homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Battle of Britain + Battle of Britain II Here's what happened (Continued)

Folks:

No more than 36 delightful degrees awaited me when I opened my blood-shots this new Thursday morning. Perhaps it was much colder where you awoke today? Some of you may even have what is called "snow". We have no snow. We had some earlier in the year. It was a lovely white color. It was cold and icy. Sadly for some it all melted in a couple of days. We can go years without snow at all. This is a cause for some distress in the ranks of our children. Yet when it does snow it becomes an event. At the sign of the first flake observed by the official Snow Monitor things begin to happen fast.

I don't know who that lucky individual might be. Whomever, he or she must be solemnly charged with monitoring the evening weather forecast on TV and then, with a forecast that even mentions the word "snow" they are required to rush out very early indeed to look to the skies for one or two falling flakes. If any flakes are observed the trusty monitor then makes a sleepy phone call and the powers that be streak into action to see that media announcements are made and schools are closed down tight here. The doors will then stay closed until the official Snow Melt Monitor decrees it is safe for buses to run and schools to open again.

Early in the morning the long prayed for (by the kids at least) announcement of schools closing is duly made on regional TV and radios. All this may be the same where you live. It has been observed by me that my sleepy grandchildren could be standing no more than 3 feet from the TV and they would not pay even the slightest attention if the announcer stated the Titanic had just sailed into New York harbor. Somehow however they would never miss any announcement of school closing be they in the next county, under ground in a deep cave wearing sound cancelling earmuffs.

Even if there is only one child hearing that particular information the word spreads exponentially one way or another until it reaches the little pink ears of every single child in the whole danged school system. This is the occasion every parent recognizes as the whirling dervish-like dance of childhood freedom when all the kids just jump for joy and twirl dizzily around the room. That dance would naturally coincide exactly with the precise moment when their parents look angrily out a window and begin pulling out the rest of their thinning hair or scratching their heads trying to figure out the tangled logistics of getting to work while caring for their beloved kids for several days at home or elsewhere at the same time.

Then one fine and sunny day the announcement comes that schools will be open for normal business again the very next day. This is occasioned by yet another dance, this one by the children's parents. This happy dance has no name but it is recognized by every child as a very ill omen indeed. As you might easily guess, having been a child once yourself, the dreaded announcement schools will reopen, if acknowledged at all, will not be greeted by our children with the same un-abandoned enthusiasm as was the previous one closing the schools.

I have two extremely pleasant HWH announcements to make:

ONE: The much awaited HWH honors list has just been released. Once again Dux's name is on it. He will now be forced to get larger calling cards printed up. This done just to include all the honoring initials newly trailing his already illustrious name. He has been promoted to the rank of International HWH Twelve Star General, Deputy Custodian of the Fountain of Inexhaustible Knowledge and Omnipotent Overseer For The Quest For Unsurpassed Excellence. Way to go Sir, Dux!!

TWO: This my friends is clearly a blatan... conspicuou...unconseale... auspicious opportunity for another potentially lethal HWH booze-up. All this at Sir Dux's expense, of course. LeRoy reminds us that those who cannot manage the trip to Pembrokeshire by 7 PM UK time tomorrow night are on their own to celebrate as they may, and that, regrettably, would be entirely at their own expense.