***** ***** ***** ***** *****
nose art. is there anything more embodying of american art? yes, i know that this practice started amongst germans and italians, but when you think of nose art, you think of b-24’s and a-10’s, not fokkers and sopwiths.
since i was a teener, i always had a fascination with nose art, particularly world war two bomber paintings. i never knew where this passion came from, until a family friend passed back in ’06.
growing up, i lived me some time in a retirement community … you know, neighborhoods with our eldest, but active, members of society. hooligans, i always called these people. but throughout my years there, one person stuck out as being the most interesting man in the retirement world: john olson.
in a world where every person has a tale, mr. olson stood apart from these people. he didn’t talk about studebaker’s and the great depression. nope, this man talked about one thing: living in the air. whether it was during the war, flying the concorde, or his exploits as a commercial pilot, he loved stories. as a rebellious teener, he was the one i really loved listening to.
on more than one occasion, he took me up in his beechcraft, letting me take the controls after we had gone airborne. constantly afraid of being sucked out of this non-pressurized craft, i wished i had taken more time to fly with him before he passed, and more time to absorb some of his great stories.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
in my mind, a young john olson paid a buffalo nickel to watch barnstormers and world war one vets fly biplanes around the cornfields of middle america, igniting a passion for flight that would remain with him the rest of his life. in truth, i never got the story of how he found his way into wings. whether it was private or ‘better than storming a beach in france,’ he loved flying, and he loved stories.
to tell you the truth, he never told many war stories. more like general experiences, like not learning new crew member names until so many flights, because the death rate was atrocious, or declining the chance to return to the states, because how f*cking ironic would it be to survive years of flying bombers, to be sunk by a u-boat in the atlantic?
the story he told the most was of a post-war variety, but still very german-centric. he was flying a commercial liner into munich, which apparently had a rep. forced to change his approach due to a storm, a german controller proceeded to chastise him on the radio, eventually asking, ‘haven’t you ever been to munich before?’ olson, as i imagine him calmly, with a little mischievous smile on his face, proceeded to reply, ‘indeed i have, back during the war. but back then, i was flying a different kind of plan and dropped off a different kind of passenger.’
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
so what does this all have to do with my passion of two-wheeled adventures? on the surface, not much. but deeper, more than anything. i had never met before, and have not met since, a person that knew what their passion was, and so wholly lived their life engrossed in their life’s love. from the moment this man left high school, until the moment he died, he lived his life in flight.
lately, after the passing of a close friend, I’ve been looking at my life, my passions, and what my life will look like at the end. have i really lived my life to embrace what i love, or do i let life pass me back, always thinking about what i want to do, but never doing?
one thing mr. olson told me about life that has always stuck to me was: never let something you love go. it’s easier to hold on than to try to find it again. not shakespeare, but from a man that flew for nearly seventy years and married for fifty, it holds some weight with me.
after college, i let a lot of my passions go. still recovering from a knee injury and the release of a three-year relationship, my passion turned to food. and as much food as i ate, it consumed me. i let a lot of things go, and even though i gained some new ones (like my gorgeous wife and beautiful daughter), my new passion in food consumed me to the point where i simply couldn’t find my old passions.
this blog is a part of finding those old passions. of stepping out of my comfort zone and overcoming the anxiety i’ve developed these past few years. i’m slowly changing myself, adjusting my passions away from food, and improving my health at the same time.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
after mr. olson died, i’ve spent a few years trying to find any information on him, and particularly his time in the army air force. recently, i found a site that contained a ton of information, including: his plane’s nose art.
i wish i could have asked him about the ‘dragon lady.’ how she flew. how much she meant to him. was she just a machine, a tool to be used? or another piece of his crew that he anguished over when she was lost in ’44?
these answers i’ll never know, but i’ve come to envision the ‘dragon lady’ as a representation of mr. olson, and of his passion.
i want my passion in my loves to be as strong as his passion for his loves. motorcycles. our wives. flying. these are all passions that we had, that we shared, and each time i see the ‘dragon lady,’ i see a remembrance of a kindly old man that once helped destroy cities that took the time out to find an interest with an angry young teenager.
and this is why each non-cager vehicle i own will be called the ‘dragon lady.’ fitting, as there was more than one ‘dragon lady’ back during the war. but also as a reminder to our greatest generation, of mr. olson himself, and a reminder that if i hold onto my passions, in this case a motorcycle’s handlebars, that passion will take me on roads unknown (literally and figuratively), and always make my life worth lifing.
beardly/batman 