The Air and Water Show: Love it or leave it
My first, incredibly clueless, experience of the Air and Water show came in 1998. I was living up in Edgewater then, at Bryn Mawr and Sheridan, and was in my apartment minding my own business when a couple of fighter planes buzzed overhead, bringing with them a terrifying rumble that shook the whole building.
I jumped to the most logical conclusion possible: that Canada was invading us.
So I immediately switched on CNN for details. They were in serious breaking news mode, following U.S. air strikes against Sudan in retaliation for the bombing of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. I remember thinking, "Who knew that Canada and the Sudan had a secret alliance?"
In the years that followed, I never really did learn to stop worrying and love the air show.
In 2002, I thought, surely there's no way they're going to allow the planes to fly around the Loop high rises anymore, right? I mean, that's just freaky and scary -- not entertaining.
What do I know?
By then, I was dating R., who studied aerospace engineering as an undergrad and can come up with the model names and key details of most planes on sight. We sat on the beach that year and watched the air show and I did find it pretty cool.
Showing off our military might in those pre-Iraq days seemed, well, a little overly rah-rah America for my tastes, but not really in a bad way.
Years later, I still haven't quite sorted out my thoughts on the air show and my experience of it this year was even more complicated than usual.
On the pro side: Watching R., his brother (also an engineer) and 6-year-old nephew get completely geeked out by all the cool technical wizardry of the stuff.
On the con side: Military recruiters eager to chat up obviously enthusiastic 6-year-old nephew.
Pro: Great excuse to sit by lake on summer day.
Con: Hot, crowded, noisy.
Pro: Anti-war protestors offer opportunity for discussion of current issues.
Con: Protesters seem kind of lame and spoil-sport-ish.
Pro: All this impressive military might is on our side.
Con: Much of this impressive military might is being used to target places in the world where the concept of "bombing them back into the stone age" is not that much of a conceptual leap.
Comments
The impressive military might, is being used to keep those who want you in a burka permanently from doing so. And this is coming from a centrists democrat. So let our men and women of the armed services keep flying those beautiful fighters/bombers over our lake shore.
Posted by: West Side Tom | August 21, 2006 03:29 PM
Interesting.
Reading your article brought back to recent memory when I spent a few weeks in Chicago during the summer of 2004. I'm originally from Chicago (low end, Englewood) and I spent 2 weeks of leave in the city and caught the Air and Water show with my nephew that summer. You're right on target with the pros and cons, esp with the weather the way it was on North Ave beach that day. In my humble opinion. The Air and Water Show should be taken as edification for some, entertainment for others if not both for everybody...and that rumble that you hear...and feel, from those fighter and bomber jocks out over the skies over Lake Michigan? That extremely powerful sound is what we in the business call the sound of freedom.
There were anti-war protesters there that day, and ironically there came a Sun Times reporter that approached us that afternoon (I honestly don't remember her name but I do remember her credentials she showed us) and asked how we were enjoying the show. "Absolutely fantastic" was the consensus between my nephew and I, because it's a special thing to see the military in your home town putting on a show, esp when I had just returned from Iraq a few months before. Despite the protesters and the naysayers I swelled with pride that day. She asked me how I felt about the protesters, my response was" that is why we have freedom of speech." Best answer she heard all day, she told us. Good, I told her - I had every reason to back those words up, because I and an entire legion of faceless others ensured it for them - and everyone that day, and will continue to do so.
So like the man said, let those beautiful fighters, bombers, tankers helicopters and transports flies in our skies - I'm an Air Force aircraft mechanic stationed in Germany so when those have doubt on whether or not those jets who swoop down on our Chicago skyline carry a message, you can tell them this Airman says "sleep tight - all is secure on my watch." Cheers...
Posted by: TSgt T | August 22, 2006 03:58 PM