Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to one and all from all of us at HomePlace.

Merry Christmas To All!

Tomorrow evening Helene and I will travel to the home of our Son, Mathew, for Christmas Eve Dinner and the gift exchange. Also in attendance will be friends and in-laws from out of state.

We sent the Turkey home with Matt a few days ago to avoid it getting chilled in transport. I will make the Cherry Cream Pudding in the morning. I'm not really sure what else will be there, but Matt knows how to feed a crowd and I think they have already started cooking. Ask me how hard wife and I fought to have this at our house.

Part of the entertainment will be the movie "How to Train Your Dragon". I have made a point of watching it here first. I love our grandchildren, but they are not capable of watching a movie in a manner that will allow anyone else to keep track of what is on the screen.

After that Helene and I will return home for our own gift exchange, attended by Bear Dog and the Cats. Everyone has their special Christmas Movie, ours is Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.

The evening will finish up with Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas Live by candle light. Bear will be in my lap (still thinks he's a puppy) while Helene will be buried under Cats. Both will expect their fair share of what snacks we might have intended for our selves.

Santa still drops little things for us to find in the morning. Do I believe it's Santa? Yes I do.

In the words of Helene's father, "If you don't believe, you don't find any presents!"

So I will close by wishing a Merry Christmas, both to family and friends we have known for years and to the ones who visit us here.

New York Remembers the Victims of the 1960 Airline Crash

Last week New York remembered a tragedy of its past. A United DC-8, Flight 826, collided with a TWA Super Constellation, Flight 260, over Staten Island. One hundred and twenty eight souls on the two planes perished that day. Ten buildings in the Park Slope neighborhood were destroyed by the falling DC-8 and six more souls were claimed on the ground.

A young boy survived the crash, but that was almost a cruel joke. He died the next day of injuries. I pray his passing was easy.

All crash victims were recovered and remains returned to their loved ones for burial at their homes. But we must remember that the science of identfying crash victims in 1960 wasn't what it was today.

One man, killed on the ground, was identified by the unique way he tied his boots. That's all that could be used.

When all was said and done there were three coffins of remains that could not be identified. United Airlines bought a plot at

Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn and the unknown were laid to rest there.

No one ever forgets a tragedy like this, but they drift to the back of our minds as life goes on. This was the case until September of this year when a Green-Wood employee discovered the grave of the unknowns.

This grave wasn't marked, not unusual with unknown's. There had been talk of a memorial to the victims of the crash, but it never got beyond that. With the 'take charge' approach we have come to expect from New Yorkers, the folks at Green-Wood decided it was time.

So on December 16 of this year, fifty years later to the day, an eight foot granite Memorial was erected. Green-Wood had informed all the families they could locate. They didn't really expect a large number to come, but some did.

They said it opened old wounds, but it also gave closure. I am one of the people grateful for this act of kindness, even if my connection to it is once removed. I was seven at the time of the crash but have heard about it all my life.

In a small Texas town lives and older relative who has been very important to me. I prefer not to mention names, but this man sat next to me at my father's funeral. He taught me to ride a horse, and was the first to take me hunting. He sat me on the straight and narrow more than once because my father couldn't. In 1960 he was he was a young man in love, and engaged to one of the stewardesses who died in this crash. He has never forgotten her.

Every year on or near Christmas he has a special mass done for her, starting the year of the crash. At least two Texans want to add their thanks to the folks at Green-Wood. Had my relation known about this beforehand it wouldn't have surprised me a bit if he had attended. For him as well, it has provided some closure.

There's no place like Home

My brother-in-law lives in Wisconsin. He some times visits us during the summer, and suffers greatly in the heat. I have advised him to come during the winter, but he insist winter in Wisconsin is the best time of the year.

I know winter. I was born in Dumas, up in the Texas panhandle. There are two windmills and a barbed wire fence between us and the North Pole. Hell, for me, would be standing in a long line in a blizzard. When friends told me it didn't snow in Houston I went home and started packing.

We are now one hundred and eighty plus miles north of Houston and I am horrified to say we have snow that stays on the ground over night here. It has happened twice in ten years, but it's worth it to live in the country.

I have been suffering (loudly) with over night lows in the twenties the last couple of weeks. The above photograph is of Don's thermoneter in Wisconsin. He is bragging!

There's really no place like home.

Wo Fat is Back!

As a kid I watched the original Hawaii Five O every week. McGarrett and the crew were great, it was their show. But my favorite episode's were the one's with the Chinese Super Spy - Wo Fat!

When I heard they were redoing the series I wasn't happy. Very seldom do the re pops show proper respect to the original series. Mark Troy, a friend of ours in Brazos Writers, was very excited and looking forward to the new Hawaii Five O series. When we talked, my first question for him was "Are they bringing back Wo Fat?"

Wo Fat was brought to life by the character actor, Khigh Dheigh (pictured above). I'm not really sure how much he worked outside of this series, but this character is an entertainment Icon. Sadly, Dheigh passed away in 1991.

Tonight I got my answer in the last minute of the episode. The evil Irish terrorist who had killed MaGarrett's father had a visitor in prison. None other than Mark Dacascos, the new Wo Fat.

In that short piece he was chilling. If he lives up to the introduction things are going to start getting more interesting.

A Wide Open City In Texas

In the days of the Old West a Wide Open City was a city or town with no law. For better or worse those days have returned to Calvert Texas. Over the weekend the entire Calvert Police Force, consisting of the chief and two or three officers depending on the source, quit.

So, Calvert is a town without law? Not quite.

The theory is that the Robinson County Sheriff's department and Constables are going to take up the slack, in all that spair time they have? They are estimating a responce time of 15 minutes due to distance. Too bad betting it Texas is against the law, I would take some of that action. This will be an instresting social experiment to watch from a distance.

Truth be told, problems with the Calvert PD are nothing new. Without going into the sort of details that would come back to haunt me, they have "parted ways" with a number of excellent officers over the years because they were doing the job they were hired to do.

Make of it what you will.

A P-39 comes full circle

This story came in an email from a fellow Warbird fan this morning. It was too good not to pass on. Follow the link below for a story you couldn't make up.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid34757272001?bclid=0&bctid=87804472001

The P-39 had an odd configuration for a World War Two Fighter Plane. For those not familiar, she had tricycle landing gear. The engine was placed behind the pilot with the crankshaft running through the cockpit. There were automobile style doors on each side of the cockpit, with windows that rolled down.

These were one of the aircraft Mrs. Florence Watson used to deliver for the Ferry Command as a WASP. She told me many of the planes came from the factory in Russian markings and with instruments marked in Russian. A mechanic would get up on the wing while the ferry pilots settled in and mark the instruments with a grease pencil to show the safe operating ranges.

From the Bell Factory they would take the planes to an airfield in Montana built near the Canadian Border. For reasons I have never understood the Russians were not allowed to take possession of the planes in the United States. Furthermore, the ferry pilots could not fly the planes into Canada. The planes could not be taxied across the border (which was clearly marked) into Canada. They could not even be towed with a tractor or gas powered tug. Tow bars were attached and the planes were hauled into Canada with horses or oxen. If any of my readers know the reasoning for this I would be grateful if you would clue me in.

Mrs. Watson told me often getting the planes from the Bell Factory to Russia was an ‘all girl operation’. A large number of the Russian ferry pilots who took the planes after they had been towed into Canada were women.

It seems that there was no middle ground when it came to pilots feelings toward the P-39’s. Chuck Yeager speaks fondly of them in his autobiography. My friend, Mrs. Watson, does not have pleasant memories. Love them or hate them, it’s nice to know a few survived.