March 7, 2023 The Brightest Stars Don't Need a Spotlight

The Liberty Gazette

March 7, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: We celebrated my mom’s 90th birthday with a banquet hall full of people. I asked her if she would share some words of wisdom, but instead, she wanted to take the opportunity to express her love, mentioning something special about each person in turn. The evening proved our abundant fortune. Mom is a hero to me, but she never looks for attention. Humble and full of grace, energy, love, and laughter. 

She grew up in the shadow of the Greatest Generation, many of her uncles and older cousins serving in WWII. She remembers her mother keeping a world map on the wall at home, with pins marking family members’ last known location. All of those close kinfolks came home – not all without injury, but alive. We like to pass these family stories down the generations, and I imagine Bill Crawford’s family does likewise. 

Bill was 24 years old when he joined the Army and fought the Axis powers in Italy. When his company faced heavy enemy fire, Bill boldly attacked back. No one thought he survived, so his Medal of Honor was awarded “posthumously.” His citation reads, in part: 

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy near Altavilla, Italy, 13 September 1943. When Company I … was pinned down by intense enemy machine-gun and small-arms fire, locating one of these guns … Pvt. Crawford, without orders and on his own initiative, moved over the hill under enemy fire to within a few yards of the gun emplacement and single-handedly destroyed the machine-gun and killed three of the crew with a hand grenade, thus enabling his platoon to continue its advance. When the platoon … was once more delayed by enemy fire, Pvt. Crawford again, in the face of intense fire, advanced directly to the front, midway between two hostile machine-gun nests, one located on a higher terrace, the other in a small ravine. Moving first to the left, with a hand grenade, he destroyed one gun emplacement and killed the crew; he then worked his way under continuous fire to the other, and with one grenade and his rifle, killed one enemy and forced the remainder to flee. Seizing the enemy machine gun, he fired on the withdrawing Germans and facilitated his company’s advance.”

Bill was captured and held for 19 months, but not killed. After his rescue, he re-enlisted and served another 20 years, but no one realized the mistake. In retirement, he worked as a janitor at the USAF Academy in Colorado, and it was there that a cadet discovered the error. Bill simply responded, “That was one day in my life, and it happened a long time ago.”

But word spread, and Bill Crawford was invited to attend the graduation of the Academy’s Class in 1984. Finally, among generals and VIPs, President Ronald Reagan presented the Medal of Honor to Bill.

Real heroes don’t crave the spotlight. They lead by serving, with integrity.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com 

February 28, 2023 Flying Queens

The Liberty Gazette

February 28, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: Along West Eighth Street on the campus of Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas, was a meeting of pioneers. Former members of the Flying Queens, Wayland’s women’s basketball team since 1948, were coming to celebrate the grand opening of the Flying Queens Museum. Welcoming them was a symbol of all those who believed in them: a Beechcraft Baron.

Claude Hutcherson owned a charter company in Plainview and had a fleet of Bonanzas and Barons. He became the team sponsor, naming them Hutcherson’s Flying Queens and flying them in style to every away-game. Their coach, Harley Redin, a Marine Corps bomber pilot in WWII, often flew one of the planes.

Linda Pickens was six years old when her brother told her if she excelled at basketball, she could get a college scholarship and escape the poverty and abuse she suffered at home. She held onto that dream, becoming a Flying Queen, 1966-1969.

The Flying Queens accomplished something no other college basketball team has, men or women. Their record winning streak still stands: 131 consecutive games and four national championships. Some of these women scored full scholarships and earned post-graduate degrees. Many went on to give back, as doctors, business leaders, teachers, coaches. They stood tall and proud, determined to make a way for women’s sports. All they needed was a chance, not those who said, “Your uterus will fall out if you run too hard.” 

After Hutcherson’s Flying Queens were enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019, Flying Queens Foundation President, Dr. Linda Pickens-Price, shared her vision: an on-campus museum honoring the history of these trailblazing women.

On February 18, 2023, Wayland President, Dr. Bobby Hall, joined Dr. Price in opening the museum to the public for the first time. Flying Queens who played as far back as the 1950’s descended on Plainview from across the country. Mayor Charles Starnes burst with pride as darn near the whole city filled the building and overflowed out the doors. Among them was Debby Rihn-Harvey. Debby stands far above her competition as a nine-time national champion and winner of more medals in world aerobatic contests than any other person, male or female.

About six months ago, Dr. Price asked if I knew where she could get an airplane donated to their museum project, which she envisioned sitting atop a pedestal at the entrance. I knew just the person.

“You want my Baron?” Debby asked. Yes. It hadn’t flown in a while, and she had no immediate plans to restore it. Once she heard their story, she was all-in. She prepped her beloved airplane for the nine-hour drive, had it repainted with a Flying Queens logo, and hoisted lovingly onto the pedestal, where it looks like it’s taking off for a game.

If you’re out that way, don’t cheat yourself out of a visit, where the airplane of a legend invites you to learn more about the legacies of women who were pioneers on the courts and in the air.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com 

February 21, 2023 Presidents' Day

The Liberty Gazette

February 21, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Who did you reflect on yesterday for Presidents’ Day? We thought of Barry Goldwater, who would have been an infinitely better choice than Johnson. 

Barry loved exploring the rugged landscape of his hometown. He was born in Phoenix before Arizona was a state. On advice from his high school principal, his parents sent him to Staunton Military Academy in Virginia to learn discipline. But when his father died suddenly of a heart attack, his military career was thwarted, and he left college to work at his family’s Goldwater’s Department Store, starting as a clerk for $15 a week.

He grew with the business, flew his own plane, and always carried a camera for the “wish-you-could-see-this” photos. Eventually, he turned his attention to community affairs, winning a seat on the Phoenix City Council. (Check it out, Tommy Brents: today, Liberty City Council, tomorrow Texas House – because Lord knows we need a decent state representative too – after that, sky’s the limit!)

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Barry was a reserve first lieutenant in the Army with more than 200 hours logged. He couldn’t fly combat due to poor vision, but he served in the Air Transport Command and in the Burma-India theater, ferrying aircraft over the Himalayan Mountains in treacherous weather, over hostile terrain. Flying the hump (of Burma) was not for the faint of heart. When the P-47 was new, he flew it across the cold Atlantic to the UK, a risky mission due to the unknown of the aircraft at that time.

After WWII, he helped form the Arizona National Guard and joined the Air Force Reserve. Besides personal sacrifices and contributions to our country, he cared about humanity. As senator, he preached individualism, the sanctity of private property, anticommunism, and the dangers of centralized power. He listened to real, hard-working, honest Americans and helped present their views on limited government, welfare, and defense. In a nutshell, his motto was: “Live Free or Die.” He thought, “a guy running for office who says exactly what he really thinks would astound a lot of people.” But Lyndon Johnson was well-known for his hefty bag of dirty political tricks and used them prolifically. 

The Heritage Foundation called Barry Goldwater “the most consequential loser in American politics.” If he had been elected President in 1964, here are two things they say would have likely happened: 

First, there would be no “Great Society.” Barry believed in the Constitution and citizens helping each other – no need for government intervention.

Second, we’d have had nowhere near the death toll in the Vietnam War. He did not believe we should enter a ground war in Vietnam. 

Was he perfect? Of course not. While serving as an alter boy at his (Methodist) church, he fired a miniature cannon at the steeple. But the state of Arizona saw fit to enshrine him into the Aviation Hall of Fame and name a few airport terminals after him, so this Presidents’ Day, we elected to talk about Barry Goldwater.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com 

February 14, 2023 On a Dime

The Liberty Gazette

February 14, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Twenty-five years before Tesla and rocket builder Elon Musk was born, Swiss engineer Walter Otto Wyss designed a concept car called the Plainsman. It was the vision of his employer, Walter Beech, the brains behind the building of great airplanes: Beechcraft Bonanza, military trainers, such as the T34, and others. The force that made it happen was Walter’s wife, Olive Ann Beech, aerospace businesswoman extraordinaire. 

The Plainsman’s four-cylinder air-cooled rear-mounted Franklin (aircraft) engine drove a generator that powered four electric motors, one for each wheel. It had fully independent air suspension, and, as you would expect from an aircraft manufacturer, an aluminum body, so it weighed only 2,200 pounds. It was capable of reaching 160 miles per hour, could seat six, and get 30 miles to the gallon – in 1946.

This wasn’t the only diversion for the Beechcraft company. They built corn harvesting machines for International Harvester and even designed a house, the Dymaxion House, a monolithic dome, similar to a Hershey’s Kiss, or the Hillside Church (formerly Maranatha) in Mont Belvieu. But why? 

Mr. and Mrs. Beech began building airplanes in 1932, the dawn of the golden era of aviation. But after the boom came World War II, and life changed. Like other aircraft manufacturers, Beechcraft survived on military contracts, employing thousands of workers. VJ Day was a good thing, but with the lucrative contracts over, they had to let thousands of workers go. Olive Ann and her team had to take a hard look at their business model. What was the future of personal and commercial aviation? What would the market be for their airplanes? A friend once told me, “You know why we’re survivors? Because we can pivot on a dime.” That describes Walter and Olive Ann. By diversifying and remaining flexible to pivot, they weathered the hard times, positioning their company to be ready to build whatever would sell. 

The Plainsman concept car was ahead of its time; maybe ours too. Even though the engine was in the back, the car had a front grill, in case they wanted to move the engine to the front. Instead of door handles, there were buttons flush with the body. With the four-wheel electric drive, they didn’t need a differential, clutch, and transmission, which also meant no hump on the floor. It had cruise control and traction control. Plus, they tested it in a wind tunnel for aerodynamics. Of course they did. 

Airplane geeks will look at the silhouette and say, “Yes, I can see the aero-influence! Why look, there’s even an ADF radio antenna on the roof!” Car buffs will nod at the flavors of Chevy Fleetline, hints of Hudson, whispers of Mercury, winks of a ’49 Lincoln or shadows of an over-sized Renault Dauphine. 

Ever the wise businesswoman, Olive Ann called for the Plainsman and other projects to be shelved when the Cold War brought new government airplane-building contracts in the tens of millions of dollars, and they could feed more families as they re-grew their workforce. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com 

February 7, 2023 Stories to Tell

The Liberty Gazette

February 7, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: Everyone has stories they like to tell, and I’ve got a few. I’ve spent a good many years wandering dirt roads, hiking trails, and flying over deserts getting a bird’s-eye view. One of my first flying jobs other than flight instructing was flying charter. One of the places I used to fly to on a regular basis was the Grand Canyon. I flew tourists on day trips out of Southern California. I’d drop them off at Grand Canyon National Park Airport. Then I’d catch a bus to the Maswik Lodge in the Grand Canyon village on the southern rim where a complimentary lunch for the pilots and tour bus drivers awaited.

Most of the time, I picked up my passengers at Burbank Airport and crossed over the ridge north of the San Fernando Valley, then over the Antelope Valley and the Mojave Desert. From there, I went east toward Peach Springs on the southwest corner of “the big ditch.”

Over the high desert, the views go on forever with visibility often exceeding 50 miles. Below, a blanket of broken hills, red cinder cones from long-extinct volcanoes, and the blue streak of Colorado River as it meandered through broken rock canyons and fertile flat farmland. That was before approaching the VOR at Peach Springs and the canyon. Then I heard oohs and aahs from the passengers as we continued traversing the pinion pine and scrub mesquite bush-covered southern rim. 

Once, while I awaited my passengers at what was then Martin Aviation at Hollywood-Burbank Airport, I sat watching, along with everyone else in the waiting area, the spectacle outside the window. Warner Brothers Studios’ Gulfstream was preparing for departure. Two limousines had pulled up alongside the corporate jet and out stepped Sylvester Stallone and his wife, Brigitte Nielsen. It looked as if she was a foot taller than him. Next, from the other limo, a band emerged. I think it was AC/DC but I don’t really know. They boarded the luxury jet, a little more wildly and enthusiastically jumping up the stairs.

As all this was happening in front of me, I was vaguely aware of low murmurs and conversation as someone walked up behind me. Bam! I was hit on the shoulder and a body careened over me, landing squarely in my lap. I sat dumbfounded as a clearly startled Ali MacGraw–the actress from the movie Love Story–lay in my arms staring up at me. She then burst out laughing. Aware of a looming presence over and behind me, I looked up into the eyes of her travel companion, a smirk etched on his face. He shook his head in disbelief. We helped Ms. MacGraw back to her feet and she apologized, still laughing. The couple crossed the lobby and proceeded through the doors. As they disappeared through the jet’s door, I could see she was still laughing.

Many pilots have conveyed many famous people, but not many can claim they had Ali MacGraw falling all over them. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

January 31, 2023 Men Who Ask for Directions

The Liberty Gazette

January 31, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

They didn’t know the area well, but they had a map in the Curtiss Jenny, out for a little cross-country fun. Granted, it was a railroad map, but that’s what they all used back then, before aerial maps. Just follow the railroads to get from town to town and look for the water towers to verify you’re in the right place.  It was 1924, not that long after the days of wagon trains on dirt roads. Sure, Henry Ford, Louis Chevrolet, Barney Olds, and of course Fred and Augie Duesenberg were already selling horse-less carriages, but it hadn’t been that long. 

They left Houston and went west. The map showed a couple of rivers flowing through that part of Texas. Only one of them was accompanied by the symbol of a railroad track. So, on they flew, thinking they were following the right one – the river alongside the railroad – when they finally realized that something didn’t look right. These weren’t the features on the ground below that they expected to see. Then they realized that the mapmaker should have added railroad tracks to the other river, too. That’s when they learned that the Rio Grande wasn’t the only river that gave Texas train passengers a view. The Nueces did as well. And below them was Camp Wood. Of course, they don’t know that until they landed, because the map didn’t have the names of towns. 

That’s what happened to Charles Lindbergh and his friend Leon Klink. At least the men can be credited with stopping to ask for directions. That it was the town square where they stopped made for some exciting chatter in Camp Wood. 

They could have taken off the next morning, but the two young bachelors stayed another day to go to a dance. The next morning offered a favorable winds. Lindbergh wrote in his book, We, that “One of the town streets was wide enough to take off from, provided I could get a forty-four-foot wing between two telephone poles forty-six feet apart and brush through a few branches on each side of the road.” As they lifted off, just before passing said poles, “there was a rough patch on the street. One of the wheels got in a rut and I missed by three inches of the right wingtip. The pole swung the plane around and the nose crashed through the wall of a hardware store, knocking pots, pans, and pitchforks all over the interior.” The storeowner refused Lindbergh’s offer of payment – it would be great advertising, like Land here for a great deal on all your household needs!

The Texas Historical Commission granted an historical marker along Highway 55 in Camp Wood to commemorate the unplanned stop made by the man who would, just three years later, become the most famous man in the world.

For the whole story and more, get yourself the book, History Ahead; Stories beyond the Texas Roadside Markers (Texas A&M University Press), which includes a few more aviation stories.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

January 24, 2023 True Magic

The Liberty Gazette

January 24, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Canadian Melissa Findlay loves her job. She’s seen beauty some will never see: sunrises, sunsets, and northern lights from her office in the sky.

On a family vacation to Hawaii when she was a child, she saw into the flight deck of an airliner. She thought, oh, look at all the buttons! Now she knows they’re just circuit breakers, but it was enough to draw her in, the first pilot in her family. 

After high school, she pondered hotel management and tourism. Six months working at a lodge was enough. She joined Skyservice Airlines as a flight attendant and went to a local college to learn to fly. That was before the current pilot shortage, so her flight attendant experience was an advantage. Airline flying sounded glamorous, so she’d wait for an open seat. Then she worked on the ramp for Transwest Air until they offered her her first flying job, flying medevac in a King Air based in La Ronge, Saskatchewan. Way north.

There were times she wondered, “What am I doing here?” It’s hard work. Some days she thought, “I should have been a librarian.” Or, “Is it too late to do the hotel thing? Can I be a massage therapist?” When temperatures were -50, she thought, “Some people are warm in their buildings right now.” But then she’d get in the air and remember, “Oh ya, this is why I do it.”

She had her first emergency flying out of La Ronge, a chip detector light. They had to shut down an engine in flight, and she managed just fine. In her time off, she became immersed in the community and learned to make moccasins and mitts and took foraging classes. “People working up there are away from family, so you create your own,” she explains. “Potlucks, movie nights, Sunday dinners. It’s actually tough to leave in the end.”

Then she got a job as captain on a Navajo out of Stony Rapids. “That’s really north,” she laughs. “At the very top of Saskatchewan. Groceries are flown in. People from the U.S. pay tens of thousands of dollars to go fishing up there. Best fishing camps in the world. In Stony Rapids, the people are interesting, the landscape stunning, the hiking exhilarating, and the flying amazing.”

Now she’s flying cargo and calls it the Unicorn, “because who knew in aviation you could have it this good.” She doesn’t work holidays or weekends and she’s home every night. She no longer aspires to fly passenger airlines, as this job offers a wonderful work-life balance. Then again, if her employer ever gets a B757 base in Calgary, she might be interested. 

In Hawaii, you can go to the top of the volcano and see the sunrise. “It’s nice,” Melissa says, “but I’ve seen better. I’ve seen the full dance of northern lights. I can put music in my headsets and play to the waving ribbons. The true magic of the north. Yes, this is why I fly.”

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

January 17, 2023 How Not to Plan a Writing Retreat

The Liberty Gazette

January 17, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: In blizzard and icy conditions, we keep the Elyminator in the hangar and opt for a seat on the bus. Over Christmas break, we chose Southwest Airlines. In better flying weather, we would fly ourselves into Finger Lakes Regional or the Penn Yan airport in upstate New York. But Southwest doesn’t fly there, so we bought tickets to Syracuse and borrowed from Avis to drive west. If you followed any of the hubbub over the holidays, you might know that employees from some of the air carriers had threatened to strike during that time. Southwest was not one of those, so we thought our trip might have better luck. Unfortunately, they had somewhat of a system meltdown as flights were cancelling due to weather. It took them a few days to resuscitate their old scheduling infrastructure, but they did it. We were one of the fortunate ones in that none of our flights were affected in either direction. Sure, they have some work to do, and hopefully they won’t have a bean counter running the company ever again. Nothing against accountants, but they shouldn’t be running airlines. It’s not their forte. With a new CEO, we feel certain operations will improve dramatically, and Southwest will rise to the top again to regain the public’s “Luv.”

Linda: We had planned on having a winter writing retreat (and I wanted to make snow angels), but there’s so much to do in this part of the country that we had a hard time staying in the B&B. In a break from writing, we took a day to hike among frozen water falls at Watkins Glen State Park. Bundled in layers, we stepped gingerly across the snow and ice-covered paths surrounded with views of 19 falls that looked like opaque glass hanging from 200-foot cliffs. Summertime is peak tourist season, so we saw relatively few fellow hikers, and the air was filled with the sounds of burbling water where ice had thawed, snow-crunch footsteps, and an extra-large woodpecker whose hammering was surprisingly loud.

In the town of Watkins Glen are murals of vintage roadsters and portraits of acclaimed race drivers in honor of the city’s rich auto racing history. My dad used to talk of the famous Watkins Glen speedway when I was a child, and it was a treat to finally see it in person. 

Back at the B&B, we rested to the sounds of Canada geese honking as they flapped their wings 500 feet above the center of Seneca Lake. The house was perfectly placed on the west side of the lake with a wall-full of windows facing east. Each morning, we woke to a stunning pre-sunrise sky gracefully glowing from deep red to pink to bright orange, then yellow, casting light on rabbit footprints on the snowy deck. 

Only a bit of progress was made on a Scottish Renaissance novel and a book for flight instructors on teaching scenarios. Next time, we should plan our writing retreat at some place boring.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

January 10, 2023 Reflections from Hammondsport, NY

The Liberty Gazette

January 10, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Glenn Hammond Curtiss. Had you been born around 1880, you would have said in 1900, watch that man. He’s going places. People in his hometown liked him. After his father died, when Glenn was about five, he went about town with a screwdriver, asking merchants and homeowners if they had anything that needed fixing. The man of the house at an early age, he took care of his little sister, Rutha, who had become deaf from meningitis. He was competitive, too. The invention of the bicycle had allowed people to “move up” from four hooves to two wheels. He found like-minded men and they all raced against each other for the title of fastest cyclist. Glenn won and won and won again. He was strong, and he built good bikes. Because everyone loves a winner, everyone wanted a bike like Glenn Curtiss’. Voila! A business! Curtiss Bicycles. Hammondsport, New York (his father’s ancestors had founded the city). 

Technology moved fast, too, but Glenn kept pace. He didn’t invent the motorcycle, but he bought a V-8 engine and mounted it on his bicycle. He set a speed record with it in 1907. 136 miles an hour. “The fastest man on earth,” they called him.

Glenn met the most beautiful woman ever, Lena Pearl Neff, a local gal, and asked her parents for her hand in marriage. Her mother wasn’t sure, but her father could tell. He’s going places.

Business was good, and despite personal tragedies, including the death of their first son at 11 months, he and Lena carried on. Together. He was curious and smart. He solved problems. He made things work. After his first flight in a powered balloon, he said, “I think I can make it go faster.” 

He also cared deeply about people. It is, therefore, no surprise that his business grew. Everybody liked Glenn. Everybody, that is, except Orville and Wilbur. They did not like the competition as the world raced to be the first to build an aeroplane that would carry people. Even the French were nicer to Glenn Curtiss than the Wright boys of Ohio. They were smug with their wing-warping idea and interconnected rudder. They’d found a way to steer a glider and accused him of patent infringement.

Warping wings? He could do better than that. He made ailerons. But those Wrights ran crying to a judge and put Glenn out of business for a time. Around 300 employees out of work. That’s when Henry Ford stepped in. “Let me know when you need me,” he offered. He disliked those boys from Ohio. Ford told him to make the controls work independently (not interconnected) and funded the legal team to fight the potential monopoly from an overly broad patent. 

All U.S. patents were invalidated during WWI, and Curtiss-built aircraft became the only U.S. aircraft to see service in the war. There’s a lesson in this: Don’t be greedy. Ironic karma will get you.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

January 3, 2023 It's a Wonderful Life

The Liberty Gazette

January 3, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: We braced against the icy blast, mucking through snow on a bridge in Seneca Falls at 9:00 PM Christmas Eve. I wondered why the water below wasn’t churning like the scene in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” But then, that was probably done in a Hollywood studio tank. We could have encountered the ghost of George Bailey or clockmaker Clarence P. Odbody, AS2 (Angel, Second Class), but we didn’t. The temperature was 12 degrees, but the wind chill was -5. Not much different than when we left Liberty early that morning. 

Seneca Falls was the fictitious town of Bedford Falls in the 1946 Christmas tale. Little did we know when planning the trip that a winter storm would sweep the U.S. But then, that’s what adventure is all about. Besides, this meant a white Christmas. 

The B&B we picked for our winter writing retreat was just down the road in Penn Yan (home to Penn Yan Aero, aircraft engine overhauler). The idea was to break from routine in an environment that evokes creativity. After scanning possibilities around the globe, we chose a sweet little cottage overlooking Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region. This is mostly a summer resort area, but it’s magnificent in winter as well.

We knew however, that we probably wouldn’t make it here in our airplane due to low freezing levels. The Elyminator doesn’t have a de-icing system. We were a little concerned as the cold weather approached Liberty. Airports across the country were closing, there was a threat of airline strikes, and so many flights were cancelled. We were fortunate, but the airport scene was nothing less than chaos.

Linda: There are no direct flights from Houston to Syracuse, and we’re lucky we didn’t get stuck in Orlando like so many people did. I got a kick out of the lady who joined our row of seats. She was going to visit her daughter for Christmas and loved that I gave up the window seat to her. She was glued to the glass and kept taking pictures. I didn’t figure her for a pilot but thought I’d open the door to the topic, just to see. 

“Great views!” I said. She agreed wholeheartedly. I pointed toward the flight deck. “Second only to the one up front.” Her response would tell me if she was an aviatrix.

Her facial expression was one of yearning. Wishing. Love from afar. “I can’t even imagine what it’s like,” she replied, “the whole country, right there in front of you. I can’t imagine.” She looked back out the window with great admiration. I was right. Not a pilot. But clearly, she loves flying. I didn’t mention being one; I just wanted to hear what she had to say. Her love of flight made me happy.

There’s so much to do in the Finger Lakes region, home to over 150 wineries, amazing hiking and scenery, and lots more for us to tell you about next week. Happy New Year!

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com