How cool is this?!? — "You'n me" are partners in a priceless artifact of history!
'Tell you what I’m doing to celebrate — I’ve got a date on the deck with some great friends, an adequate bottle of Willamette Valley Cabernet… and the weather weenies tell me that it'll be a gorgeous day. If you've never experienced the sweet sun under the canopy of South Dakota skies, there's nothing like it!
Proof below.
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A Canadian Harvard Mk. IV perched under a canopy of South Dakota BLUE. "No it isn't! It's a T-6!" "Uh, no it isn't! It's a Harvard!" Oh the stupid things we argue about, eh? (it's a Harvard, btw) ©Me |
Ahh... fat, happy and rich. That's the way we roll, eh?
Anyway, back to that priceless piece of history that you and I own together. It's not the red-tailed Harvard Mk.IV trainer in the photo above. That's the proud possession of a buddy who cares for it like the treasure it is. He'll never sell, either.
Neither is it the artwork of the greenish Martin B-26B Marauder with the peculiar black & white stripes* on the fuselage. That's actually the bomber that South Dakota native Don Wolfe flew during WWII. It was commissioned by two guys who wanted to honor the man and his family.
Actually, the priceless piece of history that we own is the darkly ominous photo shown below.
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Our priceless artifact! Yay! This photo and everything about it is public domain. What does that mean for you and me? It means that the 'rights' to this moment in time are shared by EVERYONE. Feeling rich? |
Someone named the photo, "Into the Jaws of Death" and rightly so — in a few moments, over 2/3rds of the people depicted will be casualties of war. A few months later, at the close of the battle (generally agreed to be the end of August, 1944) — well over half a million casualties, including 20-30,000 civilians, will have been killed or wounded.
So, um...yeah. The photo above is the "priceless artifact of history" we all own. How so? As a the photographer, Robert F. Sargent, was serving as a photographer in the U.S. Coast Guard at the time, he surrendered his legal ownership to the image as part of his military service. Thus, this photo falls under a legal metric called "Public Domain." This means that the rights to this photo is assigned to the general public — so, we all share in its ownership with rights to value it as we wish.
Please have another look at the photo. A whole lot of people paid for it.
Oh. That got heavy quickly, didn't it?
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The hand-off. The past meets present, patron meets pilot; proof-positive that 'young-people' care about their past. ©2021 used with permission from patrons. |
Guilt-trip? Not a bit. Guilt is a dumb choice as it just makes people depressed and unproductive. However, living up to ones legacy is a smart choice as it inspires us to live up to what we've been given.
So, tell you what. Today, let's you and me put the glass of wine/beer/soda/fizzy-water down for a few moments, look towards the northern coast of France and remember the day when leaders and followers of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Greece, Denmark, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway and France put self-interest aside and charged into the maw of tyranny.
Then, lets toast to our good fortune...and if we end up weeping for the souls that paid the tab, so be it — in the currency of humanity, tears outweigh gold.
Today is a great day to think deeply about what it means to (as the title of Don's artwork states) "Live as if you'll never be forgotten."
*Those black and white stripes are commonly called, "Invasion Stripes" and were hastily applied to aircraft flying over the Normandy area so nervous gunners would know friend or foe.
