Page 123 - REALLY What A time Book IX

REALLY SO WHAT
What A Time

FAMILY OUTINGS

After World War II Pop took regular vacations, and we always
went to Allentown Pa., or to Potterville Pa. to see my
grandparents. We also went camping. But, before the War
ended the whole family would go on weekend sightseeing
excursions, and picnics.

Washington was filled with places to go and things to see. We
would go to the museums, art galleries, the zoo, botanical
gardens, or to the grand old homes of George Washington and
a little further away James Monroe, and Thomas Jefferson’s.
We also went to Williamsburg. We had picnics at Great Falls,
and Haines Point. There were the Civil War battle fields,
Manassas Va., Antietam Md., and Gettysburg Pa.
Pop liked the air shows. They were always at the Service Air
Fields, like the Navy’s Boiling Field or Andrews Air Force
Base . We’d get to see the fighters; the dual fuselage Lightning
P-38 and Black Widow, the Mustangs and Aircraft Carrier
fighters and light bombers like the Corsair and Wildcat.

We could climb around the planes. Up the ladder into the
fuselage of a B-24 and crawl, hands and knees, down the
narrow tunnel to the tail gunner’s turret. Or forward to the
cockpit. Planes would fly overhead all day long in formation.
If we wanted to see war ships occasionally the Navy would
open the David Taylor Model Basin to the public. The basins
were full of water. In some they could create ocean size
waves. There was a deep water basin, where in the early

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