Thanks to all of you for the warm welcome back!
I am happy to be back, and deeply touched by your well wishes regarding my health. Thank you all so much for your kind words!
A bit later I’ll show you some of the work I have from the new builder, and you will see why I feel he’s a natural fit. You won’t believe what he did to the old Nichimo “Jake” with all the upgraded parts from Lone Star Hobbies. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” and all that.
Some have commented on “Perseverance” being the hallmark of this build. I decided to check the archived Aeroscale aviation forum to see if it was ten years since I started posting about the build, and in fact it’s been eleven years, April 21, 2014! I guess that’s a record, for better or worse.
Back then as we know, the Revell 1/48 B-17F kit was the only game in town, and the first task was to build the interior from scratch. Since then, of course, the HK and Eduard 100 BG special edition B-17F kits have come out and I’ll pirate some parts from them for the turrets. (I prefer not to think about H.G.'s scratch-built ball, which is irreplacable, but we’ll work with what we have.) One quick fix that we will not have is the Lady’s nose gun configuration: I checked the Eduard nose gun variations, and the Lady’s is not among them, so there’s that.
A few personal words about the Big C and me, and I’m not refering to the 303rd’s Triangle C.
“Old age” does funny things to one’s perspective on “the actuarial factor” and at 75 before I looked at the “My Chart” CAT Scan test result, I had this strange Es ist mir egal (It’s all the same to me) attitude about the results.
I think that’s because when I was 17 and living in Rome (a reward tour after my Air Force pilot Dad had returned from Vietnam in 1966) I got a very serious case of hepatitis from a dirty needle in an Italian Hospital where we had gone for treatment for a staph infection boil on my face, of all places. (Good times!)
Anyway, the Air Force doctor at Aviano who treated me (Dad flew me up there in a C-47 a couple of times, and I got to sit in the co-pilot seat for parts of the flights up and back!!) was afraid that I “wasn’t getting better” and I was med-evaced to a large military hospital in Wiesbaden. And dimly it occurred to me that I might not be leaving the hospital, until one day when the doctors said “you’re cured,” and back to Rome I went.
As a result of that experience, I never had the “invincibility of youth” feeling that my peers had, and have always felt that what came after hepatitis is a bonus. Getting cancer at my age, where it looks certain I’m going to beat this, serves as kind of a good luck bookend, where I am likely to have a few chapters yet as a double bonus. So I consider myself a lucky man.
A few words about chemotherapy, however. Medical science has progressed to the point where there is no longer a real risk a serious side effects from the treatment, like severe nausea and vomiting, but the fatigue from having this stuff in your body is quite something. One moment you can feel fine, “full of energy” and then like an evil spell in the next moment you have this overwhelming urge to lie down and sleep. (OMG, I’ve been drugged! Yes, Redhand, deal with it.) The other bad things are what I call having a “fuzzy brain” and lack of initiative, and because having this stuff in your body is not like filling a near empty gas tank after three weeks, you become progressively weaker the more chemo you get.
But I’m good with it, and the fact that I am writing this should tell you I am happy to be back here and enjoying chronicaling this project for you. Thanks, guys! It’s good to be here again!!
Brian O’Neill
P.S. Guys, I inadvertently deleted the earlier “I’m back” post, 
but reposted it below!
