Liberal Arts Blog — Dayton Ohio — The Wright Brothers, the Air Force Museum, Paul Dunbar
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Liberal Arts Blog — Sunday is the Joy of Humor, Food, Travel, Practical Life Tips, and Random Stuff Day
Today’s Topic: Dayton Ohio — The Wright Brothers, the Air Force Museum, Paul Dunbar
Flight never ceases to inspire awe. Especially flight of massive airplanes. Have you ever visited Dayton and paid homage to the Wright brothers? Or perhaps been to another city with a claim to being the world capital of aviation for some reason or other — eg. Wichita, Kansas (home of Beechcraft, Cessna, Learjet, and Stearman)? or how about Oshkosh, Wisconsin, which hosts the “Greatest Airshow on Earth”? or Kitty Hawk, North Carolina? Do you have a favorite poem of flight? How about “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee? Or some other literary passage — from Antoine de St. Exupery or Anne Morrow Lindbergh? Have you ever wrestled with the two conflicting scientific theories of flight (Bernouili-based pressure differential versus the Newton-based action-reaction) and come to a conclusion? I recently met two tourists from Dayton at the Minute Man National Park in Concord and decided to learn more about their home town. Today, a few random notes. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
THE FIRST FLIGHT WAS IN KITTY HAWK BUT THE PLANE WAS BUILT IN DAYTON
1. “Their interest in aviation was sparked early by their father when he brought home a small 50-cent French toy that worked as a rudimentary helicopter.”
2. They never attended college. They never married. They had a “symbiotic” relationship. They were workaholics. Wilbur was hyper. Orville shy.
3. “1896 would prove to be a turning point for the entire Wright family. That year, Orville was struck with typhoid fever. Wilbur rarely left Orville’s side, and while nursing his younger brother, he began to read up on the tragic aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal, who had died during one of his experiments.”
NB: “Soon Wilbur was rediscovering his childhood obsession with flight, and as Orville convalesced, he began to read up on gliders and flight theory as well. The brothers became avid bird watchers, studying how they flew.” Wilbur died in 1912 of typhoid fever, aged 45. Orville in 1948 at age 76.
PAUL DUNBAR ( 1872–1906) — one of first internationally acclaimed African American writers, born in Dayton and died there of tuberculosis at age 33
1. Published first poem at age 16 in a Dayton newspaper.
2. Wrote the lyrics for the musical comedy In Dahomey (1903), the first all-African-American musical produced on Broadway in New York.
3. Wrote both in conventional English and “Negro dialect.”
NB: The title of Maya Angelou’s autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is a line from Dunbar’s poem. “Sympathy.” (see second link below for details) His parents “had been enslaved in Kentucky before the Civil War.”
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE (below LBJ takes oath of office aboard “Air Force One”
1. “The oldest and largest military aviation museum in the world, with more than 360 aircraft and missiles on display.”
2. “The museum draws about a million visitors each year, making it one of the most frequently visited tourist attractions in Ohio.”
3. “The museum has several Presidential aircraft, including those used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.”
NB: “The centerpiece of the presidential aircraft collection is SAM 26000. a modified Boeing 707… used regularly by presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. This aircraft took President and Mrs. Kennedy to Dallas on 22 November 1963 — the day of the President’s assassination. Vice President Johnson was sworn in as president aboard shortly after the assassination, and the aircraft then carried Kennedy’s body back to Washington.”
Dayton: Aviation History Mecca of the World — Tripadvisor
National Museum of the United States Air Force — Wikipedia
No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Laurence_Dunbar
National Museum of the United States Air Force — Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC-137C_SAM_26000
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
YOUR TURN
Anything miscellaneous to share? Best trip you ever took in your life? Practical life tips? Random facts? Jokes? Or, what is the best cartoon you have seen lately? or in the last 10 years? or the last 50? Or what is your favorite holiday food? Main course? Dessert? Fondest food memories? Favorite foods to eat or prepare?
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your mind a memory that might otherwise disappear. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
