Crescent moon rising with Venus above

I actually *stopped* in the schoolyard for a few minutes this morning. The moon is in the late waning crescent stage and I could actually SEE it this morning, along with Venus, quite a bit higher in the sky. This is big news. I am not sure I have seen the moon since it was last full. It has been so frickin’ cloudy and nasty and fugly.

I am not going to even try to wax into any kind of eloquence about George Herbert Walker Bush, although (in my humble and largely uninformed opinion) he was a MUCH better president than the Orange Baboon and his sycophantic circle of enabling old fossils. Whatever GHWB was or wasn’t, he was a contemporary of my dad back in WWII. My dad certainly didn’t meet Bush in the war. Dad was a pilot/flight instructor/flight engineer in the Army Air Corps and Bush was a pilot in the Navy. And my dad was five years older than Bush.

Dad never saw action in that war. He remained a flight instructor for the duration. As I have no doubt said many times before, he was about to be [finally] sent to the South Pacific when “we” dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I have to say I am glad he was not sent over there. If he had died, I would not be here. My parents married during the war but I wasn’t born until almost a decade after it was over so, although I have an idea about what my aunts/uncles and grandparents went through, I didn’t experience it first hand. Not at all. I grew up skipping up and down the south side Sault Ste. Siberia streets and Red Queening over to Lincoln School every morning without thinking about war. Well, except for Bay of Pigs but that’d be a whole ‘nother post.

So, here is a caricature of my dad when he was the flight engineer on a B29 bomber, drawn by someone else on the crew. In life he was much more handsome but I LOVE this caricature. I don’t know who drew it. I hope whoever drew it was was able to incorporate his artistic talent into whatever his career ended up being.

Godspeed to George HW Bush.

3 Responses to “Crescent moon rising with Venus above”

  1. Pooh Says:

    I love the caricature of your dad! I guess both our dads, (and subsequently us), were lucky the war ended when it did. My dad turned 18 the day after Hiroshima, and your dad didn’t get shipped to the South Pacific.

  2. Margaret Says:

    I’ve seen pics of your dad, and yes, way more handsome. Caricatures always exaggerate our least attractive traits, so I’m terrified to get one. (my nose would probably look like a banana!) I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’ve gained a lot of respect for the Bushes as people (not necessarily presidents). They make our current guy look like the self-centered idiot he is.

  3. isa Says:

    That needs a frame and a place of honor!