i'm writing a book - right here!

[JohnReid]

My neighbors house taken five mins ago! http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y25...d/IMG_2349.jpg

[AAC Cadet Leader]

at least it's a pretty seven degrees you have, john.

[McNarff]

Still here and not feeling the least bit disappointed!!

[AAC Cadet Leader]

thanks, mc narff! i needed that!

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Log
Day 102
Ohio
Tuesday, September 6
[Mom didn't write anything in her telephone log on this day. Probably because I didn't call her - didn't have to - I sat at her dinner table and slept in my old room in the house I grew up in. It was so nice to be home with Mom & Dad for a few days. I felt so safe, secure and comfortable.]

Day 103
Wednesday, September 7
Ohio
WWWE Cleveland radio interview at 6:30 AM Michelle Teis, Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper reporter interviewed Martha at 9:00 a.m. in our home. Channel 8 TV CBS showed her interview at Kent Airport. UPI photo of Martha in this morning’s Cleveland Plain Dealer no write-up.

[fairview park sign photo]

Day 104
Thursday, September 8
Ohio
Martha had medical exam for Flight Instructor license renewal with Dr. Ward in N. Olmsted. Jim Kubicek came over with his memorabilia to show Martha. Eric Friedebach and his friend, Denise came over in evening.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Day 105
Friday, September 9
Ohio
Martha drove to Kent for Flight Instructor Exam with Dick Schwabe.
[I flew my CFI checkride renewal in the Cherokee that belongs to my longtime friend, Lloyd Atkinson. It was built in 1971, so I logged the flight as a sidetrip in the back of my logbook.]


Day 106
Saturday, September 10
M flew to Marion, Ohio air show with old friends from Kent Airport, Vern Back and his daughter, Colleen in back, in Vern's Cessna 170. [Russ Scholle and Russ Kuhlen in his Cessna 170 flew a tight formation on us about one length and breadth behind and to our right side for about half of our 110 mile flight from Kent to Marion.

At the Marion Airshow, I flew with Ernie Streifthau in his 1953 Bucher Jungmann with its super narrow landing gear. Ernie did some really graceful aerobatics, ending the routine in a snap roll. He let me do some light aerobatics, too. I've never flown such a responsive aeroplane as this one. It did super tight turns, quick climbs and easy quick aileron rolls.]

[add photos of pilots, vern back and ernie streifthau here]

Joe Pundzak called from Des Moines.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

edit space

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Day 110
Wednesday, September 14, 1988
Pennsylvania to Ohio
Captain Dave
9:20 a.m. Written in my journal as the flight was happening.

I’m departing Hanny Beaver Airpark in Hookstown, Pennsylvania with airline captain, David Cornell, heading back for Ohio again, on my way to Michigan, then ultimately to Minnesota and North Dakota.

Captain Dave flies this old Apache like most people breathe. A quick taxi down his short grass strip, chewing gum, his hands move constantly over the knobs and buttons through his memorized checklist. Cabin air controls, flaps, carb heats, mags…

Props pulled back, first the left one, then the right. Again the left one. Again the right. A touch of the palm of his hands to the mixtures to make sure they’re full forward. A turn of the overhead crank for take-off setting. A twist of the old backwards DG. Altimeter set. Transponder on. All fluid as music, not a beat missed.

The power goes in, left engine, now the right to turn us onto the first available inch of grass. And one final knob to twist on the start of take-off roll – the radio. No, not the communication radio, the music radio. Ha!

Once up over the trees, Captain Dave decides this station’s not just right and pushes in a cassette tape. On the first track, The Del-Vikings, “Come Go With Me.” After all, this is a 1959 airplane.

Dom dom dom dom dom
Dom be dooby…

The airplane. November three one three four Papa. This is a pretty Apache. I’ve only seen one other “pretty” Apache. Most are rough, beaten birds. It cleaned up nicely. It was impeccably restored just recently – and with a long list of trials and tribulations of red tape and registration hassles. And two newly-repaired props that were supposed to cost a couple-three hundred dollars. When he went to pick them up the man told him, “Twenty-five thousand dollars, please.” And for years, Mrs. Cornell has done without the new living room furniture she wanted in order to accommodate her husband’s airplanes.

He said, “I traded a farm tractor for what used to be a beast of an Apache. I thought I was getting a good deal. Thirty thousand dollars later…”

All in all, chewing gum and flying along to the Soft Sounds of the Fifties, Captain Dave looks like he has no regrets.

Dom dom dom dom dom
Dom be dooby
Dom dom dom dom dom
Dom be dooby
Dom dom dom dom dom
Dom be dooby dom
Wah wah wah waaah...

[AAC Cadet Leader]

My Parent's Backyard
written in my journal on September 14, 1988, Wednesday afternoon.

In the backyard of my parent's home, I spread out a beach towel on the grass and lay down to sleep in the sun for awhile, exhausted from playing with my terrific twin eight year old nieces, Katie and Nellie during the last two days at my sister's home in Pennsylvania.

As I awaken it occurs to me that I'm embracing the earth. Still tired, I feel anchored solidly by its magnetic pull. I've embraced this same spot many times over the years. It's not that I'm particularly fond of this spot, but chose here because it offers privacy with a wall of bushes, and a flat, sunny place to lay my towel.

The backyard has changed little since I was here last. Oh, the grass continues to grow and the hedges got higher. My dad cut the big old mulberry tree down. But for the most part, the backyard is still the same. It is still located behind my parent’s house at the same street address, and having just flown from thousands of miles around the country, it's still here. I don't know that I'd expect it to move or to be any different, but its consistency is comforting and makes me think about how stable and unchanging the earth is compared to the sky.

Sure, the earth does change. Man-made cities where there were once fields, forests and deserts have been the biggest changes in recent years. In the last few months, I’ve had the privilege of seeing an overhead view of contour lines carved by rivers through the canyons out west, and glacier-flattened plains that show proof of major ancient changes to the earth's surface.

But the earth changes slowly, while the sky changes constantly, swirling up a mostly unpredictable mess.

Somehow, illogically, I fear that by traveling far away, in coming back I'll find my parent's house gone. Or, I may someday not be able to find my way back home. But I put my trust in knowing that barring any natural or unnatural disasters, places that I have loved will not disappear while I'm gone and that I'll always be able to return to them by roads or through the air. And I marvel at how easily we can return to a specific pinpoint of a spot on the huge planet through air travel.

In ground travel, we keep connection with the earth's surface. We can look at a road that our cars have traveled. We can mark our trail, leaving footprints in the sand or snow, or breadcrumbs on the grass. We can then point at the path and say, "I've been there." We can see the logical progression of our travel, the concrete, touchable proof of our passing.

But the mystery and uncertainty of air travel lies in the fact that the moving sky cannot be grabbed onto and marked for any lasting length of time. For a brief time, a high altitude vapor trail can approximate where a jet has been before the jet stream takes it away, but no pilot can look skyward and point out the path that he or she will take. They must faithfully forge their own invisible paths.

A skywriter can paint a word with smoke and gaze back and see the huge letters, but as quickly as the smoke trail is made it moves and quickly dissipates. Except for the few lucky men who have walked on the moon, there is nothing to look at in the sky that offers any solid proof of our having been at a certain spot.

In air travel, we transport ourselves magically through a transparent and opaque fluid medium. We aim our aircrafts toward the stars at night, leave safe Mother Earth and fly through what we are not certain of cloud wise, wind wise, sight wise. We find our way through unseen sky highways, drawn by our compass and radio signals and by visual reference to the mountains, lakes, rivers and cities. And we trust we will find a suitable landing spot before returning to Mother Earth.

[Roryanimations]

That is a lovely interlude! Thoughtful and poetic. Sometimes I think only the young can think and feel like that, but then again, I still write songs and you have written this reflection on our world here, without embarrassment - and quite right too... A lot of the time this book is a record of America and its diverse people and landscapes, and fascinating for that, but a big part of it, as I'm sure I have said before, is about the human spirit and how you, Martha, both represent it and embrace it, along with all those people you met who demonstrated over and over again their easy uncomplicated goodness of heart. It is a good lesson for us non-Americans when we are tempted to tar you all with the brush of your government's arrogant and inept foreign policy (and I believe even GWB is good-hearted and trying his best even if his best ain't good enough. I consider him the innocent partner of a lot of much nastier people, including our own Tony Blair - or B-Liar as we call him. I'm Scots, in cae you're wondering, but I live in Ireland. Incidentally, I'm home today: beautiful sunshine a light Northerly breeze, makes it about 8 degrees outside so I don't know where you get your idea of cold!!)

I don't know what age you were then (or now), but it must delight you to have those journals to hand. I have just finished writing the first draft of my own book about travels in Europe and India back in the 60s, and I have one inadequate notebook and a still less adequate memory to rely on!!

How are your 28 year old nieces these days?

Keep going and don't think any of us out here care about the schedule. I for one will wait for as long as it takes you. You can put me down for a copy of the finished book and I don't need a delivery date!!

Best wishes as ever

Rory