North Star Over My Shoulder

In direct contrast to Flight of Passage by Rinker Buck, North Star Over My Shoulder by Bob Buck (apparently no relation) is a very credible account of his life and professional career in aviation. In the first line of Flight of Passage, Rinker claims in a roundabout way that he and his brother hold a record as the "youngest aviators ever to fly America coast to coast". However, this just is not a fact, the actual holder of that record is Bob Buck who performed the feat in 1930. As he himself said in an interview in 2005: "I was the youngest to fly coast to coast and that record still stands. I had my license at 16 and after that, they raised the minimum age to 17. With that change no one could break my record." Now, that I feel like I have given credit, where credit is due, I have to say that this is another book that I consider essential reading for all pilots and aviation enthusiasts. His career spanned the early days of barnstorming types of flying, the early days of airline flying--such as in the DC-2...which really was one with the elements...even in the interior and finally he retired as a Captain on a 747. I especially liked three parts of the book: First, I liked his description of a cockpit, in particular the smell: "The smell of the cockpit hits you first--an aroma collected through hours of flight...there was an odor of metal, of spilled fluids...a little whiff of food that had slopped on the floor during a turbulent moment and had time to spoil. A scent too of sweat permeated the pilot's seat cushions and the black control wheel. It isn't particularly unpleasant, just part of the trade; blindfold any pilot and lead him into a cockpit, even a new one, and the first whiff will tell him where he is. Next, Buck, who did his first flight in a homemade glider, went back to gliding after his retirement. He talks eloquently about gliding: "You are alone, with all the world of nature spread out below, and blue sky and white clouds above." It really inspires me to move forward on my next flying goal: my glider rating! Finally, his description of what it was like to be an airline pilot in the early days and the glamour days of the first jets was really interesting and clearly as many men would, he spoke with a lot of respect and admiration for the stewardesses. Another thing I thought was interesting was the early navigational aids...such as the night airways that had light beacons dispersed at 10 mile intervals and then the early radio navigation...flying the beam. Finally, thus the title of the book, I think about celestial navigation and learning a little bit about it....not for practical reasons perhaps in the days of multiple GPS's etc, but just because it is cool to learn something unique and stretches back through the centuries...a bond with early navigators. This book was truly an education and essential reading for aviation buffs, historians and pilots. Sadly, Bob is no longer with us, he died in 2007 at the age of 93...but he surely lived a full life.

Wind, Sand and Stars

Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry is without a
doubt essential reading for any of us pilots or aviation enthusiasts that are philosophical and deep thinkers about flying and the air. At first I was bored with the book...the stream of consciousness style was a bit much for me after all of the biographies I've been reading of WWII pilots. But luckily, I somehow stuck with the book and was richly rewarded for my effort. I especially appreciated how he loves his airplanes...I thought I was the only pilot ever that would lightly touch the wings of my airplane when I thought nobody else was looking before a flight...of course he puts it better than I do: "I walked around my ship, stroking her wings with the back of my hand in a caress that I believe was love." And then describing the cockpit: "magical instruments set like jewels in their panel and glimmering like a constellation in the dark of the night." How often I have sat in one of my planes on a bad weather day, just looking at the instruments. But, when I actually am flying, Exupéry sometimes is with me...but only when the winds kick up and make me nervous, then I remember his vivid, life and death, description of fighting a horrendous wind storm in the Andes, then I take a deep breath, relax and concentrate ...my co-pilot in my mind.
Flying is really about friendship and Exupéry writes of the joy of being reunited with friends, especially those friends with whom we have experienced a trial or ordeal. I certainly have made a lot of new friends and connections with people that share my passion for flying and that has been one of the nicest surprises on this journey of getting my pilot's license.
Flying is also love and desire, but not just the love of the airplane....sometimes it is a desire that eludes such as a woman that scorches and wounds a man "by the indifference of that stroll she takes through their dream", but not all women elude and my absolute favorite small piece of literary technique is on p. 123 when his wife suddenly comes to life and breaks in with one line of dialogue. Sadly Exupéry was killed in WWII in 1944 and I wonder about his wife anytime I think of his death, especially after he lived through the ordeal of a crash landing years earlier in the Sahara desert; a similar experience to the Lady be Good crew, but luckily and only by luck, he survived. So really in the end it is more a book about love than flying, but flying to him was also love.

Joplin Tornado

My mother was in the killer F5 tornado that hit Joplin last week. She was working at St. John's in Joplin and had about 5 minutes warning to help move her patients to their designated area in the psych unit. She said it hit with explosive force, lasted about 3 minutes and was the scariest moment of her entire life. After it was over the electric doors that lock the psych unit were stuck shut and they had to wait for the fire dept or somebody (she wasn't sure who it was) to come get them. After it hit, the floors above her (she was on the 5th floor) section of hospital were gone and it was raining in on them. It was a harrowing walk over the roof and glass and then down a dark stairwell. As soon as they were outside they were ordered to run because of the natural gas leaks. Along with the staff and patients they all found their way through a mile of rubble to a half destroyed church which they used as a temporary shelter. Luckily, mom, the psych unit staff and all of the patients were fine. During her evacuation to the shelter she was interviewed by the local CBS affiliate and the next morning was even interviewed on our local CBS station--KMOV channel 4! I had just looked at radar about 10 minutes before and texted my mom and sister (who lives in the JPL area as well). I noticed that the cell on radar was exploding rapidly and had a dangerous look about it. I couldn't get a hold of mom, but Lisa (my sister) called her work number and relayed my message to mom not to leave work early (she was scheduled to leave at 6). About 20 minutes later my sister told me that she heard the hospital had suffered a direct hit. We finally got a hold of mom about an hour later and then knew that she had survived, but she was totally freaked out and incoherent on that first short phone call. Listening to the scanner of Jasper county online I kept texting my sister the addresses of the shelters and after a harrowing search (in which she saw lots of death and destruction) she found my mom about 11:30 and I spoke with her again about midnight. She couldn't find her car for several days, but located it on Friday and as you can see in the picture, it wasn't in good shape. It literally looks like it had been driven to hell and back. No way she would have survived in the car and thank God she wasn't in it! I have felt pretty helpless up here in STL, but we are going to help my mom get a new car as soon as her insurace money comes in.

Flight of Passage

Flight of Passage by Rinker Buck is apparently a fairly well known book in the general aviation community. It is the story of two teenage boys who fix up their father's Piper Cub (71 Hotel) and then fly it across the country from New Jersey to California in the summer of 1966. The author of the book is the younger of the boys, who was 15 at the time. His older brother Kern was 17 and the pilot. Overall, I enjoyed the book, especially the flight West itself. There were some classic scenes, that I particularly enjoyed, like the foul mouthed pilots they met along the way such as Robert Pate and "Hank the Stearman Man." I thought some editing of the book would have really helped sales and it's overall popularity outside aviation circles. First, the run up to the flight and the refurbishing of the cub was too long and then the conclusion was lacking something I can't quite put my finger on...but it wasn't satisfying. However, the middle of the book, the flight itself was very entertaining and made the book worth the read. However, I found myself doubting the veracity of the author at certain points. There is nothing wrong with playing with things and exaggerating a little to make a story fit together, to be readable and to get at the actual kernel of truth of a thing without bogging down in detail, but there were a few too many incidents that didn't just quite ring true to me, such as playing chicken with the Greyhound bus full of passengers and forcing it in the ditch...just to name one of the many. But, who knows for sure...I've heard pilots, many of whom I'm related to, tell these types of stories. So, I guess what I'm saying is that this could all be true, but sometimes the truth can be so wild it doesn't ring true. So I will just leave it at that. Getting back to the conclusion...I guess there wasn't enough about how the flight changed their lives and continued to change their lives into middle age and there was WAY too much about the relationship with their father, which became tiresome. Finally, the most baffling part of the story was the fate of 71 Hotel itself. This plane that both of these boys loved was being used as a trainer in Vermont. The author flew the plane again and spoke of how much he loved it, but didn't try to buy it and keep it? That made no sense to me, especially since the older brother is a successful attorney and obviously has the money to buy it and fix it up...so yeah, really baffling and fed into the credibility gap of the book in general. Normally, I'm not so hard on authors, but I think this book had/has the potential to be really great, but needed/needs some help to get to the next level.

Trail of Tears State Park

Last weekend we traveled down to Trail of Tears State Park which is just north of Cape Girardeau, MO. It was an easy drive from our home in suburban St. Louis. We were pleasantly surprised by this park. The museum was nice and explained the story of the Trail of Tears and how this park was part of the trail where the Cherokee crossed the Mississippi River.
The park grounds comprised a large area and the park had more trails than we had time to take. We took a nice trail to an scenic overlook, where we enjoyed a nice view of the Mississippi and a could easily see all the way over to Anna, IL.

Log of a Cowboy

I actually read this book when I was 14 (a gift from my Uncle Garry) and it was with much pleasure that I have read it again. It is a "fictional" account of a trail drive in 1882 from Mexico to Montana. The author, was an actual cowboy and his accounts and stories from the trail are so authentic that most historians consider this the one most important pieces of literature that would really explain to people of the future what a cattle drive was really like. My guess is that the author put all of his highlights of several cattle drives into one story.
The hero of the story is a teenager who slips into the narrator role and obviously is the author of the story. Most everything you would expect from westerns were in the story, but without the cliche's and exaggerations. There were stampedes, one gunfight, gambling, "dance hall" girls, and an 80 mile dry drive that made you thirsty just reading it. But, the main thing the cowboys dealt with was loneliness and homesickness, in fact, they were so lonely for companionship they would welcome con-men to ride with them for a time, even though most of them lost a lot of money on a horse race one of them set up!
The not so honorable side (when judged by today's standards) of the Texas cowboys, such as racism and shooting a grizzly bear and her two cubs just for sport, was also in plain view. But, overall, especially having grown up in Kansas and being a big fan of westerns as a kid, it made me long to be able to go back in time and go on a cattle drive. A unique time in our history that really only lasted a few decades after the Civil War.
The cowboys after driving the cattle over 3,000 miles weren't at all sorry to see the cows delivered, but they were very sad to sell their horses before their train trip back home. The author put it best as they arrived at the railroad terminus and unsaddled their horses for what they knew would be the last time: But at no time in my life, before or since, have I felt so keenly the parting between man and horse...For on the trail an affection springs up between a man and his mount which is almost human. Every privation which he endures his horse endures with him, --carrying him through falling weather, swimming rivers by day and riding in the lead of stampedes by night, always faithful, always willing, and always patiently enduring every hardship, from exhausting hours under the saddle to the sufferings of a dry drive...Their bones may be bleaching in some coulee by now, but the men who knew them then can never forget them or the part they played in that long drive.

Veteran's Day

Thursday after school I had the privilige of speaking at the Orchid Terrace Retirement Community in South County. It was a long day at school and quite frankly I wasn't really in the mood to speak, but when I started meeting the residents, I had no regrets. I gave my speech about Harold Hetzler, a WWII pilot that lost his life in that war, then gave my slideshow presentation about my research and journey into Harold's life. They were a really great audience and seemed to be really moved by the presentation. They also had lots of good questions. It was a really nice experience for me and I would love to speak to them again. I enjoyed meeting with two veterans, one named Earl (in the hat in front) who was in the Battle of the Bulge and one named Harold (In yellow in the back) who was a tank driver under General Patton. Sarah also spoke with a lady who was from Germany and had quite a conversation about their homeland and Sarah learned a lot about how bad it was in Germany during the war from her. On a side note, I was surprised to see one of the ladies I met, who was 91, going on facebook as we left the common room! This was all a profound experience for me and the residents were so moved by my presentation at the sad points, that I myself teared up a bit during the talk.