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| Confession | May '08 |
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| By Cliff Robertson |
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I confess. As a writer, I am, at the very best, lazy. I seem to feel that inspiration will land upon my desk, unexpected, serendipitously, magically and without toil. This is a lazy expectation for writing. Good writing—true writing—comes from thinking and caring—a lot of caring. But because I am, by nature, I suspect, a lazy person, I avoid the dogmatic—following the basic cardinal rules. Or as my late grandmother used to say, "A lazy man, in the long run, takes the most pains" (trying to avoid that which is expected and required).
I don't know where this inherent quality comes from. I do recall, as a youngster, keeping my bedroom door slightly open so I could hear the conversations of the adults outside and downstairs. For they, it seemed to me, were talking about "the good stuff." The adult stuff. The stuff that made my nosey nose twitch. Oft times, they would lower their tones, and that's when I raised my bedcovers and lowered my ears to the crack in the door.
That's when I would hear of some local scandal, which I never quite seemed to understand, but which was of importance to 8-year-old ears. Not that I would transfer this treasury of gossip to other ears, but that seemed to feed my imagination. That was the stuff that little boy's imaginations fed on. And, of course, that was "secret stuff"—not made for little boy's intrusions. That was the good stuff. The secret stuff. The stuff imbued with mystery.
Of course, it wasn't a far leap from listening to late-night adult whispers to adult pilot's musings. Whenever a man (rarely a woman in those days) talked of flying, my nosiness became true inquiry. The life of a pilot seemed the most romantic and worthwhile way to satisfy my desire to escape the ordinary. The pedestrian. The boring. The dull. The dreary. And the limited. The thought of being able to dash out of the house on a Saturday, jump on my Iver-Johnson bicycle and peddle madly the 13 miles to my home for boyhood dreams: the little sandy strip. The escape from school and the dreary. Those things obligated, yet never embraced.
Yes, little airplanes, little airports were my sanctuary from school and the obligated. It's no wonder that in the summers, with no school, my Iver-Johnson bicycle was my copartner to escape. Escape from cutting the lawn and other plebeian tasks. I have often wondered if poets are basically escape artists. Not that my poetic efforts would attract Percy Bysshe Shelley's attention, but there is a bit of guilt in talents undeserved—or as the old farmer would say, "unworked for." Or as the Calvinist might declare, "If you ain't workin,' you're sinnin.'" Oh. That's the Calvinist attitude.
In my boyhood bag of excuses, that didn't wash for work at the airport—being allowed to work at the airport, cleaning dusty airplanes and greasy engines, was a great treat. Being allowed in the old six-airplane hangar was heaven. The pilots and mechanics were the gods, and I was one of the chosen few allowed to keep that heaven clean. The chosen few being the one or two other airport brats "allowed" to work or even walk in that heaven. Every third or fourth day, the chief pilot, Bud Smith, would say, "Cliff, go get your cushion" (I was short for my age). He would walk me out to the little red Taylor cub, seat me in the front tandem seat, take off and allow me 15 precious minutes of unexcelled freedom. Fifteen minutes to embrace the stick and pretend I was a World War I ace.
Certainly, I was the ace in that little boy's firmament, for indeed I was the luckiest kid on the block. So philosophically, it boils down to this; if you're doing something you have a passion for, particularly a hint of talent for, that passion absolves you of any sense of guilt, particularly as long as it does not hurt others.
Enough of my mea culpa. Now decades later, I go out to the airport, crank up my Baron and take off to join other dreamers in the Long Island sky. Mind you, not idle dreaming, but dreaming that puts it all in perspective. The freedom that we enjoy in this country. The freedom to fly, to walk, to talk, unobstructed by fascists— unobstructed, unalloyed or impeded in any way, in the knowledge that we deserve, as Americans, those rights of freedom. Freedom of travel and movement unobstructed by fascistic dogma. The same kind of freedom that Washington and one of my great-great-great-grandfathers fought for in 1776. He, a farmer and rancher, received a check (postdated) for some $10 a month. To this descendant's knowledge, I'm not sure the checks were ever cashed. I rather hope not. That piece of freedom he helped buy was the best bargain one could ever ask for.
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 www.cliffrobertson.info.
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