Tuesday, December 22 — In at 9:10, overcast, rain predicted, winds calm, nothing on the ramp. Started proofreading the Walker book and stayed with it until 1:30 when I had a few errands to run. One errand was to see if I could find a picture of the Fox Lincoln Theater in downtown Springfield during World War II from the Sangamon Valley local history collection at the municipal Lincoln Library. SUCCESS. Beth the charming helper at the desk sent me a copy of a picture of the theater in 1932, the year after Thornton Walker graduated high school. We had a fine chat also. Back to AKM and continued proof reading. On the way back I stopped for some candy for “lunch” from a convenience store. During days like today, food doesn’t matter as much as simply getting something — ANYTHING – into the gastro-intestinal tract to prove to my svelt body that I’m not starving myself. Continued proofing until about 9 when I was FINISHED with my notes and with the notes Connie and Richard Strouse had made. I was surprised how many glitches I had made when I was proofreading. Their notes really saved my bacon! About 9 I saved the files for the book and the cover onto a zip drive to take to Capitol Blueprint Wednesday morning. I am so HAPPY I am DONE with this much of the project BEFORE CHRISTMASÂ Day rating: A. (SMILE)
Today’s pictures were taken at Chanute Air Museum, Rantoul, IL last summer. The first picture shows why my interfacing with that museum fell short with that museum in the early 80s when I almost moved from Springfield to Rantoul. If I had, there would be no AeroKnow Museum today, so one might say it all worked out okay. I learned during my final visit to the Chanute museum that my friend and mentor, Don Weckhorst had died. He was a good man. Hundreds of pictures I took at Chanute are now part of the AKM and anyone who wants to see them is welcome to visit AeroKnow.
Abe Lincoln's Air Force 