Awkward Situations, great and small

Dear Aunt Bossy,

I am very awkward in many social situations, but the one that throws me the most is the death of a friend or acquaintance. I never know what to say or do, and I always feel superficial or banal.

"There was no roasted peacock for Thanksgiving in John Waters's 1^st Battalion. Tucked once again into the Tine River valley, twenty-five miles west of Tunis, his tank crews settled for a breakfast of greasy mutton stew with hardtack, heated over gasoline-soaked dirt and washed down with thick tea. Their cigarettes long gone, the men rolled dried eucalyptus leaves in toilet paper and pretended they were Chesterfields.

"Each soldier habitually watched the sky as he ate, smoked, scribbled a letter, or cleaned his weapon. Luftwaffe pilots now attacked on average once an hour, and the Americans had renamed the Tine glen 'Happy Valley.'"

Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn (2002, Henry Holt and Company)

Up and Away with The World-Famous GEICO Skytypers

Story by Mark Shaffer
Photos by Mark Shaffer and courtesy of the GEICO Skytypers

Once again I’m sitting in the back seat of an airplane built to train the pilots of the Greatest Generation, staring at an instrument panel that makes my car look like a starship. It’s a blustery day in the Lowcountry as we prep for to take off from the Marine Corps Air Station to fly wing-tip-to-wing-tip with the world-famous GEICO Skytypers. This is the second of three media flights scheduled for the day and all four planes have a reporter strapped into the backseat sporting a 40-pound parachute and a life vest.

Margaret Evans, Editor

This spring, it seems there’s no escape. You can’t get away from it. It’s everywhere. All over the place, all the time, making us all feel lousy.

            No, not pollen. Politics.