I posted Bill Mulholland's combat diary many years ago and since then Rootsweb has closed me off from updating it. Some of the links are no longer active.

https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~bwickham/genealogy/diary.htm#1

My stepfather, Bill Mulholland, flew 29 missions in the Eighth Air Force as a gunner in B24s. He was in the 44th Bombardment Group (Flying Eightballs) stationed in Shipdham, England. In 1950, when I was seven, he took us to see the film, "Twelve O'Clock High." Near the end they show actual combat footage of a B17 group mission. They use actual intercom audio in the film and at that point I sensed something in Bill so I looked over and he was gritting his teeth and tightly gripping his armrests. Many years later I asked my sister, who was ten years older than me, if she remembered that. She said yes and that he never spoke a word that night after we left the theater.

I saw a bomber pilot interviewed on a PBS documentary being asked what it felt like to fly one of those missions over Occupied Europe. He said, imagine you are standing on the railroad tracks and looking at a speeding locomotive inches away from squashing you. Take that feeling and stretch it out for the time it took to fly from the French Coast to the target and back, and that's what he experienced every time he flew.

My stepfather thew up on every mission when they came down from altitude and were crossing the English Channel.

I get a 10% discount at Home Depot all the time here in NYC. It looks to me like the deal through AAFES amounts to the same thing. NYC tax is 8.875%. That plus a 1% discount comes out to just about the same as going directly to Home Depot. And yes, I am qualified to shop at AAFES.

I started reading Mad in 1954 when it was a comic book. I did miss the first few issues though.

The Swan Pub, Westport, Ireland. August 1992

(Download)

That's nice of you to offer! A friend just advised me he is in the works for a trip to see a mutual friend of ours out in New Jersey. I'll get him to stop at a Costco that is on the way!

As a kid I always liked Eveready Batteries and didn't trust Ray-O-Vac. Then my first job after high school was at Union Carbide and I was able to buy Eveready Batteries at a nice employee discount! Later when I was studying for an FCC license I found that Burgess batteries were better than either old brand. If I'm not mistaken Burgess became Duracell.

Your pair of old ones say National Carbon on them. National Carbon was a division of Union Carbide and it's name was changed, in 1957 I believe, to The Carbon Div of Union Carbide. All products after that said Union Carbide on them.

I turns out that NY State and three other states have laws regulating over-the-counter reading glasses. NY passed their law in 2021, I believe. They can be sold in NYS up to 2.75 strength. 3.0 and stronger can not be sold or shipped to NYS.

I'll have to look around for that kind of price! Walgreens, Duane Reade, CVS, etc. sell readers in the strength we need but the price is exorbitant.

Costco is selling readers from Foster Grant for $18.95 / a package of three similar styles. They offer a range of styles. Right now they are on sale at $13.95 per pack. My problem is both my wife and I need them in 3.0 strength which are not carried in my local Costcos here in NYC. I tried ordering them on line and it came up saying they could not deliver them to my area. I guess I need an out-of-town friend to order them for me and then send them along to me! So I'm making do with 2.75 readers.

Same here, but I just started using them this year. I'm very happy with the exam and the free glasses and will be using the VA from now on.

I saw the original in the Deluxe movie house in Woodside, NY along with a friend, Kevin Callinan. A while later his mother berated me for taking Kevin to that movie as he had nightmares for a few weeks after. I was 9, Kevin was 8. I've seen it quite a few times on TV and still admire the way it builds.

The trap he set was to have Midway report they were low on water. The Japanese intercepted that message and relayed it to the fleet saying the "target" was low on water. We then read the Japanese coded message that confirmed the target was Midway.

I use the TP-Link AV2000 Powerline Adapter to turn my electrical circuit into a LAN. This system has worked flawlessly for me since 2018. There are three computers in our apartment all on the LAN.

Here's my take on pepperoni. We never ate pizza with pepperoni in NYC in the 1950s or 60s. When I was in the Army at Ft. Gordon, GA there were pizza trucks that came around to all the offices at lunchtime. A coworker, who was also from Queens NY, would split a pie with me every once in a while. The pizza was dreadful but we agreed that a pepperoni pie was at least edible. 20 years later I was working on the NFL pregame show at NBC and Domino's was a sponsor so they delivered a bunch of pies every Sunday. Domino's pizza sucks, but I found that the pepperoni pizza was edible and tasted very much like the pizza at Ft. Gordon!

BOTTOM LINE: if you make lousy pizza put pepperoni on it to mask the taste!