34 Years....

My dad's been gone 34 years come December 12. I was 24. I was still such a child and didn't know I wouldn't have him for a long time...and didn't know the questions I should have been asking.  So when I come across a picture like this...I get very sad.

Photo from http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/47.htm

This was taken 1 July, 1952, I was 2 months old and my dad was a Skyraider pilot on board that carrier--the USS Philippine Sea (CV-47, Essex Class)--on the left. The USS Barton, in the foreground is a destroyer, and the USS Iowa on the right is a battleship.

I'd kill to be able to ask him about this day...what all they did...

I often wonder what he would have thought about things today...cell phones, and PCs, and the amazing technology, the politicians, globalism, NAFTA, the fall of the American education system...and then I idly wonder if mediums are for real...

But I know he's not there, waiting for any earthbound mortal. One of the alternate dimensions has a mathematical genius who can fly better by the seat of his pants than all your fancy-schmancy jet jockeys ever could.  He had his moments...when I could get so angry at him it's a wonder my head didn't implode, but he was Daddy.  And I have to stop writing now, because I'm going to cry very soon.

LT Bradford ca. 1952 (that's not the kind of plane he flew in the background). The oil on his flightsuit is from the AD Skyraider. The engine had to heat up to seal everything, until then, it spewed oil over half the ocean.

Paddling the Klepper in the living room. Ca. 1974, Cleveland.

VA-115 ca. 1952 and an AD Skyraider.