{"id":4847,"date":"2018-05-18T11:25:31","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T18:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=4847"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:52","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:52","slug":"205-symbols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/205-symbols\/","title":{"rendered":"#205 Symbols"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only the most hardcore literalist could go through life without using the symbols and metaphors which fill our lives.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting to me how we seem to prefer these symbols to reality so often.\u00a0 Perhaps it\u2019s because they are often filled with non verbal meaning. \u00a0You know what I mean, the \u201cpicture is worth a thousand words\u201d thing. \u00a0The example which seems to always come to my mind occurred when I was an airshow performer.\u00a0I was performing in an airshow in Colorado.\u00a0 It was the early evening and I was preparing for the usual pre-show social activities when the phone rang.\u00a0 It was Steve Oliver.\u00a0 Steve called to tell me that our friend, Tom Jones, had been killed at the Oklahoma City Airshow.\u00a0 I was devastated.\u00a0 I\u2019d only known Tom for a couple of years, but we\u2019d become very close.\u00a0 Tom had helped me get better at aerobatics.\u00a0 He himself had recently been named National Aerobatic Champion.\u00a0 He was the first U.S. airshow pilot to fly a Russian Sukhoi SU26.<\/h3>\n
\"\"
Tom Jones and his Sukhoi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I dropped everything.\u00a0 I would fly to Oklahoma City to be with Tom\u2019s wife, Kathy, and all the rest of his friends who were coming from all over the world to attend his service.\u00a0My then-wife and I got on an airliner in Denver and the flight to Oklahoma City was somber for us both.\u00a0 It was raining in Oklahoma City.\u00a0 We worked our way out of the terminal building and stood on the curb, looking for our ride.\u00a0 It was then that my gaze lowered and I saw the symbol.<\/h3>\n

The starling was dead, but that wasn\u2019t what made it the amazing metaphor that it would be for the rest of my life.\u00a0 It lay in the gutter which was running with a steady flow of rainwater.\u00a0The water washed over its limp body and it had soaked its now-useless feathers.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t take my eyes off it.\u00a0 Why had it died?\u00a0 How had it come to rest at the very spot where I stood?\u00a0 Why had it ended its life in such a sodden state, its feathers soaked and useless?<\/h3>\n

A couple of days later we laid Tom to rest at the cemetery.\u00a0 Someone had paid attention to some exquisite details.\u00a0His coffin was jet black and perfectly mirrored.\u00a0 Tom had a heavily customized pickup truck with the same paint job.\u00a0 The truck had, \u201cTom Jones, Famous Stunt Pilot\u201d beautifully lettered in gold on its side.\u00a0 The coffin had the same legend.\u00a0 It was beautiful.<\/h3>\n

I will always remember that day at the cemetery.\u00a0 I\u2019ll always remember the service which had to be held in the FAA hangar at the Oklahoma City Airport in order to accommodate the hundreds of mourners.\u00a0 I\u2019ll always remember the Russians, who made the long trip to the U.S. in order to salute their fallen friend and to report that, \u201cwhen we heard that the laughing man died, our hearts bled\u2026\u201d.<\/h3>\n

But what I will remember most is the lifeless starling, its feathers soaked, never to fly again in the gutter at the Oklahoma City Airport.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The starling was dead, but that wasn\u2019t what made it the amazing metaphor that it would be for the rest of my life.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[35,114,186],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4847"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}