SUNDAY, JANUARY 30, 2005
AWARDGoes to Skypilot #18 who has taken on good works, such as:
I have been on a mission to help other people. Even if I don't know them. I have successfully accomplished important missions. The first happened in a WinCo parking lot when some young person locked his keys in his car late one night. He lived 5 miles away so I offered to take him home to get his set of spare car keys. I found out his girl was pregnant and sent him to the store for pickles and ice cream. He didn't have to break a car window which would have cost him money I know he couldn't afford.
The next assignment was for a friend of my winemaking buddies that live out by Dundee. This kid's Grandpa is terminally ill with cancer. He is taking care of him through these last painful days. So I had the idea to go out to Bend with a bunch of his pals and cheer him up. It was somber but none the less the right thing to do. I drove them in the Bozo Bus 54 and I think we made a difficult situation a little more bearable. I know what he's going through as I had to do the same thing for my father when he was dying from cancer back in 1992....
I've gone through our vast collection of warm jackets and thick warm shirts that we never wear and are gathering dust. Tomorrow I am driving down to the Portland Rescue Mission to drop off a sack of warm clothing for the street people and homeless souls out there. I know it can get very cold in the weeeeee hours of the morning. With so much wrong in the world I feel it my obligation to try to do something positive. Every day. 24/7. I'm trying to make amends meet with those pesky burnt bridges.
MORE GOOD WORKS The weirdest act happened over the last week. My friend, Jim Pepper insisted that I go to a university used book sale. I was about fifth in line behind rapacious book scouts. Upon entering, I noticed at "subject" placard, "alcoholism." Never had seen that one before. I got there first and encountered four shelves of books on alcohol and drug addiction. After "creaming the load (taking anything that I could make some dough on)I was left with nearly a hundred titles on rehab from both drugs and booze. What to do with the "dogs"- clean usable but unsaleable copies. Then it came to me- they could be donated to a rehab clinic in Pasadena through my good friend, who was once an internationally famous addict, not a bad criminal, and underneath all the waste, a gentleman.
One other small note of charity on my mother's behalf. She's always worked needlecraft but, outside of keeping me alive, never committed an act of charity in her life. Now at seventy-three years old she is quilting lap-blankets for aged veteran because, in her words, "The old farts need a smoke and are forced to outside in the cold. They might as well be warm while they're killing themselves." Hear! Hear!-- skypilot Chas
more skypilotclub award Capn,
Last night Allyson was walking home from work at 5:30. It was below zero out. She sees an elderly woman standing in front of the hospital in the cold--she said the woman was well into her 80s. She went up to her and asked if she was o.k. She was waiting for The Ride, which is the Boston Dial A Ride. Allyson asked how long she had been out there, and she said 20 minutes. Apparently, she missed the 3:30 The Ride and, at 5:10, the person at the desk SENT HER OUTSIDE to wait!!! Can you imagine?--they sent an elderly woman outside in sub zero weather to wait for a ride. So, Allyson said she'd stand there and wait with her. After 15 minutes, no one came. So, now the lady's been out there 40 minutes, and Allyson said she didn't look so good. So, she called The Ride and was put on hold--for another 20 minutes. Now, Allyson is freezing too. She tried to get the old lady to tell her where she lived (Newton--a suburb of Boston), but the lady was reluctant--she didn't know Allyson. Allyson was going to get her roommate and give the lady a ride home. So, instead, she brings the lady inside--get this, the lady goes--I can't really see can you help me? The lady was blind on top of everything. So, Allyson's really angry-she goes to the desk and says--you sent this woman outside to wait and no one ever came. The lady behind the desk immediately knew that she'd done something wrong---she said she'd give the lady a voucher for a free taxi. The elderly woman was proud and didn't want to take it. Allyson convinced her, put her on a taxi and sent her on her way.
-- Skypilot Sandy
SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 2005 BIG HOG SHOT DOWN Take your time. Take all the time you can, remembering time is money and if you need money seek no further than how much time you have on your hands or as grampa said, 'Hold out both hands, shit in one and wish in the other and see which one fills up faster.' Time waits for no man. What's that other famous saying? Something about, sure, it will happen, it will happen when pigs fly. Well, we pilots know that is not an impossibility. It is a Skypilotclub reality, one we participate in every day.
Big Hog got shot down. The fellow in the pictures is Larry Earley, He lives about 30 miles from Orlando, in the very rural community of Okahumpka, just off the Florida turnpike in Lake County, Florida. He has 20 acres of land and on it, a few cows and horses. Mostly it's pasture land that is fenced with woods surrounding him. For more on Larry, click on:
Dressed in the latest intersellar
fashion garb, the ol' Cap'n girds his loins, stuffs hisself full
of aspirins and coffee and prepares to take off on a mission
fraught with spiderwebs, raccoon poop and other mysteries for
he is not going aloft but down under. Down under the house for
the yearly chore dreaded so much it has been put off much too
long; usually undertaken in the warmth of Indian Summer, now
cold December day but sun is out and rain is forestalled, so
here he goes to examine the state of the heating ducts.
