(RADM Donald “Mac” Showers, USN-Ret. Photo Socotra.)   It is Mac’s 93rd birthday today. I am hoping we get to celebrate in a low-key manner, perhaps tomorrow. The Admiral says that he only commemorates the divisible birthdays these days. 95 might be the next big one, but I think I will observe this one, […]

I am stunned. Now that I am up and about again, the summer has become a chimera- a missing chapter. I am tempted to put on my Sherlock Deerstalker cap and go look for where it went. All the time spent flat on my back was not wasted: I managed to fill it up with […]

(Then-LT Joe Rochefort. A Great American, like Mac). I have to tell you, Mac’s bottle of chardonnay was not a modest vintage. It had woody notes, and was inviting in aroma and crisp in presentation. So was President Reagan when he gave the Distinguished Service Medal to Joe Rochefort. The years fell away as I […]

My pal Mac has been having a course of radiation treatments for reasons I will leave for him to say, and I thought I would drop by to see how he was doing. When I talked to him over the weekend he was tired, and attributed it to the massive blasts of x-rays. I checked […]

Those bastards at Comcast are still letting me down, Gentle Readers, but I found an open for-pay network in the building and I am sort of on and sort of off. It is irritating to have to pay a daily access charge, I have to say, and between trying to generate a story that is […]

(Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, Angel of the Battlefield, and newsmaker in Culpeper County. Photo Mathew Brady).   I read the Culpeper Times this morning at the farm. I drove the silver Panzer down late yesterday to put the vehicle through its paces, and was generally pleased with the performance. It will […]

I retreated from politics into autos yesterday, and got rid of what may be my last ragtop. That is sort of an abrupt introduction, I know, but this has been an issue percolating since the endless series of road trips to The Little Village By the Bay two or three years ago.   Both kinds […]

(The younger Bob expresses his views of the car keys in “Visions of Johanna.” Photo Robert Zimmerman.) I have inflicted enough on you. Re-cycling is something I believe in, but the process of transforming long-ago manuscript into modern digital screeds is harder than I thought. So, for now we will leave the Good Ship Midway […]

On Gonzo Station, Part Ten OK, I lied. This is even stranger than I thought. As it turns out, the original version of the Air Show story was buried in a binder in the archives. This will be the dance-off for this story, which is very much “TBD” as we wait to see if Syria, […]

On Gonzo Station, Part Nine (Marine VMF-P3 RF-4, VF-151 Switchbox F-4 and VF-161 Rock River F-4- the three flavors of Phantoms on Ma Midway, 1980. Navy photo.)   Maybe things will come out all right. It is hard to say. One thing seems to be true: we are going to get to leave and go, […]