Turkey

I hope everyone is enjoying their Thanksgiving holiday break! We spent a quiet, peaceful Thanksgiving Day at home, watching a little football, eating too much good food, which got on the table all at the same time, which is a resounding success and perhaps modern miracle, and napping. I'm not sure that I "napped" as much as that I went back to bed for awhile there. I was exhausted, slept for hours, and then still went to bed by 1 a.m. again. So I guess I needed that. I read a book, we watched a movie, and all in all spent the day nicely. Kaylee & Mom have been baking cookies and playing games today, and Steve, Ernie and I went out to Painton Airport where the C-150 lives now, to "tweak" a problem, take it up and around, go to a gun shop and look for something, and come home. Instead we spent hours starting and stopping and "tweaking" the 150 to no avail, finally giving up as the sun went down. By then we were cold, tired and hungry, so we just came on home where there were fresh homemade cookies and a warm room to relax in. On the other hand, I am completely caught up and refreshed on how to operate a C-150 on the ground. ;)

A friend of Mom & Ernie, named Phil, painted a picture of me, for me.  I've never met Phil, but he cares about my parents, and through them he has taken an interest in and, well, pride of, me.  So he looked at a few photos, and sat down and painted a portrait of me standing in front of the T-6 with a flight suit on, and then up in the sky he put several cracks...cracks in the proverbial glass ceiling.  What's even more sweet about what he's done is that he has Parkinson's Disease, and has a difficult time doing much of anything. I'm honored--how cool is that??

I was reading the story of one of the top German fighter pilots of WWII, and it was interesting because he was average in his class, wasn't a quick learner at all, and was kept back a time or two on missions and such.  And then one day he decided he was going to master the aircraft, and he did.  He said it was like there was a rope between him and the Lead airplane, and no matter what they did or where they went, he was there, a few feet away, right side up, in a dive, upside down, didn't matter. But nobody would give him a chance in combat because of his history of slow learning.  He was transferred from group to group where his reputation would precede him, and they'd make him sit out missions.  And then a new commander came in who didn't know him, let him fly, and told the others that he was the best guy he had flying for him.  This pilot said "All you need is a break."  A little later he said it again, regarding something else. "All you need is a break."  Isn't that the truth? A chance, a break, an opportunity, a little luck, a gift.  By the same token though, you have to be ready for it. It doesn't do you any good to get a break if you have to stand there and watch it go by...he went on to fly wounded, with an amputated leg, got the most kills of any pilot in the war, etc.  And his Mom wrote the forward for his book, where she said "For all mothers out there--I had to hold his hand during a thunderstorm until he was 12 years old. He was afraid and cautious of everything. You never can know..."  Made me smile, anyway, and it was interesting reading about a pilot from the other side of the war...

Well, back to food, family and relaxing, for another day.  :)