Airport Journals


What’s it all About, Alfie (WHATEVER!)	Jun '08

By Cliff Robertson

Dear Readers:

Surely my cat, Halsey, has the answer. Obviously, Alfie doesn't know "What's it all about." He never answers my messages, phone calls or faxes. Either he has some kind of "cat-pact" with his feline brethren and sisteran, or he's gotten into some drugs somewhere. I know not what or where. When I ask him what's it all about, he comes up with that overused and unexplained "WHATEVER." Whatever does not suffice. I find it ambiguous and downright lazy. Let's say "However and notwithstanding." I have not found any clues of late to the philosophical meaning and implication. I think Joan Didion would say, in her inimitable Northern California way, "Let it lay. Let it lay. Let it lay."

Interesting how my pen meanders and wanders. Well anyway, excuse my drunken cant. Excuse me for avoiding logical text. Suffice to say I have no philosophical answers for Alfie's absence or my torpor. It's been far, far too long since Christmas greetings and New Year's hopes and dreams. My hope to all of you fine readers is that your hopes and dreams are realized. That your airplane is well maintained and purring without missing a beat. If the airplane dream is yet to be realized, my recommendation is to not despair, just keep on dreaming and reminding yourselves that ours is probably the only country in some 200 international countries that our Walter Mitty dreams can, with luck and patience, come true.

Like so many of you, I try to avoid the political circus. I am heartened by the fact that there is at least one, and possibly more, candidates who have empathetic understanding of the woes of the private pilot in America. Certainly, John McCain would be one at the top of that totem pole. He would be last, in spite of his heroic aviation background, to claim fame as a Navy fighter pilot. I had occasion to meet him during the late Congressman Morris Udall's funeral (another private pilot from Arizona), and he was most modest when I proffered my admiration for his heroism. He, as I, was a great fan of Mo Udall, another great hero of the political firmament. WHATEVER (there's that lazy term again), I will not drift off into any kind of polemics. Suffice to say, Congressman McCain is and will always be (certainly in this writer's opinion) a genuine American hero who plays it as it lays—straight and honest.

As I do each year, as spring arrived, I checked my bird's wet weather gear. I cannot say enough for my deicer, put on my Baron some seven years ago. Happily, I have always followed the manufacturer's directions on cleaning and polishing. The result: they are virtually brand new and happy comfort through rain, freezing rain, light snow and ice. They have been a real comfort through the many hours of inclement weather. The same can be said for my propeller and windshield device. All in all, a happy reminder that the American aviation weather devices live up to their advertising promises. Would that some of our politicians would do the same.

Academy Award and Emmy Award winning screen star Cliff Robertson has owned and flown a wide array of aircraft, including a Spitfire MK IX, a Messerschmitt Me 108, a French aerobatic Stampe SV4 biplane, a Grob Astir glider (in which he still holds a distance record) and a Beech Baron 58. A holder of single, multi, instrument and commercial licenses, as well as balloon, the pilot of many thousands of hours has accumulated many aviation awards, including EAA's highest Eagle award and the AOPA Sharples Award. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, and the American Veteran Association has honored him as Veteran of the Year. His columns will appear in his soon-to-be-published book. For more information, visit [http://www.cliffrobertson.info].