Goose Bay Deployment -- January 1952

From my Gran'Dad via email. It is worth clicking into the pictures.

From Goose Bay we were to fly a profile mission to release a blivet on a bombing range off the northwest coast of Puerto Rico, then return to Carswell. The deployment to Goose went well and I got some very good photos. Here's our number one navigator, Cliff Bilek, guiding us in:

 

And on final:

 

And what has happened to that C124?

 

Here's a couple of crew photos of Crew R22(?), George Burch A/C

L-R George Burch (A/C), Cliff Bilek (1st nav), Chester Skelton (pilot) and Wray Jolley (2nd nav)

Same group: Jolley, Dick Vaughn (Radar), Burch and Bilek

 

And for us from Fort Worth, the flight line at Goose was quite different:

 

All went well. EXCEPT, our radar was out by the time we reached the Puerto Rico area. Dick Vaughn did an optical offset release, dropping our blivet somewhere near, we hoped, the target. Turning back toward the US we ran into very strong westerlys and could make it no farther toward Carswell than MacDill. In spite of it being in the wee hours, US Customs came out of somewhere to inspect for any Canadian whisky that exceeded our allowance.  

 

Wray Jolley

A Little Perspective

Act now. Speak up.

"The Dr. William Sears-inspired attachment parenting crowd will soon assail her in the blogosphere."

Sure, we will. But I won't be doing it for the reason you think.

Enough with the neuroticism. Very few mothers breastfeed exclusively to six months. Given how low the rate is, how can you argue that there's overwhelming pressure on mothers? It seems like the real beef is that some people exist who don't approve. Who cares if they don't approve? They may be annoying, but why so much angst over them? I think that the greatest benefit from breastfeeding probably is the close contact between mother and baby. For that, no pump required. (Though if you accept that premise, you have to accept that a mother's work schedule matters, and that it might be worthwhile to make sacrifices in that area.)

I write all of that as a committed Sears-type attachment parent who never pumped, did breastfeed exclusively for six months, continued breastfeeding until her son was a week shy of two years, and would have used formula during the day if she'd gone back to work.

Ethan Arrived!

On March 27th. Another. Best. Day. Ever. (The first.)