The group at the picnic table is proudly not disoriented today. It is finally the end of the campaign to decide, maybe in the next few weeks, who is going to be running the show in which we are somewhat peripheral participants. It is a relief, of sorts, and we are hoping for something like the transition from the Carter Administration to something that worked differently for a while.

It turned out the plans for reorganizing the world that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union took a couple decades to work out.

So, today is the end of one thing and the beginning of another. Our group is composed mostly of veterans, either by choice or accident, and we thus have some familiarity with some of the weeks our fathers lived. It took a couple cups of Chock Full O’ Nuts to get to one that seemed to fit today. It is the one in February of 1944, which was springing forward rather than our current one slumping back. But we like it as a cheerful diversion we intend to adopt to characterize this one. “Big Week.”

That one was part of a continuum of military aviation operations managed across one ocean and conducted in a continent to the northwest of here. If you recall, the German government of that time has been under discussion at increasing levels here for the past couple weeks of electoral frenzy.

That government had invaded Poland and Russia and France and had been threatening Great Britain with air raids and rockets.

It is now sort of traditional, but then, the Americans camped out in England decided to run a joint show called “Operation Argument,” which was to be an aerial campaign featuring lumbering four-engine bombers flying over industrial and urban targets, day and night, for five continuous days. For efficiency, the missions would be flown in daylight by the Yanks and at night by the Brits who used flames to bring light to the urban German night.

It was a large-scale effort, and although “Argument” is in keeping with our recent political rhetoric, a better term was found when that bit of savage violence was complete. It was just called “Big Week” by pilots like Vic’s Uncle Dick, who had been part of it. In Daylight. Over Europe.

That week, Operation Argument was intended to destroy aircraft factories in central and southern Germany in order to prepare for the landings across the Channel at Normandy later in 1944.

The joint daylight bombing was followed by the Royal Air Force dumping incendiaries against the same targets at night, Monday to Friday.

So, Sunday’s mild disorientation from fooling around with the clocks set us up nicely for what Splash is calling our version of a “Big Week.” Our Monday- the today one- is a sort of neutral day. The cleaning crew from Socotra Central Casting- not Yemeni but mostly post-middle age Hispanic ladies employed by Vickie’s Healthy Cleaning Services will do an industrial pass on the HQ to ensure all is at least neat for the Week.

We are interring one of us over at Arlington later in the week, so there is some metaphoric stuff in progress that helps to keep it all in perspective about the size and nature of weeks.

Early voting is over, at least the legal part, and we can see preparations in progress at the polling station across Pershing at the Culpeper Gardens Assisted Living Complex where we have volunteered in groups of varying size and emotion over the years. It seems normal.

Also normal were the nominal notes in the news. Stripping out the parts about marching fascists and Nazis, the reports seemed completely reasonable. Reports were that as many as six states have their National Guard units on some sort of alert. Portland reported someone burning ballot boxes, and Fulton County Georgia is reporting irregularities.

Neither event is particularly unusual, but here in town there is plywood going up on some restaurant windows and the DC police and fire departments have gone to 12-hour shifts in preparation for a Big Week of response, if required.

So, we did our part on Sunday. The Staff Car- a German product- was washed in case of requirements for either flight or parade use. Tobacco products were stocked as the “last vice” reserves, and a conscious decision to avoid the VABC depot which seemed crowded. There is plenty of food, we think, and so we are prepared for a day of merry confusion at the polling station across the street. And the various ways that what is going to happen tomorrow will be portrayed.

It is a Big Week coming. We intend to stay relaxed about it. The Chairman says he may end this chapter in the account we started with “The Seventy Days” back in 2020 and the account of the last amazing campaign.

The one that brought us to this one. If you haven’t voted, you might make a note on the calendar to do so tomorrow. Then, join us for a large week of wonder!

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com