Men and Machines

We had a 9 hour stop-over in London today--just long enough to take the tube into the city and have a great lunch with my sister. She took Ray and I to a very comfortable room, and we had very identifiable and delicious sandwiches for lunch. Identifiable is important, as this may be one of the last meals about which I can say that, at least for the next 5 weeks! After lunch, we walked through a bit of the city and then took the tube to the British war museum.


There were airplanes hanging from the ceiling as we walked through the door, so I was interested right away. The spitfire was front and center. If asked, I always say that this is my favorite WWII aircraft, but secrectly I like the Zero best. They only had a piece of the Zero at the museum.


The German Folkwolf was also hanging there as was a Mustang and many other weapons of human destruction. Ray knew very little about these aircraft, so I switched into teacher mode and was quite happy talking about these machines.


Near the end of the tour was a large exhibit about the holocaust. No machines in there; just row upon row of pictures of people, videos about the survivours, stories about those who did not servive (some six million in all), stats about who killed who and where, and maps...many maps that held no good memories for me. I could not make it through the exhibit. I had to leave. The story told there, unfortunatly, is not unique. Change the name and places, change the numbers and the maps, and that exhibit could be about too many other genocides of recent history. The thing that would not have to change would be the expressions on the faces of the men, women, and children in those pictures.
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Well, we are back at the airport and about to board. Keep us in your thoughts.