A Duke Nose Beetle that is, at least that’s what I think it was. I wish I had gotten a photooo but every time it climbed up into my chair, I got freaked out just enough to swish it away.

So, my uncle Duke (my aunt Radical Betty’s husband) was about as fearless as they get. WWII pilot for one. Not sure what all he did in that war but I believe he was involved in the Berlin airlift. He became career Air Force and when Viet Nam rolled around he spent a year over there, flying helicopters in and out of Da Nang, if I have it right. Don’t quote me on any of this! I am not a war historian. I remember hearing about Da Nang ftom the TV but didn’t know my uncle was involved. Probably nobody in the fam knew. I don’t remember WWII at all. I wasn’t born until *years* later.

Duke and Betty met a few years after WWII in a bar somewhere. California maybe? I dunno. “Can we buy you ladies a drink?”. Radical would always slur the words while telling the story.

They married and he fit in well with the FinFam, especially my old coot, who was also a WWII pilot. I can remember them talking about left-wing “something or other” after a plane taking off from O’Hare took a tragic dive. Ugh. After Duke’s service ended, they moved to the moominbeach and built a beautiful ski chalet. My cousins and I were young adults by then and we all had too many good times to tell about in this blahg entry.

Anyway, Duke was not a man who got discomfited easily. But one day a bunch of us were sitting on the beach with Muksaslooie probably slinking around hunting grass snakes or whatever. Suddenly the never discomfited man was totally freaking out! Why? There was a big black beetle climbing into his NOSE! (Dukie was a handsome man but he had quite a large schnozz.) Sand was flying everywhere as he clawed at his nose to get the beetle out of it.

What inspired this post was fighter jets from the Canadian airport flying around our bay this afternoon. I was in a meeting so couldn’t run down to the beach to watch. Like my dad and Duke would have done.

I don’t have a pic of Duke at hand, so that’s Muksaslooie in the pic. Another fearless soul and great friend of Duke, his own personal cat doorman.

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