Three years ago

It's been three years since Mom passed away on July 2nd, 2006. I was thinking about the early years with the family in Fredonia and how we would look forward to spending a few days at Grandma's and Grandpa's. They were the only grandparents I really ever knew. I only met Dad's father once and although I do remember him and the livingroom of his house, the memory is very faint. Mom's parents Sara and Nicholas became for me the definition of grandparents.

The house is still there and it still looks the same -- same paint, same bushes, same barn. Google Streetview captures it during a recent October with gray skies and orange leaves on the neighborhood trees. I can remember after nine hours in the back seat of the black '58 Impala, finally arriving at the driveway and coming to a slow stop in front of the red barn looking for Grandma to open the back door and greet us. The pine tree, the gravel driveway, the clapboard siding, the painted wood steps... all very clear. The house looks smaller now because I was only a little guy at the time. It looked like an old mansion with the open front porch and wide steps.

We'd head straight for the candy drawer in the kitchen - a special place Grandma kept stocked with hard candy and candy bars right at eye level for grandkids my size. Grandma would have been cooking all day before we arrived and the smell of her special pizza, homemade bread and olive oil traveled through the whole house. The pizza was baked in a rectangular pan, cut into squares and always served at room temperature. Aunt Rose and Aunt Louise in their simple conservative colored dresses would be coming down the Persian runner covered stairs from their 2nd floor apartment to greet us. Everyone was smiling and very happy to see each other. We always arrived in the late afternoon so dinner was not too far off. We all ate at the table in the kitchen with the AM radio playing Italian or Polish music just barely perceptible in the background. Grampa would be sitting at the end of the table with his little glass of Cribari red wine. It was a happy place. Thanks Mom.

Today is the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Dad was there in a C-47 loaded down with gear and a parachute strapped to his back. When the time came to jump -- standing in the door for that split second, anti-aircraft fire exploding all around, he was hit with his first piece of shrapnel. It tore through his eyebrow just over his left eye but spared his sight. Like most of the 101st Airborne paratroopers, he landed alone in a field surrounded by hedgerows. But he still had his weapon and shortly after landing, met two other paratroopers from a mortar squad. Carrying only the mortar base, they quickly abandoned it and moved to find others. But they did not find other allies for two days nor did they wait for orders from superior officers. They took action on their own.

Shortly after leaving their landing field, they ran into a column of German troop trucks. Hiding behind the hedgerow, they took up positions on either side of the road. In the road was a large depression that had filled with water. Noticing that the drivers would slow down to gauge the depth of the water, they waited for the next truck to come by. When it slowed down, the three paratroopers threw grenades into the cab and fired into the canvas covered bed. None of the Germans survived. This was Dad's first action on D-Day.

He would go on to make his second wartime jump in the Market Garden liberation of Holland, fight and be wounded a second time in the early hours of the Battle of the Bulge, be captured by the Nazis when the 101st field hospital was overrun, spend four months in several POW camps, then be liberated by Patton's 3rd Armored.

Listen to Eisenhower's address to the troops the evening before the invasion.

An NBC report of the Airborne landings.

Reporter Wright Bryan describes his ride on C-47 named "Snooty" during the D-Day invasion with American Paratroopers. Where's "Snooty" today?

Listen to the CBS D-Day Radio Report. Another. A third.

Listen to the NBC D-Day Radio Report.

A World News report recorded over short wave radio.

An NBC report later in the day about how reporters were kept busy before the invasion.

Richard C. Hottelet's broadcast and eye-witness account from the air.

Six hours after the invasion.

Consider that while the world was hearing these reports, Frank Davis was on the ground "taking it to the Germans".

May 4th would have been Mom and Dad's 63nd wedding anniversary. It was always a special date for us. Happy Anniversary.
This photo was taken at Uncle Ray's home in Syracuse.

Google Maps Streetview of the Homestead.
...and the kids across the street.
Even caught Ken working on the lawn.

	March Bank at Winterthur on the last day of March !

Honor Flight Flys

Veterans to the

World War II Memorial

Honor Flight is a program to fly veterans to the WWII Memorial at no cost to the Vets. View the Honor Flight web site and consider making a donation to this worthy cause.

Today is Dad's Birthday, Mom's is Valentines' Day.

Thinking of you both.

Lives -- Too Short

Mom and Dad lived extraordinary lives and were so close to each other in so many ways. Something I've been wondering about since they passed away on calendar dates very near to the other is how close were their lifespans.

Mom was born on Valentines' Day, 1922
Dad was born on February 9th the following year, 1923.

Mom passed away on July 2nd, 2006.
Dad passed away on June 3th, 2007.

Mom lived 30820 days.
Dad lived 30795 days.

After 84 years, Mom lived 25 days longer than Dad.
They were married for 22,310 days.

Neither lived long enough. They deserved many, many more days together.

Click on the photo for a full resolution view.

SFC Todd Taylor

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Updated: 1/11/2010

The 101st Airborne Memorial, Arlington Cemetery, at Christmas 2008.

This re-enactment video clip of the 101st Airborne's Operation Market Garden landing in Drop Zone "C" was sent to me by my good friends Dorien and her father Jan van den Hurk... I met Dorien and her father last year when I had the opportunity to visit Son, just North of Eindhoven. Dorien witnessed the re-enactment and sent me this video taken with her cellphone camera. 12 paratroopers jumped from the C-47 "Dakota". Holland is anticipating the 65th anniversary next year with a big celebration. In the clip, you can hear Dorien's son Rico shouting "Hi Grandpa" ("he opa").

The drop zone was in Mr. Overveld's backyard. He was 15 when the paratroopers landed in 1944 and remembers giving the soldiers water as they moved towards the highway later to be known as "Hell's Highway". Sometime around 1995, as he was plowing his field, the plow caught on something under the surface. He stopped and unearthed this parachute still in extraordinarily good condition. Shown here are Mr. Van den Hurk, Mr. Overveld, and Dorien Verhoeven-van den Hurk.

If you are fans of the 101st, you'll recognize Mr. Overveld's home.

This is the plaque placed into the side of Mr. Overveld's house by Company "E", the "Band of Brothers". Dad was in Company "A".

The aviation photos continue. Saturday, September 20th was opening day for the Millville, New Jersey Airshow. This year, the crowd was sequestered at the new race track adjacent to the airport. The flight line was farther away than at the Dover airbase which made photography challenging. The lens choice was the same I used for the six mile distance to the space shuttle-- the 100-400 zoom with a 2X converter giving it a top range of 800mm. With the full-frame sensor on the Mark II, it brings in the aircraft but disables auto-focus. Out of about 600 images, only about 20 were usable and even a few of those are soft. Anyway, it was great weather and there were plenty of warbirds. I did miss the 17. It did not participate this year. I'm posting this photo now for a gentleman I met at the show who's friend Chris Shipe's Uncle flew the Avenger. Mr. Art Shipe, now 88 years young, flew the Avenger off of the carrier USS Bunker Hill and in 1944, Life Magazine photographer W. Eugene Smith did a photo essay on the war from Mr. Shipe's plane. I'm fortunate to hear of, and to meet through this acquaintance, another of our country's great heroes. More photos to be posted soon of the P-51, PBY, and one of the B-24's.

The SNJ-6 performing a loop with smoke.

The PBY flying off into history.

Another shot of the SNJ-6

On the way home from work, I turned the corner at Basin Road to Rt 13 rounding the curve around the Wilmington Airport when I spotted an aircraft in the distance. Over the landing lights at Hare's corner, it was just about a mile away. The airplane looked familiar but it wasn't the C-130's and it was too big to be a biz jet. It landed and went out of sight behind all of the buildings that totally block the view of the runway from the road. I was curious but decided to just keep heading home. Just then, something caught my eye up and to the left. I couldn't believe what I saw but a B-24 Liberator landing over my head. That's when I decided to turn around and find out what was going on at the airport. When I pulled into the arport parking lot, I saw handwritten signs for "Wings of Freedom" tour taped to a lightpost and followed them into a parking lot behind the airport.

Parked on the tarmac were the B-17 and the B-24. The engines were off and the planes were empty... done for the day. So I pulled the camera out and walked around the aircraft until the organizers looked like they were ready to go home. I'm sure they had had a long day so I took one last shot and walked back to the truck. As is typical on any shoot, the last image was the best one of the bunch.

You can follow the barnstorming warbirds by clicking on the Wings of Freedom link above.

On Sunday, August 24th, I had the privilege of flying with my next door neighbor Don Anthony. He owns two airplanes, one being this T-6 trainer built in 1942. It has been totally rebuilt twice and looks as if it was just delivered to the Army Air Corp. The last owner had it refurbished and painted to match the colors used by the Naval Air Corp during the war in the Pacific. The airbrushed transitions from dark to light blue make this a unique and beautiful aircraft. We flew from Summit airfield to Millville airport in Southern New Jersey. The ceiling was just above 3,000 feet, the air was clear and sunny. The big radial engine purrs and was not as noisy as I expected.

After eating lunch at the Millville airport restaurant, we spent an hour at the Millville Army Air Field Museum. If you get the chance, visit the museum. The Millville field was a training base for P-47s during WWII and the museum has a great deal of memorabilia on display. There is no entry fee but donations are welcomed. I was surprised to see Dad's photograph on the wall in a display of POWs. They had the Stars and Stripes photo of newly-freed GIs standing in front of the boxcars painted with POW on the roof. I pointed out Dad's image to Don and the museum staff. The museum was impressive.

After the tour, we flew at 2,000 feet over the Delaware River back to Summit. Before landing, we had to buzz our Back Creek neighborhood and I got some great photos from the open back seat canopy. This photo has been left at full resolution. Click on it to get the full size image. To see a "PhotoSynth" of the flyover photos, click here.
We also flew over the Chespeake Inn to check out the activity on "The Deck".

The Old Neighborhood is Changing


If you remember driving past the Homestead heading back towards the Sears Warehouse on MacArthur, you'll remember this tree... It's now only a memory. Maryann is in a nursing home now. Daughter Cindy (lower right) and her husband have moved in with their son (on the sidewalk under the tree). Cindy's first visible renovation was to remove the tree. [click on the photos to enlarge]

Before
After

But here's the other surprise...No hedge.

Another of those special emails...

Only great minds can read this.

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too.

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! If you can raed tihs forwrad it

Received this in one of those emails you occasionally get:

"I was walking past the mental hospital the other day, and all the
patients were shouting ,'13....13....13'

The fence was too high to see over, but I saw a little gap in the planks
and looked through to see what was going on.

Some bastard poked me in the eye with a stick.
Then they all started shouting, '14....14....14'... "

Good for a chuckle!

May 4th would have been Mom and Dad's 62nd wedding anniversary. I knew if I placed one arrangement on Dad's side, Mom would have said "Hey! Where are mine?!" so they each got their own arrangement.










Sunday was a beautiful, sunny Spring day.

Sifting through some of the old boxes in the basement, I found this Ektachrome deep in a pile of old photos and negatives... Taken at Jamaica's Montego Beach in 1974 with a Yashica range finder, it was always one of my most memorable photos for subject, composure and exposure in very difficult lighting conditions. She'll remain unnamed for now. When the group returned home from this high school trip, I gave her a 20x30 print. After 34 years, I wonder if she still has it. (c)2008 davis custom digital,llc

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