Tag Tuesday - Postage Stamp; And a Story: TO FLY

Today's challenge was to design a tag around a postage stamp.

(click for detail)

Does anyone remember when a postage stamp was 8 cents in the US?? That stamp has been around for a while!

For details on how I made this, or to join in on the challenge, please go to 

Blog Challenge Garden.

To Fly

27th in the Tuesday Story Series

When I was in my twenties, I had a male friend who was taking flying lessons and once in a while I would go up with him and his teacher. I learned pretty quickly that you should never eat anything spicy such as tacos or pizza before you spent an hour or more in the back seat of a small plane! But after that initiation, I just fell in love with being up in the air. 

When I was a young girl, I used to love to climb trees, the taller the better. My favorite were a stand of three pines which stood in a group and were tall and lean. I would climb as high as I could and then just lean back against the tree and enjoy the swaying dance it would do with the wind. It was quiet and peaceful and the slight sighing sound the wind makes through a pine tree was music to my ears. I often pretended to be a bird, and would try to imagine what it would feel like to fly to the trees across the yard, or across the road. I hated to come down and I would look forward to the next time I could climb back up.

Flying in a small plane brought a lot of that back. Of course, there was the noise from the engine, but the freedom to move through the sky was exhilarating! Seeing the familiar landmarks on the ground from a different vantage point, the marshes and rivers as winding dark stripes and the curvature of the earth was so exciting to me. I was never ready to land.

Once my friend's instructor invited us to ride with him on a night flight over the Charleston area. Since he wasn't flying, my friend took the back seat and I was pleased to be sitting up front. The pilot needed to put in so many hours each month to keep his license and we were just along for the ride. We took off from a small airport on one of the coastal islands and it was breathtaking once we were in the air. The stars were so bright and close with no light pollution to hide them. The lights below made everything look magical. The the pilot turned to me and said "Why don't you take the yoke?"

Gulp. "What??"

"Go ahead - I'm right here in case you get into trouble."

The plane had two steering wheels, or yokes, since it was a training plane so I had one right in front of me. I put me hands on it and then began to turn the plane and was so excited I could hardly breathe. We flew a little while longer, then he told me to turn the plane in the direction to take us back to the small airport. As we approached the airport, he suddenly reached over and grabbed my yoke and gave it a couple of quick jerks. "Good!" he told me, "You have an easy grip on it, not too tight."

"Now I want you to land the plane."

OK, flying was great , but..... landing? Then I heard myself say "REALLY?? ALRIGHT!!"

He guided me step by step, telling me what to do and when. Since I had been up several times, the terms he was using were familiar to me. I actually landed the plane and with a minimum of bumps!!

When we got out, I don't think my feet were touching the ground. He went into his office and came back out, smiling.

"Here, this is for you" and handed me a small black record book. "This is your very own Log Book and I entered the date and time as your first lesson. You're a natural!" 

Sadly, I was never able to afford flying lessons and the Log Book just got tucked away and gathered dust. I thought about taking lessons recently, but after my two eye surgeries, and this illness, I don't think it's going to be possible. But I will always have that one night when I flew the plane among the stars and was able to land it without knocking any of them out of the sky!

Have a great Tuesday!