The Antediluvian Adventures of Noah's Boys: 1. Escape from Mother Earth

In the days of Noah, when the lifespan was nearly a thousand years, many generations could share stories about what it was like when they grew up.  Today, it is rare to go back even a hundred years.  Our own family has a true-life adventure story from 1873, when my great-great grandfather decided as a young man to see the Old West while it was still wild, and buffalo still roamed the plains.  Here is Part One of the letter he wrote to my father in 1931. MR. F.L HORNING 756 S.24TH ST. MILWAUKEE, WIS. Milwaukee, September the 15th, 1931 My Dear Donnie Boy, Donnie!   Let’s you and me go and sit down some place where we won’t be disturbed by anyone.   Then I can tell you all about my trip out west when I was a young man 21 years old. LEAVING MILWAUKEE BY RAIL It was in 1873, with three friends of mine of the same age:   Jonas Boorse, his cousin, and Ed Brown.   We left Milwaukee on the first day of April with our trunks packed with our clothes, our Winc

The Conclusion of my Father's Wartime Adventures:   "I was with other American prisoners of war, but did not feel like talking much.  Once in the prison camp, I slept on a pile of straw with a blanket.  We must have lined up for food distribution, but it was awful—all I remember is weed soup. We were mostly left to ourselves all day: there was no reveille or routine like that.   I had left my clarinet “Elmer” in the barracks in England.     (It was mailed to me years later—I had my name on the case.)     But somehow I got a metal clarinet that came from the Red Cross—I still have it!     I would go out into a ditch to play it, and had no trouble from the other prisoners.   It kept me sane!     We divided up Red Cross boxes from America that included cigarettes.  I swapped mine for food and for a little notebook that was made by Russian POWs.  The Russians were in their own compound enclosed by a barbed wire fence.  It was separated from our compound by a spa

My father's adventure continues.  "I was in a hotel room in London when I heard a “V-2” hit nearby. The V-2 bomb broke windows and probably killed people; but that was a common evening in London. While at Stone a “V-1” screamed and hit in a ditch near our barracks.  No one was killed, but it frightened us—we ran out and dove into a ditch. For our first actual mission over enemy territory in September of 1944, we were given a “used” B-17-E: the patched-up veteran of many missions.  The ground crew said it was a lucky one.  Very early that morning we joined up with a big formation of B-17’s.   I recall looking out my Co-Pilot window as we first flew into “flak.”  I saw the B-17 on my right hand get hit by Ack-Ack and explode on the bomb run.  It went down fast —and  no parachutes appeared !  Ten men were doomed!  That was a sobering first vision of combat. Being winter, many missions were called off due to adverse weather or bad vision over the “target.” But