When I was a kid, a really little kid, my mom married a guy who liked to fly. He was a postal carrier, but his true joy was flying. My mom made that happen and I grew up around airplanes. Small ones, Cessna 150s, 172s, Pipers, Grummans and all those little pip-squeak planes. The guy had quit his job and he and my mother had started a flying club, where people could lease planes or take flying lessons.
I logged quite a few hours in the air. Flew out to Wichita, Kansas from Santa Rosa, California and picked up a new airplane and flew back with him. Rattled every tooth in my head! Constant little joy rides up and down the California coast.
Every family vacation was done by airplane. Mendocino, Cloverdale (yeah, if you’ve been to Cloverdale you should be rolling your eyes right now!) Disneyland and just about every weekend we flew to The Nut Tree in Vacaville, California to have lunch.
And when I was a teenager, I made an amazing amount of money washing those airplanes. Ever tried to peel bug guts off your car? Try an airplane! I earned every cent.
So it’s understandable that Amelia Earhart was a very familiar name to me. That guy my mom married was pretty impressed with her. So when I heard a movie about her was coming out I was pretty nostalgic.
And then I heard about Grace McGuire. During my latest flare I watched a news broadcast about how Grace McGuire, an Amelia Earhart look-alike, had purchased an identical aircraft to the one that Amelia flew and planned to fly around the world. Only she got held up by the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) corporate stupidity and bungling mechanics and…Lyme Disease.
Soon after Grace purchased the airplane in the early 80’s she developed what was later to be determined to be Lyme Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. After fighting with this disease for over ten years she is close to realizing her dream.
Can you even begin to imagine what she has gone through? She was at first treated by doctors who didn’t have a clue what they were doing (welcome to the club) and when she finally found a doctor that knew how to treat Lyme Disease, it took a very long time for her to become well enough to continue pursuing her dream.
There is so much to this story. Check out the links if you’re interested. But I am truly amazed by what she went through to get her plane to where it is now. And I know how ridiculously hard it is on a person’s body to fly long distances in a small airplane. Can’t imagine doing it with something like Lyme Disease or Fibromyalgia. But I want so much to cheer her on. Go Grace GO!
