NOV-A-2
NOVEMBER 1
EVENTS BEGIN WITH THE
“WURST FIVE
MILE RUN” IN NEW BRUNSFEL
AT THE OUTSET OF THE WURST FESTIVAL,
AND PROCEEDS
TO THE
AT
It was a big day for little boys, and also for their parents of whichever generation!
Michael and
I left to go to one of
THE NEW BRUNFELS RUNNING CLUB’S
“WURST FIVE MILE RACE”
AN OPENING SALVO IN THE “WURST FESTIVAL”
Michael and Judy had run this five mile race before—although they got here once to find that it had already been run since it was the day that the “fall back” time change had occurred and the newspaper notice as to the starting time was wrong. This time we had a limited time to get our packet pickup in registering for the race, and we barely had time to get parked, fill out the release and to join the queue when the horn sounded. Michael and I had talked about the size of the race and his objectives which were to clear 40 minutes. He had done it once under ideal circumstances in 36 minutes, but the last time was something like 42 minutes. I said I was not at all sure that I would be able to run at all, since the little micro tears and injuries of a hard fought marathon behind and ahead—all within a week on either side—meant that I would have to concentrate on damage limitation. If this were my only race this month, I would try to get out to the 36 minute point myself, but the last time I ran a “shorter” race after a “longer” one was the Boston Marathon after the Bull Run Run the same week, and I hurt starting up and only later did I get going in the course of the race. So, I said to Michael, just cut loose and go if you are feeling good, and I will follow along at what ever rate I can to not do serious damage.
We started
out in heavy traffic taking about a mile to really get free of being boxed
in—that was probably good, since I did not open up right away. Still, our first mile mark was at
“Lose the calories and not the taste” must be the theme of the brat makers, since they are good big brats wrapped in a very thin taco, so it is probably not on the American Heart Associations’ recommended list. So, if the unlimited brats and beer are not enough, all the products of the Bakeries are put out, including the fancy “Tres Leches” desserts and muffins and cakes. We sat near an Ompah Band that was largely ignored while the people congregated around the beer kegs. A few people still wore Halloween costumes, including one man in a very wet pin-striped suit carrying a briefcase. I saw the river and was drawn to it where anhinga dived for fish in the clear water, and I spotted beautiful wood duck drakes gathering with the Muskovy ducks and other waterfowl to try to get handouts from the leftovers of the abundant bakery supplies.
Michael went to check the results of the race, and found that they were posted without his name but with mine up there. Michael had a good run and came in at just over 36 minutes and I had come in at just over 41—which put him at sixth in his age group and put me fifth in mine on the postings they had hung next to the beer kegs.
We stopped at a rest area to change into a dry set of clothes and drove to the all day free air show along with 110,000 other spectators to get filtered through a security screen (No backpacks or ice chests, for example, and the same wands used at airports) and loaded on a bus. The bus took us out to the tarmac runways of the sprawling Randolph Air Base, where there were huge aircraft standing in an array they called their “static display” and beyond it, vintage aircraft and overhead the high performance aircraft doing aerobatics.
THE
This is the
air force’s chance to do PR in a big way, for the taxpayers in a state that
depends heavily on the air force payroll.
I counted up five air bases around
The twins
took off and toddled along the tarmac dwarfed under the wings of a NATO AWACS
plane and the huge C-5A and the C-17 Globemaster heavy lifters. There were Lockheed airlifters and the tankers
of the
As the twins sat in the shade of the vintage warbird’s wing, I took their picture as the C-17 Globemaster—a bumble bee kind of plane, far too big to ever take off, did just that and made tight turns and maneuvers as if mimicking the high performance fighters. There were two later performances which would come after the kids were worn out, so we might miss them—we got half of one of them, the Tora Tora Tora show. Here high performance planes with Japanese Zero markings make lots of swooping orchestrated turns over a firewall they emerge from in a reenactment of the bombing of Pearl Harbor—hardly a great triumph of US aerial warfare. The Zero I know well was one I had dived on in the Truk Lagoon, and I could virtually pick it up, with about the weight and capacity of a riding lawn mower, but these were much bigger and more competent aircraft that had the same markings but were considerably higher tech than the Zero. I got a few photos of them in the air, in the smoke that they made from all their orchestrated bomb-like equivalents. We did not stay for the highlight of the show, which, as always, is the precision flying of the Blue Angels flight team.
We did not
see the whole show, nor did the added feature of the one Air Show I had
witnessed at Dulles airport occur in which a Thunderbird had malfunctioned and
the pilot ejected-and floated in his parachute through the fireball of his own
aircraft as it was crashing. The next
feature on the same program was the Formula One racers around pylons on the ground,
and two clipped wings with a second fatality in the same program. But, I saw on the news tonight that the Japanese
had an air show today as well with a disaster, since a large air transport
clipped the tower and burst on the ground within close range of the
spectators. There must be a point beyond
the loosening of further taxpayers’ pursestrings in the eyewitnessing of all
these high price toys on display. I
thought to my recent leaving from
AND, NOW, FOR THE BIG NEWS OF THE DAY:
Smell the roses!