I was just thinking that when I started writing this column 10 months ago, I was searching the crevices and cracks of my brain for a good title. Michael Wagar and Brian Mittge took me to lunch — they paid — and said they wanted me to write about my thoughts on various local issues.
I was just thinking that when I started writing this column 10 months ago, I was searching the crevices and cracks of my brain for a good title. Michael Wagar and Brian Mittge took me to lunch — they paid — and said they wanted me to write about my thoughts on various local issues.
I said Id also like to write about some personal experiences, and they were OK with that, but that the emphasis should be about things on the local scene. Ive tried to stick to that guideline for the most part.
Except for this column.
The phrase, I was just thinking cropped up as the lead sentence in a couple of the sample columns I wrote — as it does in this one — and I realized I had a title.
But I had another idea as well. I considered using a tagline at the end of each piece, one that would express my philosophy of life. I thought of a phrase I used for a time as a signature in my e-mails.
Its never too late to follow a dream.
I believe that, and Ive tried to live it as well. When a guy is lucky enough to achieve octogenicity (I just made that word up) in reasonably good health, he thinks of many things, mostly a variation on what might have been, but also about what was done.
From an early age I always wanted to fly, but a deaf ear — the result of a botched mastoid operation before the era of antibiotics — dashed any hopes of becoming an Air Corps or Navy flyer, although I read every book on the subject in the childrens section of the Tacoma Public Library.
I carved a joy stick and nailed together some pretend rudder pedals and flew our car from the back seat as we made many trips between Tacoma and Aberdeen, where my uncle was a Lutheran minister.
Almost every drawing I made back then had an airplane in the sky, and I vied with my cousin to see who could come up with the most innovative or futuristic designs.
I had never been up in an airplane, though, until I made my first jump as a paratrooper in Japan in 1947, but thats another story.
At age 68 I finally said to myself, You always wanted to fly, so why dont you? I called the airport and made an appointment with Russ Morton to take an orientation ride. When Russ let me shove the throttle forward and grab the wheel for my very first takeoff I was hooked! I know now he was poised to retake control at any time, but I was too focused on looking straight ahead through the windshield to notice.
Progress was slow. My reactions werent as quick as when I was in my twenties, and, secondly, living on Social Security I couldnt afford to take more than one lesson per week or two, and would lose some of my coordination skills between sessions.
I eventually soloed, though, and passed my flight test just four months shy of my 70th birthday. I had done it!
Flying to me was like boating is today: the destination is not the object, its the journey thats the attraction.
Corine and I took such short trips as flying to Ilwaco to visit friends at the SouWester Lodge in Seaview, going for a hamburger at Hoquiam, or an evening dinner at the Bremerton airport.
After two years I lost my medical certificate, and could no longer legally fly. But the important thing was, I had followed a dream. Its never too late, you know.
Bill Moeller is a performer, retired bookstore owner, former mayor and city councilman, and writer living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven123@comcast.net.
