A Great Salvation for America

The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.

~~ Helen Keller ~~

During the terrible winter of 1777-78, while the Continental army lay encamped at Valley Forge, Isaac Potts was passing through the woods near General Washington’s headquarters. Making his way amid the groves and snow covered, wooded paths he suddenly heard the sound of a nearby voice. Startled, Potts cautiously drew closer while the words became clearer. Eventually, he could hear the voice speaking in great earnest.

Soon he could see the man. There, in a dark natural bower of ancient oaks, he saw the commander-in-chief of the American army. It was General George Washington on his knees, in the snow, in prayer.

Roosevelt and the New Deal

Teddy Roosevelt, our 26th president once said:

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.

It’s one of my favorite quotes and I’ve referred to it in this blog before.

Teddy’s distant cousin and our 32nd president Franklin Roosevelt was many things to many people. Some, who lived in Roosevelt’s time, and especially those who thought themselves benefactors of his policies, loved and adored him. For many, he was the only president they ever knew. He’d been elected to an unprecedented four terms and served for 12 years before his death. Today is the anniversary of his birth.

On the Road to Somewhere Else

It was early morning 59 years ago today when a small airplane crashed in a lonely, snow covered farmers field near Clear Lake, Iowa. Its story is rich in lore, consequence and unnerving circumstance.

A future country music legend, then just a bass player, gave up his seat to one of those who perished. Another band member would lose a coin toss for his seat. Both would be shaken by those events for the rest of their lives.

Today, travelers on the road to somewhere else, stop at the cornfield to pay homage to the first stars of a new genre of music, and to the memory of the youthful dreams of an entire generation. Nothing much has changed there except for a stainless steel memorial placed in tribute. It marks the spot, where Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson and Richie Valens were killed, on the day the music died.

Misfits: Rudderless and Restless

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If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me,
because I’d like to hear it again.
~~ Groucho Marx ~~

My old friend Al Bello was, to say the least, one-of-a-kind and among my oldest friends. We met in 7th grade dishing out our own brand of trouble to our teachers and others. Al was among my small circle of class clowns, birds of a feather.

“Al” – School Days

In our quest for attention, we were especially brutal to our music teacher, Miss Morgan. I’ve come to realize, the attention we sought was our misguided attempt to make up for other things lacking in our lives. No excuses though. In hindsight I regret how we treated her and by the time I wanted to apologize she was gone. She was a fine, gifted woman and her story deserves a place of its own here in this blog.*

Over a period of 45-years Al and I lived our lives separated by time and distance. He stayed in Maryland while I moved west. We managed from time to time to reconnect, only very occasionally, via phone calls. I had spoken to Al several years ago when I learned he was suffering with COPD. He was the same guy, the same sarcasm and still the jokester I remembered from our times together so long ago. Despite all those years of separation and little contact I remember thinking: losing him would be a bitter pill to swallow.

The Old Familiar Carols Play

The Christmas Carol, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day is based on an 1863 poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was  the nation’s preeminent poet of his era. The song proclaims the narrator’s despair, as he heard Christmas bells in the distance.

He bows his head, “There is no peace on earth,” [he] said,
“for hate is strong and mocks the song
of peace on earth, good will to men.”

But then the carol inexplicably changes with the bells carrying renewed hope for peace among mankind.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With peace on earth, good will to men.”

So why the change and how did the poem come to be?

Howard Thayne of the 463rd

Today Italy’s Celone airfield has returned to nature and agriculture. One couldn’t know the activities, the machines and the hero’s who once occupied this Italian countryside. Only from the air can be seen the faint scarring of the landscape. Hidden are the fading remnants of taxiways and the 6,000 foot runway that gave pathway to the heavy B-17 bombers, their crews and payloads of America’s 15th Air Force.

The faint runway (center), taxiways and other roads of what used to be Celone Airfield.

One of those crew members came from Salt Lake City, via Canada, then England. His name is Howard Thayne. He is my children’s first cousin, two generations removed. Their maternal grandfather and Howard are first cousins. Born on March 23, 1919 in the coal mining camp of Kenilworth, Utah, Howard’s  family would move to Salt Lake where he was the typical American boy, sociable and popular among his peers. He graduated from West High School and at the age of 19 served a two-year mission for the LDS Church in Canada. Soon after his return home, with the outbreak of World War II, Howard enlisted in the Army Air Corps.

Bill Lear – Father of the Corporate Jet

Since I was a young adult I’ve always been an admirer of Bill Lear. The inventor of the car radio, the 8-track music cartridge and, among other things, the business jet that bears his name. Lear, who was born 115 years ago today, had a notable sense of humor, naming his second daughter Crystal Shanda (who they always called Shanda).

Bill Lear – Inventor & Aviation Pioneer

I came to know about Lear in the early 70s when I was in the audience at a taping of the Merv Griffin show in Los Angeles. Lear was a guest on the show along with the McWhirter twin brothers — Ross and Norris — founders of the Guinness Book of Records. A few years later in 1975 Ross was murdered by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In 1977 Lear would die in Reno of Leukemia. He was 75.

Bill Lear was a creative genius, a self-taught radio engineer with an 8th grade education. After a nearly 50 year career he received well over 120 patents. Shanda said of her father, Dad was always scribbling ideas and designs on restaurant napkins and table cloths, all the while telling jokes and discussing the infinite possibilities of the mind.

Music Monday – Flanders Fields

It was the early days of World War I in the Second Battle near the town of Ypres. A 22-year old Canadian artillery officer, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, was killed, from the explosion of a German artillery shell. He died 102 years ago tomorrow, May 2, 1915.

Ypres a small, ancient Belgian town saw some of the most intense and sustained battles during the war. Helmer was serving in the same Canadian artillery unit as his friend, doctor and artillery commander Major John McCrae.

John McCrea

The son of Scottish immigrants, for McCrea, medicine, the Army and poetry were family traditions.

50 Shades of Rick

Things you may or may not know. Revelations and a few more confessions.

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1) I was born on December 6, 1952 in a small Pennsylvania town. Despite the realization I find myself on the downhill side of life, I’m hopeful there’s more miles and milestones ahead! Craig Newmark, the computer programmer, businessman and founder of Craigslist was born on the same exact day.

2) My parents were never married and my father died when I was 2. He was 31-years old.

3) I was adopted by my father’s sister. She would soon divorce her husband whose last name I bear today. I was raised by a single mother.

4) I’m a seventh generation American. One of my 4th great grandfathers came from Germany while another migrated from Sligo, Ireland. My heritage includes heroes and scoundrels. Some of them helped shape the future of the country serving in all ranks in both the War of Independence and the Civil War. Dig deep enough and you probably have them too.

5) I am very much a proud American and a patriot. As long as I can remember that’s always been true. I believe in American Exceptionalism.

Thoughts on Veterans Day, 2016

A few years ago while working on the campus of the Veteran’s Hospital at American Lake near Tacoma, WA one of the regular staff there, despite my urgings to call me by my first name, refused. It was always “Mr. Gleason.”

When I brought it up at a staff meeting one afternoon, she explained she did it out of a deep-rooted respect for me and my service as a veteran. Her sincere remarks touched me in such a way that it brought tears to my eyes and another in the room later said they could tell I was deeply moved by what had been said. I understood her point of view, but I couldn’t help to think, what’s so special about what I did?

You see, I’ve never looked at my service in the Air Force as a sacrifice, nor was it, by any means, a selfless act. It was among the best years of my life and a tremendous opportunity.

It was a privilege to wear the uniform. I came away from those days and experiences so much more the benefactor. It was not a sacrifice to have served. To the contrary, the sacrifice would have been in not serving.

I was well-paid for those few years with a college education, job and mortgage assistance and even health care. More importantly, I was blessed beyond measure to have been born in this country. It’s the least I could do for it.

If I am a prideful person it’s for two reasons: I’m proud to have served in the military and I am a proud American.

I’m grateful in knowing that I served my country in a righteous cause. As a result I have a profound sense of patriotism and a love for country that touches me to the core. I rarely hear our National Anthem without choking with emotion. My thoughts turn to our flag and all that it represents, and especially to those who gave their lives to preserve freedom around the world providing us, and those less fortunate, with the freedom to choose.

So on this Veterans Day, while I salute all those who took the pledge and wore the uniform I remember those, from a personal perspective, who never returned to their homes and family.

The F-4 pilot who frequented our fire station for the “good food,” lost somewhere in the north. The F-105 pilot whose ejection seat malfuntioned killing him and another Air Force firefighter on my crew. And then there was a high school classmate, Robert Bolt Dickerson III, who joined the Marines and died in the Quang Nam Province of South Vietnam at the age of 18. There were a few others I knew and served with who paid the ultimate price but whose names I don’t now recall. Of course there are tens of thousands more from that era and from various wars and conflicts before and after. It is them I think of today. Any other “sacrifice” pales in comparison.

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