REROUTING THE FLIGHT PATTERN

No matter how thorough we plan the route's of life, situations can occur that can alter your well planned route and lead you to a completely different destination. The determining factors of how it will affect you depend greatly on how you choose to land. You could crash land or just glide safely till you slide with bumps along the way to a stopping point. Either way it will be up to you to get your feet back on solid ground and walk away from the site of the landing, very glad to be alive. The comprehension of these life route's is overwhelming and at most times totally vague of accurate directions, but still you put it all together and hope the shape will take place. Much like a model airplane, with lots of pieces in the box and with no directions on how to put it all together. Yet you attempt to look at the pieces to decipher where they all go and suddenly you have molded it into its shape and form. Life really is similar to the box of pieces in the model kit, you just take it a piece at a time and await the results. You will just have to make sure that you have enough glue to hold it all together as it all may come apart at a later date.

It was that warm summer day, and a telegram that held the key to the new door that I would walk through.
As the last of the guests slowly made their way home that summer evening, the shock of the information that came with the yellow telegram letter had completely altered my silent route plan. Eventhough I had many directions to turn and follow in the years that lay ahead, as I had not become an adult yet, my map of life direction took a huge turn to the right that evening.
I had a direction that I started out in, totally without any guidelines,restrictions or assumed conclusions. I just did what I wanted to do and now see that I did it all from the heart. Totally innocent of what consequences could occur by doing so.
It seems that from my constant letter writing for almost two years to my P.O. Box on the back of that Decca record album had produced results that I had not been prepared for. Mother had her way of approaching things, with just a tinge of parental control to make you think you may have done something wrong but were not in any trouble. As she approached the moment to let us know what the telegram contained, I could sense that something was up but I never had a clue it would be about me and my constant letter writing to Brenda Lee. It seems the telegram came in the form of an invitation to a concert that Brenda would be doing in our hometown and I was being asked to attend the concert as she wanted to meet the boy who had been writing all the letters. Knowing that I was underage for this event the telegram would serve as my entrance into the concert and would place me in an area away from the crowd. You had to be at least thirteen years of age to attend and it was a chaperoned event. My Mother was as surprised as I and, as she would later tell me, she was as excited as I was. I can still feel the first feelings of anxiety growing deep inside my stomach. I was beginning to realize that I would meet the person whom I idolized and cherished. I guess by today's standards it would be considered stalking someone by having written so many letters but to have an opportunity like this arrive from out of the blue was a divine intervention. Reliving the memory is truly recognizing how a moment of time can change the course of anyone's life in a split second. By the end of that day, I would never be the same boy that started his day with both feet running on the ground. The end of that evening my feet no longer touched the ground and would not feel the earth for quite a while. My imagination leaped beyond the heights of a ten year old boy and the fantasies of the pending meeting completely took me to another plain of consciousness. All the people who had made fun of my incessant writing and my obsessive record playing would no longer taunt me with ridicule, as my pay off would soon be deposited into my life's memory bank.
When you have an indelible memory like that and you take the time to analyze how it felt, the gift is presented back to you as if it happened at the very moment your reliving it. The test of time only makes it more precious and the warmth that surrounds your heart is carried to your soul deep within.

On that day my flight pattern had changed and I would take a new route that would take me in directions that you can only dream about. It was at that moment in my time that I knew I was following a route predestined for me. While the logic of it all did not become evident till my later years, I soulfully feel that I was getting guidance from within. As if something or someone lifted me and put me on the correct flight towards my destiny.