04-05-2020, 11:03 AM
A P-3 Orion flew over yesterday, likely out of Moffett Field a couple miles away. I think that's what it was. It was big, multi-prop, military grey. I can't recall the last time I heard or saw an aircraft go over. Maybe I imagined this one. You know how you dream about things that disappear from your everyday experiences? The passing of a loved one, or the end of classes at college... Yeah, maybe it was just a dream, a vivid daydream.
I remember how P-3s were always going over when I first moved out here in '81. Whole fleets of them headed out to sea. Sub hunters, dropping sonabuoys and then taking radar readings from them. Every day they'd head out in the morning, one after another. Every evening they'd come back.
My best friend John worked at Magnavox on the coding of sonabuoys back in the '70s. John is a year younger than me, smart as hell, valedictorian of his high school class. Not only smart, but singular in his thinking, his attitudes and beliefs. He was the one who coaxed me out of Indiana to Pennsyvlvania and was instrumental in setting in motion my growth and eventual migration out west to Oregon and then California. We fell out of contact after that, and it's been decades -- really, a whole lifetime -- since we've communicated.
Just a couple weeks ago his wife Sally said hi to me on facebook, and I'm now friends with her and John. They're retired now, snowbirding it Florida, but otherwise living in New Hampshire or thereabouts. I owe a great deal to the two of them, and it's great to be back in contact, and wouldn't it be wonderful for us to get together sometime, fill in each other on what we've been up to.
The problem is, I've been seeing John's posts, and have yet to give a thumb's up to any of them. Most start with "One wonders..." and then make some political comment and reference an article. A lot of his "one wonders" refer to the virus, which he insists on naming by its place of origin, and the referenced articles are typically negative towards that place, and whether it should be held accountable for what's happened to the world. He's overall very political, and while the referenced articles hit politicians of various parties and stripes, there seems a definite conservative lean. Anyway, this is very upsetting to me, and I've considered unfriending him (kind of silly, after initiating the friend request) just so I don't have to glimpse "w**** virus" in one his posts, which pisses me off to no end and is very depressing.
What the hell, John?
Anyway, over the past 24 hours I've given the matter a lot of thought, and I've finally come to a decision.
It wasn't a P-3 Orion that flew over yesterday.
I remember how P-3s were always going over when I first moved out here in '81. Whole fleets of them headed out to sea. Sub hunters, dropping sonabuoys and then taking radar readings from them. Every day they'd head out in the morning, one after another. Every evening they'd come back.
My best friend John worked at Magnavox on the coding of sonabuoys back in the '70s. John is a year younger than me, smart as hell, valedictorian of his high school class. Not only smart, but singular in his thinking, his attitudes and beliefs. He was the one who coaxed me out of Indiana to Pennsyvlvania and was instrumental in setting in motion my growth and eventual migration out west to Oregon and then California. We fell out of contact after that, and it's been decades -- really, a whole lifetime -- since we've communicated.
Just a couple weeks ago his wife Sally said hi to me on facebook, and I'm now friends with her and John. They're retired now, snowbirding it Florida, but otherwise living in New Hampshire or thereabouts. I owe a great deal to the two of them, and it's great to be back in contact, and wouldn't it be wonderful for us to get together sometime, fill in each other on what we've been up to.
The problem is, I've been seeing John's posts, and have yet to give a thumb's up to any of them. Most start with "One wonders..." and then make some political comment and reference an article. A lot of his "one wonders" refer to the virus, which he insists on naming by its place of origin, and the referenced articles are typically negative towards that place, and whether it should be held accountable for what's happened to the world. He's overall very political, and while the referenced articles hit politicians of various parties and stripes, there seems a definite conservative lean. Anyway, this is very upsetting to me, and I've considered unfriending him (kind of silly, after initiating the friend request) just so I don't have to glimpse "w**** virus" in one his posts, which pisses me off to no end and is very depressing.
What the hell, John?
Anyway, over the past 24 hours I've given the matter a lot of thought, and I've finally come to a decision.
It wasn't a P-3 Orion that flew over yesterday.