I’m always looking at ideas for a book. I don’t have trouble with the writing; no writer’s block… but I’m deathly afraid that it will sound like “What I did on my summer vacation.” My friend, Laura, thinks a story I told her years ago should be my jumping off place. It involves what turned out to be my career path, although a career wasn’t part of my thinking at the time.
I became a pilot, it’s that simple, but the backstory Laura likes is “how” I became a pilot. It strikes me that nothing demonstrates American progress better, more tangibly, and more personally than what’s happened in aviation. The world recognizes the Wright brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903 as the launch event in the history of human flight. It was 120 feet from start to finish at an altitude of 10 feet. I was born thirty-four years to the day after that first flight and the same year that Amelia Earhart was lost at sea during her attempted circumnavigation of the globe. 22 years after Earhart disappeared, I received a lapel pin from the Chance Vought Company for flying their F8U Crusader 1000 miles per hour. 10 years later, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. From Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years.
As a movie fan I’m often surprised to learn how long it takes to bring a film project to the screen. What seems like an of-the-moment performance may take years to find its way to a theater near you. That’s certainly true of the newest version of A Star is Born starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. Like its earlier versions, this is the story of an older star who discovers a young talent, falls in love with her, but is ultimately destroyed by alcohol and jealousy as his protege’s star brightens while his own grows dimmer.
