Spring Break Wrapping Up

As I mentioned in passing, on Thursday, we went to the Air and Military Museum of the Ozarks (and ABC Books, but we will get to that later).

I had taken my boys to the AMMO (get it?) during the summer after my youngest’s first grade year. I had another gap in contracts at that time, so I took them all over the Springfield area to all sorts of places, including this little military museum up on Kearney. I wrote this up for another one of my defunct blogs defunct blogs, the Missouri Insight, and I later imported those posts here when I defuncted that blog. To sum up, AMMO is a storefront in a strip mall with artifacts from people’s personal collections, and it takes about an hour to go through, including the garage in the back with the helicopter, the jeeps, and the jet trainer.

A volunteer that was showing us around told us a little about each piece; the boys were not as eager to sit in each as they are now teen and pre-teen and not elementary school children (although the Airman First Class in the Air Force JROTC did sit in the jet trainer). The volunteer also pointed out the skeleton of a World War II glider trainer that they had on the ceiling. I asked how big actual trainers were because I’d heard they were used in Operation Market Garden (which I just heard about in the History’s Great Military Blunders audio course.

He got a far away look in his eye and said that his father had participated in Operation Market Garden and was scheduled for D-Day but had acute appendicitis and was held back for a couple of days. This fellow himself was wearing a Navy cap, which probably meant that he was Vietnam or after. Which is odd because he was the age that World War II vets were when I was a kid, and going to this museum made me feel like a kid. And a bit unworthy, actually–knowing a bit about Operation Market Garden and mentioning that I would have preferred helicopters to flying airplanes. Because I chose college instead, I am not in the fraternity of those who served. And when I’m around a bunch of veterans, it just seems unseemly to know anything about anything.

At any rate, yesterday I had a call in the early afternoon, so we didn’t go anywhere in the morning. In the afternoon, I took them for frozen custard.

Okay, now the double-effect narrator is kicking in. This might be the last time we do this. The summer opens up–but the summer closes. With band camp and JROTC activities, the oldest will be very busy. Not to mention if he gets a job, which he likely will, if not this summer, then next. And then he’s gone.

At any rate, a good week, a glorious week. Better than being tied to my computer all day while they play video games and fight.