The Odd Thing
Copyright© 2023 by Old Man with a Pen
Prologue: The Oddest Thing
I was walking waterfront Chicago ... where Meigs Field use to be. That would be south of Navy Pier ... which was my intended destination. I wanted to see the Paddlewheel Aircraft Carriers. They were the sole reason for me being in Chicago.
I never go to Chicago.
I hate Chicago ... the wind, the people ... all that concrete. The only good thing about the Windy City? Museums.
You see ... or maybe you don’t ... I should explain.
I see the past.
Not the people, and not the events. I see the physical structures. I have watched whole buildings come together ... like a fast-forward film ... without the builders. I see it.
The first time? The summer of 1955. I turned 13.
I had my first involuntary nocturnal emission. It was volumetrically vast. “Mom?”
“What?”
“Would you please come here?”
“Why?”
“Please?”
“Charlie? Watch the bacon.”
Thunder on the stairs.
“What?”
“Eww.”
“Ask your dad.”
“Well, David. You’re becoming a man.”
I grew a hair.
The hair was important. I needed it for ‘dares.’
“You ain’t got a hair on your ass if you don’t.”
My voice changed from the sweetest soprano to a gravelly baritone.
I watched my house being built ... from vacant lot to ‘in the dry’ to floor sealer.
And I was smart enough to not tell anyone.
I was in Chicago because an old Navy pilot had said he trained for carrier landings on the Great Lakes ... Lake Michigan ... Chicago. A PADDLEWHEEL Aircraft Carrier ... on the lake.
I HAD to see it ... but...
The Greater Buffalo was launched at Lorain, Ohio, on Oct. 27, 1923, and sailed her first trip May 13, 1925. In 1942 she was modified to carrier in Buffalo New York.
I wasn’t going to see the steamer built in Chicago. I didn’t know that. I wasn’t going to see the steamer modified in Chicago. I didn’t know that.
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