FATHER'S DAY

FATHER'S DAY Our Dad was wonderful. We had a happy childhood. I always liked to purchase a Louis La'Mour book for him for any occasion but Father's Day was good. Louis La'Mour wrote about 147 books. He also wrote children's books and I will look into that sometime soon. My personal favorite was one where the hero was a military man stuck in Siberia. He had to survive the hike out to America. It was a terrific book. His last book had elements of sci-fi, very surprising. He died in 1980 and I was stuck, no more books! Dang! I discovered Tony Hillerman years later, his first book was writen in 1970. I could have been buying them for Dad. Shoot! The only book of Tony Hillerman that I did not enjoy was FINDING MOON. It was not set on the rez, so I was disappointed. His daughter, Anne Hillerman has written twelve books, I have only read two of them and they are excellent. I will check out the rest of them sometime soon. Apparently none of Louis La'Mours four children did not write or at least not in his genre. Sigh.... One other favorite author of mine, Anne McCaffrey, wrote many books some set on the planet Pern of the sentient flying dragons and their bonded partners. Her son, Todd McCaffrey wrote a sequel that addressed he life of the wyverns, a lesser dragon that acted as night watch and worked in mines because it could not see well in day light. That was very good. However the sequel went in the weyrs and had the main character a woman who rode a queen. She fell into a coma. However when it came to the mating flight, the man made love to the comatose woman. Strange and distasteful. The story got a bit more weird when it looked like the girl, when she woke up, had a liking for girls. Anne had handled this nicelyl in previous books. Her daughter, GiGi has written some fine sequels that far surpass those of her brother. I wonder if there other authors out there who progeny have written in their genre. Oh, well. Happy Father's all you great Dad's out there!! I love you!!

FLYING LESSONS

FLYING LESSONS: Let me start with a little background. When we werep kids, our Uncle Carl, would sometimes fly up from Petaluma, California. One time he took us up, Richard, Phillip and myself. We landed in Boise, Dad met us and we rode home with him. Later on, I would fly home from SFO to Boise on United. The best salad I ever had was Langostine, yummy! In summer of 1965, I moved to Petaluma, CA to live my cousin Carl and his wife, Robin for a few months. As soon as I turned 18, I got a job at Fairchild Semiconductor. My first roommate was Ella Sue. Uncle Carl offered free flying lessons and we only had to pay for the gas. Swell! One time Mom and Dad were visiting and were there at Petalma Sky Ranch when I landed. They have Brownie film of me getting out of the plane and bumping my head. Sue and I had so much fun. I learned how to come out of a stall, bank, turn, take off and land. Most important walk around the plane inspecting anything loose etc. I soloed and have about 40 hours in the log Uncle Carl gave to me. One time Sue and I took off for lessons. By the time we got home, the pot of eggs which I had left to boil, had exploded and turned to kitchen black with smoke. The smell was nearly as disgusting and the rendering plant that used to be located just south of Petaluma. We opened the doors and windows and started scrubbing. We were very careful to make sure nothing was being cooked after that. One time, we met a young pilot about the time we were finished. He asked us if we would like a ride in his plane. OK! I got to ride in the front seat coming back. The panel in front had way more than the altimeter and fuel gage on the 1947 Aeronca. I was looking everything over exclaiming with delight! There were lots of toggle switches and so many dials. I finally pointed out something that looked vaguely familiar and asked, “What is this?” He looked at me a little funny and finally replied, “Um, it's a clock.”