of this pandemic--nothing is instant and we have to wait.  But waiting is not in our "background training" because this generation grew up in an instant world.  Waiting is a rare thing for some. 

So "...be still, and know that I am God."  Cool it.  This too shall pass--just maybe not on your time schedule.  The whole world is learning a new way to live.  And reconnecting to their families.  And hopefully reconnecting to God.

Once you know you are examining a (1) letter, from (2) Paul, to the (3) Jewish nation, you are ready to read Romans.  The style of the letter is that of a defense lawyer.  He sets up his case for Jesus step by step.  He wrote them 1:2 "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord...seed of David..." (in the flesh)

Every Jew knew the King was coming--and that he would come from the lineage of David.  One of the reasons many people followed Jesus was because they believed he would over throw Roman rule, and restore Israel rule.  When Jesus died, those followers deserted--because obviously if "The King" died, he wasn't the Messiah.  Jews today are still looking forward to the coming King--the Messiah--and don't accept Jesus.  Even through He fulfilled all their prophecies.

Paul first makes the case that all people are without excuse, that anyone, anywhere, can know there is a creator--that they don't need the law, Moses, or Jewish linage.  Then he declares that all--Jews and Gentiles--are inexcusable (2:1) and says that "...all have sinned and come short..." 3:23.

Paul discusses their laws, shows why laws don't save a person because nobody can keep them, then makes the case for faith...using Jewish scripture to do so.  Specifically Abraham--the father of the Jews.  Saying, "He staggered not at the promise of God...but was strong in faith..."  If Abraham was saved by faith, then it wasn't by law--which came years and years later with Moses.

There are so many great, comforting, positive verses in Romans that it's hard not to underline them all.  Like: "But God gave his love to us while we were still sinners; Christ died for us."  We weren't worth it, but He did it anyway. 

Point by point, Paul makes a case for Christ that has no holes.  Iron clad.  The law doesn't save you.  Faith in the promises of God saves you through Jesus.  

Sunday, I explained to my class (on Zoom--yes, I'm "With it") that when you are reading a book in the New Testament (they are all small) there are three questions you need to know as you approach the book.

1.  What is it?   Is it a (gospel) telling about Jesus time on earth, his words?  Is it a personal letter to someone such as Timothy (1st and 2nd).  Is it history--such as Acts?  Or is it a warning or prophecy: Revelation.  What is it?

2.  Who wrote it.  Every writer has a "signiture" style.  Matthew's gospel is very different from Luke's.  James style is very different from Peter's.  Or Paul's.  

3.  Who is it being written to?   When Ken was overseas, I wrote to him.  I was in California at the time, so I also wrote to my folks in Oklahoma.  The person I was writing to determined the content.  Same style, you could tell I had written it, but different information.  Who is this letter written for?

In the book of Romans, those three questions are answered.  First: It is a letter.  Second:  Paul is the author.  And third: It is written to the Jews.  

Paul pours his heart out to Israel, 10:1 "...my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved." These are his people.  This is his country.  This has been his religion for his entire life--until he found Jesus.

He explains to them that Christ came for everyone.  That it is not necessary to become a Jew first and follow their rituals to be saved.  Salvation is by faith and the blood of Christ which was spilled for everyone.  "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."  Jews included.

The letter is personal--from Paul to his people.  He pours out his heart, and writes the most important book in the Bible as far as I am concerned.

Scott sent a notice that I "Need Attention." But, I'm a hermit by nature.  I am counting the days I've been contained in the house.  Fifty-three.  However, people bring groceries by, call to see if I need anything and Becky and Pat have had me over for dinner a few times. (Thank all of you for your notes.)

I take my own plate, fork, disinfectant and eat the hot food--not cold--which has all the "bugs" killed.  Six feet distance as well.  But conversation is good and other than that, it's okay.  I keep a folding chair on my porch and people take it out six feet away from the porch.  I sit on the stoop and we visit.

One interesting thing, for the first time ever, I use up all the charge on my phone every day.  Almost everyone calls--people I haven't heard from in years.  I had the longest conversation with my brother the other day that I have ever had in my life.  We had a good time reminiscing the '50's before I married Ken.  Bill is 5.5 years younger than me. 

Old people love memories from the past.  You aren't concerned with how you look now--everything droops and sags anyway.  You don't have to go to work.  You aren't looking for a job.  You already know what and who you are going to be when you grow up.  If you were wise with your savings, you have a little money coming in every month.  Only thing you have to do every day is take your pills and figure out which part of you that you need to put a patch on.

Physically you are falling apart, but mentally you are wise. (If dementia doesn't get you.) You know how to do things.  You know how to deal with crisis.  You don't worry very much.  As Ken said, you get up every day with nothing to do and go to bed with it half done.  Biggest decision every day is deciding what you aren't going to do today. Don't do anything you can put off untill tomorrow! 

I am writing about something that I know nothing about, so I called my brother to find out about guitars.  He plays.  You would think that music would be written so that anyone could read it.  But....no, it isn't.

On the piano, there are notes on the page you are reading.  You play each note as an individual entity--each finger has an appointed note to play.  All of your fingers are "reading" different positions and keys when you are looking at a printed page of music.

On the guitar I think you are playing chords for the most part.  Unless you are a classical guitarist.  You can play individual notes, but chords are critical.  You read the chord.

If you play the piano by ear, you usually don't play in very many keys.  And there are a bunch of keys----A to G major, plus sharps, flats and minors. It gets complicated to read.  I've forgotten more than I ever knew about it.

Playing by ear doesn't help you if you are playing for a choir, or an orchestra.  You have to read each individual note and each individual finger to do that.

And of course, that doesn't take into account timing. 

Whatever you play, it's complicated.  Except for the old wax paper wrapped around a comb instrument.  All you have to do with it is hum.  It tickles your lips, but it's fun.

God gave us music.  God gave us flowers and color.  God gave us each other.  I'm really missing the "each other" part of living right now.

Squig just ran to hide.  It thundered so he knows the rain is coming.  I'll have to give him a tranquilizer.  

Just saw a report of the "world."  Smog, carbon in the atmosphere, temperature--things are better for mother earth because we aren't pumping carbon into the atmosphere.  Maybe It's His creation of earth that God is concerned about--and all we care about is us.  Maybe he is giving earth a chance to breathe--by shutting us down?

We certainly have healthier air to breathe with people staying home and not driving their cars.  Smog is down--drastically.  But it is killing the oil business.  There is nowhere to store the oil they are pumping up and no body wants to buy it.  Where do you put oil when the tanks are full?  You have to quit pumping and oil jobs go south.

Russia and Saudi have only one major export.  Oil.  Maybe God is going to put both of those countries out of business??  America will survive, we will drive again.  Those countries may not??  Who knows.

Last time I saw anything like this was in newsreels at the movies (No TV back then) of people standing in lines for hours for a bowl of soup.  They had "Soup Kitchens" back then.  Everything imaginable was put into the soup.

Horse meat was sold in grocery stores.  Mole traps.  Squirrel traps.  Rat traps.  People will eat anything when they are hungry.  Poke Sallet and dandelion greens were healthy weeds.  I found a poke weed coming up in my flower bed yesterday.  Most people wouldn't know what it was.  A little bacon grease and you have dinner.

We're about to find out what we are made of.

Today is going to be tomato planting day for the third time.  I've been able to save a few plants by digging them up and bringing them inside, but it's a pain.  Scott sent me a dozen more plants last weekend.  So I hope this time is successful and it doesn't freeze again.  Okra is up.  It looks pitiful, but you can't kill okra.  

I read a book yesterday that Ann gave me that was awesome.  "Before we Were Yours."  by Lisa Wingate.  About a factual person who stole children and sold them for adoption to rich families.  Factual fiction.  It was really good.

I read the book of Joel and Amos in the Bible last night.  You don't need to do it but once.  I don't know why I've been reading all these minor prophets again.  I just thought I might have missed something.  I didn't.  I'll read the letters Paul wrote twenty times each again instead.

Squig and I made it around the block yesterday.  He is such a chicken.  There was a tree trimmer with a truck parked along the sidewalk and I had to drag my poor dog past it.  He had his butt stuck to the sidewalk and wouldn't pick up his feet and walk.  It's a wonder the leash didn't choke him.

This is day 49 in the house for me.  After a while, this is going to get old.  I understand all the "Go back to Work" protests, but I bet it's just going to result in a second wave of this mess.  

The only hard part for me is that I want a Braums' hamburger and french fries really bad.  With a coke.  If I thought I could trust the workers not to scratch their nose with their rubber gloves...I guess I could ask them to don new gloves.  That would irritate them for sure. 

I'm starting to write book number five--and number 1 book still isn't in the book stores.  It is all so slow.  However, things are moving along.

I got a bill for over $450.00 from AT&T last week.  About had a heart attack.  I'm one of those old-timers that likes to get my bills in the mail, open the envelope and look at it on paper.  We are a vanishing breed.  

Only problem is, I never think about any of the bills if I don't get one in the mail, and our postman is notorious for leaving mail in random boxes up and down the street.  Some people bring yours to you; some people just trash your mail and you never know anything is missing.

Whatever--I didn't get the phone bill for a couple of months, and never thought about it.  Called AT&T, they cancelled the late fees, got it taken care of.

Someone asked why I don't just let payment be automatic.  I got a water bill a couple of years ago in the $200's when it is usually under 50.  There was no reason.  If I hadn't looked at the bill, I wouldn't have looked for an answer. 

Someone who put a shed up against the fence in the backyard before I bought the house had built it over a sprinkler head.  The head failed, and had been running water under the fence into the neighbor's yard.  I never would have looked for the problem if I hadn't looked at the bill.  There was no indication of a water leak in my yard and my neighbor never went into her back yard and didn't notice.

Which reminds me.  It's time to turn the sprinkling system on.  It froze last week, but the weatherman PROMISES that is behind us.

Fridays aren't as much fun this spring.  Ann and I always went to breakfast on Friday, ate pecan waffles and then went to garage sales.  We neither one need anything, and seldom bought anything.  But it was a lot of fun.

She is a musician "extraordinair."  Sings in the Oklahoma Baptist Women's Choir, majored in music in college, played the piano all her life, can pick up any piece of sheet music and play it, and now is sharing all of that by teaching private lessons to piano hopefuls.  I miss Friday-Fun mornings with Ann.  

She showed up at seven this morning with bags of groceries she got for me today at the "Early Seniors Hour." Six AM is the time that Walmart has set aside for senior citizens.  Everything is still in bags waiting to detoxify on my front porch.  24 hours for paper and Sanitizer for everything else.  Everyone calls to ask if I need anything. It is such a help. Nobody wants me to leave my house.  They buy what they can get, and anything else they think I might want.  

Pat sent me a picture of turtles she found yesterday.  She was setting posts for a fence at her farm and when she picked up one of the 4x4's and  twelve baby turtles were crawling up from a hole in the ground where the mama had laid her eggs.  That's a once in a life time experience!  They were really cute.

When I spoke to Pat this morning and she said she has baby bluebirds that have hatched in her bird house.  The only problem she is having is with coyotes killing her chickens--that's why she's building a big hen-fence around the hen house.

Coyotes, chickens, turtles and blue birds are not quarantined.  God's world is still in business.  The sun comes up, the rain blows through.  I think it's people that cause most of the problems down here. 

I have been reading the prophets for the last month.  It's like slogging through quicksand before you get to a patch of green grass.  The people of Israel have rebelled against God's commandments. (sound familar?)  

God warns them of impending punishment if they don't clean up their act.  They don't.  They grow progressively worse.  Warning after warning comes through the prophets--which are ignored.  And finally God does what He says he is going to do.  The punishment is awful.  Locusts, grasshoppers, drought, hunger, death, invasions, loss of belongings, starvation, etc., etc...

The people are shocked that their perfect world has been knocked out from under them.  They never thought such a thing could happen to them...who was this God, anyway?  What power did He have over what they were doing?  They had beautiful cities, lush crops, beautiful clothes, parties every weekend, and the Temple had been abandoned by the people for orgies and every possible kind of sexual indulgence and deviation.  

"If it feels good, do it."  The mantra of the 1960's.  I remember in the 1960's when I first heard the rallying cry of the times:  "God is dead."  

The line: "They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind," seems apropos.  Control over their lives was totally wiped out.

When your feet are knocked out from under you, when everything escapes your control, when you wonder when the situation you are in will end, and will things ever return to normal again...you are more than ready to turn to God for help.  There comes a moment when you realize that your concept of "control" was an illusion.  You have been living under grace.  God is the one in control, not us.

UPS delivered final copy.  "The Letter."  Will read it today and tomorrow and sign off on it.  Hallelujah!!!

Last night, Pat called and said she made sauerkraut and dumplings.  I think that's one of the only things that could have pried me out of my house.  She lives almost thirty minutes east of here.  She hasn't been exposed, but Tom goes to work every day.  He said he stays six feet away from everyone and wears a mask.  Washes his hands and disinfects.  I hope so!!

Ken's grandmother--Grannie--taught all of us how to make sauerkraut and dumplings.  It's a Bavarian dish.  You roast ribs in the oven till brown.   Then, put them in a pot with water and sauerkraut and rye seeds.  Boil till the meat until it falls off the bone.  Then you drop dumplings into the boiling water to cook.  It's yummy.   

My car hasn't been driven almost anywhere but once--to the bank--in the last month.  I needed cash to pay the guy who mows the lawn.  He usually bills me at the end of the month, but I felt sure he would appreciate cash.  He did.  People need what they need right this minute.  Usually food.  There are lots of hungry people around us.  So many people that live paycheck to paycheck.  Those of us with an income need to help the "Working Poor."  (That's Becky's husband Craig's description of people who are trying to help themselves and can't quite get there.) And the plain old poor-poor as well.  

You know, the instructions that Jesus gave us on the way to live life were pretty simple.  Love others, and help the poor.  Be kind to your neighbor.  You help the poor people you know.  And the ones you don't as well.  And hope someone else will help the poor people they know.  It's contagious. 

Today....finally....UPS is delivering the final edited copy of the book I wrote that the publisher and I have reviewed, reviewed and reviewed.  Word after word after word.  I had no idea how hard this would be.  I have to read it one more time to insure there are no mistakes and sign off on it.

It was supposed to published last September.  Didn't happen.  And now with the pandemic, who know when it will hit the bookstores.  I'm supposed to be in all the small book stores, Barnes and Nobel, etc. to sign books.  Not gonna' happen any time soon.  I'm quarantined like everyone else.  Bookstores are closed--so quarantine doesn't make much difference one way or another.

Millions of lives have been interrupted in similar ways.

Amazon will be the source of purchase most probably.  Which will be Antiseptically non-personal.  It is what it is.  We'll get there eventually.  Hope I'm still around when it happens in fifty-umpteen years.  Keep you posted....

I am still in my house doing nothing and going to bed with it half done--as Ken used to say.  I put all mail and paper products that come through the front door on the dining room table--to sit and wait for four days before I open them.  Wash and Disinfect my hands after I bring things in.

My neighbors have been stellar--calling before they go to the store to see if I need anything.  Refrigerated or plastic items come in the front door and are immediately wiped down with disinfectant.  I think I am being super careful.

You be careful, too.  



  

This was a strange week.  One day we set a heat all time record for the day in Oklahoma City, 90 degrees.  And last night it was 29 degrees.  Thank goodness my cousin Ann reminded me to unhook my hoses outside.  The wind was so strong I could hardly stand up.

I had to dig up the tomatoes I planted.  I Potted them and brought them inside.  Have no idea when the weather is going to even out.  It's supposed to freeze again tonight.  

I think tornado alley has moved East.  Last spring and summer we didn't have much tornado weather at all in Oklahoma.  Lousiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennesee.  The "alley" moved east over those states. 

I hate it for them, but we've had our share here.  I wish nobody had to endure tornado weather.  I don't have a cellar.  I will have to go somewhere if the sirens blow.  I've got direct TV (?) and every time the weather is bad I lose my connection and don't know what's going on.  

Last year, one came right over the house.  With hail bigger than golf balls.  It didn't touch down, thank the Lord.  But it tore everyone's roofs up.  For months afterward there was no peace from the noise of roofers replacing shingles.  It went on for months and months.  Bang, bang, bang.  Every house on the block.

I crossed the street to watch the coverage on my neighbor's TV connection.  It was interesting watching it move toward our houses.  I really don't know what I'll do this year if the sirens blow.  Go to the cellar in a tight spot with dozens of people and maybe get exposed to the virus, or stay home in a closet.  I'm thinking I'll stay home.  I hope I don't have to replace my roof again.

  

I woke up at 4:00 this morning.  Never a good time to wake up--bettered only by not waking up at all.  By 7:30 AM I was ready for lunch.  Being cooped up like all of us are is havoc on maintaining weight much less losing any.

I decided that it was time to clean out the freezer of my side-by-side.  Every time I've cooked anything, or anyone has brought me something, I usually have eaten a small bit of it and frozen small portions of what is left.  Resulting in freezer over load.

Which has been a life saver over past few weeks.  Only problem is that none of it is labeled, so I have no idea what I am thawing out.  I decided weeks ago that I was going to eat whatever ended up in the package that I set out on the counter to thaw.  I freeze the portions in Saran wrap rolled over a bunch of times which squishes the edges of whatever is being wrapped--making identification impossible most of the time.

It's been interesting.  So far, everything has been okay.  Edible.  But I'm not a discriminating eater.  I'll eat almost anything except milk, ice cream or yogurt.  Milky things are not on my list of "likes."  However, I do like sour cream and whipped cream--go figure.

I did make one of those frozen grated potato, sour cream, eggs, cheese, and sausage casseroles, cut it in 24 pieces, wrapped them in Saran and froze them.  That has been a breakfast solution.  Thank heaven for the microwave.  If this quarantine goes on much longer, I think I'm eventually going to have to cook.  Ann brought me chili.  Jeaninne brought Mexican.  Linda brought stuffed peppers.  I think it's about my turn.  I owe everyone on the street.

Talking about moments in history reminded me of a moment I experienced when I was around seven or eight years old.  My dad was doing anything and everything he could do to augment the family's income that year.  He and another man started an egg business--something that is now automated.  But back then, everyone did what needed to be done by hand.

Farmers would sell their eggs to a middle man who would clean them, size them, check for breaks, "candle" them and crate them.  That's what my dad was doing.  And of course both men were looking for all the free help they could get.  Which was me and the other guys son--Shelton.  

"Candling" was done by holding the egg in front of a light to see if it was good or bad.  The farmer couldn't tell--he just brought the eggs in.  But sometimes an egg was rotten and needed to be culled and trashed.  I got good at judging whether an egg was good or bad because every time Shelton found a rotten egg, he threw it at me.  Typical boy behavior.  If you've never been hit with a rotten egg, you haven't lived all of life's experiences.  It is the worst smell ever.  Of course, when I found one, I returned the favor.  He deserved it.

At the end of the day, I got to keep all the good eggs that were slightly cracked and could peddle them up and down our street for pennies on the dollar.  As long as they candled out ok, you could use them to cook with--and women in the nineteen forties were glad to get them cheap.  I would use my proceeds to buy an important investment--a comic book! 

Washing those eggs was another one of my jobs. I know about eggs, and chicken poop.  You can leave eggs on the counter for days and days and days.  Or refrigerate them forever.  They come in nice sealed sanitized containers.     

I'll add one last thing about the carrier and the LSO.  In the years Bill was flying, he said that after you hooked wire, the LSO rated every landing.  In later years (after the LSO used paddles), you were flying by a light that they called the ball.  Depending on the color, you could tell if you were on the correct glide path.  

Speed, level, steady and hook.  Did you hit the deck at the right point, or was it the first or fourth wire which--wasn't optimal.

The LSO still had the last word.  He still controlled the deck.  He graded every single landing and could abort your landing at any time.  I didn't know that.  Once Ken retired, we started living in a different world.

When Bill was flying, the LSO would post your landing score, rating, and mistakes you made on the ready room wall for the world to see.  Bill said it was a great motivator.  You didn't want to embarrass yourself--especially in front of the other pilots.

I wouldn't take anything for the years I got to be a part of Marine aviation.  But I would never want to do it again.  The Marines had a saying, "If the Marine Corps wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one when you joined up."  Aviators were doing something that they loved.  Families--not so much. Some marriages didn't survive.

The life, separations, and stress were difficult.   Ken had two tours overseas--thirteen months each--back when we couldn't afford to call. One of those tours was war.  Vietnam.  No facebook.  No Google.  Just letters.  I saved them all.  

And I've never read them again. It was moment in history.  

My brother Bill was also a Navy pilot.  He was a flight surgeon--the guy that says yes you can fly, or no, you can't.  He was the flight surgeon for NASA, on point for the guys that were in the capsule that burned on the ground.  Gus Grissom...and two others.

Bill said the the most frightening thing he ever did was take a night cat shot.  The carrier is pitch black.  No lights.  The sky is pitch black.  And then they pull you back in the sling shot and Wham!  He said that it is "Jolt acceleration."  Accelerating acceleration. 

And when you come back aboard, it's at full speed--and if you aren't properly belted in, it will snap your head off when you hook the wire and are jerked to an instant stop.  Doing that over the years doesn't do your back any favor either.

He corrected me on one point that I didn't know.  Bill flew twenty years after Ken, and things had changed in aviation.  But Bill said one thing didn't change.  The LSO still controlled the deck.  He was never obsolete.  Every plane that came aboard was rated by the LSO.  (And there were four wires.)  

If you caught the first, or fourth wire, the LSO gave you a demerit.  It meant you weren't on a perfect glide path coming in.  If your wings jiggled, demerit.  The meatball--Bill said they just called it "The Ball"--guided your path, but the LSO was always able to override the ball.  He held a "pickle" that if he punched, red lights flashed everywhere.  Which meant you were on path to kill yourself--and needed to pull up, abort, bolter.  You weren't going to make it and would kill others as well.  Bill said the LSO had the final say.  His judgement was law.

Planes changed.  The carrier changed.  The LSO didn't. 

Ken spent three years--after he returned from the war in Korea--teaching cadets who had qualified for Naval flight school to land on the carrier.  He saw every kind of accident that could be imagined.

He took me out once on the deck and pointed to the "coming aboard end of the ship."  There were dents along the edge.  "That's where Mike didn't do what I told him; there's where Nate didn't listen.  They think they can judge the pitch of the deck.  They can't.  And they didn't."

Where the LSO stands on the side edge of the deck there is a chute for those crash occasions.  The LSO can fall backwards into the chute which takes him down below deck.  If he tried to turn around to go down the chute, you couldn't make it because it all happens so fast.

If a wire snaps, the LSO has somewhere to go.  Not so for the people working the deck.  The wire slithers like a snake.  It's so hot, it cauterizes amputations that occur. 

I just kissed him goodby each morning and tried not to think about it.  "Is your insurance paid up," was a lighthearted phrase everyone used from time to time.  

I never saw Ken rattled.  I don't know how he did what he did.  I don't know how any of our military do what they are sometimes called on to do.

God bless the USA.  God bless the Marines. 

  

Living with an LSO, I felt like my education of landing on a carrier was almost like being a Naval cadet.  Minus the actual experience.  I heard it all.  Over and over.  From multiple pilots.  All the time for years and years.  What went wrong, what went right, what ended up in an accident.  Accidents were continual.  This was in the 1950's at the beginning of carrier capabilities. They killed a lot of pilots.  Pilots were cheap.  Planes were expensive.

When you were trying to come aboard, the LSO gave you signals with paddles.  Too high; too low; too fast; too slow.  The pilot is trying to hit the carrier deck at an exact point. On a dime.  He's done it a zillion times on a runway, but this is different.  The landing surface is moving in four directions.  Up, down, side to side.  Rolling and pitching. It looks easy in the movies.  It isn't. 

Come in too low or slow and you'll catch your hook on the front of the carrier and rip out your fuel tanks, kill yourself and people working the deck.  Come in too fast and you'll break the wire you're trying to hook--and the cable will slither like a snake across the deck and dismember or kill someone. You have to follow the LSO's signals exactly because he controls the deck.  Stress on the pilot is nothing compared to stress on the LSO.  When Mad Dog trained Ken, he said, "You have the right personality to do this.  "Calm and confident."  He was.

There are three wires.  If your hook hits the deck in front of the first wire, it bounces--bolters--and hopefully hooks the second or third.  You have to come in full power because if you bolter all three wires, you have to have enough power, speed, to fly off the deck and try again.  In the training command, some of Ken's students would pass all nine stages, get to the tenth (carrier) and never make it.  Wash out.  Sometimes because they just couldn't do it.  Sometimes because they were scared to death and went back and landed on base.

Very seldom did you have a catapult failure.  If you had one, you were going into the water.  You might have enough power to make it a few thousand feet, but you just didn't have the power to climb out of it.  You were going down.  The carrier was going to run over you.  It was just a matter of when.

And when you hit the water, that was pretty much the end of it.  I remember Ken telling about one pilot who survived a failed catapult.  His plane sank into the water canopy up.  Which was unusual.  When you took a cat shot and it failed, the ship was going to go over you at that point one way or another.

This guy hit the water with wings level, and had the presence of mind and guts to watch the ship pass over him.  But had to wait an eternity for the ship to pass over him--praying the screws would miss him.  When they missed him, he was still canopy up, so he ejected.  It wouldn't have turned out very well if he ejected after he hit the water because he would have hit the bottom of the ship.  It wouldn't have turned out very well if he had rolled the plane in the water, or he would have ejected downwards.  I can't imagine that kind of bravery--sitting under water, slowly sinking and watching a carrier pass over your plane hoping the screws didn't chew you up.  Hoping you didn't roll.

Ken said the pilot told them that waiting for the ship to pass over was an eternity, wondering if you were going to roll over upside down before you could eject--underwater.  Wondering if you were going to hit the screws.  Waiting.

Most of those guys had horror stories.  The worst was landing at night in a storm.  Pitching and rolling deck.  Catching wire.  Trusting the LSO.  Hoping you didn't kill yourself.  I lived it second hand.  Hearing the stories.  Trying not to think about what Ken was doing to put bread on the table. 

The one thing I did keep from Ken's LSO gear was the glo-stripes that went down the legs of his "carrier waving" suit.  I'm sure that suit had a name, but I've forgotten it.  It might have been an adapted flight suit with snaps down the legs for the glo-strips.  What in the world did I think I was going to do with glo-strips??  Now, they are draped over a picture of an LSO in the "museum."

I finally gave Ken's his uniforms to a young lad that trades in military gear.  He was trying to set up a booth in Edmond's Antique Store.  He needed a jump start.  There comes a point that you can't keep it all.  I certainly wasn't going to wear a uniform.

Scott sent me a picture of an LSO on a carrier who was waving a plane aboard and had given the pilot a "cut."  He asked if the LSO was his dad.  I told him "No."  It was a rear view of the LSO's back--arms in the air, signaling the pilot.  I told Scott that I would know that butt anywhere and it wasn't Ken.  (I was married to the guy 57 years--so I would know.)

The Marines only had three LSO's back in the early fifties.  He was one.  Another one was "Mad Dog Oster," who got so mad a a group of pilots who wouldn't obey his signals that the threw his paddles overboard and left the planes in the air to fend for themselves.

It was pretty much impossible to land on the pitching, rolling deck of a carrier without an LSO.  The pilots who were left in the air--running out of fuel--were begging Mad Dog to help them aboard and promised to obey signals.  But he had no paddles.  So, he got a couple of pairs of skivies--one pair in each hand--waved the signals best he could and helped them hook wire and get aboard.  Innovation.  I loved to listen to the LSO's stories.  I've got a bunch of them.