Three Strikes and You're Out? More like Infinity

Life is not like being at bat in a baseball game.  Three strikes and you are out.  In life you can swing as many times as you want.  You call yourself out, nobody else can.

Funny thing, lots of times in my life I thought I was suppose to leave the batting area...and go... where?  To another batting area.  Hummmm.

Maybe we just need to learn from each ball the pitcher throws at us.

Keep swinging, and swing for the bleachers!!

This picture was taken of me during my last flight at the controls of an aircraft while still in uniform.    Who would have thought it would have been in an Air Force F-16 D during a 3 v 4 Air to Air Combat Training mission above Venice, Italy?

Look closely at the name on the aircraft under my arm.  2Lt M. Kathleen......  I didn't fly with her.  I flew with a guy who had the call sign K-squared.  I got to meet Kathleen though.  She was a blond haired, blued eyed 22 or 24 year old.  She told me that she enlisted in the Air Force as a crew-chief, went to a Jr. College, then a University and got her commission through OCS.  Up to that point, I rarely told anyone I went to a Jr. College.  When I went to flight school, most of my classmates were graduates from West Point or some other elite College or University.

I'm proud of Kathleen's journey.  She went from the humble beginnings of an enlistment, to a Jr. College, to a University, to an Air Force Commission to  flying one of the best fighter aircraft in the world.  Not bad, huh?

OBTW, I went to Otero Jr. College (OJC) in La Junta, CO, before I got my undergraduate and graduate degrees.  OJC was the best academic education I ever had.  Sorry it took an F-16 pilot to give me the courage to admit that.