We decided to go see a piece of steel be delivered to Fairborn. It was a big piece of steel, certainly bigger than any that Rita had ever seen, but why we went to see it was because it was from the World Trade Center. Not too many places get to have a piece of steel like this. The reason we get one is because of Calamityville.
Calamityville is a big complex built on the site of an old abandoned cement plant in Fairborn. I think it is a Wright State medical school project, and State of Ohio and Wright-Patterson AFB are also somewhat involved. It was made for training medical response teams for natural disasters and terrorist attacks. I don't think it is completed yet, but we have already had people come to use it -- 101st Airborne was here last year.
So, Fairborn was given this piece of steel -- a 12-foot beam. They had to go to New York to pick it up, then a 12-hour drive back to Fairborn with it. Once they arrived on the edge of town, they planned to assemble a small parade and take it on a roundabout route through Fairborn, past most of our fire and police stations, all around the Wright State Campus, back into town to end up at another fire station. I guess from there it will make its way over to the Calamityville site without all the hooplah.
But the hooplah is what we are after now. They announced the arrival and the parade plans on the front page of the newspaper weeks beforehand, with half-page maps of the route. We didn't think much of it at first, but after several big stories we figured well, they probably are expecting to have a regular parade of it, and they probably are expecting lots of people to turn out to see it. We decided we would go out and show our support, and maybe get a photo of the beam.
The parade was scheduled to start at 3:30, and the start of the parade was at Broad and Central -- that's our corner! but it was going up Broad Sreet, which is the back side of our block. We were a little miffed that they wouldn't go right past our house, but it's only a short walk around the corner. Everyone at work of course was laughing about me taking vacation time to go see a piece of metal get carted by. And it turned out to be a cold and windy day. But we went ahead and did it.
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| Waiting for all the hooplah to start |
We left the house 15 minutes before the scheduled start time, figuring the parade would go by quickly and not wanting to miss it. Also we had no idea whether there would be huge crowds, or just us the only ones there. We thought to walk up the block a little ways to be across the street from the fire station, that would maybe make a nice photo, especially if all the firemen were lined up neatly outside. As it turned out, we were about the only ones out there. We got there 10 minutes early (Rita always likes to be early), and had to wander around aimlessly for a minute. Then we found a bench on the sidewalk outside of McDonald's and sat on that for a bit. We may be the only people who ever sat on that bench, which looks like what you would see at a bus stop except we have no bus here, and no one would want to relax on that bench which is only 6 feet from four lanes of traffic. After 5 minutes some other people started showing up, and Rita started getting antsy, so we wandered back down to a good spot across from the fire station.
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| OK, here it comes |
Within a couple of minutes the first police cars with flashing lights came around the curve. Then a whole flock of motorcycle riders, then more fire engines than at 4th of July. I got a few good photos of all this.
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| Lots of these guys |
These are no ordinary Hell's Angels. This is the Patriot Guard Riders; they go to military funerals all around the country.
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| Starting to get good |
Then, while I was busy lining up another fire engine shot, Rita starts saying "Look... look there... LOOK". Come on woman, I'm busy with this shot.
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| No, look where I'm pointing !!! |
Finally she penetrated the fog of my brain, and I looked what she was pointing at. The steel, it's gone by us! Oh no, we missed it! I was expecting a big flatbed truck to be following the fire engines, but here they had it in a little pickup truck stuck between the motorcycles and the fire engines. Doomed. Failed.
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| Oh no, there it goes | Someday in the Future, they'll be able to enhance the focus |
Oh well, now we have to walk back home and start making supper. But within a very short time we started thinking hey, that thing is going all the way down to Wright State, then back up here to Fairborn, we may have another chance! It's getting too close to supper time (Henry has to work that night, so supper must be ready by 4:30) so Rita can't go, but I could drive down and have another shot at it. Unfortunately, we had continued walking right around the block -- if we had turned around and gone back the way we came it was a very short walk, but now we had over half a mile to go. We picked it up a bit, but still it was 3:45 when we got home. We went in and checked the paper for the complete route. It was not going to Calamityville as we had hoped, which is only a mile away from our house, but ended at another fire station all the way at the south end of town.
By this time we figured they were at the bottom of the loop and heading back, and I had just as far to go as they did. I drove down there like a madman. When I got to the fire station I could see that it had not yet arrived, so I pulled into the road... or thought I did... no, wrong drive-in! Wind around in and out of a buncha fast food places. Empty Giovanni's parking lot, I could park here and walk -- but here, the back side of it exits onto fire station road. Up the road to the fire station -- packed with people, no parking available. Entering panic mode... I could have turned around right there. If Rita was there with me, she would have said "turn around right here". But she wasn't, and I drove on by to turn around in the next driveway. Only there wasn't one. Over half a mile up the road before I could turn around (picking the wrong choice when it comes to turning around is my secret super-power). No longer driving like a madman, I came back down that road like a bat out of hell. Back down to the fast-food places, I parked in the abandoned Giovanni's restaurant lot, where I knew very well from the very start that I should have parked.
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| Not too far to walk |
A little walk across the field, and got to the fire station about one minute before the parade showed up. This time, I knew what to look for, so got a decent shot.
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| Lots of hooplah at this end of town |
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| Here they come again |
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| This time I got it |
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| Oh man, almost missed it again! |
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| And there we are |
Getting out was easy, they had all the traffic backed up trying to squeeze everyone into the fire station. Then there was a presentation ceremony planned, which I skipped due to my greater interest in eating supper. So I got out of there before everyone else.