[Cardhu]

When I was young, handsome and six feet tall, I flew many times as a passenger in the two seated Tiger Moth. I had a couple of friends, one was flight instructor and the other a Veterinarian who had just go his license to fly, both quite crazy.

In order to share expenses I foolishly became a the passenger of either one of them as they increased their flying hours and illegally practice dog fights over parts of the countryside and out at sea where no one would report them, they hoped.

Now, that is flying, with the wind in your face rolling sideways over the edges of clouds into a spinning dive hoping like hell the guy at the back knows what he is doing. Realizing how difficult it is to spot anything when your eyes do not have a horizon, the sky looks so vast when you are trying to spot another tiny plane. These biplanes really want to fly, they seem to jump off the ground with their two wings whose lift makes up for their slow speed.

It made one think of that poignant poem, High Flight.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.


Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

[aruanan]

For some reason, this poem reminded me of the following poem about the birth of photography:

CAMERA

Light disperses the silver
on film in the shadow
and memory is trapped
in the blink of an eyelash.
The kiss, the laugh, the poised hoof
are framed in an instant.
A century ago Daguerre dipped a pencil
in the eye of the sun
and etched an image of man
on the surface of metal,
making the past present
and the dead men to linger
pursuing the living
with love from the lintel.
Memory clings to the wall
bent sapling, hair blowing
mast bent to the starboard.
The wind forever in motion
because time stumbles in darkness
on a splinter of light.

A.M. Sullivan

[OESY]

I can picture you now riding on your Tiger Moth with the wind whipping
in your face as you trimmed the edges of each cloud:




There's nothing like a good barnstorm, as I always say. With a commercial
helicopter pilot's license, I could take literally invitations from friends
to "drop over for a visit." A few were shocked, but none surprised.

.

[OESY]

And, there's nothing quite like truffles for breakfast.
Four out of five pigs agree; the rest are bacon bait.

.

[OESY]

Today is the day Lou Gehrig's hitting streak in 2,130 games came to an end.

Who is Lou Gehrig"? Of all the players in baseball history, none possessed as much talent and humility as Lou Gehrig. His accomplishments on the field made him an authentic American hero, and his tragic early death made him a legend. On June 2, 1941, Lou Gehrig succumbed to ALS.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed. Yet, through it all, for the vast majority of people, their minds remain unaffected. My wife may have a form of it.

.

[yorkie]

That poem, 'High Flight', reflects my thoughts exactally, as I was taken for the flight of my life in a P-51 Mustang, over the Rocky Mountians, several years ago.