Great tours and a great reunion come to an emotional close

Our personal tour at Sonora Desert Museum

It is always kind of a letdown when something you have anticipated for a long time comes and goes in a flash. My USS Cogswell reunion seemed to blow by, but isn’t that always the way when you are having a good time?

The reunion concluded last night with a formal banquet at the Hotel Arizona and the always emotional reading of the shipmates who have died since the last reunion. One of the names read was a chief who was on board the Cogswell in 1966 when I was aboard.

Incredible views

Met lots of new shipmates and also shared old times with some we met at the last reunion. The association has asked me to start assembling biographies of as many of our members as possible. I put out a questionnaire and more than half of the guys responded to it by the time the reunion ended last night. I really have my work cut out for me now.

The reunion always ends with the couples and attendees getting individual pictures taken for the photo book that will capture a lot of the memories.

Sagauro cactus

Some of those memories will include a full last day of touring on Wednesday. It was a very full, but rewarding day of tours and George Overman, a crewmember during the time I was on the Cogs, does a wonderful job of organizing and putting together some wonderful tour stops.

Wednesday started early for us as we had to get to the hotel by 8 a.m. to catch the tour bus, the same one we took on Tuesday as it turned out. Richie was our bus driver and during the rare times he talked on the bus microphone I thought we were being driven around by Joe Pesci. He even looked a little like him.

The first stop was at the Sonora Desert Museum which is an incredible place that replicates many of the varying climates and scenery we have been marveling at over the past couple weeks.  On the way to the museum we passed through part of the Saguaro (Saw – war-oh)  National Park. The Saguaro is the cactus that grows tall and sometimes has appendages that really symbolizes the old Southwest.

One of the desert habitats at the museum

We only had two hours at the museum, which was not nearly enough to view all the exhibits and native animals on display there. Our docent was great and he was happy to do the tour as his son was a former Navy veteran.

I love cactus and the docent did an excellent job of explaining the various adaptation of plant and wildlife and how it survives in a hot and dry climate like Southern Arizona. He explained the various food and medicinal products made from the various species of cactus.

Sanctuary San Xavier del Bac

Due to the warmth of the day we only saw a few of the animals (a mountain lion, two beavers in an underwater aquarium like display, a native wolf, a couple birds and once again rattlesnakes. Many of the other critters, including river otters and a coati, were doing the smart thing and staying out of sight and cool.

After the abbreviated tour I stopped at the ticket office and asked if there was a special for people who wanted to come back and visit again because they didn’t have enough time to enjoy all the exhibits and the woman at the ticket window gave me a 2 for 1 ticket that will save us $14 if we come back. I’m sounding more like my mother-in-law every day.

The bus picked us up at 10:45 a.m. and drove us to San Xavier del Bac Mission where we had just a very short time to tour this historic and old church. The construction began in the 1700s and continued for several  decades until its completion.

Pima Air and Space Museum

You can see from the photo that it appears not quite done, with one tower remaining incomplete. We were told that under Spanish rule there was no taxes on a building until it was completed so the missionaries deliberately left the top of the column undone so they would not have to pay taxes.

The sanctuary is beautiful and all the more so because the work was done so very long ago. It is still an active Roman Catholic Church and school and with we may just attend church there on Sunday and soak in the history and spirit of the place during Mass.

Pima Air and Space Museum

The church is largely attended by a local Native American population and they were out front making something called “fry bread,” which looked delicious, but which is not on our diet, so we passed.

Back on the bus it was off to the Pima Air and Space Museum for an afternoon of airplane viewing. This is our fourth air and space museum in about 8 months, but so far we are not tired of it.

(I have put some additional photos of both the Sonora Desert Museum and Air and Space Museum in a post below this one. Just scroll down and you will see them.)

Fighter jet in the Boneyard

Because Joan and I are on a diet that involves eating a special cookie for lunch we did not have to spend 30-45 minutes waiting in a long line for a sandwich, which gave us more time to tour the museum both during the lunch break and later when we returned for the actual museum tour.

After lunch, about 1:15 p.m., we re-boarded the bus, this time with an Air and Space Museum docent named John Chaffee, who was a retired Air Force fighter pilot and he accompanied us out to the 309^th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) outdoor facility, which is affectionately known around here as “The Boneyard.”  The facility is located adjacent to the Museum at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

A retired Air Force executive transport plane

Because the tour went onto a military base we all had to show picture ID for security reasons. The docent could not have been better. As a former military pilot he had great stories about the aircraft and included some anecdotes that involved some of the planes that he had flown, including fighter missions in Vietnam.

The facility has rows and rows of hundreds, probably thousands of surplus aircraft stored in the desert. The desert makes a great storage center because the climate does not corrode the metal and the hard ground makes it possible to park the large planes on the desert floor instead of pouring expensive concrete.

In addition to storage, the base is working on modifications to various airplanes to extend their flying life and the stored planes are also a rich source of spare parts for current aircraft that are so old that parts for them are no longer made. Call it a big military salvage yard.

We spent more than an hour touring the flight line display of the many military aircraft stored at the facility. I couldn’t help but thing of the billions of dollars just standing idle in the desert.

The Air Force "Boneyard"

John pointed out that once an aircraft crosses a highway bridge to the other side of Kolb Road it is highly unlikely that plane will ever fly or leave the facility again. Hence the name, boneyard.

A lot of the aircraft are up on blogs because the landing gear has been removed and used as replacement parts for currently flying aircraft.

“A lot of young pilots must be making some pretty hard landings judging by all the missing nose gear,” John told us.

There are also large chunks of several B-52s at various corners of the facility, which were cut up and destroyed as part of a nuclear proliferation treaty with the former Soviets. The pieces are visible from Russian spy satellites and both sides use the satellites to confirm treaty compliance, John said.

Computer before Steve Jobs

Once the flight line tour was complete, our group headed back to the main museum for the rest of our tour there.

Unfortunately, John took off before I got off the bus because I wanted to talk to him about my stepfather, Ray, who worked in the engineering department at the Lockheed Corporation in Burbank. John mentioned during his tour that he had also worked in the engineering department at Lockheed in Burbank during the same years as my stepfather.

I left a message at the office for John to call me so I could explore any connection between the two men.

Because we had toured the main hangar while others were eating lunch we had time to head out at some of the auxiliary hangars, one which had a completely restored B-29 on the floor. Outdoors I walked the various flight lines that included a wide assortment of fighters, bombers, commercial airplanes and other great displays.

There was also an actual World War II barracks that was filled with model airplanes.

A Lockheed Constellation

Joan tired of the heat and headed back inside while I walked up and down the flight line taking one of more than 100 photos of the museum.

After boarding the bus for our return to the Hotel Arizona, we all mentioned how enjoyable the day had been, especially the wonderful and entertaining presentation by John.

Back at the hotel, Joan and I had made arrangements to change from our casual tour clothes into our formal dining wear by bringing all of our dress up clothes with us in the morning. I went to the parking garage and retrieved our clothing and hair brush and brought it back to the hotel where we changed in the bathroom.

A retired NASA transport

I then walked the three city blocks back to the parking garage in my suit to throw all the casual clothes in the Tahoe so we wouldn’t have to have luggage with us at the dinner.

Back at the hotel I realized I had left my belt back at the trailer, so Joan loaned me her black belt from her casual clothes to hold up my pants.

After my second round trip to the Tahoe I realized back at the hotel that I had left my camera back in the car, which necessitated round trip number three to the parking garage.

At 5:30 p.m. we lined up to have our photo book picture taken and then joined Ron and Margaret Eberle, of Louisville, Kentucky, and John and Louise Helliwell, of Thousand Oaks, California for dinner. We were also joined by Gary Esterby, of Dennison, Montana, for dinner.

Joan

Ron and I joined the Cogswell within a day of each other in 1966 as young seaman, both assigned to First Division (Deck Division) which is basically as low as you get on a ship. Gary Esterby was in an engineering rate and we were not close during the time both of us were on the ship.

I had not met John Helliwell before this reunion, but learned that he came on the Cogswell shortly after I was transferred off to the USS Hoel. Helliwell, like me was a Quartermaster, and it was likely that he was put aboard to replace me.

It was an enjoyable dinner with a lot of laughter, broken up by some sad moments when they read the names of the deceased shipmates and the playing of “Taps.”

After dinner, they treated us to a night of Casino gambling providing us with $1,000 worth of chips for $5. Joan and I sat down at the Texas Hold ‘Em table to learn that game and to play. We had not planned to stay more than an hour, but we had a little luck and stayed until closing at 11 p.m.

Ron and Margaret Eberle

I used to play Five Card Draw poker (not well by the way) so I am familiar with what is a good hand and what is not, but I think I caught on to the Texas adaptation pretty quickly and had some early success.

When the whistle blew I had $2,100 in chips left over, which I thought was pretty good. One of the Craps players rang up $9,000 in chips and won the prize for the evening.

I was calling and raising $100 bets all night, something I would not have been comfortable doing if I was playing with real money.

Hoping to give Joan a little rest from all the walking we had done over the last two days, I offered to walk to pick up the car and drive back to pick her up, which she heartily agreed to. When I got to the parking garage I thought I had made a mistake. There were a couple very unsavory characters hanging out in the structure so I puffed up, looked tough and they left me alone. Was really glad then I had left Joan back at the hotel.

We crashed as soon as we got home, tired but happy from a wonderful day and reunion.

Gary Esterby

On Thursday morning I got up early and headed back to the reunion hospitality room to say my good byes to the few shipmates who had not already departed to the airport. We look forward to seeing everyone at the next reunion in Mobile, Alabama in May 2013.

As I mentioned in a previous post I needed some work done on the Tahoe because of what a tire store guy told me was a partially damaged left front tie rod.

So on my way back from the reunion at 9 a.m. I stopped at O’Reilly’s Chevrolet in Tucson and had a service technician look at the car. Fully expecting a $200 bill for new tie rods I prepared for an all-day wait for the car.

Gilbert, my service rep, came to me in the waiting room and said the mechanic discovered the tie rod was fine, as was my suspension and that the car only needed to have a front end alignment.

An honest car dealer, who knew? Was really glad I listened to my doubts at the tire place and deferred to Tucson the work on the front end.

John and Louise Esterby

While waiting for the alignment to be done, I got a call from Joan about 11 a.m. from a phone number I did not recognize. She asked me when I was going to be home to the trailer because she had locked herself out of the trailer and was in her shower outfit out in the open.

I asked her about the phone and she said the security guard came to her aid and let her use his phone to contact me. “When will you be home and do you have a key to the trailer?,” Joan asked.

“About 40 minutes and yes, I do have a key,” I answered.

It turned out to be about an hour before the car was done and poor Joan sat in the shadow of the trailer for an hour wearing her bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her head until I arrived home.

Always one to explain the obvious, I told Joan it would probably be smart to carry the trailer key with her when she went to the shower. She was not amused.

Temperatures here today were 105 degrees, but it didn’t feel a degree over 99. Despite the temperatures I stuck with my plan to wash the trailer, but only got it half done before the heat got to me. I’ll finish tomorrow when the temperature is ONLY supposed to be 98.

Joan, who was now two hours behind her own schedule, sent me to the nail salon to see if they had a 2:30 p.m. appointment for a “fill.”

I walked into the place as told the woman: “I have no idea what this means, but do you have time to do a “Fill” about 2:30 p.m. today?”

“I know exactly what you are talking about and yes, I can get her in,” Nancy said. I do know that a “Fill” costs $25, so whatever they are filling must be really empty.

 Joan fixed steaks, baked potato, corn on the cob and salad for dinner.