HomeFlying Lessons
Flight Lesson – 27
A clocca is a clock. A clock is a bell. A bell marks a watch. From the tower each hour, the Watchman calls, “All’s well.” Wæccende, Boatman, remain awake. Ships watch changes four quarters a day. Thirty minutes, turn the double bubble upside down. Second Dog Watch finished. Eight bells and all is well. […]
Flight Lesson – 26
In the years counting up to the time you start growing young again, it is easy to forget the worst thing that can happen to anyone is losing their first best friend. People worry about losing so many things, because people think they get to own everything, but that’s the best part of a friend. […]
Flight Lesson – 25
I lost a year in a day and found it suspended in a minute spent inside a layer of mist. Weather seeks the seeker. The seeker seeks whether. Both eventually find the other. All fliers find their share of weather and find their share of weather lessons waiting there. A teacher needs a student just […]
Flight Lesson – 24
Twelve months gathered around the Thanksgiving table, each one was asked to say why they were grateful and what they brought to share. Sitting by their friends, in cliques of seasons, winter began. December fell frozen in thought, “I am grateful to have been a Lifeguard Pilot. I share all the lives I saved.” I […]
Flight Lesson – 23
The sun’s been up all day waiting for you. Climb up here and sit on my lap, there’s something I want to tell you. Let’s buckle you up, under my belt. Now put your hands on the stick and fly along with me. See that cloud up there? The fluffy one with the big nose, […]
Flight Lesson – 22
If you saved every word you said in the air, what would your story be? Starting as a student pilot, childish words skip out of your mouth and trip over your microphone. Stubbing your mind just trying to say – who you are, where you are, and what you want to do. Your flight instructor, […]
Flight Lesson – 21
There is a door in my front seat, a Gibb door, streamlined and finely crafted. A secret passage. If closed, it’s hidden along the sleek physique of my plane. I leave it open, like an open invitation. Nothing is as welcoming as an open-cockpit biplane with an open door. A leather strapped hinged hug swings […]
Flight Lesson – 20
My plane and I both wished to fly, but he no longer believed in wishes. It had been so long since he had flown. Abandoned, broken, and alone, He had forgotten how to believe. It’s hard to believe when you’re just parts in a shed. Separated so long from the sky, It’s easy to forget […]
Flight Lesson – 19
A logbook lays in a box on my hangar floor in the company of things I keep to remind me of where I’ve been. Leather bound lines sit silently in past tense, present yet. Not updated for years, this linear ledger is left unfinished. A cypher waiting to be broken, you might wonder why it […]
Flight Lesson – 18
Delayed at Monocracy Junction under the eclipse of the blood moon, we wait. Guests in the General’s tent at AOPA, my plane is offered shelter indefinently. Surrendering to winds and weather, a losing battle I choose never to fight. I am at liberty to roam the battlefields of Maryland and Virginia, while a private battle […]
