The staff, directors & volunteers here at the AAA/APM offer the following Christmas Story (penned by AAA Executive Director Brent Taylor a few years ago & re-printed with permission), with our sincere wishes of a Merry Christmas !! for all our AAA members and facebook fans. A Christmas Story “Next to me in the blackness lay my oiled blue steel beauty. The greatest Christmas gift I had ever received, or would ever receive.”. So ends a favorite Christmas movie. But until this year I had spent little time dwelling on such sentiments. Perhaps it was the present I received from my lovely wife, perhaps it’s because I was a bit more reflective this Christmas season, perhaps it was this year’s present bringing me full circle, as it were, but whatever the reason, as I opened and donned the goatskin leather A-2 jacket, I came to understand what Ralphie was talking about. Strangely, this years Christmas present was not the first time I had received a leather flight jacket as a gift. In fact it was the third. Some thirty plus years ago, not long after Marcy and I were married, she presented me with a Navy G-1 style leather flight jacket for Christmas. Like most young, just out of college newlyweds we really could not afford such luxuries but it did indeed become one of the best Christmas presents I ever received. Now many pilots I know, when they receive such a present, do their best to keep said leather flight jackets looking pristine, wearing them only as dress jacket etc.. However I always admired those individuals that wore said jackets like a second skin, the jacket literally becoming an extension of their person/personality. True, the leather jacket is an inanimate object but I had come to see how it could both define and be defined as being part of a pilot’s life and therefore take on the providence and patina of the individual wearing it. So it was then, that G-1 (a heavier lined jacket with a fur collar) became my constant companion once the weather turned cold. I wore it to work, while working, flying, eating, used it as a pillow in many an FBO (as I waited out weather on a ferry trip), sat on it draped over many a bar stool (as I waited out weather on a ferry trip) as well as to keep warm and dry. We shared many a memorable flying adventure together, like that fall morning crossing of the Tennessee River valley, on top of a fog layer as the sun rose over the nose of the Pietenpol Aircamper I was delivering to Zebulon, GA. And though the cuffs and waist band were replaced more than once, every mark, scar, wrinkle, worn spot and stain on that jacket had a story to tell as part of the sectional chart of my life. It was indeed a prized possession and one which I imagined I would never part with. Then a few years later along came an Air Corps style A-2 leather flight jacket. This time it was an anniversary present and being designed for wear in more temperate weather would not be in direct competition for affections toward my beloved G-1. Again I set out to make this piece of horsehide part of my life and personality. It too was with me as a tool, companion, pillow, cushion and jacket. It too shared many a flying adventure. One of the most memorable, flying Aircraft Owner publisher Greg Herrick’s 1928 Stearman C3B from Blaine, Washington to Miles City, Montana. After all, it wouldn’t have seemed right to wear anything other than a leather flight jacket while flying a genuine airmail (this Stearman had been owned/operated by Varney Air Lines) airplane, powered by a Wright J-5 engine (same type engine as used in the “Spirit of St. Louis”) through the Cascades and Rockies now would it ? But all good things come to an end and so it was with these two articles of clothing that had meant so much to me. The G-1 met it’s fate during a wild fire that threatened to consume Antique Airfield one blustery March afternoon. Using it to help beat/smother the advancing flames helped save the airport but rendered the G-1 unwearable and unsaveable. It more than figuratively gave it’s life to help save Antique Airfield. As for the A-2, well let’s just say that we outgrew each other over the years. So that brings us to Christmas 2011. Though I was apathetic towards getting another leather flight jacket, suggesting instead other options, my prescient wife was wise enough to give me a gift that may not be what I wanted but was very much what I needed. As I slipped on my new goatskin A-2 jacket I slowly began to realize that something had indeed been missing from my life. My previous flight jackets represented memories of places, events, friends and planes that I hadn’t thought about for a long time but now came pleasantly back to mind. Beyond that lay the promise of making this new A-2 flight jacket a part of future flying adventures, travels and experiences. I look forward to making it my flight jacket and indeed have already taken steps to do just that. So this Christmas season as I once again watch A Christmas Story, I imagine I will be able to more closely identify with the character Ralphie’s sentiments when he speaks of; “The greatest Christmas gift I had ever received, or would ever receive.”.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 18:59:06 +0000
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