Poor Toby's Almanac...Dog in Flight

They have a tube of shark repellant on display at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C. It was on display with other equipment supplied to Apollo astronauts during the heyday of the American space program.

Assume that was for the splashdown although you never know what you'll find on other worlds. They just found water on Mars the other day and Capt. Kirk certainly had the heads of a few sharks brought to him during his day. Or will have.

They have just about everything at the National Air and Space Museum, including an original copy of the Royal Guardsman album that included that oldie but goldie "Snoopy and the Red Baron."

That Bloody Red Baron was in a fix
He'd tried everything, but he'd run out of tricks
Snoopy fired once, and he fired twice
And that Bloody Red Baron went spinning out of sight

The Americans always won when it came to flight, from that December day at Kitty Hawk to July 21, 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took a stroll on fair Luna.

Or as Charles "Pete" Conrad said when he put the Americans up 3-0 over the rest of the world, "Whoopee! Man,  that may have a small one for Neil but that was a big one for me."

Yes Yuri Gagarin was first in space but the Rangers also beat the Yankees in Game 1 of the 1996 Division Series too.

 Actually you do have to give the British some credit for being quick-witted in the sky, like the time the grounds crew at Frankfurt Airport got mad at the English pilot who couldn't find his way from the runway to the gate.

"Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?" asked Ground.

Replied the pilot, "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark and I didn't land."

Hey, but it was Charles Lindberg who flew across the Atlantic and Chuck Yeager who broke the sound barrier, and both the Spirit of St. Louis and Glamorous Glennis are hanging front and center from the ceiling at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.

They are right there with Apollo 11, Friendship Seven and the Wright Flyer, which has been restored to look as it did on Dec. 14 when Orville flew it for 120 feet.

Plus a couple of World War I bi-planes - a Spad, not a Sopwith Camel - and a few other Prohibition relics that carried both the mail and wing-walkers all across the Midwest.

All living proof to Marla, Toby and everybody else there on a humid Saturday morning that nobody does flight better than Americans. The Romans had their roads and the British had their ships but the Americans have their planes and everybody else is competing for the silver medal. All it takes is 30 Seconds over Tokyo or 90 minutes in the National Air and Space Museum to figure it out.

They do give the Russians their due there. They even have a chess set specially designed to carry into space so the cosmonauts could hone their Sicilian Defense or Ruy Lopez just in case they came back to earth and found themselves facing....

Bobby Fischer.

National Air and Space...

No. 1 on the list of things to do on a weekend in Washington D.C.