Reply #18: I watched them from my house last year [View All]

[elocs]

during the Deke Slayton airfest here in La Crosse. I only live a couple of miles from the airport, so they were screaming over my house for days. As a kid I used to remember the local tv station signing off for the night with this poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr.:

“High Flight”

“Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunset silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager aircraft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”