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2002-07-29

Been a year plus since the reunion and I can't wait till the next one next year in Reno. My friends Jerry Peppenger and Robert Malone supplied me with pictures of last years festivities. I was just too damn lazy to get them posted until today. A little prodding helps. :-)

In no particular order except chronological here goes:

The first shot is of Me in the Hotel. It was a beautiful place and Jerry and I are in the open area in the center enjoying the evening waiting for other folks to arrive. I look a little rough around the edges because we were in good form at that point. The next Shots are of the area we were in. As I said a really nice Place. Here is a shot of my host. Jerry had the only remaining room in the adjoining hotel and I managed to put up with his snoring for a few nights. :-) My room was lost in the scheduling/reservation melee.

As we have been known to do in the past we gravitated to the bar wherein we found a new Buddy that was our (unknown to that point) long lost pal. We continued for some time in that manner and finally ended up in the steak house across the street with ole bar buddy trying to pick up the whole tab. We didn't let him. He was a good soul and a lot of fun but was .... tanked. More later.

Jerry and I drove over to Connie Park for the ceremony and plaque dedication in the morning. We took this Shot and this Shot on the walk over to the stands. It was trying to rain but just couldn't get it done. Just a lot of wind and a few sprinkles. Jerry got a Shot of the Plaques and speaker stands. We were there a few minutes and heard some hollering from the bleachers behind up and lo and behold who should be waving at us but ole Bar Buddy.

Amazing but true. It is a small world. And, Jerry took this shot of another interesting sight at the Park. I think She was a contractor in charge of filming the event. She had beautiful form and I bet the film came out great.

Here is what the speakers at the event looked like. This taken behind Mr. Poneytail. I never could figure out what a dude with gray hair would be doing with a pony tail anyway. We were watching the proceedings intently and across the field behind Connie Park an E3 came into view on the runway getting ready to roll out. Jerry got this Shot also. I think this picture of the proceedings was one of the best and shows the Speaker that was a survivor of one of the Connie crashes in Mass.

After the service we hopped onto busses and took a tour of the base. Ms. Tour Pal was very good and answered about a thousand questions from us. She took us over to the E3 overhaul area. Wow.

Here is what an overhauled E3 looks like. Here is the Rear half. Again Wow.

They had 4 of them in various stages of disassembly in the hanger. Left side looking in the hanger. Left side close up on lead E3. Right side looking into the hanger.

Here is a really nice side shot of the ready E3 in front of the hanger.

We were milling about and finally asked if we could possible see inside one of them. Heh. To my absolute amazement they decided to open up the unit in front of the hanger and let us tour the inside. I thought I was in heaven. :-)))

Here Jerry is waiting impatiently for them to get ground power on the plane to open it up. Hehehe here comes the loading ramp. And here comes the power!!!

We are in! Here is a Shot of the CPit. Of course we had to have shots of us sitting in the interior. Jerry first and then Me. Incredible. :-)

Okay they finally pried us all out of that aircraft and back onto the busses. We headed out over hill and dale and spotted a B1 and some KC135s. These KC135s had some humongous test engines on them.

The busses let us off at the overhaul building. Building is kind of a misnomer. This sucker is huge. They had several KC135s back in a corner we saw on the tour inside. The tour starts at a large mural on the wall. We rode a buggy that was pulled by a tow motor truck. The inside tour took an hour if i remember correctly.

The next series of pictures is from the great BatCat golf invasion/excursion. The first Shot is of me and Bob. We are ready. Here Earl is chipping. Now he is Putting and the commentary on the scans is complements of Robert. Robert Tees Off. And. Earl takes a very rare BatCat Shot.

Jerry is trying to putt amid serious attempts to distract him. He groans as the ball rockets by the hole.

I exhibit perfect form on the Tee and blast a worm burner out 75 yds. Jerry hits a decent shot, 100yds. out. :-)

We had plenty of help during the round as you can see by the quality of the course personnel.

A strong willed passerby took this shot of the feared BatCat foursome. And a day on the links would not be complete with out an AAR meeting. (After action report)

In the evening we drove over to Connie Park to get some more shots of the area. Here is a close-up of one of the dedicated plaques. Here I am walking under the Connie in the park. I have to touch them. I walked around it and under it and it still brings tears. I don't know why. It does. I would have given a whole ton of dough to hear the engines run again, smell the smoke, and feel the vibrations.......

Jerry took two panorama shots of the park. I don't know why but, I kept them both. The other one.

At the dinner in the evening on Saturday. Me and Bob and Jerry and JR and his wife attended along with a whole ton of other folks. It was a nice get together. JR and his wife. I'm sorry I forgot her name. JR and Robert. And finally BatCats on four. Me, JR, Jerry, Bob.

Most of the time it seems I really don't realize just how damn lucky I have been in my life and I would like to take this opportunity to express what a privilege it is to know and have served with these fine gentlemen.