Beaufort, North Carolina

Last Thursday, as I grew another year older and not one whit smarter, I found myself looking at this granite marker located between a parking lot and the city docks of Beaufort (it's pronounced "Bow-fort," y'all), North Carolina.

High Flight
by John Gillespie McGee, Jr.
No. 412 Squadron, RCAF

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.

Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds—and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air,

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie McGee, Jr. was an 18-year-old American when he went to Britain in October 1940, during World War II, and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. He flew in a Spitfire squadron and was killed at age 19, on December 11, 1941, during a training flight from the airfield near Scopwick, Lincolnshire.

The poem was written on the back of a letter to his parents which stated, “I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed.”

I am thankful he finished it.


Michael John Smith
Captain
United States Navy
NASA Astronaut

Born
April 30th 1945
Beaufort, North Carolina

Died
January 28th 1986
Pilot
Space Shuttle Challenger

A fitting memorial - for a native of a little seaport town tucked along the Intercoastal Waterway on Taylor Creek, a short way from the Cape Lookout National Seashore (Outer Banks, North Carolina).

I've loaded dozens of pictures into Flickr and will be hours trying to label all the pictures I have taken the past week and few days.


I will be a while catching up with all of you (y'all) - but I want to thank you all for all the wonderful birthday wishes! I was stunned when I got back on-line to find so many well wishes and greeting. I've missed all of you - and saw things that reminded me of you each day while I was away - and will be sharing those things with you soon.