Mile Posts

I will write my 100th post later this month. I haven’t been counting, but the page keeps track. And then it occurred to me that I have been marking my own notes on these posts as Pn as P-1, P-2 and so on. I think it was something familiar about the P and number designation that made me remember that the biggest event of my childhood was World War II. I was nearly eight years old when it ended and, as peaceful in intent as my family was, we played war games the same way all the other children in the neighborhood played war games.

The one I remember best was Spot A Plane, a series of flash cards featuring “enemy aircraft.” That would be Germany and Japan, so we saw our share of Messerschmitts and Mitsubishis. As I remember, they were on blue cards and the aircraft was a black silhouette against a white circle, as if we were seeing it at night in a spotlight.

The U. S. called our fighter aircraft “pursuit planes” back in those days, hence the P designation. I grew up with planes like the P 39 Airacobra and the P 40 Warhawk and the P 41 Lightening and the P 47 Thunderbolt and the P 51 Mustang. And that was just the European theater.
Having gone that far, I wondered what my own P 39, 40, 41, 47, and 51 were. The site keeps track so it wasn’t that hard. Let’s see. P-39 was a little riff on “The Star-spangled Banner.” I remember being completely dazzled by the third stanza, vicious and celebratory. P-40 was a reflection on the Reverend Terry Jones, the would-be burner of Korans. P-41 was my magnum opus on language. It was called “Conservative and Proud.” P-47 was a little ditty on political prognostication called “What Will Happen in November,” which was just a little gutsy on September 17th. And finally, P-51 was the first of a promised two-part series with the title, “The Politics of Self-respect—1.” I haven’t written the second one yet because I haven’t figured out what to say. I know what I have to say; I just don’t know how to say it.

So P 100 will be coming up shortly. It will by my centipost, which, if you think of it, is not a bad price.