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ISSUE
157 - February 2011
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In The Eye of The Wolf |
By David Rose,
Contributing Editor
San Diego, California |
They’ll tell you there all gone
now. “Have been since the ‘50’s” .
They say “they put some in the mountains around Arizona
in ’76, but they didn’t catch on”.
Maybe.
But I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I was on
my way back to California flying my Pitts. |
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I had left Albuquerque behind
and the New Mexico desert was slipping by now. It was a perfect
late summer afternoon and I slid the canopy back to see if
the sweet pungent odor of the desert Big Sage could be detected
from three hundred feet. There leaves and buds, I imagined,
were being feasted on by Pronghorn Antelope and Mule Deer and
the aroma must be perfuming the air and attracting the little
sage grouse. |
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I
had endured a summer of B-52 transition training out of Roswell
N.M. years before and during that summer I had often spent
free days walking the banks of the Pecos River, plinking
at rocks and cans with a little Colt 22 Peacemaker. The air
had been sweet with the aroma of the sage and now, flying
over the New Mexico desert, I grew nostalgic for the peace
and quiet I had enjoyed “down
by the Pecos”.
I
remembered we had used several auxiliary fields for our take
off and landing practice that summer and now, recalling that
New Mexico was replete with abandoned air fields, I wasn’t
surprised when I saw an open area ahead. As the field grew
in the windscreen I wondered as to its condition and, making
a low pass, looked the surface over. It seemed OK from 20 feet
and 100 miles an hour, so without another thought, I set up
to land. Memories, rather than caution, occupied the forefront
of my thoughts right then, and now in retrospect, I realize
how caught up in the moment I had been. Lapses in judgment
like that often lead to disaster, but this one worked out and
the landing was fine. Surprisingly the surface was more packed
sand than asphalt and it was like landing on grass; no sweat.
Switching off, the world was so suddenly silent
that I was a little shocked. I spent a while there drinking
in the quiet and thinking of those days by the river. It all
seemed the same now; the smell of the sage and the stillness
of the moment. It didn’t occur to me to get out; I just
sat there appreciating the pleasant break from the headset,
the 120 decibel cockpit and the attention this wonderful little
airplane asked for. |
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Whatever
my preoccupations, I didn’t see him approach. I looked
and he was simply there. It was as though he had sat, patiently
awaiting my arrival.
Back in Roswell that summer I had been told there were no
wolves anymore so not to worry about walking down by the
river. And yet now, there he was, staring at my airplane.
He sat there for just a moment or so more, then stood, and
in an easy, unconcerned gait, loped away and disappear into
the tall sage.
For a while longer I watched
the empty spot where he had been and wondered. My red and
white sunburst world would be the most foreign thing he would
ever experience. Nothing in his world could bring him to
understand what he had seen. His eyes had given him a look
into a world he would never comprehend. Yet he simply accepted
that it was there and left it alone. Later, I would often
reflect upon myself from the perspective of those eyes. |
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My Pitts was as foreign
to his world as my world has been to my relatives and friends.
Their 9 to 5 existences of comings and goings, same town, same
neighborhood, has never my world. Instead it’s been trainers;
bombers; fighters; transports; sports planes and racers. It’s
been Goose Bay, Da Nang; Buenos Aeries, Narita, and Nouasseur.
It’s been a thousand places and airplanes and a thousand
days of oceans and continents; North Pole, South Poles, the
Capes of Hope and Horn; the Marshall’s and Canaries;
a life as foreign to my family and friends as my little Pitts
was to that wolf.
We all chose flying as a profession; in doing
so we put ourselves beyond the understanding of our families.
Oh, they love us alright, and they respect us as well, but
understand? We speak to them of the strat, towering cu and
low approaches; we tell our stories as best we can, but understand?
We may as well be explaining it all to that wolf. He saw what
he saw, he may even remember it, but understand? Like my family,
he accepted it and left it alone.
My little bird fired right
up and I was off without incident. I’ve flown a lot of
hours since that day and the wolf has always been with me,
a constant reminder that I love what I do, whether anyone else
understands it or not.
As pilots, we live our lives in the
eye of that wolf; may he always watch and wonder. |
By David Rose, Contributing
Editor
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