Wandering around the web . . . .

Who among us doesn't occasionally put our brain in neutral and just set out to poke here and there in the World Wide Web? I used to call it my electric fireplace, where I'd sit for hours staring at lights in a box.

Me auld buddy Dave must have been an influence - he wrote accompaniments to his daily dish of newspaper funnies that led me to, among others things, the music of Al Bowlly (go to Pandora and search for his channel), and a virtual cabinet of curiosities so varied and entertaining that I'd spend hour upon hour chasing the tendrils of information attached to them.

His latest prod toward web surfing was a reference to an American fighter pilot (fighter and pilot) named Frank Glasgow Tinker, who flew in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. A friend of Hemingway, among others, his was an action-packed life that ended in an apparent suicide at the age of 29, a result of too much boozing and PTSD. Google him and read the several biographical sketches. 

The Polikarpov I-16 "Mosca" flown by Tinker and used by him to shoot down the first ME-109b ever lost in combat

How I came up on the next subject was a diversion during a search for Frank Tinker's articles in The Saturday Evening Post. The first "GPS" addressed a need that still exists today, albeit without the modern conveniences of roads and road signs (and actual GPS). One was sold at a Skinner auction a few years back. I've never seen one.

The Post article can be found here:

http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/02/04/history/post-perspective/gps-1909.html

The web snags time and wrings the life out of it. Beware.