Except as noted, all images copyrighted by and should be attributed to E B Hawley.
I had become many eons ago a traveling literary gnome, inquisitive about places I had and had not visited,
walking the same paths of peoples from the past, through places once grand and still grand,
photographing images that now show me the places about which I still dream . . .

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Flying the Jenny

Every first Saturday of the month, the Museum of North Texas History hosts a unique event: They gather at Kickapoo Airport in Wichita Falls to fly the WWI Curtiss "Jenny," flown by aviator Tom Danaher.

It was another windy day at the airport.


The WWI fire truck makes its way from the museum
through the old hangars toward the Jenny's grassy airstrip.

A volunteer assists in pushing the Jenny to the grassy airstrip.

Tom Danaher prepares for flight.

Danaher and the Jenny buzzed the crowd.

Approaching into the wind for a landing.

Tom Danaher
While I count myself fortunate to witness this unique event, and feel thrilled and teary-eyed every time I see the Jenny aloft under the experienced control of Tom, if you ask me, I'll answer that they both belong and should remain within the safety of the walls of the museum. Tom, as a mortal, will not be with us forever, as an inanimate object would, and that is one thing I'd like God to change.
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Let Lovely Turn of Phrase Begin

JMHawley Gave Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On

Listen, will you? I think that . . . literature, poetry, music and love make the world go round . . . while mathematics explains things; I fill my life with them, then go walking in snowy woods.
Let us go then, you and I
like two etherized patients floating
through life, together feeling prufrockian.
DDB Jr. makes my world go 'round; during his absence, Pachelbel fills it up.
One summer I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, then through the Gulf of Finland to reach Saint Petersburg; I pursued Joseph Brodsky in its alley ways. I dream of making that two summers.
I read “Biking to Electra;” found my way in a Jaguar car, and glanced at the flashing steel grasshoppers at sunset. I’ll follow K.O.P.’s footsteps after he followed N.Scott Momaday’s; find warmth and inspiration on a rainy mountain.
Throw chinese coins for the I Ching.
Save the whales, the spotted owl, the woman in toil.
Cast a fly for trout; my memories of fly fishing under the sunny blue Colorado sky remain; I yearn to build more . . . with more trophy Browns.
Listen for the swan’s calls on the Baltic Sea. Feel KKII's joy, his arms spread wide in Yazilikaya.
Good night, Jimmy Durante, where ever you are.