I remember watching my dad “solo” at Kadena, Okinawa. This, in itself, isn’t all that big of a deal – except Dear Ole Dad was a Commissary Officer.
The houses at Kadena, were made of cinder block. In those days we had these real HEAVY storm shutters for the windows during typhoons. Not the “girly-man’ sheets of plywood now sold at Home Depot for hurricanes that we see on the news today. We had “Real man” shutters!
As a typhoon was approaching one day, Dear Ole Dad waited until the last moment until he decided to hang the shutters. I was with him out back when this powerful gust of wind hit. Dad was holding onto a shutter – maybe 5 feet in width when he lifted off! It was so cool – off he went!
When he got about 3 or 4 feet in the air, he “punched out” – he let go, and came crashing down. His landing was terrible – like I said, Dear Ole Dad was a Commissary Officer!