today, smells, textures, feelings, sounds...

I think I'll recall the experience I had as a little girl of the sound of the B52's coming in to land and take off from Columbus AFB in 1960-1963. When I was little my father served in the USAF as a B52 navigator. He flew "alert" and would be gone for some period of time and would fly missions through the air of North America mostly as I understand it. He would come home, always, and life would go on. Sometimes, and I really don't know how often, my mother would take us down to the flight line and we would stand by our car and watch the planes come and go. It was a memorable experience. The planes themselves were huge and they made a frighteningly loud noise... rumbling really and one of power, the likes of which I'd never heard in my short life before. It was overwhelming... the sound being as powerful to my being as seeing Yosemite from the valley floor for the first time. We were enveloped in this rumbling, all encompassing sound, above which no voice could be heard and hardly any other thought could be sustained as it consumed all of ones attention.  Beneath and beyond all of the sensation of this experience was the awareness that "that was our daddy in that plane" and "daddy is coming home". This is one of the earliest memories I have of sound. For many years the sight of a big military plane and the sound of its rumble would evoke a warm, secure feeling in my chest... I am safe because my daddy is home. Unfortunately, the specter of the 9/11 airplanes supplanted that association and I have to dig a little deep to recall that early experience and that early innocent surety.