Ed's Travelogue: George AFB "Tops in Blue" Sep 2, 1979

I have got to keep busy to take my mind off of things. It's a blessing that I still have a job to go to but the rest of the family is then by themselves in what now feels like an empty house.

To that end I'm going to re-engage in a series gone dormant here on the blog: Ed's Travelogue. The last post was way back in February where I started covering the year 1979. Having joined the Air Force in late 1978, 1979 became the first whole year by myself and away from home. It was also my first experience living in the desert, specifically the Mojave Desert of Southern California (also called the High Desert), and I tried to keep myself busy then as well. I had signed delayed enlistment papers in January 1978, actually reported to USAF basic training in September '78 and finally got to my first air base in Novemeber. But during that time my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. He would turn 79 years old in June '79 and had been smoking since he was 12 years old!! (Good Lord! As a non-smoker it's hard to imagine that, but I know it was a fairly prevalent occurence). By August 1979 he had passed away.

My last post back in February was part four of my visit to The Milwaukee County Zoo in August 1979. What I failed to mention in that post was my return to Milwaukee was initially meant to visit my dad but he had already passed away while I was on the flight home, so the trip changed from a visitation to a funeral.

...and so, it was imperative to keep busy upon returning to George AFB and that leads us finally to the subject of this post. The Air Force has a traveling talent show called 'Tops in Blue' to entertain airmen across the globe and as it turns out, this was the only time I would see them. They have been here in Las Vegas but I just never got around to seeing the show.

The performance was held on-base in the base theater and it was a pretty good show from what I recall. The lighting wasn't real bright and I had to use a flash to get some better photos but here are some of the better ones. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

There is a very '70s vibe to this show as you'll notice in the pictures

My 35mm Minolta camera was still fairly new and I was trying different things, like this prism-effect screw-on filter

"The Wizard of Oz" was a theme of this show

This was the last number