My favorite drinks

 I started drinking coffee when I was sitting nuclear alert. We were out there for 7 straight days, ready to jump in the B-52 at the sound of a klaxon horn. So… lots of sitting around, solving the world’s problems. We did lots of other things: sometimes you had to go to training sessions at the squadron. Some guys had masters classes to attend or study for, others worked on their professional military education (PME). Alert was a great place to study because the distractions and requirements on your time was so limited. There was a kitchen staff in the facility, and while they worked on our three meals a day (07:30, 11:30 & 4:30), there was always a couple of pots of coffee on the brewer.

My Mom was a tea drinker, so we’d have tea at home a lot. All kinds, but she really enjoyed english-style, strong and dark, with spices, like Constant Comment and Earl Gray. She always took it the way they did in England: with milk and sugar.

Like almost every kid in 1960s America, we grew up on Kool-aid. There was always a pitcher of it in the fridge. To make it fancy, Mom would add a can of Coke to it to ‘fizz it up.’ Delicious!

Coke and Pepsi were staples in the 70s. They were everywhere. McDonalds, school cafeterias, home, 7-11, the movies, etc. Then diet versions came out. Tab was the first one. Sold like crazy, but it tasted terrible. I migrated to Diet Pepsi, because it didnt taste as sweet/sugary as Coke or Diet Coke. Was never a fan of Pepsi. Never got into Mt. Dew, Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, or Sprite.

When I started drinking alcohol (of legal age) I was at the Academy. On Friday or Saturday nights, Bob Devaney and I would drive down to Black Angus and enjoy a nice dinner and Amareto Sours. We thought we were very sophisticated!

Attending Undergraduate Navigator Training, we’d all go to the Officer’s Club on Friday nights and sit around telling Nav stories about time control, Polaris, moon shots, or being blinded by the sun because we forgot about putting in the sextant filters. I drank Michelob beer and tipped the bar lady liberally, so that by the time I graduated she had the top off the bottle by the time I reached the bar. That was fun.

I don’t remember drinking much more than beer or rum & coke for years after college. Captain Morgan’s spiced rum with coke was always a solid go-to.

When Laura and I were first dating, we lived in South Dakota, so the wine selection at the  Class VI was pretty slim. We liked whites, like Blue Nun, and blushes. When I got into C-130s the travel and experimentation increased. I got sophisticated and tried different wines, and different mixed drinks. I graduated to red wines from California. Numerous visits to see my parents and sister really allowed us to do some wine tastings, so I’ve found some really good red wines, especially from the foothills east of Lodi. Michael David has become one of our favorites. I don’t think we’ve found anything of theirs we don’t like, and Laura actually signed us up for their wine club.

When I first met Laura, when she did drink, she ordered scotch. That was a shocker, because to me it tasted like asphalt (I think  she did it mostly to make it last longer). As the years have gone by, I’ve tried more than house pours and my palate has evolved to enjoying both  bourbon and scotch. My favorite Bourbons are very smooth, like Jefferson’s Ocean and Angel’s Envy. Stew Griest took a scotch class at Pitt, and introduced me to single malts from the islands, and I really enjoy those too.

But those rum & cokes from college parties…  They never leave you.

My favorite books

I typically have favorite authors vs. favorite books. However, there are some great books I’ve read that really stick with me.

Pretty much anything by Agatha Christie. She got me hooked on reading.

Once an Eagle, by Anton Myrer

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey & Maturin Series, (Master & Commander)

Outlander and follow-ons, Diana Gabladon

Hunt for Red October, and all the others by Tom Clancy

Six Days of the Condor, by James Grady

Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose

The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhoades

Band of Brothers, Stephen Ambrose

Fate is the Hunter, by Earnest K. Gann

An Army at Dawn, by Rick Atkinson

The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara

A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson

The Prince of Tides, Beach Music, South of Broad, The Great Santini, by Pat Conroy

Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson

The Chief Inspector Armand Gamaché series, by Louise Penny

Anything by Issac Asimov: Start with the Robot series (37 short stories and six books. Google which order to read them) and finish with the Foundation series.

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. (I first read it when I was about 11 or 12. I thought it was amazing.) I wrote my final English paper on it in college. 37 years in the Air Force - the guy was spot on!

Rubbing elbows with the rich and famous

 My brushes with celebrity have been few and far between. Some people thrive on that stuff, but I feel a bit more circumspect about it. People are people. Celebrities just get noticed for doing something other people do all the time.

Having said that, my most significant brush with famous people happened on a Squadron trip our Junior year at the Academy. We were on our way to Myrtle Beach AFB, SC, and flew from Colorado Springs to Andrews AFB, MD, and had a follow-on flight to Myrtle Beach.

While waiting at the terminal, this big British airliner rolls up, parks outside the windows, and all kinds of activity kicked off. One of those mobile stairs rolls up, then a red carpet, then guys start setting up rope lines. Someone finally comes in and tells us Prince Charles just arrived and he’s willing to walk the rope line if we want to go out and see him. So of course we do.

I was playing rugby at the time, and had just gotten kicked in the face while reaching down to pick up a loose ball. Beautiful black eye still since it had happened in the middle of the previous week during practice.

I think there were maybe 50 of us total, so the rope line was one-deep. As Prince Charles approached, he spotted my black eye and struck up a quick conversation about how I got it, what kind of sport. Rugby? really? British Rugby? (is there any other kind? I didn’t know about Australian Rules football at the time). We actually shook hands and then he was off down the rest of the line. Boom!

In the desert in 2004, my crew picked up Rob Schneider and Wayne Newton at the end of a long day visiting the troops in Baghdad. Wayne looked beat to hell, but Rob (“Deuce Bigalow, Male Prostitute”) sat up on the flight deck with us and cracked jokes for the entire hour and a half from Baghdad to Kuwait, where they were spending the night. He was hysterical! Very fun interlude.

Another notable meet was riding a ski lift at Lake Tahoe with comedian Buddy Hackett. Looks goofy, but he was quite charming, and it was an enjoyable 20 minute conversation. (Btw, the guy was a very good skier.)

Finally, was able to play 9 holes with Chi-Chi Rodrigues, on one of our Coronet Oak deployments to Puerto Rico. That was a thrill because he was one of my dad’s favorite pro golfers, and I remember watching him in the Tour. He was very nice and very entertaining.