So by the end of this post, you will find out why the picture above speaks to me and says, in some ways, "home." But you will have to read a bit to get that, and catch up on what we did during the first quarter of 2022.
The year started off in a really good place for me, with Keegan getting ordained a priest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was a great event, with Brent (Kathleen's dad), my dad, and Alden all participating in the ordination, and the rest of the family gathered round.
I never feel more connected to my family than I do when we are all at church. That might be hard to explain (wish Kate had opted to come with us!) but whether the kids want to believe it or not, it is a part of our collective soul, deep down, that connects us. I have explained it to Kathleen like this: without the church, and what I have come to learn and know and feel from all of the amazing people, and great principles, that I have encountered there, I know I wouldn't be the person I am. Nor would my dad have been, or his dad before him (more on that later). It runs deep that way, and so when we are together there, I feel that connection running all the way back. It has the feel of the eternal, which is a wonderful thing.
The early part of the year brought some other simple pleasures from just living:
Watching Keegan learn to make Creme Brûlée with the kitchen torch his mom had bought him for Christmas (never to be forgotten from this moment: the boys running around the kitchen island, lit torch in hand, chanting the name of the new super-villain they had just created -- the infamous arsonist "Crime Brûlée");
Spending quite a bit of time with Alden lifting at the gym (time which I really cherished -- my strapping kid letting the old man hang out with him doing what boys do);
Watching Keegan turn in another stellar performance, this time as King John in Robin Hood (with some dear friends), a rare non- musical for him;
And enjoying Alden's friends, "the Chaos Collective," as they headed off to MORP (a spring non-dance dance type thingy). They are such fantastic kids - his friends are always a joy to have around our house.
eating Kathleen's perfect pie's on Pi day.
We also received a nice invitation from our dear friends, the Wheatleys, to join them on a trip to one of their favorite places, Cabo San Lucas, in February. It was a fantastic trip, maybe in some small part because the morning of our departure looked like this:
But somebody has to do it, I guess. Nate and Steph were so gracious, showing us all of their best food spots and ice cream stops (with Nate there has to be an abundance of ice cream stops -- my kind of guy!), beaches, and shopping streets. We engaged in lively conversation, and just had a great time.
(Kathleen, looking like the supermodel she could have been with just a few more inches on those legs -- thank goodness for me the Lord kept her my size)
All very enjoyable, with a lot of happiness seeping in. But all was not well with me. I just felt wrong -- no energy, tired all the time, a little down. By the time we got back from Cabo, I was exhausted. It was hard for me to even walk a block. So my first call was to Bill Nibley, my oncologist, to get a checkup.
Bill took some blood, had it analyzed, then started looking at my results. Since the prior fall, my hematocrit (the measure of the number/volume of red blood cells in your body) had plunged. In October it had been around 31 (still a lot lower than the 46-54 that is normal, but manageable) but by late February they had fallen to 24, meaning I had half the red blood cells a normal person has. Bill told me that at 22 I would start to need transfusions to really function. These are the cells, after all, that carry all your oxygen, transport your food, remove waste products, etc. Bill then said something I won't forget for a long time: "This drug is not for you, we need to try another one." I did not want to do that, and pushed back. He said "No, you really have to quit this for a period of three or four weeks to get your red blood cells back up, then we will try a different one."
You probably don't understand how hard that was for me to hear. Every day for the past two years I looked at this little pill thinking, "this is life;" I had gone through its side effects, which I thought were moderating, and saw that it was really working. The cancer was non-detect both on a hematologic and a cellular level, and that was huge for me. I felt like the drug was "kicking cancer's a**," so to speak, maybe for good, and I did not want to give it a chance to get up off the mat. I wanted to kill that sucker while it was down, in one of the worst ways. To now find that I had to give up the drug, and give cancer a breather, scared me. Of course Bill was telling me it would be fine, the next drug would do the same and would maybe be easier on my red blood cells. But I wasn't sure it was all that easy, and maybe it would be just as hard and not as effective for me. That drive home was a long one, and the days ahead were kind of sad, and filled with worry.
Travel seems to help me forget whatever woes I have, though, and I was due for a previously planned trip to England with Alden. My friend Mark was still there, with an open invite to his place, and Alden had really wanted to see "Tiger 131" in action. For those of you who are sadly deficient in tank knowledge (a potentially fatal flaw!), there is in the world exactly one remaining, operating, German Tiger Tank from World War II - Tiger 131, housed in the Tank Museum at Bovington England. They bring it out, start it up and roll it around a track once a year, one day only, and we (Alden in particular) were determined to be there. So off we went.
We rented a car and headed to nearby Portsmouth first, to fulfill a desire of mine - seeing the HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship from the Battle of Trafalgar. Some of the earliest history I read (2nd grade) was about US sailing ships like the USS Constitution and the battles they fought. Since that time I have been fascinated with what life must have been like for those fighting in these giant wood killing machines. The Victory, and the audio tour provided, did not disappoint:
The museum site also housed the remains of King Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, which served until 1545 before sinking. It was recently recovered from the ocean floor.
The look on Alden's face says it all. We ate and went to bed, planning to head to Bovington in the morning.
A short ride the following day took us to Bovington and the the Tank Museum. Given how many people were there, I realized that this Tiger 131 was not just an old machine -- it was a rock star! For those of you who still are wondering what I am talking about, this is Tiger 131:
Of course, this is not the only tank to see -- Bovington holds the largest collection of historical tanks in the world. We spent the whole day wandering around.
Alden was in heaven. So was his dad. We didn't have to worry about anyone else thinking we were taking too much time, or being polite but bored. Such a fun day for us.
From there we took the rental car up to Cambridge. I had spent a summer going to school there as part of a University of Utah study abroad program, and had very fond memories. I was keen to see if the city would live up to them.
It did, and then some. There is just something magical about this place -- it is beautiful, and home to more Nobel Prize winners than any other place in the world. You feel smarter just being there. Case in point, our first meal on Sunday morning, at a Pub, the Eagle.
As noted above, it also has the most amazing room, where the walls are covered in messages from World War II pilots who did not want to be forgotten. Humbling read and place.
We also enjoyed the rest of Cambridge -- architecture, punting on the Cam, blue skies with puffy white clouds, english landscaping, the history. Just a great place all the way around.
But the real treat for me in Cambridge was Duxford air base, 8 miles out of town. It is part of the Imperial War Museum, and is a bona fide World War II airfield, complete with grass runway and hangers buried in the dirt, which now hold historic airplanes, including operating Spitfires, the plane in the picture that opened this post. Alden and I spent hours roaming the grounds, with some amazing finds, like these:
Those planes are, respectively, the Fokker DR-1, of the type made famous by the Red Baron, a SPAD XIII, and the Nieuport 17. One of the earliest books I read about American history was on the Lafayette Escadrille, an American volunteer air squadron fighting for France in World War I. They flew Nieuports and SPADs against, among other planes, the Fokker DR-1. Operating from austere bases close to the front lines, these pioneering American airmen, in machines invented only a decade before, took to the sky during some of the war’s largest campaigns, including the Battle of Verdun, the Somme Offensive (in which my great-grandfather fought), and the Ypres Offensive. It was a thrill for me to find them at Duxford. The DR-1 and the Nieuport actually fly, and were in the hanger undergoing repairs and maintenance. What a lucky day for me.
There were many, many other planes here from WWII and beyond. Duxford was also home to American figher and bomber squadrons during World War II, many of whom never returned. They are honored at the site, and a nearby American Cemetery. We spent hours upon hours at these places, in reverent silence at the latter, appreciating the courage, skill and audacity of those who flew these planes, and the sacrifices they made. Here are a few more pictures:
I promised when I opened this post that I would relate why I opened with that particular picture. The day we spent and Duxford was magical for me. Original Spitfires were taking off from this grass airfield, on this beautiful sunny and crisp day, and the sound of their famous Rolls Royce engines was like a time machine, transporting me back to a day that very much mattered to my family. Here is why.
My grandpa Bert and grandma Winnie lived, along with their only child, my four year old father, in Sheffield England during the Blitz, Germany's bombing campaign against England in World War II. My Grandparents were simple, working class folks that lived in a row house on Danbury Street, which contained everything they owned in the whole world. Grandpa was a nightshift foreman for Dormer Twist and Drill, a ball bearing factory at that time. A few days before Christmas, 1940, he was on a night time fire-watch -- the Germans were bombing the industrial side of the city, and he went to work to help put out fires should his place of work get bombed. While he was away fighting fires in the industrial section, the Germans returned and began bombing civilian areas. My dad remembers when the air raid siren went off, his mom said "lets not go the the shelter this time," or something to that effect, but after a few minutes, changed her mind, and they headed to the central air raid shelter for their section of row houses. When Grandpa returned from his night watch, he found his house completely obliterated by a direct hit from a German bomb. Grandma and my dad were nowhere to be found. After a frantic search, he found them in the bomb-shelter. But everything they owned was gone. My dad still remembers picking through the rubble trying to find things, and only remembers finding a fork. After the war, my grandfather emigrated to the United States, with exactly 10 pounds to his name, because he wanted to get to an LDS temple to be sealed to his family forever -- it was all that mattered to him. That is how my dad's family ended up in Utah in 1949.
Fast forward to 1987. Grandpa has just passed away, and Dad was going through his things. He found a box of photos, including one from a German airman, whose name we have lost to time. On the back was a note telling my grandpa Bert that this airman would never forget the kindness he shown to him. Dad asked his English relatives if there was a story behind that photo. He found out that this German pilot had taken part in the bombings of England, and had been shot down and captured. He was also a member of the LDS church. Grandpa had somehow found out about that, and asked the commander of the POW camp if he could take this particular German officer out of the POW camp every weekend, under his care and responsibility, so that he could go to church. During those weekends he also invited him to his makeshift rental apartment, and fed him from the little he had at his own table.
I don’t know more than that. I wish I did. But it tells me so much about Grandpa Bert. A physically diminutive, but really, towering man of forgiveness and understanding, with an absolutely profound testimony about the principles of the gospel and the truth of the Church. He shaped my dad, the best human being I have ever known, who tried his best (probably unsuccessfully) to shape me. The one thing I do know is that the gospel is central to my family--it is a fundamental part of who we are and try to be, and what it means to be a Bailey.
So perhaps that sheds a little light on why, to me, England and a lone Spitfire taking off from a grass airfield on a sunny day, says "home" to me. I was emotional just being there, thinking about my Grandpa and all the challenges he faced. How lucky I am to have had him. It really was a special day.
From there, we headed back to London, to spend time with my friend mark, and to see more sites. The last time we were here, pre-pandemic, we were not able to visit St. Paul's Cathedral, and we made a bee-line to that place. It was magnificent. I even managed to climb all the stairs (there were a lot of them) to the top, for a panoramic view of London.
We headed to a pizza joint of some renown in the area of St. Paul's after that climb, thinking to grab some needed nourishment. Here is what we found:
And here is Alden's reaction. (Those no-pineapple purists need to mellow out -- trust me, it could be worse, much worse.) Luckily there was more traditional fare, and we did not starve.
The next day found us at the Imperial War Museum,
which had a really amazing exhibit on the Holocaust. It was stunning in its careful depiction of individuals involved, and also in outlining how Hitler had used a very familiar (to any survivor of the 2016 and 2020 US elections) playbook to come to power -- wait for economic tough times, pick an outsider to vilify, stir up people's passions, vilify the press and the elite, use armed supporters to intimidate and suppress opposition, and once in power, do everything you have to to stay there. I had always wondered why Germans had allowed Hitler to do what he did, but came out of that exhibit spooked by how familiar it seemed and how dangerous it would be to follow anyone using that playbook.
We had time for one last photo before having to return to home:
I can't even begin to say how grateful I am for being able to spend such quality time alone with Alden. He is such a great young man, and it was so fun spending time with him on things we both love. I am a lucky man.
So there you have it, a great trip to the Mother country, and a summary of the first third of our year. We leave off with me not taking any cancer drugs, and worried about what the future holds. More on that in my next post.
