Book Progress #2

Four consecutive days of concentrated effort are paying dividends. But there is a toll to be paid for them.

I’ve not replaced my printer ink cartridges for about a year, and Sunday December 1 was the day it was obvious I must have new ones to read what I was printing. I have no dollars on hand these days due to circumstances beyond my control; everything is going for bills and extremely modest groceries. What to do? Either put off this book project AGAIN and disappoint Connie and her kind kindred OR find an “alternate route” to do what needs to be done.

I found my alternate route where I am employed and did so with my employer’s permission because he believes in what I’m doing with the Walker book and AeroKnow Museum. The process of discovering the best way to send Bill Strouse’s MANY e-mails to a printer at my employer has taken every day this week. I finally nailed it today. I truly believe I have originals of every picture I will want to use, but I need hard copies of Bill’s email texts and the scanned text that accompanied 65 percent of what he sent me starting in 2008 or so. So this is what I’m doing: I am forwarding the e-mails and pictures to another e-mail address of mine, going to those e-mails at work, and printing things on a black & white laser printer that is fine for what needs to be done.  Even when done fast, the process is tedious. I’ve gone through about 3/5s of Bill’s emails and learning a LOT that I did not know at the time I wrote JTW’s story for my book Springfield Aviation from Arcadia Publishing. That book is still available from the publisher and Amazon.

I didn’t know JTW came back to Springfield in 1942 from Washington, Indiana where his wife Geraldine had moved (her home town) when he began serving active duty. I also didn’t know that General Mark Clark — whom JTW had flown around Italy in 1944 and ’45 was the commandant of Fort Monroe, Virginia. That explains how the army airstrip there was named after JTW! The two men clearly had a lot of respect for each other. And I’ve learned that JTW’s father met General Clark when Clark visited Chicago some years after WWII. It was almost the time Clark was assigned to MAJOR duty during the Korean War. The newspaper account was quite touching. That will be part of the book of course.

If I’m not snowed in at home over the weekend, I will have another book report here in three or four days. Before that I will post here about the former Springfield High School students who were killed during WWII and remembered during a memorial service held at SHS (my alma mater as well) on May 26, 1946.

Thanks for reading.