~ The Bird Bath ~

One day a long long time ago - my dad was an air traffic controller at Oakland/Pontiac Airport in Pontiac MI.  On this particular day as my dad was pulling in, his good friend was pulling out in his little MG and dad took his parking spot, went up to the tower and went to work.  As the day went on planes landed and planes took off.  I 'spose you are wondering how this could have anything to do with a bird bath....well I am getting to that.

Like any airport they have jump schools around and Pontiac did too.  So dad was up in the tower when suddenly out of the sky comes a boat load of parachutes.  Good Lord thought my dad, and shut down the airport.  Jumpers where landing all over the runways and surrounding areas.  The strangest one of course would be the one my dad watched come down....Yikes.....you guessed it, right on top of our car!  4 door black Comet, way cool car and now it had a bird bath.  The jumper had a broken leg and hopefully was thanking God that the MG wasn't there as he most assuredly would have suffered a more seriouse injury and just possibly death.

So my dad called the insurance company and they came out an looked at it and then they told him....sorry - it's a write off. When it rained the dent in the roof filled up and the birds would go to town taking their baths.  But do you know I think my dad had more fun driving that silly car around with the water splashing off it then ever did when it was normal looking.  And drive it he did because that was just the thing that brought a smile to his face.  I mean really, who else do you know that has had a parachute(st) land their car?

The jump school, however they run those things, had missed their target by 5 miles that day.  How they managed to find the airport inplace of their target is beyond me, but find it they did.  Each and every one of them!