Flight Suits & F-18's

I don't know what came over me in the third quarter of this past weekend's brutal Arkansas/Alabama football game (which we sorely lost), but, I became so very distracted. In the middle of this distraction, what was so strange is that I knew when to raise my arm and yell, first down. There was clapping offered to our team by my hands with Woo Pig Sooie motions soon to follow. What set this in motion could have been one of the three touch-down passes Casey Dick threw (two for the other team), or the fact that the Alabama band, heavy with tuba sound, played Green Day and I found myself singing along in my head, "Sometimes I give myself the creeps. Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me."

That wasn't it though. It was F-18 pilots.

They had flown the F-18's loudly and lowly overhead to begin the game and were right there on the Arkansas sideline. Four of them I spotted, like one would Waldo. They, in their hunter-green flight suits, Ray-Ban's and attentive yet relaxed posture, caught my attention and kept it for the better part of the next two quarters.

I remembered a night that I haven't thought about it at least 16-17 years; Little Rock Cotillion. The Little Rock City Woman's Club hosted our Saturday night's monthly (or however often we used to meet to do the electric slide, waltz or military shuffle) cotillion. The night I remembered at the game from my 35 yard-line West-side seat was our Halloween night. While I don't care much about Halloween myself, this was a cool night in cotillion because we didn't have to dress in our proper semi-formal taffeta dresses, white gloves, heads donned with large and completely unflattering airplane-like bows directly on top of our heads or just slightly tilted to the side and pantyhose. This night, we got to be original and wear costumes.

Mine was lame. In fact, I don't even remember what I wore. All I really remember about that night is that my brother wore Dad's original 1960's flight suit complete with MILTON handsomely embroidered on breast pocket and his original flight helmet. He looked kind of like a horror movie figure because it was a little too big on him and with the blacked-out visor down on the helmet, he was completely indistinguishable and sounded like Darth Vader. This is either devastatingly dorky as a 15 year old boy, OR ... super cool.

In Michael's case, it ended up being super cool. Or, at least cool to the uppity judges because they placed the costumes and Michael won first place. What I don't know, however, is what that did, in fact, do to his "street cred". Either way, I was reminded of that night dancing away on the creaky old hardwood floors of the musky-smelling Women's City Club. And, I camped out there for a good while in my mind which is not a bit unusual for my well-exercised imagination to do.

Anyway, the game was a bust. Arkansas lost 49-14. The pilots, however, were a great spark to start another chapter of Chasing Rabbits written by yours truly in my little mind. In all seriousness though, I do and will always have a tender place about me dedicated to those that serve our country. Especially those handsome ones in flight suits.