Jazz and the Air Show

Jazz happens every day.  Some days it takes me from the present moment to other moments in my life.  Listening to the stream, a song caught my attention, so I went to see what the title and artist were by way of TuneGenie.  That was when the fun started. Seeing that it was a song by David Foster called "Flight of the Snowbirds," it made me giggle.

The title took me back to the summer of 1988, when I was working in a riverside high rise.  The rehearsals for the Chicago Air and Water Show began on a clear Wednesday afternoon.  We could hear the planes as they flew high above us, getting their bearings over the lakefront.  Someone found that there was an empty upper floor facing east.  It was a great observation deck. 

We oohd and ahhd our way through our afternoon coffee break, sipping lemonade and swapping trivia about airplanes.  The blue jets soared and flashed in the sunlight. We got glimpses of them between the buildings and in the clear space that the river afforded us.  We debated whom we were getting a peek at, the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds, vowing to grab a newspaper or a brochure on the way home to look up who was gracing our skies.  (Remember, this is pre-Google, so info access was not as instantaneous as it is today). 

On the schedule was a visiting team called the Canadian Snowbirds.  Described as a precision team of the Canadian Air Force, it wasn’t clear if they were prop planes or jets. As there was no picture of the planes, I filed them away in my brain as a side note. 

The next day, while I sat in our 20^th Floor lunchroom with floor to ceiling windows facing east down the Chicago River, we heard the telltale rumble of jets beginning their maneuvers. Before we could abandon our table and head for our impromptu viewing station, I spotted a dot in the sky above the river.  In seconds, it became a formation of bright red fighter jets flying down the river at the same level as our lunchroom.  When they streaked past us, my heart leapt.  Being a child of the Cold War atomic bomb drills in grammar school, I uttered an explative while I dove under the table in full belief that we were under attack by the Soviets!  

My co-workers coaxed me from my duck-and-cover posture under the table by assuring me that there was no attack on Chicago.  Actually, I was waiting for the second wave and when it didn’t arrive, I decided to dust off my pride and emerge.

I was teased unmercifully by my co-workers.  In my defense, all I could say was "who knew that snowbirds were RED!"

Thanks for the memory, Mr. Foster. 

~Lydia Barnes (ldsbarnes9@cs.com)

The Smooth Video of the Day:  David Foster's "Flight of the Snowbirds," an early favorite on WNUA 95.5, 1987.

 

Comments

[Art B.]

Lydia,
Interesting read, I too was lucky enough to work Downtown and observe, as you put it , " glimpses of them between the buildings ", there reflections looking ever so sharp !!!

[Lydia Barnes aka L.D. Barnes on Facebook]

Wasn't that a great thrill, Art!
After that year, I always made sure to find out who was flying the show. And if you want to see them up close and personal, they will be in Waukegan on Sept 12th and 13th.

[Lydia Barnes aka L.D. Barnes on Facebook]

Opps - the show in Waukegan was cancelled. Could it be the red planes? I hope not - Canadians are our friends and wonderful neighbors.