Part I: Danger

When Barb and I moved to Austin in 1988, Bergstrom Air Force
Base was still active. F4 Phantoms shrieked overhead almost
every day, performing tight turns and close-formation maneuvers
that you wouldn’t have thought the old Cold War jets could
handle. But boy, could they. When the pilots gave ‘em the
spurs, the Phantoms spat fire and roared like demons breaking out
of Hell. KA-POW. Walls shook and windows rattled.

Austin had a pocketful of danger at its southeast corner,
and there was the palpable sense that if anyone ever tried to put
the hurt on this city, the Phantoms would devour their souls.

Then: pffft. Virtually overnight, Bergstrom AFB was shut
down. The Phantoms had their guts ripped out so they could roar
no more.

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I felt that my last post was insufficient, so I wrote some more.

This post is pretty insufficient, too. So there might possibly be a part 3. Sorry. Hopefully Bradly Denton will be along soon to return us to cool stuff like diners and flying monkeys.

A writer talks of things that we all know but do not know that we know.
–Orhan Pamuk, (From The New Yorker 12/25/2006)

The idea of the mask is, of course, a metaphor. Maybe a crucial one. But it implies a stable, evolving and definable personality. A personality with depths and facets, but with certain characteristics. We all have the experience of doing something uncharacteristic. And we all have the feeling of not being allowed to do certain things because it is not how we see ourselves or how others see us.
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