Apparently I Am Not A Terrorist

All you Loyal Readers out there will be pleased to learn that according to the civilian security guards protecting Edwards Air Force Base, the testing grounds of America’s most advanced fighter/interceptor and high-speed, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, that your husband is NOT – repeat, NOT – a threat to national security and can be allowed to park his car within up to one-quarter mile of the “Center of Excellence” facility. As long as he doesn’t attempt to smuggle a guest on base and wears his seat belt. That only took two hours of f***ing around with the bureaucracy on base, during which time I had to produce nothing more than my driver’s license and recite my social security number.

All this so I can drive forty-five minutes each way to teach a three-hour class Tuesday nights instead of being home with my wife, whose company I happen to enjoy. Someone please remind me again -- why do I do this?

Not that there would be much I could show someone on base even if I were to somehow get them past the security gate. I do not hold a security clearance and therefore cannot access any of the hangars, laboratories, test cells, or flight decks. Lacking significant knowledge about hands-on aviation, I would be useless in such places anyway. I can visit base housing, the educational and support offices, and the Panda Express and not much else. The architecture on base is somewhere between “utilitarian” and “disposable, and when you’ve seen one dry lake bed, you’ve seen them all. So about the only interesting things to see are the retired planes mounted on sticks and the bronze statue of Chuck Yeager that looks suspiciously like a MP aiming a radar gun.