Adventure Day Two

February 1

I got an early start to eventually get to Fort Walton Beach FL.  Jennifer was strangely quiet today.  At a stop I checked her out and found that she could not find a voice mode.  Maybe the satellite signal comes through differently in Alabama, I don’t know.  Nonetheless, Jen offered only visual advice.  Driving through the wilds of southern Alabama, I think I understand what Dwight Eisenhower had in mind for the interstate highway system.  I know there are so many major differences between Ohio and Alabama, so don’t feel it necessary to point them out.  However, on I-65 south from Birmingham, I did not drive through a single city or town until I got to Mobile.  I know it was dark for the first two and a half hours of the trip that morning, but looking at a map now, it seems I-65 misses all the towns by at least a couple miles.  Some of the exits are nearly 20 miles apart.  All this means smooth sailing.  Few, if any billboards.  Except for the two dump truck drivers pretending to be Kyle Petty and Darryl Waltrip, truckers in Alabama stay to the right, are courteous and drive professionally.  Truckers in Ohio would benefit us all if they would take notes.

Heavy traffic on a Tuesday morning on I-65 in southern Alabama.

Finally in Mobile I turned west, yes west, onto Interstate 10.  In just a few minutes I found myself for the first time in Mississippi.  At the Mississippi visitor’s center just over the line, a kind Texas lady took my picture in front of a Mississippi sign, and I returned the favor for her, her husband and son.

I continued west to Pascagoula, where my old buddy USS Canopus AS-34 had spring to life at the Ingalls-Litton Shipyards.  Pascagoula on quick glance isn’t much of a town.  Biloxi beckoned, as did Louisiana, which I could have visited in less than an hour, but I headed east back to Mobile.

Just east of Pascagoula, MS.

I-10 passed through the downtown area, enters a tunnel, and reemerges onto a bridge across the bay.  I couldn’t help but notice a Navy battleship moored along the edge of a river that feeds the bay.  Hmmm…Finally I made my way into Florida and past Pensacola, which is the home of U.S. Navy aviation.  I had taken the long way to Fort Myers, via P-cola, (look at a map: this isn’t the most direct route by any means,) specifically to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum.  But first, to Fort Walton Beach.

Downtown Mobile AL skyline.

Tunnel under one of the many rivers that feed into Mobile Bay.

Great googlie mooglies!  A battleship on the horizon!

Jennifer stubbornly insisted I continue two-tenths of a mile to my destination on the right as I turned left into the Day’s Inn lot.  Sometimes Jen gets that way.  I found the local Office Depot and bought this keyboard at which I now hack away.  The keys on my laptop are too small for my large hands.

I had arranged a dinner engagement with an old friend from my Indianapolis days.  Patti-Ann Cohoon Tanis and I had met at Fort Benjamin Harrison in 1977.  She was in the Air Force, and we both trained at that bucolic Army post.  She and I corresponded over the next three years until around the time she married and I left the Navy.  She bounced around from Dover DE to Kadena Japan during her service time.  Now divorced, she lives in Fort Walton Beach and works for an attorney.  Colonel George “Bud” Day, USAF (Ret.), is one of the few people alive to hold his service’s cross and the Medal of Honor.  Col. Day was winding down a long military aviation career.  He was one of the most veteran Air Force pilots and had thousands of hours of flying and combat time in an historical timeline of aircraft, and accepted one final combat assignment to Vietnam.  The enemy shot down his aircraft and held him captive for seven years.  In prison, he met John McCain, and is good friends with the Senator to this day.  You can look all this up at Wikipedia.  Col. Day is now 86 years old and had earned his law degree in 1949 before the military re-mobilized him for duty in Korea.  He has practiced law in northwest Florida since his final Air Force retirement in 1977.  Patti has worked as his legal secretary for the past seven years, and fell back on her military journalism photo skills to snap a picture of me with Col. Day.  I may not agree with all his politics, but it was a honor to meet this kind gentleman and true American hero.

With Col. George "Bud" Day, USAF (Ret.), Medal of Honor, AF Cross.
 Behind us is an aerial photo of Bud Day Field Airport in Sioux City SD, Col. Day's hometown.

Patti introduced me to Col. Day and his lovely wife Doris.  Yes, she is Doris Day, get it out of you system now.  Patti took me to dinner at McGuires’, an Irish pub in nearby Destin.  The folks there decorate their ceilings and many wall surfaces with autographed dollar bills.  The joint must have hundreds of thousands of bills stapled to the ceiling on edge, so much of the notes hang down.  Interesting.  Patti and I somehow never talked much about the Indianapolis days, just about ourselves.

With Patti-Ann Cohoon-Tanis.