Irecently realised that a subconscious goal for this humble publication is to simply encourage the audience to read. Not just Evelyn Wood-style skipping from word to word, but rather for understanding, as our grade school teachers used to say. In an era when it’s a stretch to maintain attention through a fifty word social post, it often feels like a fool’s errand to suggest the reader click the link and read thousands more. I know it’s likely futile. I don’t care. It’s the right thing to do. Sometimes captains have to be willing to go down with the ship, particularly if it’s one of their own construction.

What informs my pathological obstinance is the impact long-form periodical articles have had on me over the course of my life. Two, in particular, appearing in two consecutive and personally consequential issues of FLYING magazine: specifically December 1975 and January 1976. Okay, before I go further, let me just punch these numbers into my TI–30 pocket calculator. Huh. The segmented red LED numbers reveal that’s just about fifty years ago.

I would love to think the words I’m writing here this evening will soon be read by a fourteen-year-old who will eventually find them memorable, impactful and perhaps even life-changing in fifty years. That will be 2075 when I’m long gone and that kid is sixty-four. However, I highly doubt they will be. But that does not prevent me from trying.

Don Quixote, St. Jude and I are practically on a first name basis, these days.

Onpage forty-four of the December number of FLYING, I encountered The Compass and the Clock2 by Peter Garrison. It was further subtitled A speck upon an endless ocean, a work of science and of art, Melmoth strikes eastward to test the mettle and endurance of its maker. What lay in store for me back on what was undoubtedly a rainy Vancouver night all those years ago was well over 7,000 words describing Garrison’s adventure of flying the Atlantic in a plane of his own design and construction.

I was gobsmacked.

I read the article and then read it again. I’m sure a few days went by and I read it a couple of more times. Again and again in subsequent weeks, months, and years. I recently re-read it once more and in all those years since it was first published, it has lost absolutely none of its power to both move and inspire me. It’s utterly amazing writing about an equally amazing subject.

Some of that Compass-fueled dreaming came true, in a way. My wife and I built the tail, wings, and some of the fuselage of an RV–6. While it was never going to be Melmoth, I do remember late nights in that cold garage thinking about where I might squeeze more fuel in to make the RV more Melmoth-like. Sadly, I eventually determined the project was, if not beyond my dreams, was definitely beyond the broad range of the earthbound capabilities and character I required to finish. The project was turned over to my nephews, one of whom finished it and continues to fly it to this day.3

A few years ago, I reached out to the still-very-much-in-the-game Peter Garrison to see if I might republish The Compass and the Clock in an online journal I was editing at the time. There are those who believe you should never meet your heroes lest they not measure up to unrealistic expectations. Based on my discussion with Peter, that’s not correct. He was every bit the gentleman I was hoping he would be, and without any hesitation, agreed to my request.

I click the permanently bookmarked link to Compass periodically. That is, any time I’m looking for inspiration on how to write well and in a memorable, impactful, if not life-changing way. Or, when I just need a little pick-me-up reading about a life well-lived.

Somewhere around the same time as my Compass period, I was given a copy of Richard Bach’s Nothing by Chance.4 Up to that point, I’m not sure I had actually read an entire book from cover to cover. But from the opening sentence The river was wine beneath our wings … I was hooked and ripped through the entire volume in no more than a day or two. I learned, with that book, reading could be fun.

I most like the three books Bach wrote before 1970’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull.5 At the very least, they inform his mega-hit book: they leave you with the impression the author really wished he had been born a bird instead of a man, and all the messiness the latter entails. After Seagull, his writing became progressively more mystical and less tethered to non-fiction, and not really my cup of London Fog, I’m afraid.

It’s poetry.

It was also an affirmation of everything I had thought about Bach up until that time. True to the title — and the final three words — of Nothing by Chance, it made me believe if I were to dream about something long enough and intensely enough, I could somehow eliminate the cruel randomness of the universe and, eventually, be rewarded with whatever it was I so richly deserved.

It wasn’t true. Not for me, at least. But the indelible lesson of The Egg and the Coffin is that great writing — and the great reading for which it makes — can be memorable, impactful, and perhaps even life-changing. I have, and will continue to devote myself to writing as well as Garrison and Bach, no matter how utterly quixotic that goal may be.

In something of a postscript, a few years ago I also made email contact with Richard Bach. I requested an interview with him for a podcast I was producing at the time. Like Garrison, above, he was exquisitely polite as he nonetheless declined. However, his words had an almost imperceptible hint of the poetry I had associated with Bach for all these years:

I’ve just stopped interviews, though, as I’ve done a number of them and today it’s been difficult to summon the energy to do more.

My heartfelt, if not belated, thanks, Peter and Richard. You have had a permanent impact on my life through your thoughtful, profound words.

One of the great pleasures of this role is the people you meet and with whom, over time, you become friends. A perfect case in point: the multi-talented Trusted Contributor7 Cheryl Goodwin, who provided the out-of-this-world cover photo for this month’s issue.

When discussing candidates, we noodled about the ‘right’ month for such a photo. The anniversary of the final flight of Coulson Aviation’s magnificent Hawaii Mars isn’t for another month or two, so that didn’t quite work. However, I was so taken with Cheryl's photo, I simply had to dream up some sort of rationale for running it right away.

It then occurred to us that with much of Canada seemingly on fire — again — we wondered if the two flying Mars had been retired too early? Whether that’s the case or not, it is still a great opportunity to recognise the brave aerial firefighters, flying the modern brethren of the Mars, fighting fires from the air here in Canada and all over this rapidly warming world. Our deepest thanks to you. We are eternally in your debt.

Now, before you do anything else, take a few moments to browse through all of Cheryl’s other gorgeous photos of her day with the Hawaii Mars along with all of her other breathtaking photography from all around this beautiful planet on her Good 2 Go Photography1 website.

Thanks so much for featuring your eyepopping photo in this month’s issue, Cheryl. It's a winner.

Do you have a long-form article, like Compass and Coffin for me, that had a lasting and meaningful impact on your life? I would love to hear about it.8 Have any other thoughts on June you would like to share? I would love to hear those, too. In the interim, thank you so much for reading and also for engaging with BluFly’s posts on Bluesky and LinkedIn. 9 I always love hearing from each and every one of you.

Until next month … fair winds and blue skies.

Terence C. Gannon
Managing Editor

This is what we managed to put together for you for the month of June, with most recent at the top:

Note that the embedded posts above are from the Bluesky 🛩️ Custom Feed 10 which is the reference feed for BluFly.