Ride Report for Ride Captain Calamity Jane

 

Since Andrea heard about us almost 19 months ago, she’s wanted to honor her Dad, Dana Christ, USMC – a member of the Walking Dead. Today was good timing – great weather, some good stuff after the unfortunate loss of his mother a couple weeks ago, and tomorrow is Dad’s Day! Dana’s sister, wife, ex-wife and Andrea were all excited and some even joined to post messages on his thread.

Andrea didn’t know it, but the plan was to make a bit of a fuss over her and her husband, Jared, while waiting for her Dad to show up at Chick-Fil-A. Since they all ended up coming together and we were taking up a good bit of the parking lot, we delayed that.

When they arrived, we had a flag line set up, but they parked out front; instead of a drive through, Dana did a walk through. It appeared to take him a little while to get the confused look off his face that continued even after you could see him say “for me?” more than once. After a couple minutes of handshakes, hugs and stuff, we set out. Local Police Departments were instrumental in getting us safely out of the lot and up Route 611; there were a couple really busy intersections so we greatly appreciate their help!

When we arrived at the house we recognized Andrea and her husband for their work in the Air Force and now: him in security, guarding nuclear arms, and now a Park Ranger; her an RN very involved in air transports for infants and children while in Okinawa then taking care of wounded warriors in Landstuhl Medical Center’s ICU; she is now an oncology nurse at CHOP. The family wanted to acknowledge a long-time friend and retired Army nurse, Grace Oberholtzer, which we did next. Then we moved on to our honoree!

Instead of me reading about Mr. Christ at the rally point, since it “is” Father’s Day, his son read his bio while Dana had an arm around each of his daughters. Gunny then coined him, and made a classy ‘’on behalf of” additional mention of George who, as a member of the same unit wanted to be there, but is on the other coast. Tom represented A Hero’s Welcome and Dutch presented the beads. Andrea read another wonderful “toast” about her father and mankind, then her sister, Missy, presented her father with a couple gifts.

The family also told us of two other folks there, a recently-retired Navy man and another Viet Nam Veteran. These two were also recognized for their service.

After invading that beautiful cul-de-sac for a while, we graciously thanked the family for their offer of cold beverage and food, but left them to enjoy all that and, most of all, each other.

Thanks again to Chick-Fil-A for allowing us to use their parking lot (and for having such good food); the Warrington, Warwick and Doylestown Police Departments for keeping everyone safe; Ed and MaryJane for leading the ride; Gunny, Pete, Harry, Tom, Dutch and MaryJane for their presentations; to the family of Dana Christ for inviting us to be a part of their special time; and most of all, to Dana Christ for hisr difficult military service and raising such fine children (well, helping lol)!!