MOVING THAT FAST

Dear Spike:

I think I was about seven or eight years old when I first saw the Blue Angels fly. The U.S. Navy’s jet acrobatic demonstration team was practicing for an air show at Moffet Field, not far from where your great grandparents live. I don’t remember much about that day, other than being completely spellbound by the idea that anything in the world could move that fast while being that close to something else moving that fast.

And I wanted to try it out.

It was a few weeks later that I blew all of my toy money on a blow-up, blue A-4 Skyhawk fighter in an elementary class auction. Somewhere around that same time, I picked up a Blue Angels ball cap and a poster for my bedroom.

I’m not sure how long my fascination lasted, but it couldn’t have been more than a few months. My parents used to joke that I moved from ambition to ambition every week. And indeed, I can distinctly remember desperately wanting to be a firefighter, a soccer player, a preacher, a teacher, a professional wrestler, a dolphin trainer, an astronaut, a gymnast, a pool hustler, a comic book artist, a graphic designer, a bar tender, an architect, president of the United States, a physician, an archeologist and an inventor.

Oh... and a rapper. (Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.)

Most of us don’t get to do all the things we dreamed about as kids. And as children, we scarcely can imagine all the things we’ll do as adults. The career I finally settled upon has taken me to mountain villages and desert warzones, to the tops of the redwoods and the bottom of the ocean, inside the minds of the most depraved criminals and into the lives of the most devoted families.

And so, in trade, I’m quite content with the knowledge that I’m unlikely to ever visit the moon, design a skyscraper or body slam a 350-pound goliath. (All those other things, I’m still holding out for — including being a rapper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.)

The truth is that life takes us in many strange and wonderful directions, cutting paths that render old dreams obsolete and make new dreams complete.

And sometimes, just sometimes, those paths collide.

Today was one of those days.

I almost turned down the opportunity. I pride myself on writing news that means something when it is painted into the great big picture of our world, and I just didn’t see how I was going to do that in this instance. Still, I had no other plans for my Monday, so I accepted the invitation of a local Air National Guard unit to fly with the crew of a KC-135 Stratotanker as they refeuled the Blue Angels, which were making a cross-country trip from California to Florida.

I don’t wow easily, but staring out the tanker’s tiny window at those shiny blue airplanes was a pretty amazing thing. I’m told we were doing about 450 miles an hour. And we flew at that speed, wingtip to wingtip, for a good hour.

For one morning, I was moving that fast while being that close to something else moving that fast.

I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that it’s probably not a bad idea to hold onto a dream or two...

... or ten or twenty...

... you really never know how or when or why your old dreams and your new dreams might collide.

But they just might.

(Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.)

Love,
dad