Coincidentally this weekend, I sat down for lunch at Camarillo Airport with a couple who I met on a genealogy research trip and who happen to own a private plane! Plus, one is the Air Boss for the Wings Over Camarillo annual air show in California. Planes truly seem to be this week's overall theme. We chatted a bit about what motivated them to start flying, as well as touching on some of my own family's aviation history. I've never taken up too much interest in the business of airlines or flights or even space exploration, though I've certainly been intrigued with others who have. My aunt is a retired flight attendant, a cousin worked for Boeing (I think on the B-52 bombers? I likely don't have my facts straight there), and my maternal grandfather was a part of the Apollo 11 mission. Aside from taking commercial flights to my vacation destinations and one helicopter ride over the Pt. Mugu and Malibu area, I've never really had any further connection to planes.
Summers were known to be the time of year when the extended Dean and Millhouse families (my maternal branch) could all come together in West Virginia for their respective reunions. The tradition began at least by 1949 for the Deans in Wheeling Park, but likely much earlier. For as often as these gatherings probably took place over the years, I have very few photographs to document them. I, myself, only recall attending one "reunion" at Oglebay Park in 1999, but it was really a 50th anniversary celebration for my great aunt Thelma and Melvin Mays. It feels a tad awkward showing up to these events and really only recognizing a handful of people out of the throngs who attend. Having to strike up that initial conversation with a "stranger" is never easy as you blurt out, "So how do you fit in to the tree? Who are you? How should I know you?" So that's just one of the excuses my introverted self makes for not going. Gary and Kira Foltz being anti-social, Og