My Dad.

Steve, that's good that you were able to get those pictures of your dad. Those were big days and carried a great deal of angst and trauma for the people of the UK. I was around then and in a little part of it and it looks like your dad was a big part of it. What did he fly and what did he do if I might ask ? Anyway, hang on to those pictures.
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Steve,
Thank you, for sharing this joyous event.
I was at the wedding of an **"adopted" niece yesterday.

And a short while ago, I rejoined with my daughter, whom
by no cause of our own, I hadn't seen for 30 years.
So I can appreciate the joy, of your photos.

** I'm a close Friend of the family, & am referred to by a loving nickname.

Charlie

 

These are couple of my dad from over a half century ago.
The first one is in Sarasota, Florida standing next to what I think is a Stearman
The second one is going in to the service and the third is after he found out what it was really like.
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My parents split up, when I was two, and my Mother, raised us. (younger sister).
It was obviously a messy transaction, as she never kept any photos.
I (along with many others), had no idea what a "Dad" was, other than in concept.
Consider yourselves lucky to have known one.

Charlie

 

Charlie,
I'm sorry to hear that. My parents split when I was 7 or so.

I have to add that my dad and I were not always close and for decades didn't have much of a relationship at all. I am fortunate that we have been able to restablish a friendship in the last 15 years.

I'll share mine with you if I can wake the old coot up,
SWITCHES! SWITCHES! WAKE UP!!
I see him sitting there asleep sometimes twitching his feet and hands, dreaming he's flying a Spitfire or Mustang or something....sort like an old labrador I used to have.............................

We've been able to share some good times since, like his first ride in my 308,
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Ok.... yer making me go and break camera's....
Stand back from the computer screen..... Just in case....!

Me, sometime before I got divorced.
Yeah, it was a long long ago....in a place far, far away.........

We went dinghy-ing in a place called Sheepshead Bay NY.
Ex-Wife took the pic..

(I'm screamin : "Sit Down!! Before you fall in!)

Anyway, I have had a Stepfather, for the past 40 years,
but we didn't see too much of each other, due to the distances.
He too is a nice old coot... but he'd rather work alone, on a X-word puzzle.
than go out, or have company....

So much for Dysfunctional families.....
Mebbe that's why I chose to remain single all these years.....





.
Charlie
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Here is something slightly newer....
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Great SHOT!

 

Steve,
I'm not big on vintage British bikes but the valve gear on the motorcycle looks like BSA but the tank badge looks wrong, doesn't look like Triumph either.
Ideas?

My Dad rode a Harley 45 back in the day.

 

I don't know where Spasso got all those pictures but they are all fakes. I couldn't have looked dumb. Well, maybe. The photo of the glum eighteen year old was taken as I was leaving to go back to Texas in 1944. The Stearman shot was in happier days after a flight. Wish I could do it again.
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Thanks Spasso,
But.... although it's my face.....

The picture, was purchased on the Intrepid Air-Sea-Space Museum.
A masked super-imposition on the pilot background. I sat for a photo, and they put the combo together...
Had a choice of that one, or an astronaut...in space... No contest! heh heh!

Got that pic, the same day I first rode in a 360 degree, full motion
(U-drive-it), flight simulator:
http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/pages/flightsimulator

The smaller one, a side by side, "The G-Force", is the better of the two.
Cockpit is a wide screen, and you control the action. climb, dive, spin, roll, fire weapons, whatever.
It is fast though and just tough enough, that they give you a training session on a PC before you climb in. [approx. $8.00 /8 min ride]

I went home wanting one, for the play room.....
Then thinking, "I can build something like that......." Hmmmmmmmm.........

So I went to the airport, and started taking REAL lessons, instead...


The bigger one, (bottom pic on their site,) is like a bus ride to the moon...
you go up, you tilt a little, you come down , it shakes....while you watch the matching view out the "front window"
... game over. Good for the smaller kids, and old ladies....

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Rode a BMW 350cc, solid drive shaft model for a time, back in the day....
Kinda looked very much like that. Could well be something else too...

Then again my "day" was a few years after that pic, was taken