obligatory blue angels post
If everyone1 hates the annual invasion of our airspace by the Blue Angels, why do they keep coming back to Seattle year after year? I know that I’ve never been a fan of knowing that the sky is swarming with war machines and I assume that others are unsettled by planes flying just outside skyscraper windows.
A quick search of “seattle blue angels” reveals that after only a couple hours of horrifying practice runs, the “blogosphere” is already all atwitter about our obnoxious weekend guests. [technorati] Amazingly, some weblogs don’t seem to despise them at all.
Please use the comments section to share your reasons for loving or hating Seafair’s air strike weekend.
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1. By everyone, I mean me, the Stranger [slog], Joe [lj], Seattlest (which, despite the first-person plural, seems simultaneously annoyed [#] and excited [#]), and Tom Tomorrow [tmw] (via the Seattle livejournal community [lj])
Shutting down 90 is never a good idea, for one…
The Angels are nostalgia for me - just the very sound brings to mind sunscreen, watermelon, fruit popsicles and the hot, lazy dog days of the last bits of summer before heading back into school. They’re about sticky fingers being hastily licked off as I get placed in the cockpit, the lucky girl whose Dad knows the pilots, and about seeing the world through that window and that awesomeness and wanting to be up in the sky. They’re about standing in the ditch zone on top of the building my father worked in, getting my own private air show because they knew we’d be there, and reaching out on tiptoe trying to touch the plane shooting by at what seemed like almost in reach, pilot upside down and waiving.
But even more than memory, they’re about dreams for me. For so long, I wanted to be a Blue Angel - I was going to go to Top Gun, I was going to become the best of the best, and then I was going to fly in the airshows to the awe and excitement of all the other little girls, because I was going to be the first woman to break all those barriers.
I got older, and Dad pointed out just how much military life wouldn’t agree with me, and that dream slowly died. But the glee, joy, excitement.. the hopes and dreams that the Angels were when I was a kid, none of that has faded for me as adult.
As an adult, and a practicing Buddhist, I’ve had to wrestle with the planes that mean so much to me being weapons of war and destruction, and the conclucion I’ve reached so far is that if those planes were used only for air shows for the remainder of their lives - if every single fighter plane flew every day for fun, and sport, and beauty - well, that’d be a goal worth having.
Yes, it does inconvenience people, but for 90 minutes of inconvenience, there’s a little girl out there who’s thinking that “because” and “tradition” doesn’t apply to her, and who’s thinking about changing the system. For me, that’s worth the little extra effort.
Hate. They interrupt my classes at SU, scare the crap out of me half the time, and waste who-knows-how-much fuel, while shutting down half of the city’s transportation capacity to the eastside.
I’m sure they’re cool to watch, though. I’m probably just grumpy because I only hear them.
Even in the singular I’m simultaneously annoyed and excited. On an intellectual level, of course, this whole display is completely ridiculous. The few times in my life that I’ve seen jets flying at low altitude though, have been pretty intense.
I was out for a walk today and got to see the Blue Angels for about half an hour (I live close to I-90, in Rainier Valley). I have to agree with Dan’s comment - it’s cool to watch, but ridiculous when you think about it.
I’m sure there’s enough corporate sponsorship to ensure that the show won’t go away any time soon. Just like Nascar - totally pointless and a huge waste of gas, but it has a huge audience and brings in lots of money.
all of you make good points, but I just can’t get past my (very rational, I think) fear of jets flying through highly populated cities at low altitudes.
I went to airshows when I was a kid, but they were in sparsely developed areas and they seemed pretty cool, but this in-city flight path is too close for comfort. I have an instinctive reaction to immediately drop and cover.
My office is near Boeing Field, I’ve only to look out my window to see them. This afternoon my company had its annual barbecue and potluck where we all went out in groups to watch the planes fly by; at one point they flew right over us, eliciting a startled reaction from more than one person thanks to the optical illusion that made it appear they were LITERALLY right over over us.
True, the planes can be weapons of war, and yes, the shows are expensive and, yes annoying to many people. It’s also true that there’s no real point to the shows other than “ooh, that’s neat!”
But isn’t that enough? It really ought to be.
I’m touched by Kelly’s comments. My dad was in the Army and I spent much of my childhood on Army bases so I had airshows all the time. I never stopped being impressed by the Angels, I never have to this day. I didn’t get to grow up to be a fighter plane pilot, either, but that sense of awe and wonder and that sweet, aching desire when I see the planes in the air and wish I could be up there myself–these feelings remind me that there are still dreams to pursue, that not even the sky is the limit.
I like fast things that go woosh as much as the next person, but after 33 years of living with the Blue Angels zipping over my head every August, I just tune them out. After the first heart-palpitating sonic boom that is.
It is kind of creepy that we spend so much time focusing on a display of military hardware. However, since the other honored Seafair tradition is getting into drunken brawls on the shores of Lake Washington, I guess the shiny jet planes don’t seem so bad.
Thank you, Zee - aching desire sums it up perfectly, and I’m glad I’m not the only one to see them and feel so. …I think I’ll find out what time Sunday’s show is and treat myself to seeing an actual, real, not because I’m on base or seeing it from other areas of the city show.
-Kelly