Pilot, Adventurer, Role Model--with the allure of one who died in her prime

Amelia Earhart received her pilot's license in 1921, broke the women's
altitude record in 1922 . . . After her solo flight across the Altantic she
became the first pilot to fly solo to California from Hawaii in 1934. [Ted
Waitt, producer of "Amelia"] said, "The more I researched her
disappearance, the more fascinated I became with her life. What she
did, at the time she did it, is extraordinary. At the time, flying was
considered an extreme sport, and the risks that she faced took an
incredible amount of guts. She was an amazing role model . . .
. On July 22, 1937, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan,
took off from New Guinea, 22,000 miles into their effort to
circumnavigate the earth. They aimed for Howland Island, a sliver
of an island about 2,500 miles into the Pacific. Almost everyone, even today, is aware that they never made it; they most likely ran out of
fuel and crashed into the ocean. [Director, Ms. Nair] said, "The more
I read about her, the more I thought she is like I was. Beyond the
enigma of how she died, I'm hoping people will see themselves in her
decisions to set aside her fears and live her life to the fullest."

Phantastical Machine

Click the arrow below to see an interesting video
--but turn up the sound.

A Valued Quote--From my email Friend

Hi Jim,

I'm forwarding a quote for you from Thomas Leland.
.
"At every crossroad follow your dream. It is courageous to let your heart
lead the way."
.
Jim Said: "Thank you Hilde."

Returning Birds -- A Nobelist's Poem

. RETURNING BIRDS

This spring the birds came back again too early.

Rejoice, O reason: instinct can err too.

It gathers wool, it dozes off--and down they fall

into the snow, into a foolish fate, a death

that doesn't suit their well-wrought throats and splendid claws,

their honest cartilage and conscientious webbing,

the heart's sensible sluice, the entrails'

maze,

the nave of ribs, the vertebrae in

stunning enfilades,

feathers deserving their own wing in

any crafts museum, the Benedictine

patience of the beak.

.

This is not a dirge--no, it's only

indignation.

An angel made of earthbound protein,

a living kite with glands straight from

the Song of Songs,

singular in air, without number in the

hand,

its tissues tied into a common knot

of place and time, as in an Aristotelian

drama

unfolding to the wings' applause,

falls down and lies beside a stone,

which in its own archaic,

simpleminded way

sees life as a chain of failed attempts.

.

--by Wislawa Szymborska

awarded the 1996

Nobel Prize for Literature.

From her collected poems, "View

With a Grain of Sand"