Voice of America Museum

I attended Airwaves Kite Fest in 2006 and 2010. 2006 was the second of eight; 2010 was the sixth. It was a cool way to greet springtime and I wish it was still around. It was held at the Voice of America Bethany Station site where a huge array of antennas once broadcast news and more to Europe, Africa, and South America. I believe that parts of the building were open in 2006 and I took some photos inside but the entire month of April 2006 has gone missing from my photo archives. The building held the beginnings of a museum in 2006 and in 2010 it was being renovated to improve the museum operation. Since then, it has gone from being open sporadically to being open every Saturday and Sunday. I’ve driven by it countless times since 2010 but Saturday was the first time I actually did what I told myself I should do on most of those drive-bys. I made it inside where those 2006 beginnings have turned into the impressive VOA museum.

I arrived just as a volunteer was wrapping up his introduction to a sizable group which turned out to be all one family. I accompanied them past a beautifully restored Crosley Hot Shot to watch a short orientation movie.

Then it was a stop at the “Ham Shack” operated by the West Chester Amateur Radio Association. Several members were present (and behind me in the photos) and we were given an overview of the operation. We also got to listen in on a conversation with a fellow in Finland while we were there.

The claimed purpose of the Volksempfänger (people’s receiver) was to make radio reception affordable to the general public but its real purpose was to make the general public accessible to Nazi propaganda. Of course, it could also be used to listen to the BBC and VOA although that was quite illegal. Knowing that Hitler sometimes referred to the VOA broadcasts as “the Cincinnati liars” was and is a source of pride for the locals.

Hitler was completely wrong. For one thing, from its beginning, VOA realized that broadcasting reliable and truthful news would have more impact than broadcasting false propaganda. Secondly, although transmission was from near Cincinnati, the content was not. It came from New York and Washington on telephone lines which were routed to one of six 200-kilowatt transmitters. There were no liars involved and definitely none in Cincinnati. Before it was shut down in 1994, Bethany Relay Station saw several upgrades in transmitters and antennas. People living nearby often reported receiving the station on the plumbing in their bathrooms and the fillings in their teeth.

There were multiple reasons for locating the station here including it being a safe distance from the coasts. But a possibly bigger reason was the existence of Powell Crosley and Crosley Broadcasting. After starting elsewhere at 50 watts, Crosley’s WLW (World’s Largest Wireless) was broadcasting AM from just down the road at 50,000 watts. Between May of 1934 and February of 1939, it had transmitted at an incredible 500,000 watts. Here’s a closeup and description of that pictured metal ball. Across the road from the AM station, a Crosley shortwave station was retransmitting its programming. This became WLWO (Overseas), increased power to 75,000 watts, and, as told here, begat VOA.

Crosley begat a lot of other stuff too. There were cars like the previously pictured Hot Shot. Radios, though, were the money makers. Some products were invented in-house and some were purchased patents. The purchased category included the Icyball and Shelvador. Although refrigerators with door-mounted shelves are commonplace these days, hardly anyone makes a fridge with a good built-in radio anymore. The Reado could deliver and print the news overnight but was done in by the Great Depression.

Crosley was the pioneer and long-time leader but Cincinnati’s TV and radio story goes far beyond that. The museum includes lots of memorabilia from others who spent some time living on the air in Cincinnati.  

Went to Gogh

I drove to Columbus on Wednesday to immerse myself in Vincent Van Gogh. You might be aware that Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience will be opening in Cincinnati in June. If so, I’d expect you to ask, “Why not wait? It’s the same thing isn’t it?” Well, no. No, it’s not.

There are currently five different digital Van Gogh exhibits touring the United States and triggering a flurry of bad puns. The one I saw in Columbus is Immersive Van Gogh. It is also currently in Cleveland. The one in Indianapolis at present is called Van Gogh Alive. Beyond Indianapolis, Beyond Van Gogh: An Immersive Experience is playing in St. Louis. All four of these have appeared or will appear in several cities other than the ones I’ve mentioned. The fifth exhibit, Imagine Van Gogh: The Immersive Exhibition just opened in Boston and will open in Seattle in March. Those two cities are the only stops currently planned for that exhibit. AFAR has a rundown on all five here.

So which is best? Having seen only one, I have no idea. I went to Columbus for a couple of reasons. One is that I didn’t want to wait. Another is that I’d read a very positive report from a friend I haven’t met. It’s here. She immediately followed her Immersive Van Gogh experience by taking in a related display at the Columbus Museum of Art. That’s described here. I decided I should do that too although, because of ticket availability, I visited the two exhibits in the opposite order.

The picture at the top of this article is of the big ART sculpture near the Columbus Museum of Art. The picture at left is at the entrance to the Through Vincent’s Eyes: Van Gogh and His Sources exhibit inside the museum. The title comes from the more than 100 works from artists that Van Gogh admired and was influenced by. These include Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, and many others. For me, however, the real draw of the exhibit was the seventeen pieces by Van Gogh himself.

I am neither an art connoisseur nor an art historian. I don’t doubt that there are several pieces in the exhibit that are more significant, but these three caught my eye for one reason or another. Bridge across the Seine at Asnieres caught my eye at least partially because it was both different from images I’d previously associated with Van Gogh and similar to images I’ve frequently captured myself with a camera. The bright gold of Wheat Field seemed even more different from the admittedly limited set of Van Gogh images that set my expectations. Neither of these paintings contains people and I think I’d really come to expect people in Van Gogh’s work. Undergrowth with Two Figures, which obviously does contain people, caught my eye through its reproduction in a jigsaw puzzle that passing visitors worked on now and then.

From the museum, I headed a few miles north to the Immersive Van Gogh Experience at Lighthouse ArtSpace. The exhibit opened on October 28 and was originally scheduled to close on January 2. It was sufficiently popular, however, to trigger an extension to February 27.

The 60,000 frames of video appear primarily on the walls but sometimes spill onto the floor and other horizontal surfaces. The giant images are far from static. For example, the purple irises slowly pop onto the green grass background until it is nearly covered and they are almost always in motion.

Neither proof of COVID vaccination nor a negative test is required for admission but a mask must be worn at all times. Circles are projected onto the floor to aid in social distancing. I had expected all of these to be “unfurnished” and many were but more than half contained a simple bench. I had anticipated sitting on the floor but was happy to see the benches. For those of us of a certain age, rising from a bench is much much easier than rising from a floor. Cushions, with a Van Gogh sunflower, are included in VIP ticket packages, and I believe they can be rented. I made do with self cushioning.

The space is basically open but it is large and there are a few pillars. They are covered with a mirror-like surface that avoids blank spots while adding some interesting variations of its own. I doubt you would have guessed and may not find it even after being told it’s there, but one of these pictures contains a funhouse-mirror-style selfie.

I suppose these are the sorts of images my mind tended to associate with Van Gogh in the past. I enjoyed seeing them but probably benefited more from being reminded that he produced some bright and pleasant images too.

These photos were taken with an exposure that makes the exhibit area look quite a bit brighter than it ever really appeared in person. Hopefully, they provide an idea of just how big the area was and how it was laid out.

Wow! The immersive exhibit was wild and entertaining. The original music was splendid and added considerably to the experience. At the end of the day, however, I think I liked the Van Gogh and His Sources exhibit more. The sequence that I saw them in could have something to do with that but I don’t think so. At Lighthouse ArtSpace, it was the presentation and the machinery behind it that held my attention. At the museum, my attention was pulled in by Van Gogh’s actual product and, on occasion, the stories behind it. Both exhibits were well worthwhile, and they do complement each other. It even kind of makes sense, perhaps, to end the day’s doubleheader looking at the eyes that I started the day by trying to look through.

Driving Lessons

During the writing of Tracing A T To Tampa, the fact that I had never driven a Model T Ford began to bother me more and more with every passage that referred to some detail about the car that “put America on wheels”. I had seen plenty of Model Ts and had ridden in a few but every comment that I made about the T’s operation came from observation and “book learning”. I wondered about how accurate I was being.

The T that I traced to Tampa is believed to be the touring car in the first photograph which belonged to my great-grandparents. The coupe is a car they owned many years after the Florida trip. It is currently in the possession of an uncle and I considered bugging him for driving lessons but in the end, I went for the Model T Driving Experience at the AACA museum in Hersey, PA. That gave me access to multiple cars in an environment set up for novice drivers. I combined it with a few other items from my to-do list and made a road trip that is documented here. The driving experience is included in day 4 but not much is said about the actual driving. That’s what prompted me to make this blog post.

This picture is one I used in the trip journal. It shows the four cars that students were to drive. I drove the green, yellow, and red cars but the black car, actually a roadster pickup truck, conked out before my turn came. It was replaced by another black roadster pickup, but the top stayed up on the replacement. That’s it in the b&w photo at the top of the article.

The image at left was taken from the “Ford Model T Instruction Book”. Model Ts were often delivered by train or other means directly to a new owner with nothing resembling today’s dealer prep (and accompanying charge). The 45-page book provided all the information necessary to prepare, operate, and maintain what might be the very first powered vehicle the owner had ever seen.

Our cars had all been prepped, of course, and all were equipped with electric starters. Plus, we would have the advantage of a classroom presentation with visual aids. Against the open doorway, the visual aids weren’t a whole lot easier to see in person than they are in the photograph but we all had copies available in a handout. The use of the spark advance and battery/magneto switch in starting the engine was discussed but today the instructors would take care of those details. Students would be dealing with the hand throttle, the steering wheel, and three pedals.

It seemed everyone was familiar with a hand throttle from a tractor, lawnmower, or something similar. And everyone recognized the steering wheel. It is one of just two controls that have maintained the same function from Model T to Tesla although neither can be operated with modern instincts. Most modern cars have a steering ratio of 12:1 or more; the ratio for Ts is 4:1 or 5:1. It is essentially the only thing on a Model T that can be called quick.

This picture of a Model T’s three pedals appeared in the handout. The bulk of student brain activity would be focused on these. ‘C’, ‘R’, and ‘B’ markings identify them as clutch, reverse, and brake. The brake pedal is the other control that technically retains the same function in modern cars as in the T. However, like the steering wheel, how well it performs that function is dramatically different. Today’s brake pedals are mostly power-assisted and hydraulically connected to large disc brakes at all four wheels that will bring a 3,000-pound 60 MPH vehicle to a halt in forty yards or so. A Model T’s brake pedal is mechanically attached to bands that tighten around a shaft in the transmission that will bring a 1,200-pound 10 MPH vehicle to a halt eventually.

Although there is nothing quite like the reverse pedal in modern cars, its function is simple and easy to understand. With the car stopped and no other pedal pressed, pushing it to the floor causes the car to move backward. The idea of “no other pedal pressed” would really apply to all of the driving we would do on this day. The pedals would be pressed one at a time.

Clutch pedals in modern cars are becoming increasingly rare but they do exist and it’s tempting to think that knowing how to operate a modern manual transmission will help in operating a Model T. Not a chance. Almost every instinct developed by driving manual transmissions will only get in the way when driving a Model T. I will expand on this later but today we would be doing all of our driving in low gear which meant that the clutch was engaged with the pedal pressed and disengaged with the pedal released. Yes, driving in low gear did translate to driving at low speed and I don’t doubt that some readers will think that lame. Pshaw. With 4:1 steering in a fairly primitive car with totally unfamiliar controls, 15 MPH was plenty fast.

A Q&A session followed the presentation then we moved outside where instructors reviewed parts of what we had learned using the real Model Ts as visual aids. Next, an instructor climbed into the driver’s seat of each car and a student joined them for a lap around the course as a passenger. The “course” was an unmarked path around a closed-off portion of the museum grounds with an uphill section on grass and a downhill section on asphalt.

The green roadster was the first car I climbed into but I have no pictures of me as either a passenger or driver. Even though I’d read about it and had ridden with others doing it, the strangeness of holding that clutch pedal down to keep moving didn’t completely register until it was my foot doing the holding. I also was a little surprised at how much the throttle was used. It was positioned for easy fingertip access while holding the wheel and adjustments were required for climbing the small hill and at other points too. I also did a lap as a passenger in the yellow speedster. The instructor thought that prudent because of some play in the steering. I managed to hand off my camera for the speedster drive but only have a picture from that first lap. My drives in both of these cars went well in that I didn’t run into or over anything and I didn’t stall either one. That streak would not continue.

Helpful volunteers did snap pictures of me at the wheel of the other two Ts, both of which I managed to stall. In fact, I stalled the cool-looking furniture van twice. At ages of 94 to 108 years, these vehicles are entitled to some idiosyncrasies and they do indeed have them. For the speedster, it was steering. For the red van, it was a dead spot in the throttle. Twice, when I wanted a little more oomph, I moved the throttle a little when it needed to be moved a lot. I have a different excuse for stalling the black pickup. Model Ts have a parking brake of sorts but using it was not part of the day’s normal procedure. There was no need in the level lot. For some reason, the previous driver had seen fit to set it but that did not keep me from reaching the beginning of the hill before the combination of brakes and incline started to bog things down. The instructor figured that out just as the T’s engine chugged to a halt. With that exception, my drive in the little pickup was understandably the best of the day. Operating that strange clutch and using the hand throttle never became 100% natural but, as it is with most things, the more I did it the better I became.

I said I would expand on clutch operation and I’m going to use a detail from an earlier picture to help with that. I’m also going to take the opportunity to describe briefly what happened when I stalled those cars.

Until it is up and running, a Model T’s engine needs to get its electrical power from a battery. A switch on the dash-mounted wooden box controls that. Following a stall, the instructor would flip that switch to battery and maybe make some adjustments to the throttle and spark advance. They would then tell me to press the starter button. In the picture, it’s on the floor. In other cars, it was on the verticle panel below the seat. Once the engine started, the instructor switched things back to magneto operation and away we’d go.

As I’d recently been thinking of my great-grandfather driving a Model T to Florida and back, at some point I began to think about him with his foot pressed to the floor for the whole trip. That really wasn’t required and that lever that the instructor is holding in the picture above is part of the reason. Pulling it all the way back activates small drum brakes on the read wheels. That’s what was going on when I stalled the pickup. Moving it all the way forward enables high gear. With high gear selected, pressing the clutch pedal to the floor still engages low gear, releasing it partway disengages the transmission, while releasing it all the way engages high gear. So, when driving to Florida, push that lever forward, press and hold the clutch pedal until you’re moving at a decent clip, then slowly release it. Adjust speed with your fingers as necessary and let your feet relax.

The museum does not call what they offer a school. It’s a Model T Driving Experience. The certificate I received simply acknowledges that I “completed” the experience with no indication of how good or bad I did or how badly I frightened the instructors. It does not authorize me to do anything whatsoever and that includes bragging about driving four different Model Ts in low gear without stalling two of them. I’m doing that entirely on my own.

Heritage Village Cincinnati

Friday felt a little odd. It had absolutely nothing scheduled but it was surrounded by days that did. Noting strenuous or even particularly time-consuming, but there were meetings and appointments with specific times that had to be attended to. It would seem logical, I think, to want to just sit around the shanty on that uncommitted day, and that’s probably what I would have done if the day hadn’t promised sunshine and 80 degrees. I know it was my awareness that there would soon be a huge gap between 80 degree days that made me want to avoid wasting this one. I went out to breakfast at a place a little farther away than normal and which I hadn’t been to in a long time. Over a goetta and cheese omelet, I pondered ways to put the day to use. Museums weren’t high on my list because I did not want to spend a lot of time indoors, but I eventually used “museum” as an internet search term and got a near-perfect hit. Heritage Village Museum & Education Center is definitely a museum. It says it right there in the name. But it also says it’s a village which means there is some open space. It really did seem to be exactly what I was looking for.

It wasn’t far from the restaurant where I was eating, so I simply headed directly there when I was done. As I approached the building where admission fees are collected, I passed a sign stating that guided tours were scheduled for 10:00, 12:45, and 3:00. It was about 10:30. Inside the building, I joked that I’d timed my arrival quite badly for a guided tour. The attendant agreed and added something about the last one being yesterday. I eventually figured out that guided tours are given May through September, and that she meant the last one for the year. It was October 1. I somehow felt less foolish missing a tour by a day than by half an hour. I paid my admission. received a self-guided tour brochure, and set off to guide myself.

The first building encountered was also the first building moved into the village. Elk Lick House was from a spot in Clermont County that is now covered by East Fork Lake. The Chester Park Train Station and Crossing Tender’s Booth came from Winton Place across Spring Grove Avenue from Chester Park racetrack and amusement park. The McAlpin’s clock is one of the few things in the village I remember in its original location. It stood in front of the store on Fourth Street from 1992 to 1999. It was actually the fifth clock to stand there with the first four falling to “the elements and traffic mishaps”.

The Fetter Store came from what is now known as Owensville in Clermont County. It was built around 1866. Dr. Langdon’s Office was moved here in 1973 from the Linwood section of Cincinnati. Preparations for Halloween and trick-or-treating were in evidence behind the doctor’s office as well as in that tender’s booth back at the train station.

Myers Schoolhouse is the newest addition to the village and is actually still in the process of being restored. It was moved here in 2008. Its official name was Delhi Township District School #3. It was in use as a school from 1891 until 1926 when Delhi Township consolidated all of its schools.

After reaching the schoolhouse and turning around, the first building encountered is the Somerset Church. The Presbyterian church was built around 1829 and, until it was moved to the village in 1991, stood near Fields Ertel and Montgomery roads less than a mile from where I currently live. Next to the church is the Kemper Log House and a reproduction of its stone kitchen. The house that Rev. James Kemper built in 1804 is the oldest structure in the village. It originally stood near where Cincinnati’s Eden Park is today.

The Hayner House is both the beginning and end of the tour. It was built near South Lebanon in the 1850s. In the village, it faces Sharon Creek as it once faced the little Miami River. The entrance to the museum and gift shop, where tour tickets are purchased, is on the other side of the house. A glance down while walking between the creek and the house can provide a reminder as to just which state you are in.

PA Cars

I pieced together a trip from odds and ends and leftovers then slapped on the name PA Cars because it includes a couple of Pennsylvania car museums. I’m going to learn to drive a Model T at one of them. The first day’s journal has just been posted despite it being the end of the trip’s fourth day in real life.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

The Berlin Masterpieces in Cincinnati

This post’s title is a take-off of the title of an exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum the full and accurate title of which is Paintings, Politics and the Monuments Men: The Berlin Masterpieces in America. At the heart of the exhibit is the story of a wildly popular, though somewhat controversial,1948 tour of paintings with its own title: Masterpieces from the Berlin Museums. The tour did not reach Cincinnati although two of the fourteen cities it did reach, Cleveland and Toledo, were in Ohio and there is a major Cincinnati connection.

The picture of General Eisenhour looking over some of the paintings that the Nazis had hidden away is at the entrance to the exhibit. On the other side of the wall it is mounted on, there is a timeline of the Nazis’ rise and fall that ends with the Masterpieces from the Berlin Museums tour. Two items from late 1943 are “Allies invade Italy”, in September, and “Monuments, Fine Art, and Archives section (Monuments Men) of the U.S. Army is established”, in December. The Monuments Men (the subject and title of a 2014 movie) set out to locate and protect artworks at risk of being destroyed by the Nazis.

Thousands of items were located, some in a large salt mine, and brought together at Wiesbaden, Germany. This is where the Cincinnati connection comes in. The director of the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point was Cincinnatian Walter I. Farmer. By itself, his work in documenting pieces of art and preparing them for return to their owners would have been noteworthy but there was something more.

When he became aware of plans to ship a large number of paintings to the U.S. for safekeeping, Farmer organized thirty-two Monuments Men to produce the Wiesbaden Manifesto which protested what Farmer feared was “spoils of war” type treatment of the European treasures. Smithsonian Magazine calls this “the only act of protest by Army officers against their orders during the entirety of the Second World War”. Although it was eventually published, the manifesto was initially suppressed by Farmer’s superiors. The paintings were shipped to the National Gallery in Washington, DC, and placed in storage. As plans formed to return the paintings to Germany, it was decided to put them on display before their departure. An exhibit at the National Gallery was so popular that the U.S. Congress took notice and actually legislated the tour of thirteen additional museums. All 202 paintings were returned to Germany at the conclusion of the tour. 

Photos of “The Berlin 202” are displayed on a wall near the center of the exhibition. Four of the actual paintings, on loan from the State Museums of Berlin, are on display. The exhibit is fleshed out with other paintings in CAM’s possession by some of the artists contained in the 202. Paintings, Politics and the Monuments Men: The Berlin Masterpieces in America runs through October 3, 2021.

Trip Peek #114
Trip #159
Corner to Corner to Corner II

This picture is from my 2020 Corner to Corner to Corner II trip. The corners involved are the southwest and northeast corners of Ohio and the II identifies this as a repeat of an earlier outing. The first Corner to Corner to Corner was in 2001. It was just the third trip documented on this site and was partially a practice run for a much larger trip that would follow in four months. Similarly, this trip, the first of the COVID-19 riddled 2020, could be considered a test run for a larger trip planned for two months in the future. Pretty much by coincidence, the larger trip being prepared for in both instances was a retrace of a trip taken by my great-grandparents in 1920. In what was perceived as a way to limit exposure to COVID, the trip was organized around two nights at a motel near Medina. I reached the motel on the first day by following US-42 north and returned home on the third day by following OH-3/3C Highway south. in between I followed those same roads in and out of Cleveland and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #113
Trip #150
Spontaneous Nash Dash

This picture is from my 2018 Spontaneous Nash Dash. The two concerts around which this trip was centered had been on my radar for a short while but the decision to attend really did occur spontaneously on the morning of the first concert. I left home on Thursday, and that night took in The Cleverlys at the Station Inn. That’s when the featured photo was taken. The other concert that was used to justify the trip was The Long Players on Saturday night. That left plenty of daylight hours to take in the new Patsy Cline Museum, the Gallery of Iconic Guitars, Santa’s Pub, and the Lane Motor Museum with a stop at Bobby’s Idle Hour on Friday night.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Open House at Vent Haven

On Saturday, right after I was welcomed at the Vent Haven Museum open house, I was asked if I’d been there before.  “Yes”, I answered. “Several years ago.” I later checked to see when that earlier visit was and discovered that apparently — in my mind, today — several equals ten.

My only previous visit to the “World’s Only Museum Dedicated to Ventriloquism” occurred way back in 2011. It was during that short period when Oddment pages had not yet been totally replaced by blog posts. There is an Oddment page here. I joined a guided tour on that 2011 visit which made the information I received and shared on that Oddment page noticeably more precise and organized than what I’m posting here. That’s not at all a knock of the open house, and I encourage everyone to partake if they can. They generally do two a year and the second one for 2021 is just a month away on Sunday, June 13.

Today I’ll just share a couple of photos from each of the three open buildings. My first stop was in the building directly behind the house. It was built in the 1960s by museum founder W.S. Berger, and is the first building constructed specifically for the museum. There are hundreds of ventriloquist dummies in the building but I’ve chosen pictures of the string of past presidents and another small grouping. It is the smallest member of that grouping that caught my eye. It’s a replica of “Bull” from the TV show Night Court.

This is the collection’s first home after it was booted from the residence by Mrs. Berger in 1947. It is the garage left empty when Mr. Berger retired and sold his car. The middle picture is of eight dummies donated in the last twelve months. The museum typically gets 10-15 donated each year. There are also a few hundred dummies in this building but none more realistic looking than Penn and Teller.

Construction of the third building was started by Berger but he died before it was completed. It and the garage will be taken down later this year to be replaced by a new building that will offer several enhancements (including restrooms!). Be aware that these are not the only wall-of-bodies or shelf-of-heads photo ops in the museum which now has about a thousand residents.

I actually took this picture soon after I arrived but saved it for a closer. It’s Mike Hemmelgarn who made absolutely everyone feel relaxed and welcome.

That’s All, Brother

Lt. Col. John M. Donalson named his C‑47 “That’s All, Brother” as something of a declaration that the Nazi’s success in Europe was just about over. Then he used it to lead more than 800 aircraft loaded with paratroopers across the English Channel to confront those Nazis on the night of June 5, 1944. When I heard that the plane was coming to the National Museum of the United States Air Force on Tuesday, I thought I might be interested in seeing it. When I woke up a couple of hours ahead of its estimated arrival time, I decided that I was interested in seeing it land.

A one-hour window had been announced for the landing and the plane appeared just about in the middle of that window. It made one pass over the runway without landing. Maybe that was so the pilot could scope things out or maybe it was so people on the ground could take pictures like the one at the top of this article. It then circled the museum and dropped onto the runway without a hiccup. Even with a chainlink fence in front of me, I was able to get a shot of the big airplane slipping safely between a water tower and a tractor-trailer.

The museum’s announcement said that the plane would be available for up-close viewing, inside and out, once it was on the ground and parked. Inside viewing would be limited to two at a time. I figured there would be a long and — with the two viewer limit — slow-moving line to get inside the plane so I anticipated not doing that. I did walk out to the plane, however, to get a closer look and better photos. Next to the plane, T-shirts and other merchandise were being sold from a van. It’s a Mercedes. Maybe no one other than me saw the irony in that, and even I am unsure whether using a German vehicle with D-D stripes to support a U.S. WWII military plane is a major insult or simply cynical.

The line was not as long as I feared and the two-person limit was not in place although there was an effort to maintain social distancing and a mask requirement was being strictly enforced. The C-47 is a military version of the DC-3 so it isn’t completely unfamiliar. Of course, passengers seating in the DC-3s I’ve seen looked considerably more comfortable than this. Information on this plane’s history and future can be found at “That’s All, Brother”.

There was a lull in the boarding right after I exited the plane, and I was able to get a shot of the door. One of the operations “That’s All, Brother” was involved in after D-Day was dropping supplies in relief of the siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. With a touch of awe in his voice, the docent inside the plane pointed out that those supplies were thrown out this very door.

I could say that I took these pictures after checking out “That’s All, Brother”, but the truth is that there was a fair amount of time between the plane’s landing and it being available, and that’s when I went inside the museum. These pictures are, in fact, out of sequence. There are a few hundred aircraft displayed at the museum. Like “That’s All, Brother”, these are three with a WWII connection. The all-volunteer Flying Tigers, organized to fight in China before the U.S. entered the war used Curtiss P-40s. The C-47 in the middle picture was the last in routine USAF use. “Bockscar” is the name of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. A mockup of that bomb, named “Fat Man”, is displayed beside it.

I’ve visited the museum several times and actually spent less time inside it today than on almost any other visit. But, for some unknown reason, I was really struck today by the amount of money, energy, and intelligence that has been devoted to creating machines whose sole purpose is the destruction of other machines — and people.


A friend called on Friday evening to tell me about a related event. “That’s All, Brother” was helping with a celebration honoring a local veteran. The celebration started Friday and would continue on Saturday. The fellow being honored was Jim “Pee Wee” Martin who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day and would be turning 100 on April 29. I decided I was interested in seeing that, too.

That’s All, Brother” was joined by “Placid Lassie“, another C-47, and “D-Day Doll“, a C-53. All had participated in the D-Day invasion. As the three planes flew over Skydive Greene County, a couple dozen passengers exited. There were other jumpers, including the Army’s Golden Knights, and music, ceremonies, and fireworks were planned. Promised rain made an appearance about the time the Golden Knights finished their jump which prompted Terry, the friend who called Friday, and me to slip away while we were still mostly dry. 


These pictures are from Tuesday and are very out of sequence. When time permits, breakfast at the somewhat nearby (4 miles) Hasty Tasty is a nice prelude to an Air Force Museum visit. Hasty Tasty was a local chain that peaked at thirteen stores. This is the last and may also have been the first.