Most of my favorite moments are connected with travel. The last time I landed in Mérida, Tucatán, I was in a veritable trance. I remembered places I had been as the taxi took me to the Hotel Piazetta at the Parque de la Mejorada. I had been to Mérida five or more times already, and it was like revisiting an old friend.
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Notable?
I was sick as a dog today.
At the Museum of Flying
Douglas DC Series Plane at the Museum of Flying
This afternoon, Martine and I visited the Museum of Flying adjacent to the Santa Monica Airfield. As you can see from the number of cars in the lot, there weren’t many visitors today. Before they moved to the present building on Airport Avenue, they were in much larger quarters on the other side of the airfield. For whatever reason, it seems as if the museum split into parts, with mostly the exhibits relating to Douglas Aircraft moving to the new quarters.
It led me to thinking about how many aircraft and automobile museums are closing down. Many of the aircraft museums depend on flying veterans from the U.S.’s many wars to serve as volunteers. We’ve visited the Palm Springs Aviation Museum; the Pima Air & Space Museum in South Tucson, AZ; the Estrella Warbird Museum in Paso Robles; and Torrance’s Western Museum of Flight. Big or small, they are all fascinating—but I suspect that most of them will be closing their doors once the knowledgeable volunteers start dying out.
World War One Fokker Dr.I Triplane
With all of these museums, once you get tired of looking at the planes, there are usually interesting videos to watch. I saw two of them this afternoon: one on Howard Hughes’s giant “Spruce Goose” seaplane and the other a history of the commercial airplane manufacturing industry focusing on Donald Douglas and William E. Boeing.
Waco Aviation Biplane
I hope to revisit this little museum again. From one year to the next, there is a large scale turnover in the exhibits and videos.
The King’s Stilts
Indeed I do: It was Dr. Seuss’s The King’s Stilts. My mother had to translate it into Hungarian for me because I was not yet able to speak English fluently. I vividly remember the illustrations.
Scrawny Squirrels
Martine Trying to Feed a Squirrel
Sunday was a typical hot-and-cold day with a heavy marine layer and forecasts of rain in the eastern mountains and deserts. In other words, it was Mexican Monsoon season. Rather than break into a sweat in our apartment, I proposed we spend some hours at Chace Park in the Marina, maybe picking up a picnic lunch at the supermarket on the way.
I grabbed a book (George Mackay Brown’s Rockpools and Daffodils) and headed out with Martine to the Marina. She picked up a ready-made chicken sandwich at Ralph’s and saved bits of the crust to feed to the local squirrels and crows.
The park has a large number of scrawny squirrels who, I think, feed mostly on the leavings of picnickers. It was funny to see her approach the squirrels and try to convince them that they should take advantage of the crust she was offering them. Occasionally they did; but then, they decided to give it a pass. Martine turned away disgusted. But it was not in vain: The crows landed and grabbed the crumbs refused by the squirrels.
There was a pleasant breeze at Chace Park, and I enjoyed taking a walk that took in the statue of the helmsman at the tip of the peninsula in which the park is situated.
Statue of the Helmsman at Chace Park
The sun didn’t come out, but in sunny California that is no tragedy. We got fed, the crows and squirrels got fed, and I read a goodly chunk of George Mackay Brown, which is always a good thing.
Unplugging
Daily writing prompt
How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?
I simply pick up a book. Reading a book makes you an active participant, while staring at a screen turns you ultimately into a bored wraith. Several times a week, I go out for lunch and occasionally take a walk.
Communists
From Left: Brezhnev, Stalin, and Lenin
In Culver City there is an interesting museum dedicated to the period of the Cold War. It’s called the Wende Museum after the German term for “turning point” or “change.” Today Martine and I paid it a visit. We were most interested in seeing the current exhibition entitled “Counter/Surveillance: Control, Privacy, Agency,” which featured equipment and techniques for surveillance of the population of Soviet Russia and its satellites.
More than half my life was passed in fear of nuclear annihilation. We had relatives in the Budapest area and frequently sent them large clothbound bundles of clothing and other necessities addressed in indelible ink. Sometimes, our relatives actually received those packages.
I vividly remember the drills in grade school where we would protect ourselves from the A-Bomb by cowering under our desks in a “duck and cover” drill.
The Surveillance Exhibit at the Wende Museum
It is odd that we almost feel nostalgia for our old enemies. Now we are in the process of becoming everyone’s enemy, and a diverse mix of countries and terror groups are taking aim at us for our misdeeds. Americans are rethinking their foreign vacations to avoid facing an uncertain reception abroad.
When the Soviet Union collapsed around 1990, there was so much jubilation. We had won! Or had we? Now we are in the process of becoming the enemy. Not a pleasant prospect!
Belongings
I would have to say my books. Sadly, I am in the process of slowly finding new homes for books I’ve finished reading.
Books
Yes, loads and loads of books. In fact, thousands.
Spinach, Hamburgers, and Olive Oyl
Okay, I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I love it. There’s a sixty-ish grizzled sailor, his beanpole girlfriend, a dark muscle-bound bear of a human, and occasionally this guy who has a voracious hunger for hamburgers (but no cash). The run of the Max and Dave Fleischer Popeye cartoons includes some 108 films from 1933 to 1942.
My favorites are the following three color two-reelers, which have classical Arabian Nights settings:
- Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936)
- Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves (1937)
- Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1939)
Of course, I also love all the black and white one-reelers. The usual plot comes down to a fight between Popeye and Bluto, usually over the hand of Olive Oyl, which Popeye wins after he opens a can of spinach and thrusts the contents down his throat. As for Olive, she is typically torn over Popeye and Bluto; but she has no trouble accepting the winner of the fight.
Here is one of my favorite black-and-white cartoons, “The Paneless Window Washer” (1937), which features Popeye and Bluto as duelling window-washers, with Olive the usual prize to the winner:
Tarnmoor 
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