Airplane Dreams.

We moved from Costilla, New Mexico to what I would call “The Blue House” when I was four or five. My father had gone to work for my uncle, and we had to be closer. Dad had inherited property and was building a house on it. I remember going out there and seeing the foundation having been poured. Over the next two years, we’d visit and watch the house come together.

But I digress.

We were still at the Blue House, and I don’t recall what I was doing. But I remember hearing thunder in the sky. I looked in the direction it was coming from and flying low, and following the La Jara Creek up towards the mountain was the biggest airplane I’d ever seen.

It was a Boeing B-52, maybe five hundred feet above the ground, and flying slowly. Black exhaust funneled out of the engines.

I was mesmerized.

I watched this metallic monster lumber closer, the rumble of the engines becoming a fury symphony of noise. And as it passed overhead, I looked up, and I could see the co-pilot looking down at me.

It went past, and the smell of jet exhaust washed over me.

The thunder faded, and the bomber got smaller with distance. But even after several minutes, I could still see it against the clouds in the distance.

I was hooked.

I wanted to fly those things. To climb up in one and maybe not follow a river, but to ride it up to the edge of space.

I was so obsessed with flying that one of my many nicknames in school was “Airplane.” That was okay.

That was a long time ago. Not many months ago, I was speaking with a pilot at the Commemorative Air Force. He flew a small, restored trainer that his mother had flown when she was a WAF.

I told him about my dream of learning to fly.

He asked what was stopping me.

I told him I was a little old.

“Nonsense. I know an 84-year-old woman who just soloed.”

So, I added learning to fly to my bucket list.