Dad's Day (in memoriam)

This week a lady named Jane Harrington sent me a picture of a great quilt she had made. The quilt has an airplane theme and as an Air Force brat, I loved the piece and asked her permission to show it here. Jane used a pattern from Wind Dancer Creations (www.winddancercreations.com) and had made her quilt especially for her pilot husband Steve on the occasion of his 60th birthday. She wrote, "Steve was a C-130 pilot for 21 years."

With Father's Day weekend ahead, memories of my own Air Force Dad naturally came up and I thought a few words about him was appropriate. Not to get too maudlin, Joseph Scott Peddie (Dad) graduated from West Point in 1941 and along with every other young man of the day, wanted to fly. Too tall at 6'4" to fit in a fighter cockpit, Dad became a bomber pilot and ended up in North Africa in 1942. The picture here was taken at that time-he's the one on the right. He was all of twenty three years old.

I can hardly think of Dad without humming the Air Force anthem and have known the lyrics since before I could read them. Here are the lyrics to the first verse of
Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder and if you click on this link http://www.af.mil/library/music.asp
and hit 'play song' you'll hear a short but rousing instrumental version of Wild Blue Yonder and be able to sing along. Call this a blogging karaoke.

Happy Father's Day and to the pilots among you, keep her level.

Off we go into the wild blue yonder

Climbing high into the sun;

Here they come zooming to meet our thunder, At'em boys, giv'er the gun!

Down we dive spouting our flames from under,

Off with one hell-uv-a roar!

We live in fame or go down in flame,

Nothing'll stop the US Air Force!