Monday, November 24, 2008

Born Free's new home

Born Free is the name of my Bensen gyrocopter. Today it has a new home...it's still my gyro, I didn't sell it and I never will, but yesterday my good friend and fellow gyro pilot Teddy helped me move my beloved gyro from his hangar across the runway to a hangar of it's own .

For the last year Teddy has generously shared his hangar space with my gyro , from the time it was taken to his hangar to be gone through and brought up to flying condition , then started flying again and until yesterday it has been in his place. Teddy and other gyro friends did the overhaul of my machine and got me flying again and they did it all for only a ' thank you ' , for their services . Good friends like that are a treasure.

The new hangar, new to my gyro anyway, is a leaky old place that at the moment is full of items and junk left behind by the former tennant . It needs to be cleaned out, cleaned up and made worthy of my gyro. I'm looking forward to doing the hangar clean up and making the place my own where I can go and tinker and clean and polish my machine .

I might even put an easy chair in the hangar where I can sit and in my mind, fly again some of those wonderful flights that made my life so perfect and to plan future flights as well.

Thank you Teddy for all you have done for me and my gyro. You are a true frind.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Find Your own ladybug

One day my five year old granddaughter decided that she wanted a lady bug so she went went looking for one . After hours of searching she finally found one. She proudly brought her trophy in to show me . She put it in a coffee can and I punched holes in the lid so the bug could have air and that happy little girl carried the lady buy in the can around all the rest of the day.

Toward evening I began to tell her that she should set the lady bug free . My pleas fell on deaf ears. Finally I sat granddaughter down and listed every reason I could think of why she should let the bug go.

She listened without interrupting until I had finished speaking. Then she looked me in the eye and very seriously, said,
"Grandma, I looked all morning for that lady bug. Now if you want to turn a lady bug loose, why don't you go find your own lady bug?".

What could I say?

Eventually she did free the lady bug.


Till next time.
Marion Springer

Friday, November 7, 2008

Packrats...I'm one !

I have a friend who says that both she and her husband are packrats and she firmly believes that two packrats should never be allowed to marry. She is probably right. One packrat at a time is more than enough! I should know because I am one.

I never throw anything away that I might need in the future and then I can't find it when I do need it for it's lost in everything else I have saved!

You would think that it would be simple to write an address or important piece of information on a piece of paper and put it in a safe place where you can lay your hands on it when it's needed, but somehow I've never mastered the trick of finding it again because by the time I need it , it's somewhere deep under under a mountain of other pieces of 'saved' paper.

Do you remember Lucile Ball in the old , " I love Lucy ", T V shows ? Remember what a disaster her record keeping was ? Well, her record keeping disasters look good compared to mine.

When my children were young they had a pretty ring that they all fought over. All claimed onership and it was a constant bone of contention between them . During one time of noisy sibbling squabbling over the ring I took it away from them and put it in a safe place where they wouldn't be able to find it to fight over again...it worked, for I forgot where I hid it and it never turned up to cause a ruckus between the children again. And so, all these years later I'm still putting things away never to be seen again.

I knew a man who had a unique method of keeping track of the morning chores he had to do before he left for work. Not trusting his memory , and not wanting to leave out anything, he stuck small post-it-notes , each one listing a chore to be done, on the front of his shirt. I was amused when I first saw it but now I'm having second thoughts about it. He was pretty darn smart !

I'm now thinking that everytime I put something away that I will write it's location on a post-it-note and stick it on the living room wall. I'll make columns of colorful little notes . Then when I need something I've put away , I should be able to find it easily . Nah......that's just wishful thinking because the little columns of notes would be three or four deep by the time I needed to find something and I'd still be a darn packrat and whatever I'd put away would still be lost in a good safe place.

Till next time.
Marion Springer