Two Pilots & an LSW: Oshkosh Last Full Day

I really wish Google would let me add the photos as I go here, instead of making me wait to do it at home on a laptop. I don’t know why it suddenly won’t let me. But when I do get home, I’ll have to go back in to each day and add a few photos. And interestingly enough, so far I don’t think any of them are of airplanes, just people and campground stuff. I decided a few years ago I already have photos of airplanes on the ground, airplanes flying, the EAA smiley face from the skywriters, the Oshkosh Tower, I could take a photo of any of those things from any year I was here and you couldn’t tell the difference. So I have taken very few photos of anything except the group of folks at our camp site, which DOES vary per year. Not that I won’t take airplane photos if something screams at me, and I will take a few photos tonight of the fireworks at the night airshow I’m sure, even though that also doesn’t change, but…in general I’ve just been kind of photo’d out. Until I see my 20,000th sunset in an airplane and take a photo of that again too. ;)

Our trailer has outside water source, and a big tank, which we use to do dishes and stuff after meals, too. Someone left the water on, and all our water ran out last night before we caught it before going to bed, right after we’d had it topped off that morning. Steve’s livid. So that meant no water at bedtime or in the morning. I didn’t come out of the trailer until 10:30 am, after which they’d run and got a little more water so I could shower enough to wet down my hair and clean up a bit and not look like a homeless lady. ;)

Morgan ran Cameron to the flight line, and on the way home stopped at got us both a Vanilla Iced Latte, which was a lovely way to start the day. A lot of folks have already packed up and headed out. Nathan and Jamie are gone this morning, Doug and Gayle and Karen and Mike and a lot of the Texas crew and Chuck, who was sharing our trailer with us. So that leaves out Kokomo crew; me, Steve, Morgan, Cameron, Brennan, Greg O, AE, and a couple of Texas folks, Joe Ford and his buddy. A much quieter day around here today. I’m not planning on walking around the grounds. I did that twice, and I’ll be back out there for the night show, which will be a very long walk out to here, but I’m not too old for that yet. ;)

Kaylee had called Wednesday night upset at her goodbyes at work, so I texted her last night to see if she was doing okay now that she’d finished out her goodbyes with clients. She was home with Molly and said she was doing fine, so that’s good. I was a little worried about her, but she handled it better after that first day after all. I guess I didn't talk about it Wednesday night when we arrived, but Kaylee wanted me to call her because she’d had a bad day. She had to say goodbye to all her Wednesday clients, for her last time seeing them, and she also had to turn in a 14 year old girl who was having frequent unprotected random sex, didn’t know what STDs were, didn’t know how to protect herself, was taking Plan B every day for a birth control, and refused to listen and tell her mom even though Kaylee said she needed help from her mom (who was a safe space, not a danger), and to talk to her. Kaylee put it through her bosses, who were divided, so she let it stand for a week, and then the next week additional info came in, Kaylee put it through the bosses again, who all agreed that this sucked and isn’t how you want to do it, but she (Kaylee) needed to have a conversation with the mom. So she did, and the mom was shocked and grateful, and had time to cool off and react appropriately with her daughter. But the daughter, of course, flipped out, called Kaylee everything but a white girl, said she’d never go to therapy again, etc. So that didn’t leave Kaylee feeling great. That’s why, Thursday and Friday she had more goodbyes and more clients, so I wanted to see how she was doing, and the answer was “all good”.

I do still enjoy being up here. It feels a little like home after you do it every year for so many years. I still don’t like the showers and I still don’t like quick dissolve TP, and I don’t like having a couple of people there who are there, who I wish would go find their own friends elsewhere and move on. But fat chance of that. I do like running into aviation people, I do think it’s fun to hear “Hey Laura!” up in warbirds or around the main drag. I appreciate sitting out in camp chairs and watching the airshow, with a cold beverage in hand, napping in the trailer during the worst of the heat, waking up to a bunch of Mustangs or T-6s in the morning, and hearing all the aviation talk all around you all the time no matter where you go. You’re around your own people, you know? Where what you are is normal. I appreciate that.

I also kind of got the bug to bring the T-6 back up here next year. Do some formation flying, get back in it. I’ve spent at least 2 years now, maybe 3, doing nothing but the work stuff, and now I’m rusty, out of currency, have to retake checkrides, and out of the loop. So maybe I can do that next year, and take a couple of our “kids” with me on a dawn patrol formation flight out here next year or something too. They’d like that, and I would too. Minus the getting up super early part. ;)

Our steak night last night went really well. A lot of good camaraderie, quiet groups talking until late at night, sat around the campfire until 1:30 am Central time, woke up when the sun came beaming in at like 5:30 am, but that’s all right, that’s Oshkosh too.

So tomorrow morning we go home. I can’t decide if this 3 days is too short, or just right. Normally we’re here for 9-10 days, and by the end I’m quite glad to get home. I don’t really have a lot more I need to do here, though I might go to the Seaplane base if I were here another day, or walk over to KidVenture and the Museum, or go onto flightline and get cheese curd tacos, or eat at Chester V’s and Wendts and other places, since the only place I got to this year was Ardy & Eds. All iconic and fun things to do. But I’ll see the night airshow, and I’ve walked all through the main area twice, and I’ve ran into the people I needed to run into, so…good enough? Maybe.

Oh, there is some additional CAF drama. I don’t know how I got pulled into the middle of it, and yet I did. A pilot in the B-29 Squadron was caught having sex with a volunteer in the hangar/airplane/something. He was walked in on in the act by another volunteer. He (J) was actively having an affair with M, and apparently most people around knew it. He is married with two young children, and I know him fairly well, because he’s also on the WASP Squadron and flies the T-6. She is also married. To someone else of course. Several volunteers said they didn’t want to work with him because he lied, was sneaking around, etc. Some of the leadership asked him to step down or step aside for awhile. He would not. A couple people went to leadership, who basically said “He denies it, and anyone who wants to leave over it, we don’t want/need them anyway”. The people who expressed concern had been there for years, given up a lot, dedicated a ton of time to the unit, and were being told that because they didn’t want to deal with the liar/cheater guy any more, their input didn’t matter. They were hurt and offended that their years of service didn’t matter. The big main money guy also backed J. So the WASP Wing kicked J out of flying their T-6 any more. The fall-out from that was that the main money guy threatened to kick them off the Tour. Or they pulled out, but I think they were to be kicked out. Then Kathy M, the wife of a BOB pilot, confronted M, and asked her why she thought it was okay to “F” a married man with two small children, and confronted her in public. The fall-out from THAT and the point of me telling you this, is that even though she’s not an IN Wing member, her husband flies BOB, and the money guy said if we felt that way and she represented us, he was going to kick US off the tour too. Now Glenn is getting calls, and Steve, and me, and we’re like… WE didn’t say nothing. Then I go to the Gunfighter Burger Burn, and Kathy confronts me and wants me to be on her side for publicly yelling at this other woman. In the meantime, the B-29’s head of maintenance, his wife who led the trailer/sales/rides desk on tour, the Tour Director and manager, Three A&P mechanics, and 2 or 3 pilots, instructors, check pilots, ALL QUIT over it. Now the Indiana Wing got the CEO of the whole CAF to talk to Kathy because she was going to confront the woman again at the Friday night CAF Oshkosh party, loudly and in public again, and if she did, the Big money guy was going to kick BOB off tour. And we can’t control her. So Steve calls Dennis who calls Greg (Wing Leader) who calls David O (CEO) who already knows and who was one of the people who said “If they leave we didn’t want them anyway”, but he now says he’s calling Kathy personally.

Now. I hate drama, and this was drama at its finest. Except that was last night and now I DO want to know how the party went, how the phone call went, and what is happening with our airplane, with the Tour, with our pilots. Oh, Kathy’s husband, JP, had texted and wanted to talk to me too. We never have connected. I put it off, and put it off, because 1) I don’t like drama and 2) I’m not good at it. I don’t even know how I feel, to be honest! Obviously I am not a fan of cheaters, but how is their affair my problem or my business? On the other hand, the people who are leaving, ARE friends, who were lied to directly by him, and in good conscience don’t feel like they can stay to work with him. He J has been granted the privilege of flying the B-29 at Oshkosh, on tour with his side girl, seen going to her room with her now that it’s out anyway, which is a direct slap in the face to the other volunteers who object to it. There’s all this upheaval, and reportedly some openings for pilots in the B-29 now. But if you do that, are you a “scab”? Should everyone refuse to cooperate with the B-29 squadron as long as they defend that one guy and keep him over everyone else who has been working for them all these years? Or is it not my place to worry about all that, and just do our own thing and stay out of it? Stand with some friends in solidarity, or let that place’s drama be that place’s drama and just do us? Hell, I don’t even know what’s right, there. JP asked what my thoughts were, and my text response was “I’m a little confused, a little concerned, and a little annoyed”, and that pretty much covers it.

We have Starlink here, and other than a brief glitch on Wednesday, it’s been working flawlessly. This is the way to go in the future out here, that’s for sure. I am in love with Starlink. I don’t care if you like weird Elon or not, Starlink Rocks. ;)

The last thing we did was go to the night airshow. Tummers dropped us off at the Vintage Pedestrian Only gate, and I led the way to a pretty good spot close to the center of the program, and not far from the runway. We enjoyed the show as always. Lasers, fireworks, airplanes, and drones, they did it all. Fireball, wall of fire, music, it was a heck of a show, as always. We had expected to have to walk all the way back, and we are out in the boonies. Miles. Steve sent Tummers back to get us, and we booked out of there. I led again, dodging and weaving and moving fast. I left Brennan and Cameron behind a bit, but I turned around and Morgan was right on my ass, her face was Right There, and it cracked me up. She was glued to me. I decided she earned her formation card with that one. Tummers found us, got to us, and got us home, and we made it out and home before the main herd and mass of people got in the roads. It was Awesome and will probably never happen again…

Back to the firepit, burning the last of our wood so that there isn’t any left for tomorrow. And in the morning, we pack up, and Morgan and I head out for home. She has a trip to NY, and I’m just goin’ home…

Sorry for the overload of fireworks photos. I deleted the bad ones, figured I might as well post the others if I'm going to bother taking them.