As I have noted in several previous posts, one of my goals in flying, especially for early morning excursions, is to sleep through at least some of the tedium that comes with air travel. So, when we left Omaha for Phoenix/Surprise in mid-March, I thought that I would sit down and press the mental snooze button as we got ready to depart. However, almost as soon as I got my back pack stored underneath my feet and was buckled in, I had a travel mate sitting next to me, aisle seat. I learned later that he was in his late 80s and full of interesting stories. For the next 2.5 hours, I had a great conversation with a most interesting person.

Eugene “speedy” Zwieback is a repurposed vascular surgeon in Omaha (and Phoenix). After graduating from Omaha Central High School where he was known as speedy because of his athletic prowess, he moved on to Princeton University and eventually Columbia University medical school. Post graduation he had a fellowship to study under Michael DeBakey in Houston, the “father of modern cardiovascular surgery.” He was also a major in the U.S. Air Force, and Chief of Surgery at the U.S. Air Force Academy. While in New York, he served as a part-time team physician for the New York Mets—he had some great stories about Casey Stengel, one being how often Casey nodded off during baseball games. Thank you Speedy for making an otherwise 2.5 hour plan trip seem like a 15-minute free-flowing conversation with a really good friend.

 Our trip to Surprise was our fifth with our close friends Mike and Debbie to watch spring training baseball, hang out at the pool, play cards, throw down shots of tequila, and otherwise have a really good time. This year we saw three games, two in Surprise and the other in Goodyear. I cannot ever get enough baseball.

We also sprinkled in various Repurposed book sightings with our regular observations. It’s always nice to “find” someone reading or just holding my book, especially if it is at an event where book reading does not usually take place.

The house in which we stayed, an Airbnb, is located in a well-manicured residential area. It is a ten minute drive to the ballpark in Surprise and very close to the essential places for our visits—restaurants, Fry’s, and Total Wine—where we can find the must-haves. This house, like the one we stayed in for several years prior, is in the flight path of Luke Air Force Base. I’ve written about Luke before. Our weekdays began around 8 am with the roar of jet engines that were outbound to wherever. The sounds continued intermittently until the end of the day. I observed a pattern in the sorties that I had not seen in previous visits. The mornings were filled with F-35 traffic and the afternoons with F-16 take-offs. Often, the aircraft flew directly over the house.