Bye Fool

Bye Fool

It was my first time to drop a jumper from my plane. To chunky balding Andy, a man with many jumps “under his belt” as they say, I sang out a hopeful “Adios, amigo”’ as he traded a Perfectly Good Airplane for leg-flailing insecurity, hurtling earthward through...
Flight To Underground

Flight To Underground

As I look out on the distant high Sierra Mt. Alamos, foreground framed by masses of hot pink bougainvillea, bright blue swimming pool a trap for drifting blossoms, I wonder how a wintery thought could possibly bubble up in my head. It’s climbing to 100f degrees out...
Kiss Me Twice – Memorial Day Repost

Kiss Me Twice – Memorial Day Repost

A FAVORITE MEMORY 1946 – The war was over. We were going to see our own soldier again – far across the globe in a distant land. Behind a giant Vee-spray of water our MATS transport ship had muscled the Pacific Ocean out of its way, till three weeks out of San...
The Dalhart Incident

The Dalhart Incident

THE DALHART INCIDENT Flying the wide span of west Texas plains can shake your confidence.  Not from the endless empty square miles of land (embellished only by the odd cattle tank and small shed – where are people?) but from the fast, frightening growth of towering...
Beauty Goes Up In Smoke

Beauty Goes Up In Smoke

BEAUTY GOES UP IN SMOKE And a way of life is gone. Our home for ten years, a crazy white elephant purchase on a hill looking at Boston fifty miles in the distance, is gone. The flames reached into the overcast, illuminating the township for miles around. Mother Nature...