When I was just a little guy, I
became enamored with flying after seeing the creation of Walt Disney’s Dumbo,
the elephant that could fly because of his extremely large ears. I loved watching dirigibles (blimps) and
airplanes fly overhead until they were out of sight. Observing birds captivated my imagination regarding
the idea of flying. It was all I could
think about.
I desired it so much that I
saved my nickels and dimes until I had enough money to put inside an envelope
with a few cereal box tops to fulfill my dream of flying. I asked Mom to send away for a super-duper Superman
cape with the letter ‘S’ embossed on it.
This “deal of a lifetime” as I
saw it, was advertised on the back of the cereal box that Mom set out for me one
morning. Something bothered me. I had to get my order in before supplies ran
out. Was I too late? Superman was my favorite super-hero in the
comic books I thumbed through.
When the cape finally arrived
that I thought may never come, I immediately opened the long-awaited package. “At last, I can fly” I uttered to
myself. I quickly tied the cape around
my neck and headed out the door to climb on top of the roof. Mom was inside cooking dinner and was not
privy to what I had in mind.
I figured if Superman could
fly with his cape, I could do likewise now that I had one of my own. You would think I should have learned my
lesson the time I jumped off the roof clutching Mom’s open umbrella, but this
present venture was different. I would
be like Superman; able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Thank God we didn’t live in a two-story
house. Though things failed to turn out
the way I expected, I was still in one piece but determined to fly one day. Even in my dreams I would find myself running
down hills with my arms outstretched, lifting my feet, and soaring into the
wild blue yonder.
Having the innocence of a
child’s thought process, I wondered if God would some day give me a pair of
wings, like His angels, when I went to heaven.
In my quest and imagination to
fly, I bought ten cent Balsa-wood airplanes at the 5 & 10 cent store down
the street from where we lived. When the
money waned, I folded paper airplanes and flew them off my grandparents’ two-story
balcony at the back of their house that overlooked a gentle-sloping hill. We lived across the street from them. I watched my handmade creations soar forever
as it seemed, wishing I could do the same.
One Sunday afternoon my
parents and I visited my other grandparents in a nearby city, a bedroom
community close to where we lived. I
walked in the front door and Grandpa John, as I called him, greeted me with his
favorite saying, “Hi kid! You’re fine
how am I?” He then hugged me, and I sat
next to him to watch television.
It was exciting for me,
because we didn’t have a “boob-tube” as they were called back then. Suddenly, I couldn’t believe my eyes! I watched intently as a man ran down a steep
hill hanging onto what looked like a huge bed sheet that resembled the toy
kites I enjoyed flying.
As he built up speed, he
lifted his feet (like I did in my dreams) and began to sour like an eagle! Grandpa called the bed sheet a hang
glider. It was literally a dream come
true! I told him that I was going to do
that someday. I figured I wouldn’t have
to wait until I got to heaven to fly like angels.
Years passed. Married now with three teenage kids at home,
my wife and I were driving down the coast to enjoy a day in Monterey,
California. As we drew closer to the
city, I glanced out the passenger’s window toward the ocean and spotted
something I remembered seeing on Grandpa John’s television set.
Two hang gliders were
crisscrossing back and forth as they soared above the sandy beach on the
morning breeze blowing in from the ocean.
I took a quick detour to get a closer look at my lifelong dream. To my surprise, I discovered at that location
an independent company was providing lessons on how to fly hang gliders for a
nominal fee.
Yes, I took eight assisted
flights that day on the large beach at the edge of the ocean. Two men ran along on each side of me toward
the ocean with ropes tethered to the triangle-shaped airfoil called a delta
wing. They prevented me from flying too
high, while helping me control the flight.
I was now enthralled with
flying more than ever before. I was
hooked. Later that week I enrolled in a
class that specialized in training and licensing people that wanted to hang
glide. The company was located closer to
home in Milpitas, California.
For the next few Saturdays, I
took 20 more solo flights on their training hill outside the City of Hollister,
California. It took two and a half hours
to drive from my house to the site, but the experience was worth every mile I drove
there.
The company supplied the hang
glider I trained on. 28 flights were now
under my belt including the 8 flights at Sand City near Monterey. I was in ‘hog heaven’ to say the least. That Saturday I was going to receive my
Tear-1 pilot’s license for completing the course.
My 28th flight was
perfect in every way. I maintained full
control of the aircraft, having confidence that I knew how to operate and fly
hang gliders. The energy of the flight
was declining as I began to descend. A
few feet off the ground I prepared to land at the bottom of the hill when
something unexpected was about to take place.
I flared the delta wing to
touch down, while feeling ecstatic with my accomplishments. What happened next was certainly bad luck,
but in my case, it was blind luck. Of
all the places I chose to land, sadly, it was in an area where ground squirrels
had dug out their burrows.
I didn’t see or anticipate
what was about to happen; it was too late.
My right foot sank deep into one of the open holes as I collapsed in
excruciating pain. My dream of obtaining
a pilot’s license flew out the window that day.
The goal I wanted to achieve
was shattered in a moment of agony when my ankle twisted and the glider fell on
top of me, adding weight to an already bad situation. The results of the X-ray revealed that my
ankle was not broken as I had anticipated, it was a very bad sprain that laid
me up for several months. I was told
that sprains can be worse than broken bones in some cases.
A while after my recovery I
began to feel the urge to once again take the class and complete my training to
secure the pilot’s license. Thinking
about it now, it reminds me of that hardheaded kid that attempted to fly with
his mom’s umbrella. Not giving into
failure, he was willing to try again to fly with a cape he purchased.
Someone had other ideas with
more sense than me, with regards to flying off cliffs and perhaps leaving this
world forever. After all, I would be
subject to the wind, at its mercy. What
if I encountered a downdraft, then what?
My wife, in a calm, yet stern
voice, having a stiff upper lip said the following three words to me: “When
pigs fly.” I knew what that meant. It’s an adverb, meaning ‘never’. You know what they say, “Happy wife, happy
life.”
That was the end of my flying adventures,
because I didn’t want her to worry about me.
But I flew! It was the
fulfillment of a lifelong dream. I was
happy that my childhood desire was satisfied.
After analyzing the accident,
I concluded that my misfortune may have saved my life sometime in the
future. I figured if I got hurt that
badly on a good flight, what would happen on a bad flight?
God gets the glory out of
situations that we sometimes think are negative in nature and not going our
way, hence the accident. God knows best.
(Psalm 37:23), “The steps
of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way.”
(Jeremiah 29:11), “For I
know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and
not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
On a day that is soon to come,
I will take one more flight into the wild blue yonder to meet Jesus in the
clouds of glory. It will be the flight
of all flights when I and all my loved ones, with those that are born-again
Believers, will rise into heaven when Jesus returns for all of God’s children.
We will be caught up in the
blink of an eye to meet the Lord in the air.
Gravity will no longer have the power to restrain us from flying. It’s the flight I’ve been planning for my
entire Christian life. It is the hope of
every Christian; the promise from God to those that gave their heart to Him,
having their sins forgiven.
Living for eternity in heaven
is the promise. In that I accepted Jesus
as Lord and Savior, I would like to think that He blessed me with my pilot’s
license after all, because of His death on the cross. He gave His life freely so that we could take
that final flight with Him to heaven.
(1 Thessalonians 4:17), “Then
we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air. And thus,
we shall always be with the Lord.”
www.wordsfrompapa.blogspot.com
Written by,
Papa Boyd
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