Originally posted by RTR
HIGH FLIGHT
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence - Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air
Up, up the long, delerious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights, with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God
John Gillespie Magee Jr.
RTR
I guess I am showing my age. I remember very well when that poem was recited every night as television stations signed off the air. I saw it so many times. It inspired me and and gave me a feeling like nothing else. They used to show an F-104 StarFighter doing aerobatics at incredible speeds and altitudes as the poem was recited. I can remember wanting to have the chance to do that, in that plane, with all my heart. I used to stay up and sneak into the den and turn on the television every night just to see it, and then daydream about it all day. I was a senior in high school when the Air Force recruiter crushed that dream, and told me my height, my size, and my injury would keep me out of the pilot seat no matter what. Big guys with bad knees couldn't be fighter pilots. My Dad's connections got me an offer of an appointment to the Air Force Academy, but they said again I'd never sit in a pilot seat. I did not go. I actually cried the last time I was at an air show, because I got to sit in a StarFighter.
