My Freedom was Flying
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| The eagle is my soul |
The year was 1997; I was 17 and had been living on my own in northern Michigan for about a year. I was renting a room in the garage of a bicycle repairman and spending most of my days working at a car wash or chasing clouds. My sister and I had been talking and getting to know each other better over the phone for a while and she thought it might be nice if I moved down to Ann Arbor to share rent with her. I had never lived in a city before and thought a change in scenery might be good so I agreed. She drove the three hours to pick me up about a week later and from there my adventure begins.
The first day after arriving at my sister’s I went out to find a job. A 17 year old with no driver’s license is pretty limited by who will hire them, so I learned the bus routes and focused on fast food. I got my first job by noon at a Pizza Hut and kept looking. The price of city rent was much more than what I was used to and one job just wasn’t going to hang it. I just kept on riding the bus and getting of whenever we passed by shops and restaurants. I found my second job at about 4:30 that afternoon as a taco stuffer at a Taco Bell near the airport. I spent the next few weeks riding my bike three miles to Pizza Hut in the morning, taking the bus to Taco Bell in the afternoon, riding the bus back to my first job in the evening and then riding my bike back home. I was doing everything right, but I needed to expand my horizons if I didn’t was to be a very bitter person one day.
One Friday when I had off from my second job I went to the airport to see about getting some flying lessons. They had an in house ground school that met every Tuesday and Thursday between 7:00 and 10:00 at night for $120.00, and I happened to have the money on me so I jumped on it. From that point on I either went to school after my second job or rode the bus for a few hours to study. My life was so busy there was no time for anything else, but I was happy in knowing I was going somewhere. The class was two months of aviation theory and FAA rules. It was two months of preparation for the chance to experience my first time flying. Class seemed to creep by at an unusually slow pace in anticipation for what was to come. I couldn’t wait to fly. When the actual flight lessons did start it was going to cost me $60.00 an hour though so I used that time to save every penny I had and focus only on the task at hand.
The day had come. Ground school was over, and I was standing in front of the Cessna 172 single prop aircraft that was soon going to be under my complete control. My flight instructor Dave walked me through my first ground check where we made sure the bird was fit for flight and topped off the fuel. We climbed into the cockpit donning our headphones to continue our preflight checks. I tested all the instrumentation and then fired her up making sure the magnetos were firing correctly. We sat there for a moment while he talked to the tower letting them know this was a training flight and asking permission to start taxiing while my knees shook and I kept going through everything in my mind. We got permission to start our venture and were soon parked at the entrance to the runway waiting for traffic to clear. I was pushing the toe breaks so hard I couldn’t feel my feet. Dave gave me control of the radio and my voice cracked as I said “Tower this is flight November Tango Whiskey requesting permission for takeoff.” The tower gave me permission and I let off on the toe breaks to steer us into the middle of the runway. I set the flaps to full as I pulled the throttle fully out and we began picking up speed. The runway was rushing by and I could feel the aircraft getting lighter on the ground as a euphoric tingle shot through my bones. We were going nearly 90 mile an hour when I pulled back on the controls and began our initial clime. My whole being was somehow connected to this ultimate machine of adventure, and my spirit was screaming in delight over the rush of adrenalin coursing through my veins. My time spent in preparation for this moment was suddenly and exceedingly well paid for. I was free like the proverbial bird. I was a man with a destiny and the only thing to quench my desires was this new found freedom. My life was changed that day in the cockpit. My boundaries were stretched beyond ever shrinking back. My soul was alive and I was free.
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