My kids will be whatever they'll be; it will be their choice, and I'll support them fully in it. (That's right...wilbur's gonna be the best heroin junkie on the planet...). No pressure to fly, but I'll help them if they want to.
When I turned eighteen and got a job in an AgTruck, I thought that there could be nothing better on God's green earth. When I flew a PB4Y I thought back to one of the fist model airplanes I built as a kid; a B-24, and remembered every moulded plastic rivet on that poorly constructed dream. I remembered it because I picked it out, and in a single parent family that couldn't afford new clothes or three meals a day, or heat for the house in the winter, I was lucky enough to get that model I coveted. I sat up late nights unable to breathe with painful asthma, concentrating on making that model the best I could.
Years later I flew the airplane, not just as a passenger, but a pilot. I revelled in it. Grattitude for the chance, payback to the boy who made me possible, humility for the thousands upon thousands who lost their lives in those airplanes who made my chance to fly today possible.
This summer I climbed back into an ag airplane, a tanker; certainly a far cry from what I've been flying. I took a temporary job, and I can't begin to describe the immense enjoyment and satisfaction at flying that airplane. Like a handpolished soul. It made my year.
The season ended and I was fortunate enough to still have my job back on salary again. The first flight was through a broken layer, and as we climbed, I looked at cloud canyons and virga and blue water below and blue sky above, and silently thanked God that the chance even existed. Inside, I questioned why I was so forutnate to be there, what I had done to deserve this marvellous opportunity, this blessing.
Last Sunday I attended the local drop zone to get checked out in their Caravan. I'm going to do a little relief work this winter. The takeoff and climb was routine, all the way to eighteen thousand. Slowed to 80 knots, put out ten degrees of flaps, and worked the yoke a bit while each stick of jumpers climbed out and fell away. Then retarded the power lever to idle, raised the flaps, rolled off into a steep left bank, and let the nose fall through vertical...and passed the jumpers on the way down. A beautiful sight that made my day, and my month.
I flew recently to Elko, and while there, two T-6's landed on their way to the Reno air races. I visited them, touched them, inspected them, and inwardly appreciated them. I felt lifted by the chance to simply be there, and then to listen to them, and watch them depart in formation. Not even the flying of them, but just the chance to watch, to listen, to smell the exhaust, was a privilege.
Right seat or left, turbojet or turboprop, flat piston or radial, how can we feel anyting but gratitutde and deep humility at being permitted to do what we do? As a kid we didn't have a television, we couldn't afford it. I dreamed about being able to make a flying model airplane, never even remotely daring to imagine that I coudl one day fly. Yet here I am. I am not lucky. There is no such thing as luck. I am blessed. I believe that what goes around, comes around. I have been provided a marvellous opportunity, and to be worthy of that, it must be shared.
The recent film "pay it forward" was just a film, but the concept is valid. Take your profession, your art, your gift, and share it. In one way or another, open the world to others. Forget those whose noses are so high in the air that it's snowing on their brains. Let them have their superiority and stupor. Revel in the chance to fly where man for millenia has only dreampt of going. Then share that joy, that reward, in your own way. Take your talents, whatever they may be, and repay the world around you for the gift.
Furloughed again, your gift goes beyond your flying; it's also in your words. Thank you for your comments here; they've lifted me.
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