Thursday, August 14, 2008

Warplanes Over Chicago

Fighter jets were buzzing around downtown today. Fortunately they were ours. Just practicing.

They were F-18 Hornets, being flown by members of the Navy's high-risk entertainment unit: The Blue Angels.

We don't get warplanes much anymore. When I was a kid we had a naval air station at Glenview, IL, but that's been gone a long time.

But once a year - this Saturday and Sunday - we have the Air and Water Show, which packs in a couple of million spectators on the lakefront to ooh and ah over the fancy hardware and precision flying.

What if Poe had been there with me?

Once in a Midwestern City, while I pondered "my how pretty,"
at the lovely lakefront area, where I'd seen no planes before,
suddenly there came a roaring, as if gods had turned to warring,
something like a dragon soaring, soaring there above the shore.
"'Tis Blue Angels," then I muttered, "soaring there above the shore -
Only them, and nothing more."

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