Wigwam Jones

This weekend, your old pal Wiggy was faced with a choice of two destinations. The first was suggested to me by several people, and it seemed like it might be fun - the The 38th Annual Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair. I like art fairs as a general rule, but I will admit that the crowds at them can sometimes get me down. Besides, the other choice I was offered seemed a tad more...ah, explody. Explody is good, we like explody. And so instead of heading south this weekend, your intrepid lensman and raconteur headed north and east. My destination, as if you hadn't guessed it, was the Selfridge 2007 Air Show.

It was just a quick jaunt up Interstate 94, and unlike the time Mrs. Wiggy and I invited ourselves to the "Wings Over Wayne"airshow at Seymour Johnson Air Base in Goldsboro, NC a few years back, this one did not have a four-hour wait for parking. The highway was clear, the roads were fine, and I was waved onto based without any major sturm und drang. Zippy-doo-dah and I was parked and there.

There was a bit of a line to get into the base. No charge for parking or for entry to the show, but they did check every bag for dangerous or prohibited items. Not even pocket knives were allowed. I also have to say, I never saw so many military police, local civilian police, and security guards of various types in my life. And all toting fully-automatic weapons, too. Still, it's their base, so their rules, eh?

The show was due to start at 10:00 a.m., but I didn't know that, and the web page had said 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., so I arrived about 9:30 and thought I was late. Fortunately, it was actually right on time.

They even got someone to draw smiley faces in the air for us while we waited, which I thought was pretty neat.

As soon as we got inside, I went over to see the huge C-5A Galaxy that had been looming over us since we had gotten in line. Man, that thing is big!

I had seen one once before, when I was in the Marines and stationed on Okinawa - a C-5 had landed at Futenma MCAS in the middle of the night. We had to stand a perimeter around it and stay there all night long. Not that much to see in the middle of the night. So this was a somewhat better view.

There was a huge display of just about every type of military aircraft you could imagine, from huge transports and tankers to WWII bombers and modern jet fighters, helicopters and trainers and so on. It just went on and on. I won't put all the photos on this blog entry, it would be impossible for me to choose just a couple. So if you like that sort of thing, click here and take a look at my Flickr set of parked aircraft from the show.

OK, here's one. Just one.

Past the static displays, there were booths run by every imaginable military-related service, from the reserves to the national guards to search and rescue groups, and so on. Each sold roughly the same thing - beer and soda and water and some form of food. Quite expensive, but I guess that's to be expected at an event like there where they're trying to raise money. The parking and entrance cost me nothing, so I didn't mind shelling out nine bucks for a tiny disc-o-pizza and a Mountain Dew at the Marine booth.

One thing I did not partake of was the "Kiss a Marine's Girlfriend" booth. I don't care what they say, that's dangerous!

Ah, while I'm on the subject of Marines - I saw the Macomb County Young Marines all over the place, being put to work and doing close order drill and so on.

There were also Marine poolees present. What's a poolee? Well, a person who has enlisted in the Marine Corps, but who has not yet gone to Boot Camp, is in what is called the delayed-enlistment pool. He or she is not a Marine, and not even a Marine Recruit yet. However, good Marine Corps recruiters try to take these poolees and mold them a bit before boot camp - get them ready for military discipline and help get them in some kind of physical shape. They don't have to partake, but it's a good idea to do so.

I saw a display of Marine equipment, including an LAV (light assault vehicle) and scout-sniper weapons as well as grenade launchers.

This is Michigan, after all. People don't drop to their knees in fear or start calling their Congressmen if they see a gun around here. Even a big gun.

I have to tell you about this Marine. His name is Corporal Mercer, and he's a 50-year-old Corporal of Marines. That's a little bit unusual. Usually, a 50-year-old Marine is either retired (you can retire at age 37 if you enlist at 17 and do 20 years, 47 if you stay for 30 years), or he's a Sergeant Major. A Corporal? Well, Corporal Mercer is no problem child. He served at about the same era I did - from 1981 to 1985. Then he got out and went back to civilian life, just like I did. But 2 1/2 years ago, he decided to reenlist. And so here he is. He's been to Iraq and back already. Still serving our nation at 50 as a Corporal - I salute Corporal Mercer.

OK, the rest of the Marine photos can be seen by clicking this link.

I then proceeded on down to the flight line, where people had set up their folding chairs and blankets. It was there I'd spend the majority of the day, just watching in awe at one fantastic display after another (and getting a mighty good sunburn at the same time, by the way).

This is pretty amazing - the pilot has diabetes and he not only flies, but flies stunt planes! I put the whole story plus links on the photos themselves, click on them to read more.

Here's another amazing story - a boyfriend/girlfriend team - he flies, she wing-walks. But wait, there's more! He needed a kidney, she was a match. Now they have two people in the plane - but one set of kidneys. Wow.

The F-15 Eagle and P-51 Mustang are from different eras, but they fly here in a 'Heritage Flight'

The finale was pretty amazing. A group of three talented aerobatic pilots created a display called "Tinstix of Dyanamite" constructed around some science-fiction type theme. The story was kind of incomprehensible, but the point is, they flew around doing stuff you'd think was impossible and then stuff blew up. We like that.

Well, that's the show. I enjoyed it, I hope you enjoyed this writeup. You can see all the photos in one place here:

Flickr Photos