Road trip

West up through the Frenchman River Valley to the shore of Enders Reservoir. A host of camping trailers, tents people enjoying the beach, water and sunshine. On to Imperial. Well-kept homes and yards then north through Grant and Ogallala. Then parallel to Lake McConaughy and on westward up the North Platte River Valley. Knee high corn, wheat fields green with full heads of grain to be. North then through parts of ubiquitous Sandhills green grass, meadow ponds proudly hosting nesting ducks, mama cows with their young calves pastoral scenes that we here love and appreciate. Yes, the green grass will soon turn to dormant summer brown so spring is to be savored while we can. Then past Alliance and over the crest of Pine Ridge down the hill to Chadron.

The destination was the Chadron Airport chosen this year to host the annual State of Nebraska Fly-In. A three-day gathering of aviation-minded people looking touching and dreaming of the airplanes known as general aviation. Even if we’ve never met before if you are a pilot, they have an airplane, you are friends. And yes I drove — my airplane is still in the shop for engine rework and I needed a shakedown of my camper before pulling it Wisconsin for the really big Fly-In at Oshkosh in July. Grannie not too big on aviation so she stayed to enjoy McCook's wonderful storytelling festival.

Under the able guidance of one Terri Haynes (nee Perkins and a McCook High graduate) a host of volunteers from the Chadron community put together a wonderful program of events. Typical of Nebraskans and our penchant for good food a catered banquet in a nicely restored WWII hangar filled the first evening.

Entertainment was by a family from nearby Rapid City dressed and performing as a typical WWII USO show. Understandable words sung to music with melodies rather than a monotonous beat of the drum. Danceable too and one couple in particular dressed in long retired period military uniforms, she Navy and he Army, could dance together with fluid and respectable movements. Great memories and a good time.

Next day a fine airshow by capable aerobatic pilots laying great trails of smoke against a clear blue sky background. A highlight was a perfectly restored WWII basic trainer, a BT-13 improperly called the “Vultee Vibrator” an airplane used to teach budding pilots to fly solely by instruments and how to fly in formation. We had them at the McCook Army Airbase.

A highlight of the after airshow show was a gathering of 16 local gentlemen that had served during WWII. Lined up facing the crowd and seated in front of the stage each gent was introduced by name, date and place of birth when they volunteered/drafted into the military, where they served and a short story of their memories of what they did to help win the war. Now each of the gents had to be in their 90s age-wise and time has ravaged their old bodies but there they stood very much alive and appreciating the recognition so well deserved. I even found one an old friend with McCook connections, Ed Bieganski whose son, Gary, was a long time hospital administrator here. Ed was the oldest veteran present having entered the Army to serve in the Horse Cavalry at nearby Fort Robinson.

Various presenters throughout the day and evening talked about aviation and military-related subject and I was particularly struck by a presentation by a dynamic lady representing the WWII icon “Rosie the Riveter” You have seen the posters with Rosie dressed in blue coveralls and her hair tightly covered with a red bandana. Her message of how America came together in the early 1940s to preserve our way of life and defeat the scourge of Nazism and Japanese totalitarian aggression.

In those days’ women of the area mainly stayed in the house and kept family and home together. Then the men by the thousands left for military service and women stepped up to do all the jobs that men had traditionally done in life. Women farmed and ranched, women became automobile mechanics, tended to the utilities and did the jobs that make a community prosper, police, utility workers and perhaps most famously manufactured the airplanes, guns, ammunition, flew military airplane, everything essential to the war effort. Women stepped forward and forever changed America in my opinion for the better.

There is a lesson for what is happening in today world. At the moment President Trump is in Singapore to negotiate with one of the world worst communist dictators. Probably a majority of Americans are hoping that he will succeed but sadly a vocal minority are doing all they can to ensure that Trump fails. It isn’t that they want the millions of North Koreans to continue starving and eking out miserable suffering lives that their despotic government is forcing on them. It is just that huge numbers of our fellow Americans simply hate President Trump are doing all they can in hope that he will fail.

Again this old guy’s opinion is that it is time for this country to come together and do what it takes to make America America again just as those of the WWII generation did to be the bastion for freedom the world knew when we and our allies won the world at total war.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail