2014: Looking Ahead

In my previous post, I looked back over the major events of my life in 2013. Now I'd like to look ahead a bit and think about what I'd like to accomplish in the New Year 2014. It's been frequently noted (indeed, I'm sure most of us can see it in our own lives) that most "New Year's Resolutions" fail miserably. As my Facebook friend and fellow blogger William "Billy" Newton observes, based on statistical evidence, human beings tend to make grand, noble-sounding plans to "lose weight," "get in shape," "get organized," or "be a better person," but usually give up in a short time because our goals aren't specific and measurable enough. If your goal isn't specific enough to be measured, how will you know when you've reached it? If you don't know when you've reached your goal, what will motivate you to keep pressing on until you've achieved it?

I myself am notorious for making grand plans, announcing a course of action, and then failing to follow through, usually when I realize it's going to take more work than I figured to reach my goal. Yet at the same time I've been thinking about how the New Year does gives us an opportunity to take stock, start over again with a clean slate, and maybe, just maybe, do things a little differently, and a little better than we did in the past. I'm especially conscious of this, having recently relocated to a new city and a new and better living situation than I've had for many years. I'd like to set out some goals (I hesitate to call them "resolutions" because somehow that seems more formal, grand, and ominous) that I'd like to achieve in the new year. In setting them down here, I realize I'm committing myself to something. I may look back on this post in a year and realize I've failed miserably and embarrassed myself, but on the other hand, writing these goals down and posting them in public may just shame me into keeping them. Here goes.

I have three broad areas of interest in my life right now: broadening and deepening my Catholic faith and my relationship with Jesus Christ; resuming and continuing my genealogical and family history research; and resuming and continuing my creative writing. I have specific goals I'd like to achieve in each of these areas.

As far as my Catholic faith is concerned, I would like to continue attending the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (the Traditional Latin Mass) and learn more about the spirituality behind it until I am as comfortable and familiar with the Traditional or Extraordinary Form as I am with the vernacular or Ordinary Form. I would like to go through the entire calendar year (from this past June when I started to going to EF Masses until next June) and through the entire liturgical year (from Advent to Advent) with the Extraordinary Form. I've said on Facebook that somebody needs to write The Extraordinary Form for Dummies or something like it, and lately, I've even begun to entertain the preposterous idea that I could be that somebody. I would know when the book would reach its intended audience of dummies because I would be the Chief Dummy. I'm not a theologian, liturgist, priest, or religious; I'm just a poor, dumb schmuck in the pews, trying to get to heaven like everybody else. If the book made sense and was helpful to me, maybe it would make sense and be helpful to other people. I've begun making notes and doing preliminary research. I will aim to have a first draft ready by this time next year.

I would also like to learn to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, but this may be too ambitious if I am also writing and doing research. I purchased a breviary and The Divine Office for Dodos by Madeline Pecora Nugent, a guide for learning the Divine Office, by several years ago, but found both the learning process and the guidebook more difficult than expected. Nugent tries so hard to make her writing style cheerful and encouraging that it actually backfires and comes across as annoyingly chirpy and a bit condescending, cheering the reader on as if he is a slightly dimwitted child. Daria Sockey's book, The Everyday Catholic's Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours, has been recommended to me, and I'd like to try it. I will purchase the book this week and see how far I can get with praying the Hours by this time next year.

As far as my genealogical research is concerned, my research has been stalled for over a year and I'd really like to change that. I've been able to establish that my great-great grandfather James E. Leslie (1823-1875) was born in Iredell County, NC,  moved to Lowndes County, AL some time before 1850, set up a blacksmith business, and served in a Confederate cavalry regiment as a blacksmith during the Civil War. However, I don't know where in Iredell County he was born, who his parents were, and when or why he moved to Alabama. I sent e-mail and made a phone call to the Genealogical Society of Iredell County but received no reply whatsoever. I will make contact with the GSIC by the end of this month, and if that fails, I will see what I can find through other channels including the Iredell County Courthouse and the North Carolina Office of Archives and History.

Finally, as far as my creative writing goes, I have no fewer than three unfinished superhero origin stories (which sometimes feel like three versions of the same story) on my hard drive waiting to be completed. My interest in the superhero concept has waxed and waned periodically over the years since I first discovered the HeroMachine website and software, but I'm still intrigued by these characters I've created with it, and it's always bothered me that I haven't yet been able to finish their stories. Maybe this is the year. I will have a completed draft of at least one origin story ready by this time next year.

So Where Have I Been?

OK, so you  may have noticed a lack of posts on this blog in recent weeks. My apologies for that. My ongoing genealogical adventures which you can read about here have taken up much of my time and energy, but on top of that some other things came up: church work that had to be completed by a deadline and ongoing remodeling and renovation in my apartment. The church work is completed and in the rear view mirror, and I hope the renovation project will be done by the end of this week or some time next week at the latest. There may be one more period of "radio silence" yet to come when my carpeting gets torn up and replaced with tile. After that I hope everything will be back to what passes for normal around here and I can get on with the rest of my life. Until then, please bear with us.

More About My Dad

2nd Lieutenant William S. Leslie
9 Oct 1943, Age 20
So young!

Friday morning I got a long-awaited letter from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis in response to my latest requests for my father's World War II service records. My search was partially successful. It confirmed that I had indeed found his wartime serial number (0-668096) and it also confirmed my long-held suspicion that his complete service records, if they were ever held there, were destroyed in a fire in July 1973. However, the letter also stated that, "[w]e used alternate sources to reconstruct some record data lost in the fire," and included two copies of a Certification of Military Service that includes his complete dates of service, including a short period as an enlisted man that I did not know about. I am so very proud.

The date of his enlistment conflicts slightly with some other information that I have (ironically, also supplied by the National Archives and Records Administration which oversees the National Personnel Records Center), so I may have to look into this further to make sure the details are correct. Also, although the caption on the original photo of my Dad identifies him as a 1st Lieutenant as of October 1943, I believe he was actually a 2nd Lieutenant at the time. The accident reports I mentioned in a previous entry bear this out.

I Found My Dad

Caption on the back of the original photo reads:
"1st Lt. William S. Leslie, 20 years old, Oct. 9 1943"
(Scanned image supplied by William F. Leslie)

Note: A slightly different version of this post can be found here.

This past weekend was big for me. I found my Dad.

In the past, I've blogged about wanting to find out more about what my late father did in World War II. This past weekend, I took the first concrete steps toward finding out.

Early Saturday morning I received a long-awaited e-mail from Craig Fuller of the Aviation Archaeological Investigation and Research (AAIR) website that maintains a database of accident reports involving World War II aircraft. The e-mail contained a link to a page where I could download copies of two reports of two accidents involving my father, William Stewart Leslie, during his pilot training in World War II. The serial number of the "Leslie, William S." in these reports matches exactly the serial number on a set of dog tags in my family's possession, so I know this is my Dad. Now that I know for certain his rank and serial number and the group and squadron he was attached to at the time of the accidents, I can use these pieces of information to try and locate more details about his military service.

In the first accident, he was returning to Camp Campbell (now Fort Campbell), Kentucky after a routine cross-country training flight early on the morning of 15 August 1943. He landed about ten feet short of the end of the runway because the sun was in his eyes, and when he landed, the spindle supporting the left landing gear on his Bell P-39F AirCobra broke, causing the landing gear on that side to collapse. The board investigating the accident concluded:

Bell P-39F AirCobra with U. S. Army Air Forces Markings

Although pilot did land a few feet short of hard surfaced runway due to the fact that his visual judgment was hindered because he was landing into the sun at 0830 o'clock, it is not the opinion of the board that this fact would have been a factor in causing the landing gear to fail. It is a known fact that landing gear spindles on P-39 Airplanes are light and delicate. It is believed that spindle had Crystallized and cracked.

In the second accident, he was leaving Camp Campbell for another routine cross country training flight on the afternoon of 25 October 1943 when ice formed in the carburetor of his North American P-51 Mustang, causing a sudden and and complete engine failure. The official report reads:

North American P-51 Mustang

"After about 50 minutes of flying there was a tremendous backfire and engine failed. Pilot made crash landing, wheels up" in a farmer's cornfield near Scottsville, Kentucky.

The board investigating the accident recommended "that pilots be directed to use full carburetor heat when atmospheric conditions indicate that moderate to severe icing conditions exist," and "That WILLIAM S. LESLIE, 2nd Lt. Air Corps, Res., be relieved of all responsibility in this accident."

I'm relieved to know that in both cases, the investigating boards concluded that Dad did not cause or was not directly responsible for the accident.  A pilot is always ultimately responsible for everything that happens on board his aircraft, but apparently in these cases there were mitigating circumstances. A severe enough accident might have caused Dad to wash out of pilot training, which I think might have broken his heart. Dad loved flying.

I admire his persistence, too. One accident is one thing, but after the second one, I would have considered the Quartermaster Corps or the Navy!

New Genealogy Blog!

Mine.

As you might have deduced from my last post, dear readers, the genealogy bug has bitten me hard. I've created a new family history-themed blog "From Aberdeen to Alabama" to chronicle my adventures in pursuit of my Leslie ancestors. The title reflects my working assumption that my family originated in Aberdeenshire in northeastern Scotland, immigrated to the United States, and somehow, over several generations, worked its way to south central Alabama, where my paternal grandfather was born. That mysterious "somehow" is the subject of my search. If you want to see what I find out, come along and read. I'm really hoping that I might eventually draw the attention of distant relatives or other genealogists who are researching the same families I am. I'd appreciate any tips, tricks, or pointers more experienced family history researchers can offer, and put forth my own stumbling efforts in the hope that they may be useful to other noobs and neophytes. Enjoy!