The Few. The Proud

We live ridiculously close to the Miramar Marine Base. I consider myself to be very patriotic (I have to add that one of the rights I most adamantly defend is the right to criticize the country I so dearly love) and I love where we live. Normally I only recognize the Marine base due to the fact that the GPS on my phone goes out if I get too close to the base and F-18s fly over my house with their turbine engines all. the. time. (we get lots of helicopters and other planes too but the F-18s are the noisiest). Once a year there's also the airshow where these guys fly over my house.


(noise vs. Blue Angels....I'm gonna call the base a net gain.)

In honor of the pops (who is here visiting for a whole week and once again I will say how much I love having my parents here) on Wednesday we went to the museum at the base. If I were ranking things my dad loves, airplanes would easily be in the top 5. I grew up going to airshows and I have been to WAY more war/military/airplane museums than art museums in my life. It will take years to close the gap.

The Miramar museum is totally awesome. It's located in a triple wide trailer (really, what bad thing is located in a triple-wide?) and there are great planes and helicopters but the best part about the museum is the volunteers. The Sergent Major is a talkative fellow who will tell you all about his 30 years in the service including his exposure to Agent Orange during Vietnam. But I think the secretary was my favorite. A couple of gems:

"My husband smokes too much. Has emphysema. I'm doing my best to keep him this side of the grass."

"I had cancer 30 years ago. I was lucky, beat it and my husband was so supportive. Straight up says, 'I didn't marry you for you boobs.'"

And it's free.

When you visit I'll take you there. We may just bring a bevy and sit and talk to the secretary.