Archive for Aviation – Page 11

Timing is Everything…

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This came in the mail yesterday. It’s wildly misleading.

Well… I did pay my dues for 50 years. That must have been a factor. “Service” is another matter. Does it count if I only practiced (keyword) for 9 months?

Last week I noticed my old firm’s name roll by in the credits of Woody Allen’s latest film, Café Society. Yep, Loeb & Loeb is Woody’s legal counsel. How fitting. My experience at the firm was like something out of one of his films. On my first day, Goldie Cohen, a secretary for one of the senior partners, told me that as a goy I would never understand what was going on at L&L unless I knew a little  Yiddish. She offered to provide some informal tutoring, so whenever I passed her desk she offered up another Yiddish morsel. Meshuga, eh? read more

The Travel Bug

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 On September 30, 1965 I walked up the rear-boarding ramp of a C-130, grabbed a seat on a drop down bench, and within minutes we were wheels up on our way to Italy. I had leveraged my time as a Marine pilot to hitch a ride with a Navy Seal team on its way to NATO exercises in Italy. I had no plan, no itinerary, no return ticket, but it felt like the time was right for my first trip to Europe. The week before, I had taken the California Bar exam and the results wouldn’t be published until December. I was 26 years old and single. I had worked my way through law school and squirreled away enough money to travel for a few months. I was as free and unburdened as I would ever be. I was embracing the dictum of Harvard’s Let’s Go travel guide: “Travel light. Live close to the ground. See all you can. Stay until the money runs out.” read more

Hiroshima Reminds Us…

On August 6, 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later a second one destroyed Nagasaki. The Radiation Effects Research Foundation (a joint US/Japanese organization) estimates that between 90,000 and 166,000 people died in Hiroshima and another 60,000 to 80,000 in Nagasaki. Included in these figures are those who died due to the force and heat of the explosions as well as those caused by acute radiation exposure. Thousands more suffered lifelong damage from cancer and other associated radiation effects. read more

Bob Gandt: “What’s Next?”

GandtBob Gandt is a remarkable guy. We first met 40 years ago as Pan Am pilots in Berlin. Bob had been based there for a couple of years when I arrived, and we soon discovered a number of shared interests. We had both flown A4’s in the military, were marathon runners who shared an admiration for Ernest Hemingway’s prose, and harbored our own aspirations to be writers. When Bob found out I was from Ketchum, Idaho, Hemingway’s last home, and knew Ernest’s son, Jack, it was clear we were going to have a lot to talk about. read more

The Missing Man…

“In youth it seems one’s concerns are everyone’s. Later on it is clear they are not. Finally, they again become the same. We are all poor in the end. The lines have been spoken. The stage is empty and bare. Before that however, is the performance. The curtain rises.” And then the curtain falls…

James Salter – Burning the Days

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The curtain has fallen. John Hubner has given his final performance. Like James Salter, John was a gentleman, a husband, a father, a student, a scholar… and a fighter pilot. He died on January 4, 2016 at his home in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife, Julie, at his side. He was the most accomplished and complete aviator I have ever known. read more