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A Happy New Year
Here we are starting twenty-oh-four
(2004). One hundred years ago in nineteen-oh-four, aviation was
just about to blossom with the help of Glenn Curtiss and other
aviators. We spent this year celebrating the Wright brothers
and their accomplishments. It is now time to celebrate those
who preceded and followed the Wrights. Our writer, Bob Mack,
starts our celebration with some interesting facts about Curtiss
in his story, “To whom we owe so much.” Our purpose is not to
belittle the achievements of the Wrights, but to show other
outstanding achievements in aviation.
Twenty Years Later…
During the 1980’s, an artist sketched a
line drawing of a propeller, a river, bridge, a dam, mountains,
and lake in a surrealistic pictorial. It was never used by the
flying organization for which it was designed. I was going
through some papers recently and found a copy of it. I tossed
it aside and continued my search for whatever I had lost. A
couple of days later, I went back to the drawing for a look. It
really jumped out at me as one darn good pictorial. I wanted to
use it in our magazine….
The only problem is I don’t own the rights
to the drawing, I didn’t even know if the artist was still
alive, and I don’t know how to locate this unknown artist. I
did remember the person who brought the drawing to the club for
presentation as a club logo. The problem is that individual had
moved from my town many years ago. I did know the area to which
he had moved. I got on the Internet and sure enough a search of
his name provided me with his address. A phone call to him gave
me the artist’s name, Don Dobbins. I pickup up the local phone
directory and found that he still lived in my town.
I called him to ask if I could use the
drawing in the publication. It took Dodson a few seconds to
remember that he had produced the drawing twenty years before.
He graciously gave his consent for us to use the drawing in
FLY-LOW. You will see it from time to time. Mainly because
the twenty year old sketch represents what you see when you fly
low over our valley and the sketch is remarkably good. We have
taken the sketch and digitized it for printing.
The moral of the story is ‘never send me
anything you don’t want to see in print.’ I am currently
holding some old “Love Letters” I received in 1962. I wonder if
she would mind if I printed them. I never throw anything away.
Of course, I can only find these things when I am looking for
something else.
Have a good year and God Bless….. |
