Sunday breakfast at the Quonset Air Museum.
I received a last-minute email from my former student but current friend Dave P. urging me to come down to the Rhode Island's Quonset Air Museum where he volunteers as an archivist. (His sister Cathy helps out too.) The event this morning was a fund-raising breakfast to benefit the museum. Breakfast (my second!) in the old ghost-hangar was pleasantly bizarre, amid the companionship of retired aircraft and the intimations of unnumbered battles and bombings.
Dave showed me a few of the displays and expounded on a topic he was clearly very passionate about, and I got to view the funkily cluttered office he works out of. I had been promising to pay a visit here, and I was glad I finally made it. Though I will say that the thoughts of scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, and sausage were greater attracting forces than any personal passion of mine for the nostalgia of military hardware.
I've been to Quonset a few times over the years: a thrilling airshow in 1954 when I was 12, an event at the officers' club, and in more recent days to grab the high-speed ferry to Martha's Vineyard. My father worked at Quonset/Davisville during World War II where he was part of a crew that installed asbestos on ships. Here follow a few photos I took this morning. You will find no historical documentation here, since I am neither able nor inclined to provide any. If that is your pleasure, I suggest you visit.
Dave in his cluttered office. I like this best of all!
Were pith helmets used for pithing into?
(Cross-posted to weird_ri)