All,

JR2, thank you. Thank you for reminding us that in the hussle and bussle of our daily existence it is important to remember our friends, to let people we care about know how we feel. I find in the daily grind of life, particularly my working life I often get so pulled in that I tend to forget whats really important.

I'm getting better at it but it is always a work in progress. I dont want to look up one day and find people I care about gone and feel I have wasted the relationship because I was too busy doing other things.

Saturday was as rainy and windy as predicted. I was able to spend some quality time flying my Spitfire against the Luftwaffe for several hours. What a treat, and yes what a game. Several tangles left me almost breathless as I struggled to keep from being blown from my cockpit by an aggressive buggar in a bf109. A real treat indeed!

Folks,

SNAFU:

I know you well enough by now to know that you didn't need much reminding on that score.

It never hurts to reaffirm old friendships. A simple phone call, an e-mail or snail-mail message is enough. You would be surprised how a simple thing like that can make someone's whole day. Too soon old friends begin to leave us.

Yes, BoB can certainly save an otherwise dull weekend.

JRT,
you would be happy to know that I spoke to several old friends today, inspired by your post. Good on you.
Lady 'M' was thrilled with your mail.
I outdid myself this year. Last year was the car, this year the gas. (maybe next year the keys)

Folks,

C51:

In spite of what SWMNBN keeps reminding me, it seems I may be good for something after all.

You are another pal whom I am certain needed little if any reminding on that score. As for me, it is perhaps another birthday,and a big one at that, which brought so forcibly to my cluttered mind the brief window in time for such things. So soon we are all called away.

A beautiful late summer day like today is a good metaphor for my own happy time in life. All too soon we will feel the harsh winds of winter. Then it will be too late perhaps to gather together with those special to us and bask even one more time in that lovely warmth of friendship.

Personally, I plan to be playing around with BoB and typing HWH stories for another 50 years at least. Others dear to me may not be so lucky. If not, now is as good a time as any to reaffirm old acquaintances, even start some new ones.

Gas? Keys? Dear fellow, I have it on very good authority that happy Lady "M" is newly wrapped in something luxurious, soft, warm and very cozy. You are a wise gift giver indeed, for you too will benefit. There is probably nothing quite like the loving embrace of a warm woman on a cold fall night in Canada.

Folks,

What say ye mates? It is about time we heard from Olga or Dux or perhaps both. I do remember a recent solemn promise of a pending HWH saga, and Dux has never before reneged on a promise. Or has he?

Well there was the time he promised to repay SNAFU that tenner, and didn't. And the time he promised not to take unfair advantage of that innocent beermaid, the one who suddenly got so fat and left town, and that one time he was supposed to stay behind after a squadron dance to help C51 find his shoes, socks and trousers....and I can't forget the time he promised the military police that he would return their jeep in good condition. Did they ever find all the parts to that jeep?...... hmmmmm. DUX!!!!

Folks,

Since Dux seems to be indisposed at the moment (perhaps someone locked him in his three-holer)and because it is more than high time someone besides Z2 posted a story, everyone will now be mercilessly subjected to yet another of my poor attempts at humor. Any snickering will instantly cast grave doubt upon the sense of humor of the individual caught smiling.

Flight Lessons are Sometimes a Drag

“Tum, tum te tum Ta te tum te tum te tum.”

Why am I humming you ask? Well, the truth is it steadies my nerves a bit. I see you're trembling. You should try it sometime. Yes, I do know a livelier tune however that melody seems to be stuck in my mind at the moment. Maybe it was something they played at the funeral of my last student, I don't know.

Tum, tum, te.... what's that? The people below us look just like ants. Hmmmm. Actually they are ants. We haven't taken off yet. If you'd pay closer attention then you'd know that the big bump you felt just now was not our rotation into flight at all. It was instead a little hop we took right over a parked petrol lorry. What that idiot was doing in the middle of the active runway I'll never know.

You say that in your concerned opinion we aren't actually on the active runway. OK, Mr. “I'm smarter than my flight instructor” then where the devil are we then? Where? You're completely mistaken. If we were there we'd be headed right back into the hanger. I should look in front of me you say? OK.

Good grief man, now they put a hanger right in the middle of the active runway as well. That certainly is convenient but remarkably unusual. Frankly I miss those nice green, natural grass landing fields I'm more used to than this fancy tarmac thingy. It's just too big and confusing. Well, you can open your eyes again, we missed the damn hanger but that idiot in the petrol lorry seems to be following us.

He's doing what obscene gestures toward us with his fingers? What's he got against me then? You believe his delivery hose is caught on our undercarriage and we're dragging him behind us? You say there is aviation petrol sloshing about everywhere and the driver has just jumped off.

The yellow-bellied bastid, he should have stayed at his post. You want to bail out too? Nonsense. We will continue with your flight instruction. Remember pal, your last lesson was cut short due to our getting disoriented in that beastly thick cloud and our premature landing in that convenient pigsty.

Frankly, I am delighted that your wounds have healed so well and so soon. They even got most of that stinking goo out of your ears and your nose seems to be centered in you face once more. It is my duty therefore to see that your pain was not for nothing. I will teach you to fly if it kills me. Forget that, stop screaming, it was only a figure of speech.

Frankly I'm having a little trouble getting enough air speed to take off. Yes, it must have something to do with our dragging that petrol van. We'll just have to get rid of that thing before we run out of runway. Perhaps if I head for one of those burning smudge pots at the edge of the runway the thing will ignite the petrol hose and it will burn off setting us free? We'll try that.

Great idea what? I say Old Man, great idea? Good grief, he seems to have fallen or jumped out. That must have been painful at this speed. No matter, I will have to rid myself of this extra weight before I can go back for him. There's a pretty good blaze right up ahead, a smudge pot has set the grass in the runway apron on fire. Here we go now. That should about do the tr.....

All,



I say JR2, that was a pretty damned good lesson in belly laughing. As for flight training I fear the poor chap may not show up for the next one.

Getting one's delivery hose in any sort of undercarriage could be unfortunate indeed.

Folks,

SNAFU:

Thank you. Welcome to the new fall season of HWH.

Shhhhhh! Everyone will think you have as warped a sense of humor as I have. LOL. You have however made a very good point about the great sensitivity of "delivery hoses".

Since late 2002 or early 2003 when the first story in this inane series started, I have managed six or eight of the "JRT Dauntless Flight Instructor" collection. I like to post one of these on a frequent but irregular basis so no one can guess when one is coming and stay away. Not much substance but a bit more fun to write than to read. Perhaps my poor attempt will spur the more adept Dux into action?

Surely there must be at least one or two Sverdlovsk Tractor Fanbelt and Gasket Symposium Galas to inspire at least a line or two from Dux? And doubtless there is at least one more story left in his vast and marvellously twisted imagination about that amazing chemical toilet about which the Soviets were so justifyably flushed with pride?

Perhaps the venerable Snud 14 can fly once again across the width and breadth of our fertile imaginations? What shenanigans might Olga and company have been up to these past several months since the last Olga Saga was posted? We must sit and wait as Dux chases his muse or perhaps it is the other way 'round?

As the remnants of amazing Hurricane Ivan doubles back and passes once again across stricken Florida, Hurricane Jeanne once again seems to be threatening to charge right up our own tightly puckered whoopsidazy by Tuesday. I thought she was going to blow away. They promised us she was going to blow away.....

We do NOT need a wind storm anywhere along the south eastern seaboard. It is too wet. Rivers and streams are at or above flood stage already. There have been too many deaths already due to storms across the south. So many trees would be blown down by a Hurricane making significant landfall we'd miss fall. And there is no world shortage of toothpicks we need to re-supply as far as I am aware.

Go away Jeanne.

ROFLMAO!!! Classic

Folks,

JammOr:

Thank you for taking the time to read that ridiculous scribbling and thanks most of all for not caring about what folks think of your discriminating sense of humor.

I need a sense of humor right now. I was moving some heavy building blocks around the garden this afternoon and somehow managed to get a garden hose and my knees tangled up in my two left feet. There I went ass over tea kettle with a rusty wheelbarrow and a full load of cement blocks falling right on top of me.

Unfortunately nothing landed on my head, that as everyone must know is too hard for mere stone to harm. No, everything landed on my left calf and ankle. Ouch! I have a 4-inch gash across my leg just below the calf muscle and quite a few abrasions and contusions all the way down to my throbbing ankle. My ankle caught the pointy end plus all the weight of one concrete block so that is swollen and bruised. My leg not the block is swollen and bruised.

All in all it looks like I was in a big rock trowing fight with no rocks to throw myself. SWMNBN is nursing me back to something approximating good health. This is pleasant of coarse however I have a good idea that she just wants to keep me alive to do the chores and so she can continue to get so much fun out of rubbing this in over and over along with the liniment.

I keep telling her that I am really a cultured, graceful chap and not a tangle-footed klutz. I was in fact right in the midst of a beautiful pas de deux with that loaded wheelbarrow when the first brick hit me near the groin and knocked me off my stride. Just wait until my next backyard performance, I'll dazzle her.

Now where in blazes is that antiseptic cream, my hobnail-soled ballet slippers and my hot pink tu-tu? The one with the tool belt and snappy little hidden rule and carpenter's apron. :rolleyes: