Notes to my 20-year old self

 A question pops up every now and then: “If you had the chance to go back and meet your 20-year old self, what advice would you give him?”  I think this is an interesting question.

In 1980 I was a Junior in college. I was 100% focused on graduating, becoming an Air Force Navigator, flying for as long as possible, seeing the world, and convinced I would not see the year 2000.

Looking back from 42 years later, I think it all worked out pretty well. It did not work out EXACTLY the way I hoped at age 20, but I think it was even better than I could have dreamed.

I did graduate. My eyesight stayed okay enough that I got the Navigator slot and went to Navigator Training at Mather AFB, outside Sacramento, California. I graduated from that and, while I didn’t get the F-4 or F-111 I wanted, I got a great crew airplane, the B-52. That plane led me to Ellsworth AFB, SD where I met Laura. Beat that!

I wanted to see the world, and while the B-52 didn’t offer much of that, I did get to Spain.  But later on…. I ended up on the C-130 and I’ve seen a good portion of five continents.

On the personal side, I basically knew from way back I wanted to find the one right woman who wanted me, get the house, settle down and build a family. That too, worked out better than I imagined.

So what would I go back and tell that kid, still two years from college graduation,  punching way above his weight? “Trust your gut, you’re gonna do great!”

Follow your dreams - go forth with purpose, but live like Gumby. Be flexible! Life is hard and adulting is harder. You don’t get everything you want, but sometimes (most of the time) you get exactly what you need. When you come to a fork in the road, take it; not every path will be straight. Whatever you do (and this is crucial), push yourself to keep moving forward. The worst thing you can do is sit and spin.

Most importantly, enjoy the ride!

My favorite quotes

 Quotes are like beacons in the night. They guide you safely through the deepest valleys, and once on the hilltop, give you guidance on the direction of your next move. Here’s a few of mine:

“One day at a time.” - Me, at USAFA, 1978 - 1982

“You’re always one decision away from a totally different life.”
— Unknown

“…Your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars. Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purposes, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment; but you are the ones who are trained to fight.
     Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your service must be … Duty, Honor, Country.”
— Douglas MacArthur

“When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” — Leonardo da Vinci

“Skill’d in the globe and sphere, he gravely stands, And, with his compass, measures seas and lands” — John Dryden

“You don’t have to ‘Click-click-click.’”  - Laura Griest

“I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things …” — Antoine de St-Exupery

“Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning”  
— Admiral James T. Kirk

“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
— Herm Albright

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” — Thomas Paine

“If I do my full duty, the rest will take care of itself
— General George S. Patton, USA

“Never give in… never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.  Never yield to force… never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”  
— Winston Churchill

“Didn’t I tell you?” - Laura Griest

“Real men fly air to mud because they understand the fundamental law of wartime negotiations. You negotiate with the enemy with your knee in his chest and your knife at his throat!” — Unknown

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke

“A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
— John Stuart Mill

“You had me at ‘Hello.’” - Dorthy Boyd, ‘Jerry McGuire’

“I never trust a fighting man who doesn’t smoke or drink.”  
—  William “Bull” Halsey

“I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.”  — John Paul Jones

“I love the smell of sweat, piss, and JP-8 in the evening… It smells like VICTORY!”  

— Me (One warm summer evening just before I retired)

“Well, boys, we got three engines out, we got more holes in us than a horse trader’s mule, the radio is gone and we’re leaking fuel and if we was flying any lower why we’d need sleigh bells on this thing… but we got one little budge on them Rooskies. At this height why they might harpoon us but they dang sure ain’t gonna spot us on no radar screen!”
— Maj. T.J. ‘King’ Kong, ‘Dr. Strangelove’

“Life loves on.” - Robert G. McIlvaine (look him up - 9/11)

“What’s next?” - President Jed Bartlett, ‘West Wing’

———-—————————-
This would look great on a tombstone

COSMOS MARINER
DESTINATION UNKNOWN
— Conrad Aiken

Talents I wish I had

 If there were talents to be had, there are a couple I would love to have. Unfortunately, I don’t.

Music. One would be the ability to sing. I started off so well… I had a great voice when I was a kid. When we lived in Washington Mom signed me up for singing lessons from some lady in Oak Harbor. We would drive over every week after school and I would stand next to the piano and run scales over and over again, then practice show tunes for 45 minutes or so. 

Had a couple of recitals, for which I talked her into expanding my repertoire to Yesterday, by the Beatles, and Edelwiess, from Sound of Music. Then we moved to Las Vegas, and that ended that. Shortly after that my voice changed, such as it did, and the training was lost. But who wouldn’t like to sing in a band???

So learning a musical instrument would be fun. I played the trumpet pretty well all through Junior High and into  my Freshman year of HS. I must not have signed up for Band after that, and that was the end of that. Probably peer pressure from my friends. I took guitar lessons for a short time in grade school when we lived in grade school (probably 3rd grade?) but again, that’s when we moved… this time to Libya. Never got far enough along to get to the good part where you get hooked on it.

I’d love to be able to do that whistle that kids can hear six blocks away. My Dad had that. When it was dinner time and we hadn’t noticed the street lights were on, he’d walk out on the lawn, hit that whistle and you knew you were gonna get an ear chewing on the way to the table.

Art. Always loved doodling, and my Mom was so naturally talented that I really gravitated to that in our relationship. She painted and got me into acrylics. I have a basic ability to draw, but with some study and guidance, I think I could be pretty good. I love to watercolor (there are a few efforts around), but I’m just good enough to be dangerous… I don’t have the skills of making things seem real… but I’d probably be a great Monet….

Dance. Everyone in our family knows I love to dance. Always have. Its the fluid movement and control the person seems to exude. In every school, there was always one kid who you knew would go on to make that a life’s work by heading to New York or LA. 

Liked to go to the school musical productions and watching them. Being on stage was not my thing, but definitely being able to dance like that would be fun.

Public speaking. Always wished I felt more comfortable with that. I think that came from always being the new kid in the room. Besides being naturally shy, I think that not getting the opportunities due to being…that new kid… you don’t get or make the chances to practice. My brother Dave was in Toastmasters for awhile. I always thought that was very brave and proactive of him.

Writing. I think I write pretty well, at least all signs from the past lead me to believe that. But I’d really love to write well enough to write some sort of novel. 

My problems is not just getting past the blank page, it’s also that little bit of residual ADD. I have never been able to stay focused and have never had an idea that just got under my skin enough for me to spend days and months fleshing it out into a story like the ones I’ve always loved to read. I wanted to study Journalism it college, and write great things for some big name paper (Plan A). But then I got sucked into the Air Force and military life (Plan B) and I never looked back. Life happens.

So I could best be summed up as a Dabbler in many trades, Master of none.

What's on your bucket list?

 I was never one to make up a bona fide “Bucket List,” then try to check it off. In actuality, I’ve done some neat things that fit really well into someone’s Bucket List, and I’m lucky enough to count them as things I’ve done that are out of the ordinary.

Living overseas when I was a kid afforded me some unique opportunities that not everyone gets to experience.

In Libya, not only getting the opportunity to live in such an incredibly different culture and country, but I got the chance to visit a Roman ruin called Sabrathah as part of a class trip. We were in the 3rd grade, but it was completely fascinating to me.

When we lived in Italy, Mom and Dad took Dave and me to visit Rome. We visited all the big sites:  the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Roman Forum, St. Peter’s Square, the Sistine Chapel, and more.

In 9th Grade, I hiked down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and spent a week with Greg Madonna and Dave Curtiss on the Havasupai Indian Reservation. Gorgeous tropical enclave in one of the multitude of canyons at the base of a number of spectacular waterfalls.

Learned to ski while we lived in Italy, and kept it up pretty consistently until we moved to Pennsylavania and started getting busy with flying, work and family. I did ski is some pretty great locations: Piancavallo, Italy; Kitzbuhel, Tirol, Austria; Mt Baker, Washington; Aspen, Snowmass, Vale, Copper Mountain in Colorado; Tahoe, and Heavenly, Mt. Charleston, Nevada; Squaw Valley, CA; Brian Head, UT; Terry Peak, SD; and Hidden Valley, in PA. Hidden Valley was were it all came off the rails: Laura and I took a long President’s Day Weekend trip to Hidden Valley. Stayed in a nice lodge. The skiing started okay, but by noon we were skiing on grass, which was quite scary.

At the Academy, I achieved two big dreams: 1.) I got five solo free-fall parachute jumps. I have a pretty good fear of heights, so I decided if I ever got the chance to parachute jump, I would, just to prove to myself I could. It was a lot of fun, but when I was named a Distinguished Graduate of the program, and offered another jump, I declined. 2.) I solo’d in a sail plane. That was pretty cool. Caught some big updrafts in the air above the Academy and tucked up next to the Rampart Range, which made it difficult to stay below 10,000 feet (we weren’t pressurized). Great place to learn the basics.

Kurt and I got our basic PADI Scuba Diving card one summer through the local community park. I had dived down in Puerto Rico as part of “Discovery Dives,” which were nothing more than putting gear on us, having us watch a video and then diving into the ocean and following an Instructor around for an hour or so, no matter where he went or how deep he dove. Pretty sure we got down well below 50-75 feet. In our official check out, we did all the pool work over a couple days in the Community Park, then we did and open water dive in a Quarry up near Westminster. It was a lot of fun!

Got the chance to fly a C-130 with a helicopter on board up to Reykjavik, Iceland, and spend a couple of days in a local spa. It was the Blue Lagoon, and was located on a vast geothermal power plant. Our rooms opened out onto the Spring, so you could walk right out the door, and dip onto the super-warm geothermal springs and soak for hours.

When Kurt was in Scouts, I took him and about six other kids to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, and spent 12 days backpacking through the NM wilderness. We covered 76 miles and climbed to the top of a 12,000’ Mt. Baldy. It was a blast!

I’ve seen Williamsburg and Jamestown, Old Faithful in Yellowstone, and Yosemite. Visited Valley Forge Yorktown, Gettysburg, New Market, Petersburg and Antietam battlefields, as well as Normandy Beach and Point du Hoc. In College I spent a week in Bermuda for Spring Break, riding around the islands on a moped, paying for expensive drinks and just being a regular college student (Florida is a much cheaper way to go!). Hiked up Diamondhead at dawn to watch the sunrise (Air Force trip, so it was just a couple of guys on the crew). Was deported twice from Qatar. That was pretty bizarre.

Got to tour Ireland with Laura and Jill; as well as bits of France and London with Laura, Kara, Jill and Kurt.

The one goal I haven’t achieved yet is getting my private pilot’s license. I’ve wanted to do that since I was a kid, but life always seemed to come up with distractions that made my time and money much more attractive to be spent elsewhere. Work, family, etc. I plan on getting it done, I just have to get a clear spot in my schedule with good weather, and a good instructor.

One day, I really want to be able to say, “Today, I am a pilot.”