FromtheEditor
It says a lot about an event when you don’t regret going after waiting for an hour to get into and out of the parking lot.
Dad and I were still able to say that about the Texas Air Show at the Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene though.
The show was in April but the trip was part of my birthday gift to Dad when he turned 80 in February. (Yeah, Dad. I put your age in print. Too late now!)
I often have trouble finding the right gift for my parents, realizing in recent years that gifts of time and planning mean more than a physical gift. The one physical item that Dad seems to cherish is a baseball cap with the USS Ranger, on which he served.
This led me, along with some help from Wyndi, to plan trips to the Fort Worth Aviation Museum and the air show since he worked on airplanes aboard the carrier.
The Fort Worth Trip was fun, listening to Dad impart knowledge on the aircraft on display and share stories from his time in the service. I got more of this when we went to Dyess while taking in aerial and parachute routines overhead.
There were many ways in which the event was inconvenient and I’m glad Wyndi and my Mom decided to spend time with each other at home instead.
When we arrived at the feeder road for Dyess, we slowly crept for what felt like 10 miles to get to the base amidst the thousands of people also in attendance. The only clue we were getting close was fencing and a small prop plane which we saw spinning in the air vertically before shooting down pulling up in some fancy flying. (Your heart stops briefly when watching drops like this until the plane pulls up and you know it was planned.)
When we got to the parking lot, air force personnel started waving us through like traffic cops on fast forward. It felt like we got from the gate to a make-shift parking space in about .375 seconds. As we got out from the car, I realized there was no way for me to remember where we were parked among the hundreds of cars parked inches away from each other.
We hiked to the gate with our portable chairs on our back and shuffled around, checking out the craft parked on the runways alongside large crowds of guests and personnel delighted to see family and friends there for the event.
It was fun checking out displays, seeing the routines (even the loud jets that zipped past up at super speed) and watching the parachute teams leave smoke trails as they spiraled around overhead while we waited for burgers.
By the time we were ready to leave, we had sat for about 40 minutes and walked for 200 hours (approximately). Then we entered the parking lot full of everyone hitting ‘panic’ on their keychains trying to locate their cars.
We found ours after another half hour of walking around and when we were able to move 25 minutes later, we were headed home.
There are many ways to get frustrated at a trip like this but the experiences, good and bad, are still with me more than a month later, and I’ll treasure them for years to come.
As we get older, it’s awkward and fun to realize our parents are not just caregivers, they were people with their own passions before we were born and they still keep hobbies, interests and beliefs after we’re born, they just get side-tracked with the whole raising a person thing.
Take every opportunity to find out what they are. Happy Father’s Day to my dad and all the others who put things aside for the people they raise.
Paul Gaudette is the Managing Editor for The Dublin Citizen and can be reached via email at publisher@dublincitizen. com.