Make It A Double!

Just as I think the embers are smoldering on The Letters project, a little puff comes along to reignite my time-traveling journey. And I believe it’s my grandmother Fleur’s hands that command the bellows.

I rented office space for the hundreds of letters written to my grandmother (dating back to the late 1800’s) that I now am the enchanted keeper of, in a perfectly preserved and maintained 1920’s apartment building, kept untouched by time. Just like The Letters who now reside in apartment #311. ‘311’ is a lively, active, and magical work environment with The Letters sharing secrets on a regular basis. I keep a “What Amazed Me Today” Journal to record all that is revealed. Until they go quiet which is what I faced recently. It was as if there was nothing more to say. I considered packing it all up.

I choose to bathe. And I like to think while soaking in the tub. Yesterday I was pondering a life lesson I learned from Fleur…always drink when one flies. I wondered how that hard-fast rule came about and turned to what The Letters shared: She was a child of the Aviation Era, there was a time pre-flight and post- flight. Her first flight while in her twenties, was with a pair of stunt pilots barnstorming across the country who briefly landed in her hometown, Titusville PA. Spectator turned passenger, they just whisked her up in the air. And did who knows what in the stunt department. Her dear friend Walter Critchlow, early aviator adventurer, crashed his airplane, made of paper and balsa wood, and permanently injured his two legs and one arm. (Fortunately, that did not deter him from being a golf champion throughout his life.) Her son Dick started flying lessons before he was eligible for a driver’s license and would report things like “I’m a little rough with landings.” It seems fear and flying might have gone hand in hand with Fleur.

All this pondering is relevant to what just occurred in ‘311’. I reached out to a ninety-three-year-old man who I discovered was a childhood friend of my mother’s brother, Dick. Dick died tragically in his sleep in his dorm room at Cornell University (autopsies never determined cause) at the tender age of nineteen. I hold the entirety of Dick’s life in my hands…starting with letters to his parents as a young boy from camp to his pilot’s log record, his scholastic awards, up to his last letter written just days before his untimely death, proclaiming to be ‘alive and kicking.’

I wrote to his childhood friend Tom who I discovered was in the middle of organizing a Pickleball tournament at ninety-three. His reply to me was the puff to the embers. He mentioned a memoir-writing class where he chose to describe taking flying lessons as a teenager with Dick! And the flame came to life as I hovered over Dick’s pile of letters to randomly pull out one dated August 1944. Sitting in my reading corner, I realized magic just happened again. This one letter that called to me out of all others in the pile, is the one where Dick described his first solo flight, his tail-spinning practices, his difficult landings and that he had just finished playing golf with his friend Tom! Can’t wait to continue down this rabbit hole when Tom and I chat next week. Cheers Fleur! My next drink while flying…Aviation gin please!