Using old saws to talk about new transportation
It is Tuesday the 30th of May and the Old Men of the Mountain think it is March 31. What a dreary Memorial Day. What a dreary spring — at least so far.
Tuesday, the OMOTM were at the Hilltown Café in Rensselaerville and at the elevation of this place, the OFs were lucky it wasn’t snow. A few OFs say they keep checking their feet at night to be sure they aren’t becoming webbed. So far, some of the OFs say they have not had many pesky bugs to deal with. That is a plus, but just wait until it starts to warm up. The column has two old saws to include in this column (one now and one a few paragraphs later on). The first one is the old farmers’ saying: “Wet May…barn full of hay.”
Time jumping
At the table this morning we had a group of OFs who were in the military and all were involved with planes — one OF served on an aircraft carrier and two OFs were in the Air Force. In the Air Force, there was one OG who served where there were planes, and the other OG served where there were missiles. These OFs had a grand time talking about their experiences and, as usual with the OFs involved, they combined the past and the present in one conversation. Most seniors have this ability. It’s fun listening to conversations as they drift from one topic to another and these OFs do not realize they are time jumping 60 or 70 years in one sentence.
The “then and now” came up more than once. The OF who was on the carrier USS Wasp told how he had the opportunity to go aboard the new carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, and how much larger this carrier was than one he was previously on, and the OF thought that was big.
In the course of the special tour (because he was a carrier guy and was wearing his hat that indicated he was on the Wasp) he met a couple of the Marine pilots. As they discussed the “then and now” aspect of the two ships, one of the Marines asked how many planes the OF had on board the Wasp and what were they. The OF told the Marines that the Wasp carried F4U Corsairs and F4F Wildcats.
The Marines kind of chuckled, the OF said, and one Marine said to the other, “Aren’t those some of the ones they showed us pictures of in the old planes book?” The ones these jockeys now fly are the X-47B, and F/A 18F, 18E. Just like cars, the older planes had character and the pilots actually flew them. Apparently (the way this OF understood it) the new planes are now flown basically by machines.
There is one big “however” here. What will these young Marines be looking at when they are in their eighties? The F/A 18 will probably look like a Curtiss Model D, (circa 1911).
This OF also said he was impressed by the size of the George H. W. Bush which is 1092 feet long, while the Wasp was 741 feet long and the OF said on the George H. W. Bush, he could not make out a forklift at the other end.
The two Air Force OFs commented on how each had completely different experiences in the same branch of the service. One got to travel all over the world while the other one was stuck on Long Island for three-and-a-half years. The Navy OF spent a lot of his time on only two acres of steel with not many changes of scenery.
One of the Air Force OFs told what the weather was like in Alaska while he was there for about 30 days on one of their stops. It was continually dark, the OF said, and at one point was 65 degrees below zero and never got much warmer. He said the trucks were kept running and the exhaust from these trucks would freeze, eventually encasing the truck in a cloud of frozen exhaust fumes. The OF said it was necessary to locate the truck by sound after fighting your way through the cloud of frozen fumes and the dark. This OF did not envy the fellows who were stationed there.
Driving the kids nuts
The OFs touched briefly on self-driving cars and trucks. This used to be fairytale stuff and now it is quickly becoming a reality. The OFs are a little leery of this new technology, as some of the OFs haven’t yet acclimated to computers.
As more and more research is done on this technology, this scribe suggested it may be a blessing to the OFs who have had to give up their license. Now they could jump in the vehicle and program where they want to go and — bingo — the car would take you there safely. Would this cause the OFs’ kids to really be ticked because the OFs could pop in any time? The kids used to drive us nuts, now the OFs could do the same to them.
Our second old saw says be nice to your kids because “they are the ones who will be picking your nursing home.”
What if there is a glitch and the OFs had to actually drive the car. The OF would probably not have a license, have only one eye that worked and maybe that one was a tad blurry, coupled with legs that took at least 30 seconds to get in motion, and a reaction time of the snail that won the snail race. Would any of us want to see the scenario played out on our highways? One OF asked, “Who is responsible when a self-driving car is involved in an accident? The OF behind the wheel wasn’t driving,” and, furthermore, the OF continued, “The car may be borrowed. Is the owner responsible even if he was nowhere around?”
One OF said, “This is just like it happens now, so let the insurance companies fight it out. I can’t quite figure it out now just the way it is with regular cars that require a driver.”
Those OFs who made it to the Hilltown Café in Rensselaerville by driving themselves through the rain and the fog were: George Washburn, Robie Osterman, Harold Guest, Bill Lichliter, John Rossmann, Roger Chapman, Pete Whitbeck, Dave Williams, Art Frament, Otis Lawyer, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Lou Schenck, Ted Feurer, Wayne Gaul, Gerry Irwin, Jack Norray, Ted Willsey, Mace Porter, Chuck Aelesio, Ray Frank, Bob Lassome, Russ Pokorny, Warren Willsey, Mike Willsey, Gerry Chartier, Jess Vadney, Elwood Vanderbilt, Henry Whipple, Bill Rice, Harold Grippen, and me.