I went to the California Capital Air Show with a friend today.  It is always a fun event and it was particularly exciting to see airplanes like a Spitfire, a P51 and a P38 flying around.  In addition, the Air Force Thunderbirds always put on a good show.

But something was definitely missing.  There was no Diet Coke.   All the vendors had the same lousy assortment of  beverages.  There were several varieties of Snapple and some other stuff that looked rather unappealing, at least to me.  I could not find a single vendor serving Diet Coke, or even Diet Pepsi, which though not Diet Coke, will do in an emergency.  

I would have written this off as some kind of bizarre pro-Obama conspiracy, trying to force us to drink healthier stuff, but then I remembered that Snapple supported Rush Limbaugh, so there went that conspiracy.  I finally decided this was probably just another case of micro-management and incompetence. 

This reminded me of Falstaff beer.   When I was stationed at Pleiku, AB, Vietnam, there was always a vast over-supply of Falstaff beer.  Perhaps it was just me, but it seemed like half of the beer on base was Falstaff.  Yet I really didn’t know anyone who liked the stuff.  So every month, it was the same.  All the other beer would be consumed. (I mean come on, there weren’t a lot of fun activies at Pleiku AB in 1969.)  Then, toward the end of the month, we would have to settle for Falstaff.  Even the Falstaff cans seems to be inferior and I personally suspected rust. 

I always suspected someone in the supply chain got a little something extra for ordering all the Falstaff.  One thing is sure, it wasn’t the enlisted men on base who made that brilliant decision.  Then in dawned on me.  Snapple.  California Capital Air Show.  Falstaff, Pleiku AB.   It was Deja Vu all over again.

There were still a lot of nice planes.  

TDM