a simply Sonoma county fling
The Wings Over Wine Air Show. On my mind just now, is metaphors. They may come and go. May even change.
But ghosts, no way.
I used to be a city girl. A 24/7 expert in my field.
Now I'm a country girl with the same propensity as anyone to be insular. The saving grace
is that no matter how parochial my world becomes, it always harbors a gotcha or two.
I live in West Sonoma County. Rural Northern California. In a small town that supports small town enterprise. One of the many draws of the particular town we live in is its lack of homogeneity. Not that it's a technicolor rainbow yet but there definitely is a class thing going on, so that's a start.
And godloveus it's every inch American. 4H, Boy Scouts, Brownies, American Legion, VFW, soccer camp. Toothless speed freaks, nodding heroin addicts, Masons. A county fair where my best friend Michael could and did win 1st prize in the chili cook-off. The rodeo with a rodeo queen who leads our yearly parade replete with fire trucks, vintage cars and local politicians.
And down the road, the Pacific Coast Air Museum. And the air show.
It was last weekend.
At our local airport, a picturesque rural venue now at the mercy of the local development vultures. Fortunately the Friends of the Airport were out in full force. Not that too many of us actually fly out of there--we leave our cars and take the Airporter to The City--but the CDF (California Department of Forestry) does. And a good thing too since just last month their borade bombers kept our very houses from burning down to the cigarette thrown out the window ground.
The Wings Over Wine Air show. Sounds romantic, aye? It was hot.
Sunny. No air.
I'd never been to an air show. Which is queer enough in the big picture. My husband Paul was Air Force, during that don't talk about it much time. And for the record, he was in
the Air Force while I was standing vigil at the local post office during the Christmas send packages overseas rush.
Good thing we hadn't met then.
I don't know that either of us had given the air show much thought, except to say in passing we're going this weekend, right? I think each of us imagined, if we imagined at all, there'd be a few more planes aside from the ones usually hangared there. And a few more people climbing in&out. On&off.
Well, there were more planes.
And shuttlebus loads of MomsandDads&Thekids smelling of sun screen. Outfitted with cell phones and water bottles.
And crowded booths full of multi-color dogtags with the cutaway, hats and t-shirts; and my other mustang is a P51 or too close for missiles switching to guns license plate holders. And across the way a poignantly unattended outpost of Survivors of Pearl Harbor. All sitting at attention. Staring past any horizon we could see. And beside them, equally spurned, The Waves.
And a few tastefully, if you will, appointed (not in full regalia like the WWII guys but no longer notably invisible either) Viet Nam vets.
Balloons hotdogs & beer and a LOUD PA system. And long lines.
Lines of people. Families. Waiting to climb aboard some of the planes. Like the UH1D Helicopter.
And overhead someone was flying an AT-6. 1940's music in the background.
Paul was tugging on my arm. Saying, over and over, again and again as he watched moms&dadsandthechildren climb in and out of the Dust-Off blood scented bus to work stuffed with broken and dying kids Medevac, What do you think they see? Do you think they have any idea?
I didn't get it at first.
I was watching the aerobatics of the WWII T-6...
...dropping below the clouds, checking the target visually waiting waiting delivering the bombs disappearing above the cloud cover...
...he tugged my arm again.
What!
And then I heard him. What the hell's the matter with you?
I had no idea what he was talking about.
What are you bawling for?
Tears streaming down my face.
Hammered, by the as if it were new revelation that killing one another is perfectly senseless. That sending kids to war is indefensible. Is just plain too damn sad.
These friggin' warplanes are full of ghosts, I shouted.
The mood as if to prove me wrong changed when the F-18 Hornet went up. ACfuckin'DC in the background. You wouldn't want to see that staring you in the face on a bad day, the--you know he had his chin out--Lieutenant Colonel was saying into the microphone.
At home, the next day, Paul was using the SAWZ-ALL to cut the deck railing away from the redwood tree, give it more room so it wouldn't push on the deck that was connected to the house every damn time the wind blew.
I thought, anyone who has ever used one of those, knows that sound. It's a sound with memories. One of those sounds that I hear without even knowing it.
Visceral.
That was it. That was the epiphany. We'd gone to the air show as if it would simply entertain. As if it was a simply Sonoma county fling. As if it could exist only on one dimension.
And now I know what it means to be naive. It's the luxury or maybe the horror
of no visceral accountability.
