Conversations with Dad

I didn't post about it while he was here but I just returned Pops to the airport yesterday after nearly 2 weeks visiting us at camp. It was a good time but as always I wasn't able to hang out with him like I had wanted.

I don't know if I just need time to get the hang of having guests or if the schedule didn't allow it, but I really didn't fulfill the 'good son' role very well. We didn't get to work side-by-side as much as I'd have liked and our evening routine wasn't all it could have been.

That said, I loved having him here. He knocked out some very difficult projects with no complaints, was a great help with Cam and we did get to chat and just hang out.

On the way back to the airport in Simferopol last night we were talking about some of the surreal experiences that come up when you're here.

My dad's was riding in the back of a Chevy past Soviet-era radar stations in Crimea - the exact radar stations he trained for years to destroy - all the while being serenaded by a Russian-accented rendition of 'House of the Rising Sun' from the front seats.

My most vivid was sitting in the guard shack of a former Soviet base with former Soviet officers watching a Russian dubbed version of Top Gun - the quintessential cold war movie of my generation.

We both agreed that the Lord indeed has a weird sense of humor sometimes.

PS. As an unrelated fact that has no bering on this post, the Soviet Union lost roughly 15,000 soldiers in their invasion of Afghanistan as compared to the US's 58,000 or so in Vietnam... in case you were curious.