This may seem like a strange post on a blog about an aviation book, but there is a connection. Call it the same connection that must exist between physical forces before an aircraft of any kind will defy gravity and take to the air. We helicopter pilots know this connection, this balance only too well. It involves the opposing forces of gravity and lift. When the two forces are synchronized, an aircraft will fly. To climb or descend, a pilot uses those same physical forces to adjust altitude, either more or less, depending on what’s required. We could say gravity always wins. Aviators claim that landings are mandatory; takeoffs are optional, but gravity only wins because a pilot (and to some extent his/her fuel supply) allows it to.
What’s this got to do with marriage equality? Think of the growing acceptance in this country of civil marriage equality, so called gay marriage, as the desire for LGBT people to fly like the rest of us. The opposing force of gravity for them has been opposition from those of us who weren’t aware of the inequality for one reason or another, those who didn’t care about marriage rights (or rites), or those who actively opposed such ‘gay marriages’ on religious principles. Take Minnesota as an example. In the last day or so the legislature in Minnesota has endorsed civil marriage equality. The I-35 bridge was lit to reflect this change in state law, and soon LGBT people in Minnesota will able to marry the person they love, to take off and fly just like their straight friends and family and neighbors have been able to do forever. The physical forces have alined in Minnesota, and equality has succeeded. I flew a helicopter for a very long time, more than 12,000 hours logged time in the cockpit. Some of that time was in combat, in a war long ago and far away, attempting to share with the Vietnamese people the same equality of rights I enjoyed as an American. The trend is clear and undeniable; our gay and lesbian friends and family members will very soon have the same right to marry we take for granted. When I see fellow Americans gain their equal rights, in this case marriage rights, I know the years I spent in uniform meant something, that what I did mattered. It’s always good to see that physical forces eventually even out, allowing all of us to fly.

The feature story in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine was about the mysterious killing of monk seals in Hawaii. The seals are on the federal endangered species list, but in the past year or so four of them have been slain, two on Molokai, two on Kauai. Here’s my take on why this seal-icide is happening.
My wife and I lived on Kauai for almost three years. It was not unusual to visit a beach, especially a south shore beach, and find the standard yellow police tape cordoning off a section of sand, monk seal sound asleep within its perimeter. Not unusual, either, to see a gaggle of tourists snooping around the yellow tape, like nosy Parkers at a crime scene, snapping pictures that would be used to cure a neighbor’s insomnia back home in Tulsa, or Toledo, or Trenton. The seals don’t do much. Like cats, or newborn humans actually, they sleep mostly, occasionally snort to indicate you’re getting too damn close and back off, or once in a great while raise a whiskered snout and have a look see, as if posing for folks in Tulsa or Toledo. Then why are monk seals being killed?
I believe it’s because the local people feel threatened. Let me explain. Hawaiian people don’t like us Haoles very much. (That’s How-Lees for the puzzled among you, and it means foreigner). Hawaiians have a darn good reason to dislike the haoles, too, as they have been treated rather harshly by them for a few hundred years. It’s the typical invader pressuring the locals off their sacred land scenario, and Hawaiians have a lot of resentment about it. I detail this tension between Hawaiians and the haoles in my book if you’d like more detail. (New feature: a Free Download–check it out). But why kill monk seals? The poor seals were there first, but no matter. They, too, have begun taking over, this time local fishing grounds, and their behavior is seen as matching the haole’s’. Then along comes the Federal government and protects the seals. Since there were no equivalent legal measures to protect Hawaiians when they were endangered, they quite naturally wonder what’s going on? I guess I would, too.
It’s quite sad, because the Hawaiian people I knew were, if anything, overly protective of their wildlife and cultural artifacts. Killing seals, or anything else for that matter, is not something they’d ordinarily do. Many times on Kauai, long about three a.m., I wished they’d be willing to kill a few roosters, but that’s another story. There are many sides to this issue, not least of which is a gap between cultural values relating to education, religion, tourism and even capitalism itself and the use of the sacred Aina for profit. I’m afraid the monk seals are literally caught in the crosshairs of Hawaiians’ frustration with the latest incursion on their lives, and are paying for it with theirs.

This picture was taken in 1984 on the helipad of the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics in Iowa City, Iowa. In the shot, I've just landed with a patient, and I'm assisting the medical staff into the hospital with them. I don't recall where the patient was flown from, or their condition, or much else about the shot, really. But I do remember how I felt that day, because it was the same feeling I had every day I flew Air Medical. It was a mixture of exhilaration and pride: that I was doing so much for someone else, flying 'good,' and that I was so competent at the flying itself. I doubt that I'm alone in this, but it's my sense and belief that we all feel and behave and sleep and get along better when we operate outside ourselves helping other people.
Yesterday was Equality Ohio Lobby Day here in Columbus, a day my fellow LGBT rights activists and I dropped in on our legislators for a bit of face time, to advise them of pending legislation that it's important for them to support. In Ohio today a worker, regardless how competent, valuable, insightful or of whatever duration with the company can be summarily fired for being, or suspected of being LGBT. The Equal Housing and Employment Act--EHEA--would provide protections to those people. This kind of law is on the books in 21 states, but not in Ohio. It's needed here and elsewhere for many reasons, not least of which is that it's simply wrong to fire someone based on who they are.
Attending Lobby Day felt a lot like landing patients on that helipad all those years ago. I was there to make a difference, working outside myself, helping other people in their struggle to attain what they need. The differences, of course, are many. For one thing my LGBT friends don't need my help; they're perfectly capable, more so really, than I am to push through legal protections etc., and to land all the rights and privileges the rest of us take for granted. Still, it feels good to be a presence in this 'rescue' mission as well, another bit of good flying, or flying good, that's almost equally rewarding.

May 4th 1970, 43 years ago today, I was in Vietnam, a Warrant Officer helicopter pilot. My day was filled depositing troops with loaded weapons into hot landing zones. Afterward I'd resupply those troops, reposition them, bring them beans and bullets and mail and ordinance, the stuff soldiers need to fight a shooting war. I'd had a quiet day, hadn't drawn fire, just went about my flyboy business and landed at home plate, another day marked off my calendar, another day closer to the Freedom Bird. As mentioned in The Sky Behind Me, after the war closed down for the day I went to the club for a beer or four, and heard the news. Back home in Ohio four Kent State students had been shot and killed by National Guard troops--with loaded weapons--on the campus outside Akron. Hearing the news that night I was stunned. The feeling was surreal, that I'd had an uneventful day in the field, even though I was in a war zone, while college students were being gunned down at home in Ohio. I didn't have a lot of military experience; my time in the Army at that point amounted to 8 weeks of basic training, a year in flight school, and just shy of a month in Vietnam. But even a rookie pilot like me with that little experience, even I knew those Guard troops should never have been issued live ammunition. Putting them on that campus made sense, to be a presence, to curtail efforts at violent demonstration, and to protect state property. But loading those M-14s was dereliction, pure and simple. We all wondered, as we sucked beers that night in the club 12,000 miles away, and in a real war zone, who was responsible for that order? What official put those kids--we were kids at that age, I'm sorry it's just true--who put them in harms way that afternoon with loaded weapons? Looking back on that long-ago day I see reflections of our current wrestling match with lethal weapons, who should have access to them, why they're used and by whom. It's sobering to think that so little has changed in our culture in forty-three years that the ingredients of violence are still intact, and that loaded weapons are still added to the volatile mix.

I'm a compassionate guy. I really am. Ask anybody and they'll tell you I wouldn't speak ill of anyone, don't disparage people randomly, step sideways to avoid ants and small children. And I know how much simple pleasure there is out there for the taking, the blandishments of modern life, alcohol, cigarettes, rich fatty foods, red meat and calorie-laden desserts, I know all about that stuff. I indulge them myself from time to time. I don't exercise as much as I should. I eat too much ice cream and drink too much wine, sit around too much (hey, I'm a writer, I call it work). But I also know about the ravages of all this modern richness, the indulgent lifestyle we immerse ourselves in at the expense of our health. I saw the end results of our over-fed, under-exercised, sedentary, TV-numbed life that too many Americans adopt too early in life. For twenty years I flew folks to a hospital after their heart attacks, strokes, intoxicated driving mishaps, cancer-related medical crises. Many of those health crises are connected to choices we make about the indulgences listed above. And then what do we do? We demand that the system patch us up, fix our self-inflicted wounds, our heart attacks, strokes, cancer-related medical crises. We're entitled to the care; we're Americans, after all, living in a country that provides all that richness and wealth and indulgence to us. Entitled, to the care and remedy available to address our most egregious health problems so we can resume our smoking and drinking and dietary impulses without hindrance.
But even when I was flying all those patients, and happy to do so I should add, something nagged at me. It's never a good idea, or a compassionate first thought, to focus on financial matters in the middle of a health crisis. But dammit, someone must pay the freight for all this indulgence, the often poor choices we make that result in sickness and morbidity down the road. The payer is--all of us. There's no getting around it. We're all in this leaky little boat together, and no matter how one feels about health care policy, or dietary science & its pronouncements or sociology, when the health care bill comes due, we're all on the hook for it. Many times I'd land at the hospital with a patient who had clearly ignored all manner of health-related items in their personal lives: they smoked (a lot), drank too much (often driving afterward--or during--which brought them to me), they chose to ignore good food offerings for junk, they plugged their brain into a television ten hours a day and became ballast for the La-Z-Boy. The nagging thought that pushed into my head all those times was that those patients chose their situation. No one forced them (or any of us) to live the way they did, or eat that way, drink that way, smoke cigarettes, etc. etc. It was a choice. I avoid the preaching mode. No one really likes a preacher except perhaps the preacher's wife. And I confess, again, that I've been there. I was a pack-a-day smoker for ten years.
It's what I call the entitle-tude that's the real problem. It seems to me that with any entitlement there must be commensurate responsibility, and this crisis--for health care in America is in crisis--this is no exception. I'm not sure that health insurance policies shouldn't contain reasonable restrictions on coverage for those who choose to keep smoking, those whose BMI is above a certain point, those who refuse to follow dietary guidelines. I know; the nanny state. It's always politics. But it's truly conservative politics. We make choices; we should be responsible for those choices, not entitled to whatever interventions society heaps on us like that extra bowl of ice cream.

In a stunning and timely reversal today, the catholic bishop of Columbus Ohio issued an apology to one Carla Hale, a former employee (in 2013) of Bishop Watterson High School, a place of education that once occupied the Cooke Road site of the current MCS, the Ministry of Common Sense.
Ms Hale, legend has it, was a distinguished teacher and, it appears, if the historical record is correct, a champion of civil liberties. It is unclear why Ms Hale's 'sexual orientation' made her a subject of controversy in the dark days of 2013, but in those somewhat uncivilized times she must have been. The ancient record shows also that 'religious orientation' was a primary qualification for high office and class distinction during those dark times, so the context seems to support the hypothesis. Christians it appears, were held in somewhat higher esteem than other, equally qualified citizens, again if the record is correct. Why this was is still the subject of historical inquiry.
In any case, sole remaining catholic administrator in Ohio Bishop Fairly S. Petrific issued the statement last evening, after the internet was shut down for 'Mass Unplugging for Sanity Hour' (MUSH) by the aforementioned MCS, Ministry for Common Sense. Petrific's statement was terse, legalistic and clearly vetted by the papal curia, possibly by Pope Suburban IV himself. "We three remaining defenders of the catholic faith do hereby acknowledge that, in the year of our lord 2013, (or close enough to satisfy our 173 former adherents in any case,) a Ms Carla Hale, though she is (or used to be) a lesbian, which this church body still can't fully accept, and though she was (possibly still is) living in a “quasi-spousal relationship” (bishop Campbell's words, not ours, but close enough) we hereby say it's okay with us old unmarried (unmarriageable?) men if she does that, but only if she confesses and makes nice, and for god's sake never ever mentions it again in polite company. "For god's sake shut up about it, ick!" Petrific cited Campbell again: “...we don’t necessarily go looking for things like that,” he said back in 2013, but "...by god if we uncover it," Petrific continued, "...we pounce on it like a duck on a June bug." Just like bishop Campbell, who fired Ms Hale before the week was out, based on a letter, based on an obituary citation: "We do this in an atmosphere of care, of calm consideration..." Thus the apology a mere 300 years in the making. "We don't wish to rush into these things," the statement read.
The statement was written on 'paper,' rather than on the already shuttered internet in order to "maintain the integrity of the church," Petrific said. Better late than never, we say. The statement finished with the uplifting news that Ms Hale "...will be reinstated with full benefits, provided she signs a hold harmless clause and never mentions again that she's... the 'L' word."

John Glenn is one of my heroes. I don't have very many these days, but Senator Glenn is one of them. Not just for his aviation exploits which are too numerous to mention in anything short of a book, but for other reasons, too. He's been a dedicated public servant for many years; he loves Annie (who wouldn't, speaking of heroes) and refuses to travel without her; he established a school of public affairs at The Ohio State University; he never hesitates to speak out for issues and candidates he believes in, regardless of the cost and/or derision it may include for him. On top of that he was and is a great father and grandfather, or so I'm told.
Why the homage to John Glenn? Once in a  while it's good to list our heroes, and the reasoning for the choice, I guess. Today I have another one, a new hero, with only one stipulation. I'll get to that. Yesterday a fellow who makes his living pushing a basketball through an 18 inch hoop, or preventing another fellow from doing so, announced for all the world to hear that he is a gay man in a sport that seems to ooze male (straight) sexuality. Jason Collins, newly freed free agent (in more ways than one), came out on national TV. "I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay." Mr. Collins has for years been living a lie, pretending he was someone other than who he is. To come out is brave, and freeing and right. My only comment about this public focus on Jason Collins is this: when the geeky, nerdy kid, the pimpled, awkward gay boy or girl that neither side ever picks for basketball can be who they are freely and without reservation, that will be a day worth celebrating. Then we can all be heroes. We can all soar.

The news is all very sad, but it contains a seed of hope as well. A woman named Carla Hale has been fired from her long-time high school coaching/mentoring position at Watterson, a catholic high school in Columbus Ohio. Despite statements to the contrary, Carla Hale was fired because she happens to love someone of the same gender. The catholic church frowns on such unions. Ms Hale drew attention to her partner in her mother's obituary, and church condemnation was swift and unequivocal. She was terminated that week. Carla Hale's dismissal was based on a letter written by a parishioner, a letter intended to sow discord and division, which is exactly what it has done. The letter was written because its author didn't know Carla Hale, not really, and didn't wish to know her, since Carla's lover is a woman. And of course it's a sin to love someone of the same sex. Everyone knows this. Everyone accepts this as a given, so much so that until the letter was written, people at Watterson High School went about their lives ignoring the person in their midst who lived her quiet life, did her job, loved her position and the chance to have a positive impact on young women through sports and healthy activity. So long as Carla Hale kept quiet about  her true identity, and didn't break the code, the silent agreement, the 'love that dare not speak its name,' everything was fine, no problem, don't rock the boat. This was, ironically, not unlike the situation with the person who fired Carla Hale. The principal of the high school is herself a divorced woman, contrary to church dictates, of course. She's been single for many years, not wishing to discuss her own previous relationship, which clearly ended in painful fashion as divorce often does. Silence and dissimulation often attend the end of a marriage, and we act with a collective silence when those announcements are made. It's as if we don't know each other, and don't really wish to. The principal at Watterson must have known Carla Hale is a lesbian. After having her in her employe for 19 years, denial of her status would have to be purposeful. Sad that no one acknowledged Carla Hale for who she is. Sad that she had to hide like an errant child. Sad that her partner had to be hidden, denied at every official function, dismissed as just a friend, a social companion, someone who shares her address. Not just sad, but juvenile, and undignified. When Ms Hale presented her true self in public, the wrath she incurred at her breech of the code of silence was immediate, and it sealed her fate. The obituary notice, the letter, and the forced and awkward serenity was shattered. It is all too sad.

In the early twentieth-century south, when cotton was king, no one dared mention the boll weevils that began arriving in field after field starting about 1910. People looked the other way, ignored the pests that were ravaging crops in the next state, then in the neighboring county, then in the field across the way. By 1920 the boll weevil had destroyed much of the cotton crop in the southern U.S. But there was a seed of hope in that destructive power as well. Just like the letter condemning Carla Hale, the boll weevil's menace was unwitting, uncaring and ignorant of the sensibilities of human beings. The boll weevil did more than destroy the cotton crop; it forced farmers to seek other ways to make a living, other crops to grow when cotton was all they knew.
Just so, when we ignore the differences and desires of other people, demanding they be silent about their true identity, ignorance and mistrust are the crop we sow, and the harvest we reap. Eventually our blind and counterfactual focus on the crop of hatred and division creeps in to destroy our silence and much else. When the Carla Hale letter's author scribbled words of condemnation of her, they ignored her mother's death and the pain that caused. Instead, the writer focused on Ms Hale's honorable inclusion of her lover's name in the obituary. Perhaps we should be grateful the letter forced this issue. Perhaps what's truly needed is for us to draw attention to what too many still consider a shameful reality in society, that two women or two men can love each other and be accepted for who they are. Perhaps the letter writer was dat boll weevil at work all over again.

This (rather poor) picture was taken this morning, April 24th 2013, (not 1713, which is important to note). It is a picture of Ms Carla Hale. Ms Hale was recently fired from her 19 year job of coaching physical education at Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus Ohio. Carla Hale was terminated because she is a lesbian. The short version of this sordid tale is that following the death of her mother, Carla included in the obituary a simple mention of her partner, Julie, thus acknowledging that, yes, she does live with a person of the same gender. A catholic member of the community read that obit, took offense at Ms Hale's brazen public announcement of her live-in partner, and that outraged catholic wrote a letter to the powers that be at the school, demanding that Carla Hale be shown the door for not continuing to live a lie, we must assume. As any of us would, Carla Hale has decided, reluctantly, to sue her former employer for reinstatement. This is why she read her statement this morning, and why her termination has become a local sensation, and also why it will become a national one. Sure, the school and one assumes the diocese of Columbus claim that she was not fired because she is gay. Of course not. As her attorney said, it's similar to telling someone "you're not being fired because you're a woman; but because you're pregnant." A distinction without a difference. Carla Hale was fired because she went public with her homosexuality, in contravention of catholic teaching and belief. The church believes homosexuality is wrong, that its practice is immoral. The church is entirely within its right to believe this, regardless of how hoary or ancient that belief happens to be. The catholic church is not known for progressive thought. This is, after all, an institution that within the past twenty years acknowledged that Galileo was perhaps right, that perhaps we do live in a solar-centric galaxy after all. But homosexuality is simply wrong, now and forever, biblically, spiritually and otherwise. Just like divorce, birth control, sex abuse and a litany of other transgressions that cannot be accepted in church circles, especially in its pedagogical circles. So in the coming weeks and months expect to hear in the news that several catholic heterosexual couples living in sin have been fired from jobs in catholic schools, those catholics using birth control terminated as well, abusive priests hunted down and jailed--finally--and any catholics engaged in immoral practices of any kind will likely lose their jobs. Too bad, but those are the rules. Oh, one additional rule that applies here: There is an inconvenient rule in the city of Columbus that does not exclude religious institutions. That rule states that no one can be terminated because of who they are. Did the catholic church break the law? Stay tuned.

The sequestration furloughs and delays are upon us it seems, so I’ll take the opportunity to pass along a few tips and inside stuff from my aviation career that may help get us through the TSA line faster, and improve the overall flying experience. When I flew tours on Kauai I encountered some of the same delays and snags found at a modern airport, albeit on a miniature scale. As I boarded my passengers, they were often overwhelmed with rules, prohibitions, directions and information. A motivational speaker once told me, ‘A confused mind always says ‘No.’ The tour pilot’s snarky translation of the motivator’s comment was, ‘tourists leave their brain on the Mainland.’ Ungenerous though it sounds, there’s an element of truth to it. (For an example, see Chapter 26 of The Sky Behind Me...)

In an airport terminal, a situation filled with confusing imagery, signage, audiovisuals and official herding, our confusion level and our ‘No’ instinct can be very high indeed, as it was on Kauai for my tour clients. So remember these items next time you herd through the TSA line: Get there early. There are on-line delay info resources that can help, but an hour for domestic flights and two hours for internationals should do it. Leave the knives at home. I know, people shouldn’t have to be told they can’t take weapons on board a commercial flight these days, but we Americans always seem to need something close by that we can whip out either for protection or sustenance. Never know when you’ll have to peel an orange or skin a bear, ya know? Speaking of sharp stuff, minimize the piercings if you can. That tongue ring may be just the thing that gets you yanked out of line. Wear comfortable shoes. Those knee-length lace-ups that take thirty minutes to untie? Not on the flight, okay? Loafers and sandals are the ticket. And for our religious or follicly-challenged friends, the headdress can be a problem. You can wear it, but it could get you pulled aside, especially if it’s loose fitting or big enough to hide a small child or other encumbrance. You might get frisked. Just saying. Find a clear plastic envelope thingie, tie a string to it and wear it like a necklace with your ID inside. It saves a bunch of time and can spare the embarrassment of losing a driver’s license, boarding pass or other ID. Stow the coat in checked baggage, because coats are always subject to imagery. Don’t wear a belt with a metal buckle. No belt at all is better. Take stuff out of your pockets, all of it, even the pet rock, especially the pet rock.

While we’re on the subject, be kind to the flight crews. I admit that my past career in aviation makes me a bit sensitive here, but I’ve seen enough rude passengers to last a lifetime. Flight attendants do a superb job with not much room, help or time. Enough with the whining about slow service, lack of pillows & blankets and meager snack items. Get over yourself. Besides, flight attendants aren’t exactly the young, agile, fly all day party all night set any more. Average age these days for a flight attendant is 55. Consider the pilots, too. Sure, they get to ride up in the pointy end all day, but they’ve scraped and scrapped to get there, and they are, by and large incredibly well trained and competent. They rarely get lost, seldom crash and they all value their own hides at least as much as we do, trust me on this. There’s a reason it’s truly safer today to fly than drive, an item I passed along to my skittish passengers. The air transport system itself is remarkable. The fact that we can step aboard a metal tube with (reasonably comfortable) seats, a cylinder that takes us four miles high, travels at 500 miles per hour in warm, safe, pressurized ease, plus don’t forget those cute little bottles of Southern Comfort, then deposits us at our destination with little fanfare with a little squeak of rubber on asphalt, and then takes us home again none the worse for wear, if perhaps with no more pet rock, is nothing short of amazing. Give the aviation folks a break, will’ya? Maybe even say thank you? Just saying. Oh, and one more thing: watch your language. Jokes about bombs and hijacking and TSA people laughing about low-res images of your puny private parts? They’re not laughing, just astonished, and they really frown on that ha-ha stuff. Just saying.