Vulture Culture and Man-‘splainin’ out the wazoo (and some blasted woman-‘splainin’ too)

Well, first thing was the farmers market. In rain and cold and wind and I felt sorry for the guy I bought brand new garlic and the last fingerling potatoes of last year from. He really needed some kind of wind break. What do you buy at the farmers market on a bone-chillingly cold day in April in the Great Lake State. Besides what I already mentioned, lettuce, baby kale, pea shoots, carrots, radishes, spinach plus the usual coffee from Roos Roast and a trip through Monahan’s and Sparrow for fish and meat. As much to get warm as anything, we took a River Ride before going home.

So, lunch at the Griz was loverly today. I kept one ear open to @tmotu and Chris (he probably doesn’t tweet but who knows) man-‘splainin’ the state of the country/world to each other. I didn’t get involved. I did the xword and obsessively checked facebook. I did tweet a couple things. They were having fun and I didn’t try to break in to their convo too often.

A few days ago a Fin cousin sent a picture of our grandmother’s mother. I am not going to post that pic here because I don’t know where she got it and I don’t [usually] post pics unless I have permission to post them. I thought something like, that’s cool, but I was busy busy busy at work and it wasn’t until this afternoon that I looked at the photo again and saw my dad looking back at me. So that’s my dad, when he was a flight instructor in the WWII Army Air Corps. I always think of my dad as having a “traditional” Fin appearance (whatever that means). I never considered that he might also look like his *mother’s* family…

Segue to today when another Fin cousin asked what airplanes my dad flew back in WWII. I couldn’t remember, at least not exactly. We have records around here somewhere. My dad was stationed in various places in the American southwest throughout the war, training other people how to fly (and get sent to the South Pacific). For whatever reason, dad was not sent into battle. Until… Toward the end of the war, he was given orders to report to the South Pacific. As luck (for my dad (and me)) would have it, “we” dropped the bomb before he got flown out and he never left American soil.

Toward the end of my dad’s life, one of the beach urchins interviewed him on the phone about his war experiences. It was a high school project, you know the kind, interview an older person about their life. This interview was pretty hilarious. My dad got rolling about his army air corps career, talking about the planes he had “worked” on. The B29 bomber was one of them. “Biggest bomber in the world.” And he talked about enlisting. Dad said something like, “If you wanted a good job, you volunteered.” He wanted to fly and so he did. Throughout the phone interview, The Commander was rambling along in the background making various editorial comments. She married dad when she was 22 and lived out in the southwest with him during WWII.

My dad didn’t say (I don’t think) that my grandfather was on the draft board in Chippewa County and felt such huge guilt (I’ve been told) about sending other people’s kids to war while his sons were safely in college and medical school that he made them enlist. They both rose to the occasion.

Woman ‘splainin’? We are cooking beef stew tonight and I was questioned something about whether it was supposed to cook sloooowly or not. Yes, yes, yes. Otherwise the loverly stew meat we got from the Sparrow Market will be tough as all getout!

2 Responses to “Vulture Culture and Man-‘splainin’ out the wazoo (and some blasted woman-‘splainin’ too)”

  1. Paulette Attie Says:

    What a great photo of Jack. Would you say he was about 22 or so?

  2. Margaret Says:

    Interesting story about granddad. He certainly had some scruples! I love old photos so much. I need to go through my mom’s collection a bit more.