The view from my window

Let's face it, you either love an air show or, like somewhat like pro-football, you sneer at it, decrying its commercial and consumerist nature. How could anybody spend all that money and especially all that non-renewable energy on this!

My bad.

I now live approximately 1125 feet in the air facing one of the most gorgeous natural spaces in the third coast area. My box of living space overlooks the south pond of a midwestern zoo, near the largest white sand beach in town (including those amazing guy and gal-athlete amazons called volleyball pros) which provides amazing views of blue, grey and sometimes frozen lake vistas. After living in a sometimes spacious but dark basement all my life, small but beautiful finally has a meaning to me. And don't forget that small means clean up is actually easy. Ok, it's not hose it down style, but compared to ginormous American home-is-my-castle living, this is pretty nifty.

Most evenings I come home from the ever present day job to choose between tv and THAT VIEW. Guess which one wins? But I have one problem. I'm allergic to noise. Ever since I can remember I cannot stand the loud bump in the night. So Air and Water anything was a slice of YOUKNOWHAT.

To be fair as a small child I witnessed some evil things that always involved BANG at the end; hold ups outside, robberies inside, burnings and and worse. And then later the real bad thing: coup attempt in a small northern African country including guns, rocket launchers, bombs and tanks - curfew took on a whole new meaing. Absolutely no one from the American Embassy was on hand, just when I had the need. The heck with civilized life, apparently local folks will help...and they surely did.

So to my complete surprise I finally SAW the A&W show. Seeing and feeling that show is radically different. I still winced at the noise, but something so big it makes your entire body vibrate must be given its due. And check out these techno-amazing details. It's free. I know we pay for it, it's an advertizement for the might of the military. Since so many of our children now participate, at least let them aim for perfection; although they make it look easy, I'm betting it is difficult to fly 5 feet away from someone else at 400 MPH.

In contrast and with no prior planning I also managed to be on-hand to see the first (and indeed most of the) runners in this year's Chicago marathon. The only noise for this event was really big cheering. Repeatedly. Boy, I like those spectators. Most them are probably neighbors, but some come from a distance to cheer for friends. I had to be a part of that, so for once I found my view couldn't do everything and I nipped over to the park for some ground level ruckus.