Issue 34.12
In our sixty-six years of marriage together, Eloise and I have lived in some interesting places. One of the most interesting places and the easiest to write about was Island Park, Idaho and our house was located twenty miles from West Yellowstone, Montana. We made our home there for fifteen years. I built the house myself with help from professionals. Island Park is three miles wide and twenty five miles long. The reason for that is that Idaho once had legal gambling but it had to be in a municipality of a certain population so in order to attain that size, it included all of the houses and businesses along the highway of this resort area where the average snowfall for a winter season is 267 inches. There was an old beautiful cabin on leased Forest Service land and the lease was terminated. They were going to tear the cabin that was all hand made with even all the furniture being hand made down but enough influential people protested and the powers relented and with the help of the community the cabin was turned into a beautiful museum on the banks of a huge system of springs called Big Springs. This cabin even had a working water wheel that provided water into the home. Many of the residents took turns to take care of the museum, each for a week at a time. Duties were to sweep the floors, dust, greet visitors, explain its history and have visitors sign the guest book.
One morning the first two visitors were two men who signed the book indicating that one of them was from Paris, France. After reading that, I commented out loud “Paris, France”. One man who spoke less than perfect English asked me if I had ever been to Paris. I answered “Well yes and no. I was never on the ground on the continent. You see during the World War two, I was flying bombing missions into Europe and just after Paris was liberated from the Germans, and because someone of power in an allied government wanted to impress the Parisians of American air power, on a mission to the German Ruhr industrial valley, the whole Eighth Air Force of perhaps twenty groups of thirty-six bombers each swung south in order to fly over Paris at eight thousand feet to impress the people. I’ll bet no one slept through that event. I was in the lower ball turret of our bomber so I got a perfect view of the city and I was impressed by my view of the Eiffel Tower.”
Our French visitor with some help from his friend told me that he remembers vividly that day and he and his also twelve year old friend along with just about every citizen of Paris were out on the streets to witness the American Air Power. He said the great sound of about three thousand engines was almost deafening. He also said he would never forget that event as long as he lived. I replied that also I would never forget that as long as I lived.