But the truth is we left the camera at home, so I have some typing to do. Last Thursay, we were privileged to host the President of the United States in our tiny little home town of Huntsville. Neither Darling Wife nor I got close enough to meet the man, but it is quite exciting to have the leader of the free world drop by your neck of the woods.
The highlight of the visit was that we were able to get quite close to runway 36R as Air Force One touched down. We were about 300 yards out on the right side of the plane, perpendicular to the runway. I did have the foresight to bring the air-band radio with me that morning. Darling Wife came down to meet me for lunch, and we were able to tell about 5 minutes before they landed which runway they’d be on. Both of us were surprised that they allowed people to get so close as the plane landed.
It was impressive to see the big, blue Boeing 747 as it came down (ironicly enough, directly over the top of Boeing’s Huntsville office). Everyone cheered as the smoke chipped off the edges of the landing-gear tires. Then in less than a minute, they were at the terminal, nearly out of our sight.
A couple hours later, I heard on the radio that they were about to depart. I gathered up some interested people at work, and we went outside with the air-band radio. My office is also perpendicular to the runway, but not quite so close. After a couple of very hot and sunny minutes, we heard Air Force One give its goodbye to Huntsville Tower. Seconds later, we saw it, landing-gear retracted, nose pointed steeply up. Two minutes later, and it was gone. There were no politics discussed. There were no snarky comments from anyone. I was thankful for that because either of those would have soured the occasion.
I may never again get the experience of seeing the leader of the free world touch-down in my home town. I’m glad that I got to see it this time, and my only regret is that we forgot the camera.
