The Queen Of The Skies

Let us go back about 110 years ago when a young girl asked why not. While at an air show in the early days of aviation a girl asked why she couldn’t be one of those daring young aviators in the sky above her?

Keeping in mind her love of the adventure she saw in the freedom of flight, she knew on her first flight that this was where she belonged in the sky, flying her own aircraft. She would go on to fly in and pilot numerous aircraft in her lifetime.

Not only was she the first female to be a passenger to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, she was also the first female pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

She was a member of the National Woman’s Party and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. Who knows what might have happened if things had had a different outcome?

She became one of the most notable females in American and world history when she and Fred Noonan attempted a clandestine flight around the globe. The fight had a number of drawbacks that every pilot today would take for granted. Even the compass they had to rely on was not like the compass that navigators today use. Fred Noonan was one of the best navigators she could have chosen, you see he was one of the team that helped to navigate the flight paths that Pan Am Clippers used to reach the Orient. This was still the time that dead reckoning was the only form of navigation there was. There was no GPS, no radio navigation signal, and what there was, was not in any way as helpful as they are today.

It was July 2, 1937, on the leg from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island, desperately trying to reach the safety of Howland Island. It is a widely held belief that they ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific Ocean never to be heard from again.

There have been many searches for the Pilot and her navigator, starting with the largest search and rescue mission for a Civilian aircraft ever launched by F.D.R. There were many more private missions launched in the years following their disappearance. Even with today’s modern technology, still no substantiated, beyond the shadow of a doubt, evidence of them has ever been found. She was declared dead in absentia on Jan. 5, 1939.

Not only was she a pioneer in aviation, she was and is to this day an inspiration for girls and boys to reach for the skies. Who was she: Amelia Earhart, American born of part German descent. She has become what is known as a Legend. (24 July 1897 – 2 July 1937).

Keiths Memories In Time: Rough Road in Italy

Keiths Memories In Time: Rough Road in Italy: I have taken many an adventure with my wonderful wife Ursula, but the last one was to Rome and Vatican City. It was magical, the sights an...

It's not Winning or Losing it's how you play the game

After hearing about Notre Dame Cathedral I have been in kind of a sad mood and on the way home I was listening to broadcast about the old days of the coalfield ball teams in West Virginia.
I don't know if other people experience it but there's always a memory that comes flooding back with certain associations that is at such an extreme level that it almost gives you cold chills thinking about it. That memory will need some explaining and I'm going to try to do just that with the story I'm about to tell you.
I can't say that I was a saint by any means but I did try to play by the rules as much as I could. Some of my examples when I was growing up were not exactly what they should have been, but not all of them. I can remember wanting to play basketball desperately but I was not good enough for our school team and I knew that so I tried out for the church team and lo and behold I made the team. You know what, I was shocked too! I worked hard and got frustrated one day in practice with what I was being taught and said something to the coach that I probably shouldn't have, I apologized and he forgave me, so I was back on the team. Finally, we started playing other churches. In the league we were in we played all around Memphis. One day the coach pulled me from the bench and told me to go in and take out a player? I did not understand and I asked somehow for clarification. I didn't remember exactly what I said but he said don't break anything but put him out of the ballgame. I was shocked but I wasn't the brightest bulb in the box in those days, yes, I was a little nieve in those days and I did so want to play basketball so I did as I was told.
We were lined up for a free throw and I came up and under him with a knee in his thigh to do my best to hurt him just enough to keep him off the floor for as long as possible. The official, you know the guy with a striped shirt and black pants, pulled me to the side and told me if he ever saw me trying to hurt another player he would make sure that I never played in any league again.
 I lied to him and

said I wasn't doing anything. He told me he wasn't born yesterday and he had played basketball himself and knew exactly what was going on and to just mind my pees and
cues and I would be all right, otherwise, it would be trouble.
Something like this came up later in my life and I think I've told a little bit of the story before. I was umpiring a baseball game and the game was extremely close. I was sweeping off home plate and thought I heard someone say don't let it hit you in the head but take the hit. I thought maybe I heard it wrong so I didn't think much about it but I did see the coach talking to one particular player. The first batter hit a double and the second batter hit a single and then the young man I saw talking to one of the coaches of his team came to bat and I noticed he was just a bit anxious and he was bobbing and weaving in and out of the strike zone which, in itself, is not incriminating but it made me a little more curious than normal. I was watching him just as close as I was watching the pitcher and the strike zone. The picture wound up looking at first and second, he threw the ball and it was looking like it was going to be a perfect strike, then I noticed the young man crouch into the strike zone and pull his leg up as if to step into the pitch to hit it. I noticed the strangest thing, his eyes were closed as tight as they could be and he was making a face as if someone was about to give him a shot of penicillin. Then I heard a thud, the baseball hit him directly in the shoulder which was right over the strike zone. He
made no attempt to move out of the way or fall to the ground or any movement like he did not want to get hit by the pitch and that's just not natural. A lot of things raced through my mind,
the coach that asked him to do something that was unsportsmanlike and who I presumed was a coach asking a child to put himself in danger for a game, this not only was unsportsmanlike but it
was dangerous. A batter can not block the plate and the strike zone by the rulebook. I could've called it a strike and or if I thought that the player was doing it intentionally I could
call him out, and I did. I also walked over to the coach and told him why I called him out and I said if I could prove what I suspected I would not only rule the player out but that I would
see that he never coached again.

The opposing coach couldn't understand my reasoning because he was on the opposite side and couldn't see the boys face like I could. Mr. Haney, yes, Wallace and Ramona and Diane's father (childhood friends) was there for the next game or he may have even been one of the opposing coaches (I don't remember) also chastised me for the call I made and I felt like I was totally alone with the decision that I had made and I also questioned myself for a split second, but I knew in my heart it was the right decision that I had made.
I, for one, don't believe that someone that a child should look up to should ask them to do something that should not be done whether it's morally or ethically or in the spirit of the game. Winning has little to do with it, it's that you will always be someone that they look up to and someone that they need to have as a role model and mentor and, as such, asking them to do
something they should not do is breaking a sacred trust because remember it's not whether you win or lose it really is how you play the game.
I have to tell you that most of my coaches through junior high and high school were people that I could look up to and almost always were of the highest character and I love them all dearly and would not take $1 billion for the time that I spent with the coaches and players of the teams that I was on. Yes, winning means a lot but being able to look at yourself in the mirror and saying to yourself I tried to be the best I could be, for me is more important than any amount on any scoreboard could ever give you.
It seems that nowadays that the little white lies are accepted no matter what the reason. It seems that making choices between the lesser of two evils is acceptable. I, for one, stand with you and
promise you that I will never accept cheating, lying, stealing or any other less than ethical behavior in my life. I am no saint and do not expect you to follow me. If you look you'll see I do not have
nail scars in my hands, but I try each and every day to be like the Man that did.

Rough Road in Italy

I have taken many an adventure with my wonderful wife Ursula, but the last one was to Rome and Vatican City. It was magical, the sights and attending mass at St Peter’s was a highlight of my life and while we were there the Pope spoke to the crowd and said a blessing for us all.

We walked all over Rome and took the train and cabs to all our destinations. I must say that we never felt unsafe at all. The price of the trains were very reasonable compared to other places where we have been.

We went to all the sights we had time for. The Coliseum built in AD 72 to AD 80, the Forum and the ruins at the Palatine Hill, the Castle St. Angelo and the Trevi Fountain. Yes, we threw a coin in the fountain so we will return to Rome.

The thing that made it magical had more to do with a chance encounter with a road that had a sign in Italian that said rough road, as we went to a restaurant that Ursula’s father had a picture taken at the end of the Second World War. The road that I am speaking of, as I said had a sign in Italian that I could not read and it was only blocking half the road, so like any good American tourist I went around it and, as Shirley Temple used to say, “oh my goodness”! It was, first of all, in the middle of nowhere and I must say if there is a middle of nowhere it was that road in Italy.

Back to the road now, the conditions of the road were really rough at first and, like any thing that I do, it was destined to get even rougher. The sides of the road had collapsed in places and the bridges also looked as if chunks had fallen out of them. I kept moving forward as my poor wife Ursula melted into a nervous pool of Jell-O. We finally got up to the very top of this mountain road and it didn’t look any more pleasing to the eye than the rest of the road had before. There were at least 1000 foot drops or more on the right side of the car which made Ursula’s nerves of Jell-O at this point even more shaky. I, however, had all the confidence in the world that we were going to be safe “after they pulled our mangled bodies from the Fiat we had rented”. At least then you wouldn’t have to be listening to this story. Yes, I was starting to get a little bit worried, “yeah like I was already sweating bullets”, the road actually seemed just a little bit better, “but you had to drive around the big huge holes in the road for it to be better by the way”. We finally got to the end of our rough road and came to what we would’ve called an expressway that also seemed to be closed. Luckily, we saw a couple workers on a part of the expressway that was closest to us, so we asked them in our very best interpretation of an American tourist trying to make someone understand what they are asking that doesn’t understand English. Somehow he understood us and pointed to go back down the road and take the right but before the closed sign. We were to turn across the medium and turn left and it would take us to our destination. Luckily for us it did and no mishaps or rough roads on the rest of our trip to the town of Bornio in Rovigo and the restaurant called Trattoria al Ponte.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              We also went to Sienna, Lake Como and Milan.

Music of My Time

I am feeling very nostalgic for the music that I grew up with. I don’t think rap is musically singing. I don’t particularly like the direction music is headed. Everyone sounds like they’re back in the 1950’s with the old mics that caused the sound to echo. This echo however is no accident, they use the echo to hide the fact that most of today’s artists can’t hold their notes properly. That’s not to say that I personally could sing any better even with an echo correction.

I long for the days that everyone had their own unique sound. I also long for the time when all genres of music were played on most radio stations. I remember that WHBQ radio station would play pop, blues, rock, Soul, Country and yes even some of the old standards from back before our day. I have called myself and others of my generation the Ed Sullivan generation and I must slightly expand on that statement. The Ed Sullivan show introduced us to all kinds of music not just rock, country or Motown but his show introduced us to Opera and even Broadway musicals with the cast of those musicals performing it. As a matter of fact a young teenage Monkee was in one of those Broadway casts, yes, Davy Jones from the Monkees was in one of the Broadway musicals that was on the Ed Sullivan show before he had ever even thought about joining a band called the Monkees. Now that I have established the fact that the band is called the Monkees,Renata Tibaldi, Joan Sutherland, Richard Tucker and Franco Corelli, just some of the great Opera stars that appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

I can still hear Davy Jones singing the song “I’d do anything”.

When there was something special at the Metropolitan Opera, Ed Sullivan would have the likes of,

Renata Tibaldi, Joan Sutherland, Richard Tucker and Franco Corelli, just some of the great Opera stars that appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

I guess it’s not really the bands themselves that I am nostalgic for but rather the happiness and the joy and, yes, even the adventure that music brought me. The rock stars that appeared on the Ed Sullivan show are just as unbelievable, Bill Haley and the Comets, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dave Clark Five, Elvis Presley, Jerry and the Pacemakers, Janis Joplin,

Jefferson Airplane, the Mamas and the Papas, and of course many more artists than I can list that definitely deserve mentioning but I must at least name one group that made musical history by being on the Ed Sullivan show, none other than the Beatles. What more can I say about a group that changed our way of life.

With money from my first job I purchased a tape recorder “a cassette tape recorder”. The first cassette I purchased was Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple.however. My favorite album that I had of all times was Rare Earths Get Ready with the best drum solo ever. I have tried to find a recording of Rare Earth’s Get Ready that had that same drum solo. I don’t think it exists anymore. On some of them that drum solo isn’t the same and on others it has been shortened and doesn’t sound the same. I guess it could also be that an old man’s memory of what he heard back then was much better than it really was. I don’t want you to think that I was only into rock ‘n roll, folk music and Motown and soul, because I wasn’t. I listened to country and what I like to call clean jazz and New Orleans jazz that made reasonable musicality and melodic sense.

I also remember the first LP that I ever got for Christmas. I told my mother that I wanted After the Gold Rush by Neil Young and she came back to me after searching most of the department stores in Memphis at that time and she said she couldn’t find it. I told her there was a little record shop on the strip, “the Highland strip” near Memphis State University. She was very reluctant to go in there so she gave me the money and my father drove me there and I purchased the album, but she didn’t let me open it till Christmas day

I know you’re going to ask what made me so nostalgic for those times and, the truth is, I was watching CBS’s Sunday morning where they showed that the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art has a display now of all of the wonderful instruments that made those beautiful sounds into songs. Just as it took Masters to create the beautiful paintings in that museum it took Masters of those instruments to make those incredible memories come to life. Believe me I’ve picked up a guitar too and it’s not easy to make them sound beautiful and I must admit it’s extremely easy to make them sound horrible.

Everyone knows where they were at the most horrible times of our life and everyone knows where they were when they heard that special song or saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show on February 9, 1964.

It’s the comfort that music brought us at the worst possible moments in our lives that is a testament not only to the music but to those that made the music. There are so many songs that remind us of the days of our lives as we struggled to become who we are. I am not proclaiming that music is spiritual because I don’t have to, the very basis of the Christian religion is the teachings of the Bible and it said in those sanctified pages “make a joyful noise unto the Lord”.

I know because I have listened to the beautiful noise that those artists made to the Lord that it was not only a blessing to Him but to us as well. We are coming to the age now where a lot of those artists are aging to the point that they are no longer making music and as I am getting older too, I understand that our capabilities are not what they once were. But I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that the music played in heaven is like those radio stations that used to play all kinds of music that we loved with endless music that we will hear when we enter our heavenly home. It will be some of the best sounds that angels have ever heard. We will miss those musical geniuses that have gone on before us and I can’t wait to hear the new songs and music they are making.

We grew up listening to the music of our time, we made friends and laughed and played to the music of our time, we fell in love with that special one with the music of our time, and I for one will be laid to rest with the music of our time.

Yesterday was Father's Day and I know I should've been thinking of my father and I was in a way which I will tell you later. But first I want to tell you what my daughter did for me and the memories that it brought back. She drove to Memphis to pick up my granddaughter from her father who she was visiting and then came straight to my work and brought me a hot meal from Cracker Barrel. My grandkids, my daughter and my wife set down with me and we ate our dinner. I ask you what more could a father ask for than for his daughter to think that much of him.

It reminded me of the Father's Day that we had when I was young and we would travel to Hurricane, Mississippi to visit my mother's father. Or were we actually going there for the wonderful home-cooked meals that my grandmother and my aunts prepared which my father seemed to love? There's where I was thinking of my father.

You see in both my mother and father's family, food was the soul that brought the family together and it was my grandmother Whitehead that was the ultimate cook in our families.

My grandparents lived through the first world war, the depression and the second world war where they had to sacrifice, to make the best of what they had. She not only learned how to make things taste magical, she learned how to make them last and how to preserve and do things that are more of a lost art today. I wish I had set down with her and found out more of her secrets rather than having to now try and discover what those secrets are without her. Even my mother didn't know some of my grandmother's secrets even though they cooked so many times side-by-side with my aunts.

I know I have told you about the wonderful buttermilk biscuits that only she could make and the wonderful juicy southern pecan cake she would bake. But everything she made was just unbelievably delicious, it was a paradise for a young boy and teenager to set down to her table, not just because of the magical flavors that one could explore, it was also what went into the preparation, the love and the women all talking furiously while making these dishes and having the greatest times of their lives. It kind of reminds me of the Randy Travis song "Forever and Ever Amen" where old men sit and talk about old women and old women talk about old men. It was so unbelievable you could taste the love that these women put into it with every bite you would take.

It is so true that the love between the generations seems to have changed, we don't prepare things as much as we used to, we just go out and buy them. I guess my point is that just like my daughter making a 6 hour drive back and forth to Memphis and then bringing me the hot food. It wasn't necessarily the food, it was the love that made her do it that just warmed my soul. So it's also the meals that my grandmother prepared to show us how much she loved us. If she knew we were coming, there would be biscuits galore made that day so that I would have some fresh biscuits when I got there because she knew how much I loved them so and she loved to prepare them for me.

I know your family too comes from the same generation that mine did, so when one of the women in your family prepared food on Father's Day it was to show how much they loved all the Fathers in their family past and present. What more could you ask for on a Fathers Day!

Peace and Love

I Believe the way I do for a reason, I have lived my lifetime trying to do good in this world, as, I'm sure you have too. I don't understand the hate that I read from those that I once knew. We grew up in an age that was about trying to find love and peace.

I have had God at my side to help me from being mean or hating anyone for any reason. It is hard to see the real truth without the filter He provides me with. Just because we don't agree with one or the other doesn't make either of us wrong or bad people, it makes us human. Hating one another make us inhumane.

Times have changed I have seen people cursing someone for no real reason. People that are supposed to protect us taking advantage of their position to put themselves above the law. All I seem to see and hear is bad things. The thing is that we don’t hear about the good because that doesn’t sell for the advertisers, so it’s not in the papers or on the news. We live in a time that has instant broadcasting of events. All that they put out is the negative news. I do assure you that there is more good than bad, keep your faith and look to Him for the answers.

No wonder we are polarized in this country, we don’t talk to each other anymore we just snap or tweet and text each other. You can’t understand the pain or the love that someone is conveying with the words on a page. When you look into someone’s eyes and tell them how you feel they know what you mean, mad, sad or lovingly because you convey it with emotion that a written word does not have the capability of.

So take a step back or take a breath before you react. Remember to turn the other cheek or shake the dust from your sandals and keep moving.  After all, we all came from Adam.

My family, when I was small, was a very tightknit family. We would see either my father's mother and father or my mother's mother and father at least once a month if not more. My father's mother and father worked for the city of Water Valley in Mississippi. It was a small town and a wonderful place to explore as small child.

My grandfather did the maintenance and custodial duties for the courthouse across the street from the jailhouse that they also oversaw for the city. My grandmother cooked and my grandfather took care of the other duties for the jailhouse. You might think that the lessons a small child could learn in such a place would be bad or even haunting memories. It was just the opposite. I can remember loved ones coming to see their family that were incarcerated in the jailhouse and it seemed to me that they were very loving and caring people.

I know that my grandfather and grandmother were extremely loving and caring toward us. I remember one morning, in particular, I was just waking up when I heard our little dog, Rusty, a Pekingese and chihuahua mix breed scratching and whining on the bed across from me. There was a young girl in the bed that I did not know then and she was still sleeping. As quietly as I could I begged my little dog to come to me and leave her alone. My little puppy came to me and we fell back asleep in our bed.

When I finally got up and was having breakfast I met the young lady who was sleeping across from me and, as far as I can remember, she was an orphan and had run away from the orphanage. The church that my grandmother went to was trying to place her in a home. She was staying with most of the parishioners until they could find a permanent solution for her. I heard her explaining to my grandmother that she woke up hearing a sweet little voice calling to a puppy to leave her alone and let her sleep. My grandmother cautioned me not to be too inquisitive. Turns out that the girl had had an extremely hard life and had lost her parents at a very young age and it might be a hurtful reminder for her of those things.

Just as in any story, there is the good with the bad. One day, while we were playing in the main room of the living quarters of the jailhouse, an ambulance pulled up and brought someone into the house and lay them into my grandmother and grandfather's bed. Even though it wasn't meant for us to overhear, I heard my cousin Sonny telling my grandmother that his wife did not know yet that they had lost their baby and she was still under heavy sedation and that she would soon be coming out of it and they would have to tell her. I remember thinking lost their baby, then why aren't we out looking for it. Maybe we can find it before anything bad happens. About that time I could hear my cousin's wife moaning and calling for Sonny and her baby, Sonny tried to tell her to rest and not get excited. She seemed even more agitated as Sonny tried to direct the conversation away from the baby and finally, he told her that they lost the baby. I never heard screams of terror and heartbreak as I did that day. I still feel it within my soul the pain that she had, even though I was too young to understand, it hurt me deeply.

It was meant for me to understand and to hear and grow with the memory of that day within my mind and heart. You see I went through the same thing with my wife when we lost the only chance of having a child in our life. When I heard it I had that same feeling that I had before, even though I could not scream and cry to keep my wife calm and help her through this. I was totally horrified and saddened more than I had ever experienced. I think God gave me a gift that day in the jailhouse in Water Valley. He was telling me then that it would be all right to let the pain out and keep the love for my wife within.

Yes, it was one of the best places in the world to learn how to be a man. That jailhouse has always had a very special place in my heart. Not just because we could play in the parking lot of the courthouse and the backyard of the jailhouse, it was because of the love that surrounded us in those days no matter what house we were in.

I have said time and time again that I travel a different path than most. The path that was put before me, I chose it of my own free will and I will answer for the times that I strayed from the path and followed the path of the world. I and I alone must bear the burden that I have chosen. There have been many of you that have walked along with me for various stages of my life's path. Your company along my way was enjoyable and I was truly grateful for having you there. My wife and my family have followed me along my path, sometimes not so happily, but they followed me in the good times and the bad.

I have also followed along with a lot of you on your life's path and He who gave us our path also put forth different paths for each one of us at various times. We lose those that were following along with us and gain others that cross our paths and we keep losing and gaining many friends along our journey. Some of those would be extremely important. Others were just there when we needed them. The very special ones left a piece of themselves with us and we gave a piece of ourselves to them when they left.

I sometimes think that some of them were there just to keep us company from being lonely or we were there to keep them company. I hope out of the thousands of people I have met in my lifetime that at least one of them can say, ”he was a good soul and I'm glad he passed my way”. I have walked my path with many people that I did not even know their name, but they were a part of what makes up who I am, each and every step taken was taken with purpose and most of them were taken with good intentions in mind.

Unfortunately, every step that I took may not have been good. I just hope that I did not lead anyone off the path He had given them. I have read and tried to keep the knowledge of those that came before me. Those that actually traveled with He who gave us our paths left us with writings that give us the truth, if we are only willing to accept the truth of what our path should and should not be.

For those that accept His teachings and follow what was laid before us as our path, keep in mind, He gave us the choice to follow or not. He also gave us a better choice than that of the world. So when you give someone the knowledge of His gifts and a path He will lay before them, it is not your choice it is theirs.

Whatever happened to those kids?

I looked in the mirror the other day and I saw a strange old man with white sideburns looking back at me. I asked this old man what had happened to the young boy that used to look back at me. The old man said nothing. I asked my wife what happened to those kids that used to live here. She told me to sit down and have my breakfast.

I ate quietly and thought I must find these kids that were so happy and full of life that I once knew. What could've made them go away. Had I done something to make them unhappy? I walked by the playground that is next to the junior high school that they both went to and I could almost hear the kids laughing and playing on the playground and in the schoolyard. What happened to all the houses, they were all gone, not a one was still there.

The trees were still there, even the old tulip poplar tree that bent in the wind of the many thunderstorms we used to have was still standing where it stood when my house was still there. I looked down the street to see if I could find my friend’s houses but alas they were all gone too. The roar of a jet aircraft overhead from people coming and going to our airport was still there.

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What happened to all the kids in this neighborhood that I used to play with? Where had they gone, had something come and picked them up and moved them all away? What could cause this kind of devastation and leave me here all alone in my memories and thoughts of times gone by?

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I could tell you where all those kids went that used to play in the street, play softball at the park or go to that junior high school to learn, I could have told you, but it just seems, that those kids are so far away now, it is hard to see their shining faces looking back at me. Why did they go away and will they ever come back, is this the way it has to be.

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My wife filled my cup of coffee and awakened me from my thought and she told me that those kids had all grown old just like us. It makes me wonder if she doesn't understand that I seem to be the only one that has grown old because when these old man's eyes gaze upon her he sees the lovely young girl that walked down the aisle and took him as her husband so many years ago. Surely she can see how puzzled I am looking back at her because she hasn't aged a day to me.

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