Red and blue do make purple, but not purple martins

Clay is off today. Here’s a favorite column from April 26, 2011: oday’s question:

TMy wife believes that purple martins are a result of blue jays and cardinals mating. I don’t think so, but she doesn’t believe me. Please settle this.

If your wife really believes this, she is a chowderhead.

If you made this question up, and I suspect you did, you are a jerk. We don’t really have blue jays here. We have Mexican jays, pinyon jays and Steller’s jays, but not the blue jays you used to see back East. We do have purple martins. I didn’t know that before, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one. They seem to especially like the holes woodpeckers drill out of saguaros. I’ve noticed military flyovers at outdoor events and I’m curious about how this is funded. I’d like to think it’s not taxpayers’ money and the military somehow gets reimbursed. Does that imply the government has a facility where equipment and personnel can be made available to the public for a price, so even I could arrange for a flyover when I walk the dog?

Yes, the jets from various arms of our military do flyovers, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that walking-the-dog thing. Besides, I’m thinking it would probably scare the bejabbers out of your dog.

As near as I can tell, these flyovers are considered to be training exercises for the pilots and recruiting tools for the services.

I’m all for training pilots to fly low over ballparks or football fields or whatever. You never know when that might come in handy.

I can’t see why anybody would be inspired to sign up after seeing the planes, but there you have it.