Warbird Information Exchange

Capt Rickenbacker in his Neuport 28 94th Aero Squadron

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Don't touch my junk!!

Capt. Eddie was one tough cookie, who apparently got tougher as he got older.
Thanks Jack for sharing a picture of him "in the day".

Subject: Everybody's gone, except for a few
>
> It happens every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun
> resembles a giant orange and is starting to dip into the blue ocean. Old
> Ed comes strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his
> bony hand is a bucket of shrimp.
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> Ed walks out to the end of the
> pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the
> sun is a golden bronze now. Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers
> on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his
> thoughts....and his bucket of shrimp.
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> Before long, however, he is no
> longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and
> squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on
> the end of the pier. Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him,
> their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing
> shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can
> hear him say with a smile, 'Thank you. Thank you.'
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> In a few short minutes the
> bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave. He stands there lost in thought,
> as though transported to another time and place. Invariably, one of the
> gulls lands on his sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat - an old military
> hat he's been wearing for years.
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> When he finally turns around and
> begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the
> pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away.
> And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on
> home.
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> If you were sitting there on the
> pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like 'a funny
> old duck,' as my dad used to say. Or, 'a guy that's a sandwich shy of a
> picnic,' as my kids might say. To onlookers, he's just another old
> codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket
> full of shrimp.
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> To the onlooker, rituals can
> look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether
> unimportant ....maybe even a lot of nonsense.
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> Old folks often do strange
> things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters. Most of them would
> probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida . That's too bad.
> They'd do well to know him better.
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> His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero back in World
> War II.
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> On one of his flying missions
> across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down.
> Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and
> climbed into a life raft. Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for
> days on the rough waters of the Pacific.
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> They fought the sun. They fought
> sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger. By the eighth day their rations
> ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no
> one knew where they were.
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> They needed a miracle. That
> afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle.
> They tried to nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over
> his nose. Time dragged. All he could hear was the slap of the waves
> against the raft.
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> Suddenly, Eddie felt something
> land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull! Old Ed would later
> describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move.
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> With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab
> it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving
> crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it. Then they
> used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave them
> food and more bait......and the cycle continued. With that simple
> survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until
> they were found and rescued. (after 24 days at sea...)
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> Eddie Rickenbacker lived many
> years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that
> first lifesaving seagull. And he never stopped saying, 'Thank you.'
> That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the
> pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.
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> (Max Lucado, In The Eye of the
> Storm, pp.221, 225-226)
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> PS: Eddie was also an Ace in WW
> I and started Eastern Airlines.

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T-6F, N81857
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