Driving and flying and drinking and driving
Something like that. When we left the North Country Trail last Friday, we stopped by the old WWII Raco airfield on our way back to Fin Family Moominbeach. We had two vee-hickles, and I was riding behind in the “girl power car” with Uber Kayak Woman and Pengo Janetto. When we got onto the old runway, the “boy car” hit the gas and we all just cracked up watching the testosterone shoot down the runway at 95 mph or whatever, in the old Dogha. Go, boys, go.
UKW and I took our time driving the old runways. The ones where weeds are growing up all along the cracks in the cement. My dad and UKW’s dad were pilots in the Army Air Corps back in WWII. (No, they never flew out of Raco. Not sure anyone did?) The AAC went on to become the Air Force and her dad went on to become a colonel. My dad quit the AAC after WWII and, after factory stints in the Detroit auto industry and the old tannery in Sault Ste. Siberia, he joined his dad in the banking business, a business in which you can get into all kinds of “shit”, as I’ve written a few times before. It’s not easy to find “official” info about the Raco airbase but I found this website (link should work now). Scroll down for Raco. It was supposed to protect the Soo Locks from air raids but none ever happened there, not that I was born yet.
I think I can vaguely remember when Raco was still closed to the public when I was a kid. That was a long time ago, back in the 50s and now the Raco area is more well-known for blueberry picking. The GG re-discovered the old airfield back in the 1990s. It was wide open by then and he used it as a driver’s training area for anyone over about the age of eight. Yes, that was probably illegal but, yaknow what? It is not a bad thing for a young child to learn to drive well before the age of driver’s ed. Especially when they learn to drive stick. Y’all, teach your children to drive early if you can. The longer they drive with you, the more practice they get. That is all.