Sometime after noon today, October 5, 2009, I was talking to a neighbor on the phone when the whole house literally shook. The floors vibrated, the walls vibrated, the windows rattled. About the worst noise I have ever heard. I looked out the window and my cows were running for shelter next to a building. Then I saw one helicopter a hundred feet or so off the ground. Hung up the phone and got closer to the window. Five black helicopters were landing at the Winner Regional Airport. It was a crappy wet morning with lousy flying weather and I guess that may be why they were so low over the house.
I drove up to the airport and got a few pictures.of the helicopters, but not of the men relieving themselves next to the airport building. They had been flying for a few hours. I talked to one of them. They were on the way through here and fueling up for a trip south before being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan... I guess. I wished them "Good Luck" and expressed hope that they weren't being wasted in a futile fight. They sort of looked at the ground. "At least" one of them said, "it might be warmer there".
The blotches on photo above are rain on the camera lens. I may stick another one of these into a gallery, but the next photo taken an hour or two later is just an indicator of how drizzly wet it was here today. Some drops on a small branch.
Click on image above for a larger version.
More to come tomorrow on health insurance issues and the McGovern-Abourezk meeting here in Winner Saturday evening.
[[[ Dakota Today Note added Tuesday Oct 6, 2009: This afternoon I heard a news report on SDPB radio which indicated these five helicopters carrying something like 45 men later had to land at Yankton, SD and stay overnight because of the inclement weather. I was told yesterday, but did not know if it was information the men wanted spread around, but the news today with a colonel's blessing apparently indicated the men were from North Dakota on their way to Ft. Sill in Oklahoma in preparation for deployment. That's the rest of the story more or less--- Doug Wiken ]]]]
*** Stay tuned even if "The big Noise from Winner" was never a good band or music to anybody's ears---- Doug Wiken
Recent Comments