I just did a contract job near where one of my training bases was.
The base had closed, but a (small) museum remained.
At least, that's what I had thought. It's been bulldozed by developers. Locals reported that funding had been cut to maintain it.
Bit by bit, the past is being bulldozed. Airports are prime targets, because they have lots and lots of open space, and sometimes lots of storage.
Smaller private and public fields have been dying for decades now, as the owners die, and the kids/municipalities cash in.
This place had been in operation since 1917. Literally millions of persons passed through the gates, on their way to their careers.
I was #3, out of three million in my AFSC.
Now, it's all gone. Even the missile silo (flooding, a common malady for such).
Things that I didn't remember, because I had suppressed it, was the allergies ran wild in the area, and it was up north, cold, dry, and my skin started cracking a *lot* sooner than when I was forty years younger. My poor, dehydrated body screamed in the business-pod hotel I stayed in. Had to keep some water running, and I drank liter after liter of water. Ran though lots of lip balm, etc, and tissue paper. The food quality, for an ag town, was horrid. Even the base chow hall of my memories was better. Horrible stomach reactions. Staying inside, and humidified was the order of the day, off the job.
These small places *are* history. We're losing our collective appreciation for history.
The base had closed, but a (small) museum remained.
At least, that's what I had thought. It's been bulldozed by developers. Locals reported that funding had been cut to maintain it.
Bit by bit, the past is being bulldozed. Airports are prime targets, because they have lots and lots of open space, and sometimes lots of storage.
Smaller private and public fields have been dying for decades now, as the owners die, and the kids/municipalities cash in.
This place had been in operation since 1917. Literally millions of persons passed through the gates, on their way to their careers.
I was #3, out of three million in my AFSC.
Now, it's all gone. Even the missile silo (flooding, a common malady for such).
Things that I didn't remember, because I had suppressed it, was the allergies ran wild in the area, and it was up north, cold, dry, and my skin started cracking a *lot* sooner than when I was forty years younger. My poor, dehydrated body screamed in the business-pod hotel I stayed in. Had to keep some water running, and I drank liter after liter of water. Ran though lots of lip balm, etc, and tissue paper. The food quality, for an ag town, was horrid. Even the base chow hall of my memories was better. Horrible stomach reactions. Staying inside, and humidified was the order of the day, off the job.
These small places *are* history. We're losing our collective appreciation for history.
