There he was, my uncle, having bailed out of his bomber and losing both boots when his parachute opened, breaking an ankle upon landing in Mussolini’s private game reserve, and facing a man with a pistol pointed at him!

I used to love talking with my Uncle Tom who was in the Army Air Corps in WWII and was the navigator of a B-24 bomber out of Pantanella, Italy. He would lead the plane to the IP, the Initial Point, from which he would plot the course to the target of the day.

The bailout was caused by an engine fire and an order from the pilot for all to bail out. After they did, he shut off the fuel supply to that engine and flew the plane back to base! My uncle ended by saying that the man with the pistol turned out to be a partisan on our side, and he put my uncle on a donkey and led him to the nearest village. He said that he had his parachute draped over his shoulder and he reckoned that he looked like Jesus going into Jerusalem!

Uncle Tom flew 29 missions in his plane, and after the end of WWII, when the Army Air Corps had become the U.S. Air Force, he went to pilot school in California and learned to fly the huge B-29 Stratofortress. He was in charge of the weather version of one (B-50) and flew it out of Japan, into typhoons and along the coast of Russia sampling the air for radiation that would indicate atomic testing.

When I was a kid he gave me a “Rocket Ship Control Panel” for Christmas, and I think I took it to the moon! I’m sure that my love of flying was fueled by Uncle Tom’s living history. After he retired from the Air Force he settled down on Tablerock Lake, and had a lovely home on the highest hill on the lake. It was a privilege for me to fly him in my two-seat Grumman Yankee out of the School of the Ozarks Airport over the lake and near his house. I gave a eulogy at his funeral in the form of what a typical one of his 29 missions may have been like.

Pastor Joseph Prince in Singapore has declared 2023 the Kairos Year, meaning “right time and right place”. God does arrange for things to happen in very special ways for his children, and I have experienced many episodes of this in my life. Here is an amazing example.

We were traveling down to a Stonecroft Ministries meeting and were in our big GMC blue van on highway 65, and were just about to the top of one of those long hills 10 miles north of Branson when the engine quit! We coasted over to the guard rail and came to a stop. Libby climbed out and walked with me to the top of the hill where the Ozark Winery was at that time. (nothing is there now)

It was 5:30 pm, and how is anyone to get help on a Saturday at that time? I told our plight to a lady at the counter and she said that she knew of this mechanic named Earl McGrath, and she called him. He had just taken off his work clothes and was headed for a shower, but agreed to come and see how he could help us.

The first thing Earl did was to tow our van up over the hill and into a church parking lot on the other side. He diagnosed our problem as needing a new battery (evidently the fan belt had broken, meaning that we had no alternator function and were running on battery power only). He then drove me the 10 miles to Branson in his car and helped me find the correct battery which he then installed upon our return. He told me that his father had been on old time preacher out in the Ozark hills.

After the battery was installed Earl insisted that we drive the short distance to his shop, located on one of those beautiful “bald knobs” with a terrific view of the hills. He attached our vehicle to his electronic test equipment and announced that we were good to go. He then submitted my bill of $33! I paid him three times that and we were on our way. At any other time and any other place we would have likely had no help until somebody stopped along the highway, and even then what would we do? Thank you, Jesus! Proverbs 12:13 says that the righteous “escape from trouble”.

I am righteous, but not from anything I have done. It is purely a gift from God. See Romans 5:17 for the proof. Kairos!

Dr. Jones

EPISODE 40 The Yucatan Night Cruise

There I was, having just jumped into the water and finding myself next to a giant sea turtle, only to find upon surfacing that our air compressor had broken!

It was at the end of my senior year of medical school in Houston, I had taken a SCUBA diving course, and three others and I had rented a Cessna 310 to fly out of Hobby field down to Merida, the capital of Yucatan. We were driven to Progresso, a port on the north shore and we slept on our dive boat that night. When we saw it in daylight, we all thought we would be better off looking for another one!

Our destination was Alacran Reef, 50 miles north into the Gulf. Porpoises swam alongside the bow for a long ways, while we all got sick with the constant up and down motion of the boat. When we finally got to the reef we saw small life boats littering the shore, as this was the only place to go in an emergency.

We donned our gear and jumped into the clear water, and the first thing I saw was a beautiful large sea turtle. When we returned to our boat we learned that our air compressor had broken down! This led to our 26-hour overnight boat trip to the tip of Yucatan where Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) was located. I was thankful that I had bought a hammock in Merida, and I slept in comfort as the boat rocked from side to side.

We got our tanks refilled there on the island, and noted that the “Cave of Sharks” that Jacque Cousteau had written about was close by, where it is thought that sick sharks go to rest and recover. I was the only one who wanted to dive there and I was out-voted.

We did snorkel through the “Wall of Fish” where you would dive down into a literal wall of silver-colored fish that would open up into a tunnel that you could swim through. The fish stay there and the current brings them their food!

On our return we made it to the tip of Yucatan to board a bus with a few other people and about a hundred chickens. We drove right past Chichen Itza, but couldn’t stop. Thankfully, just a few months ago I got to visit that amazing place during a trip to the Mexican Riviera.

Dr. Jones

TIME OUT FOR A WARNING!

There is talk now about new covid “variants” to get you scared once more. Are you scared yet? You shouldn’t be, because this whole covid “pandemic” is the biggest fraud in medical history. It turned out that COVID-19 was no more dangerous than the average influenza.

The mRNA “vaccines” are not vaccines at all, and do not keep you from getting covid or from transmitting it. They do, in fact, damage your immune system and make you several times more likely to get covid! They also promote the rapid growth of cancers and sudden death from strokes and myocarditis. The manufacturers of these bioweapons knew of their dangerous side effects ahead of time and so did the FDA.

These jabs should never have been granted “Emergency Use Authorization”, because that was not allowed if any other treatment was available, and there was plenty of effective, inexpensive treatment available, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, both of which I used to good advantage for over two years. There are over 90 well-controlled studies proving that ivermectin has around a 70-80% success rate of preventing death or hospitalization from covid. Yes there are government-sponsored studies showing that it doesn’t work, but those were designed to fail! Zinc must be given with IVM for it to work, and those studies did not allow anything to be given with it. Also

I have the utmost respect for Emergency Room doctors, as I’ve had experience working in those, and it is certain that one will encounter some really sad cases. I will relate a few to you.

In medical training at Baylor we were required to work in the emergency room at Ben Taub Hospital, where most serious cases in Harris County were taken. We worked there 12 hours on and 12 hours off for a month. Some crazy surgeon types claimed that they sadly missed half of the interesting cases with that schedule!

You would treat all types of conditions there, but when the emergency bell rang every doctor and nurse in the place ran to the trauma room and the action exploded. The patient was surrounded by people, each with a task. Any bleeding was stifled, at least two IVs were started, usually one in each arm, a urinary catheter was inserted, if necessary the patient was ventilated with bag and mask, and someone arranged the overhead x-ray machine to take images. (initially to diagnose a collapsed lung or kidney damage) Usually these patients were members of the Friday Night Knife and Gun Club.

It was usually not so chaotic in the ER at Nevada City Hospital (later NRMC). For the first eleven years of my practice at the Nevada Medical Clinic, we had to “cover the ER”, which meant that after a hard day of work in the office we would, every fifth day, take over the ER from 6 pm until 6 am and then return to another work day at the clinic.

We happened to all be at a staff meeting at the hospital when ambulances brought in victims from a car-train accident. A mother had pulled up onto the track even though a train was approaching, and the train hit her car, killing her and I think two of her three sons. We did the best we could, but a room next to the ER became a morgue.

I was on call when a young man was brought in after having shot himself in the head with a .22 rifle following a disagreement with his girl friend. I was not able to secure any help from another doctor, but gave what treatment I could, such as high dose steroids and diuretics to help reduce swelling in the brain. The worst thing was that no ambulances were available for transfer to another hospital, not even from any of the surrounding towns, and the helicopter was not flying. I think we had him in our ER for 3 or 4 hours until we could arrange a transfer.

Another man arrived at the ER with a nail protruding from his eyeball! It was an accident from a nail gun, as the nail evidently had bounced up from some surface to his eye. He got transferred quickly!

I was also on call when two drunks were brought in after they had left a bar on the Missouri-Kansas line and then while driving proceeded to depart from their lane and strike a young lady head on, killing her instantly. I recall that they were using some foul language in the ER and I threatened to use surgical tape over their mouths if they didn’t stop.

I was on call when a prominent local man came in “code blue” with a cardiac arrest, and we were unable to resuscitate him with oxygen, medications, and electric shocks. I was also on call when his wife came in at another time, having been beaten over the head with a pipe by men who had invaded her home. I sewed up five lacerations of her scalp. It’s notable that I had dated their daughter as a teen.

Perhaps the saddest case of all involved a man who was working at a local filling station east of town when he tried to estimate the amount of kerosene in a tank by using a match for light. The explosion burned him from the waist up, and he pleaded with me to kill him in the ER. He got pain relief and a rapid transfer to a major burn center.

Pray for our ER doctors. Their life is not an easy one, and they are always on call to help you when it’s needed most.

Dr. Jones

EPISODE 37 Frigid Flight

The Grumman Yankee painted in Navy trim was just what I was looking for in Trade-A-Plane. It belonged to an ex-Navy pilot who was president of the American Yankee Association, and he was selling it, I learned later, because he had cancer and not long to live.

He was from North Carolina, and it would be necessary for me to go there to get the plane after we agreed on the price. It was December, and unusually warm here in Nevada, Missouri, actually in the 70s. I flew commercially from Joplin to Charlotte, where he and his wife picked me up and treated me to a delicious supper and a stay at their home.

The next morning we went to the hangar where my dream sat. He had arranged for his friend who was an instructor pilot to check me out in the Yankee. We took off from that grass strip with me at the controls and landed at the new airport at Concord, built to accommodate visitors to the race track there. I was put through all manner of flight, including a method of losing altitude in a hurry if the need arose! I passed and bought the plane (better than “buying the farm”).

It was still in the 70s there when I took off for Spring Creek Lake, Kentucky, my first stop on the way home. When Jim refueled the plane we were still basking in 70 degree weather. That changed when I radioed ahead to my next planned stop at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Conditions were IFR there, instruments only!

Well, Spring Creek Lake was a fly-in resort, so I checked in and that evening a horrific wind and rain storm passed through. I checked with flight control, but the next day was no better for flying, so I was stuck there another night.

On the third morning flight control said that they thought “I might be able to make it”. I had to use a spatula from the kitchen to scrape the ice off of the wings, and when I took off it was snowing! As I flew over the Bowling Green airport in heavier snow I elected to land and refuel. I called for the runway in use and received the answer back, “We’re using 21”. I assumed that was the airport calling me, but it was, in fact, a business jet that was also landing there, and I cut him off on the base leg when he was on final approach, causing him to go around. That pilot was quite gracious in the terminal, however.

I made the landing at Cape, and when I landed back at Nevada the air temperature was 4 degrees! Thankfully, the plane had a good heater. That little plane was great, and it took Valo and me from Nevada to Cody, Wyoming and the next year to Bowling Green, Kentucky for the national AYA meetings. It was a small plane with a big engine, and I loved taking many people up in it.

Dr. Jones

EPISODE 38 Engine Quit

There I was, making the first flight after having the engine overhauled in Tulsa, and all of a sudden the engine quit!

I immediately declared an emergency and turned toward the airport. I turned parallel to the runway, ready to make a standard downwind leg when I noted that I was dropping much too quickly to fly the pattern. I then made a rather steep, descending turn to the left at which time the propeller stopped. The nose needed to be pointed sharply down to preserve air speed. I did make it to the runway and experienced a slight bump before coming to a stop in the grass along side. The Nevada Fire Department was waiting for me, but fortunately their services were not required.

It’s sad to say, but this was really, as it turns out, not an emergency. I had run the left fuel tank dry! I should have immediately switched to the right tank and would have continued the flight. But, the belief that the engine was at fault since it had just been overhauled displaced common sense. Another link in the chain to near tragedy was that the airport operator had ALWAYS refilled the tanks after each of my flights, except for the previous one!

The only damage, other than to my pride, was to the left wing tip which actually struck the runway in that steep left turn landing, and I repaired that myself. What was learned? Memorize the rules for various situations, and don’t replace them with assumptions.

Dr. Jones

There I was, trying my best to light a dynamite fuse at my grandfather’s coal mine!

What’s the stupidest thing you have ever done? This was mine. I was around 7 or 8 years old and our family went to visit the Thornhill Coal Company in Missouri just over the Kansas line, where my grandpa ran the steam shovel. Until recently I could fly over the site and see the boom from that machine still lying on the ground.

Speaking of “booms”, I spotted an orange fuse protruding up from a pile of rocks, and I happened to have a book of matches in my pocket. What’s a boy going to do? Those flimsy matches never worked as well as the wooden ones, and it’s a good thing. I tried several times to light that fuse, but the breeze (from God!) kept blowing it out before the fuse ignited. Otherwise, that would likely have been the end of the Jones line.

I used to make my own gunpowder using flowers of sulfur purchased at the drug store, potassium nitrate from the same store, and ground charcoal which I accumulated from burned wood. I was interested in rockets, and although my mixtures produced an appreciable flash and lots of smoke, they did not burn fast enough to power a rocket (a good thing for the neighbors). I was a chemist from the start.

Moving on to Nevada High School, there were lots of experiments to be done in the chemistry lab, some after hours. It is still amazing to me that the doors of that lab were left unlocked, I think even on weekends. I think I had a partner (accomplice) with me when we placed some cotton in a glass funnel and treated it with pure sulfuric acid and also nitric acid, which resulted in “gun cotton” that burned in a flash. We also gave some iodine crystals the same treatment, producing what I called “nitrogen triiodide”. I don’t know the official name, but when it dried out it would explode with the touch of a feather, producing a purple cloud!

Later during my teen years, I walked into Johannes Hardware store with an un-named buddy and we noticed that they had dynamite for sale! It’s hard to believe, but we walked out with 10 sticks, 10 blasting caps, and 50 feet of fuse! Peggy, the clerk, knew me from when she was a clerk at Cottey Corner Grocery store on west Cherry Street. She did ask what we planned to do with it, and I lied that “we needed to blow a stump out of the ground” – at my house across from Cottey?? She let us buy it.

Thankfully, we did not do any damage with it, but mainly used it to “play Army”, as we would bury some, light the fuse, and then run a safe distance away and crawl toward it! My friend Tom (serious clue here) did eventually make a career in the Army!

Well, I no longer deal in explosives and am thankful to be here to write these episodes. God bless you all, and stay safe!

This world gets crazier by the day, so who doesn’t need to find some words that are comforting to us? The best source for those is God’s word, the Bible. It was written by God himself, and written down by men as the Holy Spirit guided them.

Let’s look into the “end times” (eschatology) and see what we find. There is much written about the Day of the Lord, which describes the end of the “Church Age” that we are now in. I hope that you will read and study the book of Revelation, which is the uncovering or revealing of Christ Jesus, and we are promised a special blessing for reading it.

There are many viewpoints about the timing of events of the end of the age. Christians agree that Jesus is coming back, but disagree about when, and that event’s timing in relation to the rapture, the Millenium, etc. Professionals who studied at liberal seminaries generally have views that differ from those who studied at conservative ones. A pastor from the former may, for instance, regard all of the dates in Revelation as allegories and not as being literal, since there is a lot of allegory in that book.

My view is that the Bible means just what it says, and should be taken literally unless there is clear evidence otherwise. Some believe that the Tribulation has already begun, but will get much worse. But, the Tribulation is said to last for seven years, with the second 3 1/2 years being the Great Tribulation. Some believe that we Christians will go through it. I will give you my view which I believe fits the scriptures and is comforting!

Personally, I don’t believe that the idea of us going through the Tribulation is at all comforting! Look at I Thessalonians 4:16-18. These are words to comfort us, and they describe the Rapture (see also Matthew 24:36-44) and it fits perfectly with the pattern of the Jewish wedding ceremony where the Groom (Jesus) appears suddenly to snatch away his bride (us, the church), and take her away to spend a week (7 years) at his father’s house (Heaven) where he has built a place for her.

Some who believe that we are in the Tribulation now say that we are facing trials and tribulation, but these are from other people not from God. We have not been appointed to God’s wrath. (I Thessalonians 5:9) God’s wrath is so much more severe than any from men! If we go through the Tribulation it makes no sense that God would protect us through those seven years while all of the thousands of new Christians who refuse to take the mark of the beast have their heads cut off around us (Revelation 20:4). Not very comforting!

Jesus himself promises that we will not go through the Tribulation. In Revelation 3:10 he says, “Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.” The hour of trial refers to the Tribulation. (the “hour” here is not literal, as the Tribulation is said to last for seven years.) He promises to keep us “from” it, not “through” it.

The Rapture is the prelude to the Tribulation because when we Christians depart from the earth the Restrainer, the Holy Spirit, is removed, which opens the gate for the Antichrist to appear on the scene and for the Beast System to be enacted in full. That system is already here today in the form of the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, the UN, and others. Large populations are under surveillance by their governments and are punished for resisting the official narrative. This is true even in Canada today.

God’s word promises that at the end of the seven years of tribulation Jesus will return (the Second Coming, Matthew 24:29,30) to the Mount of Olives from which He ascended in the same manner, and will set up the thousand year reign from Jerusalem, the Millenium. At the end of that period of time the Battle of Armageddon takes place, this earth is “melted away”, and the New Jerusalem, our new home, comes down. (Revelation 21:1)

There I was, having breakfast on the Giza Plateau, and just beyond our hotel was the Great Pyramid.

It was 2018 and we were in Egypt. We had landed in Cairo and had survived a rather harrowing ride on a highway that had six lanes that were only suggestions! We had found our room in the gorgeous hotel and had met our tour guide and the head of the operation, Dr. Zahi Hawass, said to be the most famous archaeologist in the world and the inspiration for “Indiana Jones”.

He gave us a talk between the feet of the Great Sphinx and we investigated the inside of the Great Pyramid, descending way down into a tunnel and then up the grand staircase into the king’s burial chamber through a tiny door. I also got to explore the Red Pyramid at Sacharra, and we visited the tombs of the pyramid builders.

Other sites in Cairo included the Papyrus Institute where we were shown how it is made, and selected a beautiful painting on one. At the Carpet Institute we saw gorgeous rugs and wall hangings that they teach kids off the streets how to manufacture. Their hands literally flew on the looms and it was a sight to see.

We were personally received into the home of Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt who had been assassinated years before. We visited the Mosque of Mohammed Ali (not that one!) and, of course the Egyptian Museum where we saw the marvelous articles from King Tut’s tomb and numerous mummies.

We then were flown to Luxor where we saw the Karnak temple, were treated to talks by Dr. Mostafa Waziri, the head of Egypt’s Antiquities Department, and boarded our 5-star cruise ship for a wonderful 8-day cruise on the Nile River. We visited the Valley of the Kings and explored tombs there, including that of King Tut.

We stopped at a number of other temples along the way and went by smaller boat to a Nubian village and were entertained in a home there (they had pet crocodiles!). At Aswan we saw the phenomenal Abu Simbel Temple which had been moved piece by piece to a higher elevation to avoid being submerged by Lake Nasser. It was dedicated to Ramses II and his queen, Nefertiti.

We saw the Colossi of Memnon, Deir el-Medina, and the amazing Temple of Hatchepsut.

We had a fun Egyptian party on the ship and dressed for the occasion! Then we flew back to Cairo for more sights before departing for Munich, Germany, and on home. It was an amazing trip!

EPISODE 33

There I was, celebrating with the crowds in the streets on Jerusalem Day, 2017, the same day that President Trump was there!

It was a very special occasion, as it had been exactly 50 years since the 6-Day War and Israel’s victory. We had landed in Tel Aviv and we were immediately bussed down south to Beersheba. We were surrounded by camels and saw Abraham’s well, where a dropped rock took 6 seconds to hit the water! (over 200 feet)

We were here because of an invitation by our son, Scott who had married the daughter of an Old Testament professor at Dallas Theological Seminary who leads tours to Israel each year. It was like a “fire hose of Bible history”, and my favorite trip ever.

From there we went on up to the Dead Sea for a hotel stay and floating in the water. It was difficult to stand up after lying back, as your legs kept wanting to float up to the surface!

We next toured Massada, where Harod’s palace overlooks the sea, then on to Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. It was a dramatic moment when we rolled into Jerusalem. We had a nice hotel there and the next morning we toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and the Shrine of the Book, where those Dead Sea Scrolls are displayed.

We visited Jericho, the city of palms and saw Elisha’s spring and were greeted with the offer of delicious fresh dates. We went to the valley of Elah where David defeated Goliath, and I picked some smooth stones from that stream where David got his!

We were taken to the top of the Mount of Olives, where Jesus ascended and will return to. I rode a camel there before we went down to the Garden of Gethsemane, the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock and El Aqsa Mosque. We visited the Western Wall and many sections of Jerusalem.

We stayed in Tiberius on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee and took a boat ride from there across to see the beautiful Mount of Beatitudes, Bethsaida. the Golan Heights, and Capernaum. Valo and I got baptized in the Jordan River (chilly!)

We went to Caesaria Phillipi (Banias) where the Greeks had worshipped the god pan, and where “The Gates of Hell” are! That was an enormous cavern where babies would be thrown down onto the rocks along the spring, and if blood was seen flowing out in the stream nearby the sacrifice had been accepted! This is also the site where Jesus’ followers first recognized him as the Messiah.

We went to Mt. Precipice just outside of Nazareth, where Jesus was about to be thrown off of the cliffs before walking away. That’s the location of the picture of me you see when you first open my web site. I am sitting on those rocks, and the Valley of Armageddon is behind me.

We visited Mt. Carmel where Elijah and his God defeated the prophets of Ba’al. Then on to Megiddo, one of King Solomon’s chariot cities, and to Cesarea Phillipi Maritima on the Mediterranean Sea. Here I stood in the amphitheater at the spot were Paul made his defense to King Agrippa and it’s where King Herod had a big swimming pool built out into the ocean.

In that area we stopped at the cave (Harod Spring) where Gideon tested his men. It is a beautiful location, with that clear water flowing out of the cave and along a small stream. We could see off in the distance where the Midianites had camped.

There was so much more that we saw, too much to tell about, but it was truly an incredible trip, and I hope that as many of you as possible can go there yourselves soon. On the other hand, Jerusalem will soon be the capitol of the world, as Jesus will be reigning from there. We should have plenty of time to check it out then!

EPISODE 34

There I was, participating in a downhill ski race on the Zillertal Mountain in Austria!

I have mentioned the American Express travel office at our base, RAF Upper Heyford, in England where we spent 3 years. One trip takes the cake: for 39 pounds apiece (about $93 at the time) we got a jumbo jet flight from London to Munich, Germany, a bus transfer to Mayrhofen, Austria, a welcoming evening at the Gasthaus Kugler (with Bavarian dancing), a 3-night stay there, a tobogganing evening down a mountain road at night, our skis and poles and ski instruction, and skiing on the Zillertal Mountain, with schnaps at the top! When I first booked the trip the clerk said, “Well, that price doesn’t include the airfare.” When I pointed out to her that it did, she was shocked!

I think Valo would agree that the toboggan ride was the most fun. We both sat on it and steered with our feet as we swooped down that snow-covered road. Unfortunately, when it came time for our ski instruction, Valo’s skis did not have the proper wax on them, and she could literally walk down the slopes on her skis!

During my downhill race there was a crowd of onlookers, and when I fell and twisted my left knee at one turn they laughed! I did finish the race, however, and got a bronze medal. For a long time I thought, “Wow, I got the third-fastest time!” I think it’s more likely that all racers who came in past a certain time got a bronze. But, what a privilege to ski in the Alps!

EPISODE 30

There I was, staring into the remaining oven at the Dachau concentration camp.

The holocaust has always been viewed with disgust, but Valo and I had the opportunity to visit one of the sites where it took place, Dachau, Germany. Much of the camp, as with many of the others, has been destroyed, but enough remains to get a real feeling for what happened there. As part of our trip we drove to the beautiful nearby town of Dachau, and wondered just how much its inhabitants knew about what was going on at the camp.

The one cremation oven at the camp was left as a silent witness of the horrors perpetrated on those who had been rounded up in the pogroms. We later got to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and many years later (in 2017) the Yad Vashem holocaust museum in Jerusalem. There we visited the separate building which honors the million children who died in those camps. We walked into a large, dark structure along a path, and were literally surrounded by one million lights, one for each child who died – very humbling.

EPISODE 31

There I was, sitting in the cockpit of an A-10 Warthog at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

Sadly, I was not actually going to fly it, but was on base visiting my friend Ben Carter, whom I had written a letter of recommendation for to get into that branch. I stayed in the VOQ, the Visiting Officers Quarters, since I had been a major in the Air Force myself. I loved the sound of jets taking off through the night! Interestingly, someone had accidentally fired a round of the A-10’s gun through the hangar door a day or so before, and there was an inquiry going on!

I was also taken out to a monstrous B-52 bomber which I climbed into, up the ladder, and into the pilot’s seat. Ben was a specialist in that plane’s weapons systems, and it was fun to see both B-52s and A-10s taking off and landing all day.

Ben was scheduled to go fly F-16s in New Orleans, until Hurricane Katrina came along and spoiled that. He went on to fly Apache helicopters for the Army before returning to the Air Force.

I am thankful for my time in the Air Force.

There I was, with grapefruit knife and paintbrush in hand exposing the skull of an Osage Indian.

It was the summer of 1963, and I was part of an archaeology field crew working for the Anthropology Department of the University of Missouri under Dr. Carl Chapman. We were excavating the Osage village site northeast of Nevada, known today as the Brown Site. We identified the location of lodge poles used for building their houses by spotting the “post molds” in the ground, that is, small round areas of darker earth where the poles had been.

I was chosen to climb to the top of an extension ladder lashed to the side of a pickup truck to take photos of the site. It was frightening at the top to turn around and experience the sensation that the ladder was about to topple forward!

I was also chosen to be the one to gently tease away the soil from an articulated skeleton. (remember from the surgery episode that I had “soft hands”). I suppose that those bones are located in some display case in Columbia now.

I worked for MU for two more summers. That second year we lived in the old opera house on the square in Stockton, later destroyed by the tornado that ripped through town. We excavated Indian mounds and shelter sites along bluffs that had been identified during the winter months. One of my co-workers was from Edina, Minnesota, and he wrote a great song called, “The Missouri Bone Race”. He taught me to play the guitar, and I bought my first cheap one in Springfield. Amazingly, he went on to become a pediatrician in his home town!

We worked on one mound that was covered with rocks, and almost every one we picked up had a live scorpion under it! (32 in all). That’s the only place I have ever seen one. There must have been a curse on that site!

Most of the time it was rather like working on a chain gang! We dug 10-foot squares along the shelters and took the edges straight down, even if a boulder was in the way! We found lots of arrow heads, knives, scrapers, and “ear spools”, used by the Osage to maintain large holes in their ear lobes!

My two good friends and I all wound up with girlfriends there in Stockton. Mine had a father who was a banker there. She and I spent most evenings kissing at a location overlooking the construction of the new Stockton Dam. One of my friends wound up marrying his girlfriend. Another member of the crew was from Georgia and had to have grits for breakfast!

The third summer we lived in a two story house in Greenfield. One day when several of us guys were out in the front yard, a beautiful gal in a new sky blue Chevy Chevelle came by. They whistled at her, but little while later when she drove by that house again I was with her! I found her downtown, and we went to a movie with a local sheriff’s deputy sitting behind us!

I was fortunate to have landed the job working for MU, and I miss my friends to this day. What adventures we had!

EPISODE 27

There I was, spread-eagled against the side of the police car being frisked before being driven back to the site of the accident.

I had spent the summer after my last year of college selling books for the Southwestern Company out of Nashville, Tennessee in Marietta, Georgia. If you can imagine, I would ring the door bell and when someone answered I would say, “Hi, my name’s Ron, may I come in?” as I picked up my sample case, and almost everyone let me in! I’m not sure that would work these days.

Summer had ended and I had accurately estimated my salary to the penny and for that had won a Polaroid camera. My friend from JBU and I were on the way back to Nashville in my VW Beetle and were driving late at night in the mountains of Tennessee in the rain. Another Beetle had just passed us before we came to a right-hand curve where a semi truck had just rolled over. There was an officer waving a red flashlight and I slowed way down as we drove on past the site.

Several miles later, around midnight I was startled to hear a siren and see blue and red lights behind me. I was pulled over by an officer who had just been called out of bed to stop me! As noted above, he frisked me and loaded us into the squad car for a drive back to the accident site. It turns out that the VW that had passed me in the rain had struck and killed the wrecker driver’s son who had been out there to help. The officer with the red flashlight had intended for me to stop, not just slow down. We were allowed to leave without further incident.

Episode 28

There I was, having a meal in the Houses of Parliament in London, England!

Valo and I loved living in the UK for the three years that we were in the Air Force. We initially planned to live in base housing, but when our opportunity came up after a year, we elected to stay in the village of Eynsham, near Oxford. We had neighbors who were officers from base, as well as British ones whom we came to love.

The President of Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Joseph Merrill, was coming to England and he invited us to have a meal with him in the Houses of Parliament in London. I don’t recall the reason why he was there, but we were honored to join him. Sometime later we had the pleasure of taking the head of the pediatric department, Dr. William Blattner, to see the play “Romeo and Juliet” at the Globe Theater in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Sam and Scott were 9 months old when we went to England, so we only traveled in- country for most of that first year, but then went to many other countries. There was a bus stop around the corner from our apartment, so we could walk there, get on one of those red double-decker buses, get off at the Oxford train station 8 miles away, ride down through London to Dover, cross the channel to Boulogne, France, and take the train to Paris. To some countries we flew, to some we took the train, and to some we drove. We were blessed, and we had so much fun! (Valo wants that last phrase on her tombstone!)

There I was late at night in Reims, France and had found a hotel; I let in a young couple who were just behind us and they got the last room!

What would we do? We were weary and were on the way to Munich to see friends. We drove around and found a small hotel still open. The old gentleman at the front desk did not, or would not, speak English. We both knew some German, however, so I asked him, “Ich habe ein Frau und zwei kline kindern; haben zie ein zimmer frei?” (I have a wife and two small children; do you have a room free?) He did, and led us to the oldest elevator I’ve seen, essentially an iron cage that was open on all sides. It got us up to our room, and sleep came easily. [another “thank you, Lord!]

EPISODE 24

There I was, seated at the kitchen table of a heilpraktiker who had just given my son some medicine for nausea that we prescribe back home to cause vomiting!

We had arrived in Munich, having driven from England and across France with the required yellow covers on the headlights of our Morris. We were staying with the Haslachs, and had met Erika in our village of Eynsham when she was there to visit a relative. She and her father were both heilpraktikers, or “healing practitioners”.

After her father had administered the anti-nausea medication, I looked at the little bottle and noted that it contained the essence of ipecac, the medicine we use at home to cause a patient to vomit certain poisons. These German practitioners are big on homeopathy, and use medications that are so diluted that only the “essence” of the original substance remains. The principle is that “like cures like”. Sam’s nausea was cured. I later found an article in JAMA that showed that homeopathic medicines do work!

They also use a variety of other techniques, such as acupuncture, accupressure, massage, reflexology, “eye diagnosis”, thymus injections, and others. A patient visit may last a couple of hours, beginning with a hot bath in a claw-footed tub with a covering of all but the neck and head, followed by a massage with various oils.

The ear may be squeezed in areas to diagnose where disease may be located. The retina of the eye is examined using an expensive Leitz ophthalmoscope to look for areas of concern that would point out the location of diseases. Patients with cancer may be injected with extract of calf thymus gland fresh from the local slaughterhouse.

Interestingly, heilpraktikers do not have to take any particular course of study, but are required to pass a test covering several medical topics such as anatomy and physiology. Since homeopathy was founded by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the Haslachs considered Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia their “mecca”. We still stay in touch with Erika.

EPISODE 25

There I was, face to face with the famous pilot Bob Hoover, said to be the best “stick and rudder man” of all!

I had flown my Grumman Yankee into Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base for an air show featuring the Blue Angels, and I was actually parked close to their jets. I had walked up to the FBO, the airport office, and here came toward me Bob Hoover, dressed in his straw hat and tan-colored jump suit. I said, “Bob Hoover!” and since he didn’t recognize me he kept right on walking. He flew with Chuck Yeager in World War II.

If you have not seen it, you must look up the video of him flying the Shrike Commander, a twin-engined plane in which he pours a pitcher of tea into a cup while doing a complete 360 degree aileron roll without spilling a drop! He concludes by shutting off both engines, doing a complete upside down roll and then lands with the engines still off. At that show I also recall watching the Budweiser Microjet (a BD-5 J) and the Navy’s marvelous Blue Angels.

It was sad to hear later of that base’s closure. I had gone there twice for thorough physical exams for entry into the Air Force Academy, but my less than stellar algebra grades kept me out of that career path as I was interviewed by my congressman. The Richards-Gebaur site is now a multimodal location. (trains and trucks)