The Canadian goose is all over the cities of the United States. You can find it forming massive groups that comb the green universitary and technological campus uptown, wandering gravel pits and parking lots of shopping malls, swinging its broad bill. It crowds ponds and parks downtown gazing and picking seeds and little, tiny grass leaves. Despite its short legs, the fowl can move quite fast. When attracted to the peanut butter sandwich of your daughter or the chocolate once that your son holds mildly between his thumb and forefinger, the bird and its friends behind look menacing. They then make horrible noises, hissing and honking, showing their tongue out and vibrating their necks. I suppose millions of American families are familiar with this description.
N. told me a joke about geese one day in a park in Huntsville, Al. We were sitting in a bench, surrounded by dozens of Canadian geese. All of them were dark-beaked. "There are two types of geese: one kind has a dark beak; the other, orange. Why?", N. said. "Don't know", said I. "It is just that, as they fly in flocks, one type can stop better than the other".
The Canadian goose is a big, surly fowl, weighting up to 18 pounds and showing off a wingspan of 2 meters.
**
On January 15, 2009, shortly before 3.30 pm, an US Airways Air Bus A-320 was leaving La Guardia airport towards Charlotte, SC. 90 seconds after take-off, the plain struck a flock of Canadian geese flying in a V formation. As a result, both engines of the plain were ruined and irretrivable. Suddenly, the aircraft lost total thrust and became a glider. Unearthly sounds and vibrations from the destroyed engines filled the cockpit, plus smell of burned birds. Only a few seconds later, it came the destructive sound of the unfamiliar and freezing cold silence at an altitude close to 2,500 feet. Very soon, the plain started to fall down back to Earth, faster than usual, a cacophony of synthetic voices and alarms in the cockpit, all in a background of deathly silence. The captain took control of the aircraft and, with the invaluable and professional help of the first officer and the air controller, were able to ditch safely the plain in the Hudson river only 3 minutes and a half after the strike. All passengers and crew members, 155 total, saved their lives. The story will be remembered and studied for decades as an example of a great job done by everyone involved in a fatal emergency.
The book of Sully Sullenberger, Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, is one of the few that has moved me as far as the point of letting me cry. Not only once, but quite a good few times my vision got blurred. It happened on a lazy morning in bed, amidst the rattle of the underground and even at a pub with a beer in front of my nose on Friday night -wherever I was reading, the story of Captain Sullenberger touched me. Human comradeship shines dazzling all over the story, from the experiences and influences of a single man that led him to be what he is to the response and solidarity of a whole lot of people. It was indeed a true miracle. As Sully points out several times, it served as a powerful hope-retriever to a distraught and somewhat strained American society. More important for me is the fact that -let me use a hackneyed term here- all the humanity in the story that brings me to tears does actually bring a lot more of people to tears. We all feel the same -the thank-you letters, the confidences, the personal interactions. The chapter in the book is quite revealing. You can find interviews in the Internet with different people -especially people who were not passengers in the US Airways Flight 1549 and were not related to the event in any way- expressing all the good this event did to them. It is in the same wave we are all transmitting. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a core shared by all human beings, a special core of good feelings, of individual sacredness and community realization that define us as humans. The rest is the background noise of evil.
**
Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger became a hero in a matter of hours. He and his wife have claimed repeatedly that the term "hero" is improper, though. A hero throws himself into adversity for a higher goal -it is a self-less choice that leads him to a self-giving, sacrificing action. Sulenberger and the other 154 in the plain did not have any choice.
I agree. As a matter of fact, the point of Sullenberger throughout the book is clear: be prepared. Un-intently, his whole life has been a preparation for that unique apex. In an interview, he summarized it in a way that is not reproduced in the book: "it is like my whole life, through studies, training and practice, I have been making small deposits so, when that moment came, I was able to make a sudden, large withdrawal". It is a story of integrity: it all started with passion for flying as a kid. Logically, the retrospective review of his life allows him to ponder and emphasize upon the importance of passion, mentoring and serious work day after day. "Be vigilant and diligent, because you don't know when or how", it is said in the Gospels. Your daily work can help saving lives when the time ripens up. Significantly, one of the letters that most impressed on Sullenberger in the aftermath is that of a old Austrian Jew who saw the water landing from the window of his flat. The man was a survivor from the Nazis and is alive thanks to his father's sacrifice. For him, "saving one life might mean saving the world".
Sully Sullenberger states clearly that he is not a hero, but a man of integrity who prepared, studied and worked towards the right thing every single day of his life.
**
This makes me shiver in worry. I have lost a lot of time, then. I can't remember what my childhood dreams were, I can't remember myself having any passions. I sense my life fragmented. It feels like having a simple bag full of pieces of the past without connection. Sometime ago I used to be pretty confident in the formula all counts. No matter how bad the pieces of your collage are glued together, your life will always count. Your past, your learnings, your failures and pains, your joys and happy moments, all will count. A few weeks ago, however, I had a sort of nightmare. Did not wake up sweating and panting; my nightmares are less physical. I saw my bag of little pieces losing its value, sinking down a river of dark green waters or fading away... This vision came probably right before I woke up.
So, what about all that is wasted? What about all who are being wasted? It happened before - it will happen again.
(I am hinting... It is time to say: "my airplane").
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
N. told me a joke about geese one day in a park in Huntsville, Al. We were sitting in a bench, surrounded by dozens of Canadian geese. All of them were dark-beaked. "There are two types of geese: one kind has a dark beak; the other, orange. Why?", N. said. "Don't know", said I. "It is just that, as they fly in flocks, one type can stop better than the other".
The Canadian goose is a big, surly fowl, weighting up to 18 pounds and showing off a wingspan of 2 meters.
**
On January 15, 2009, shortly before 3.30 pm, an US Airways Air Bus A-320 was leaving La Guardia airport towards Charlotte, SC. 90 seconds after take-off, the plain struck a flock of Canadian geese flying in a V formation. As a result, both engines of the plain were ruined and irretrivable. Suddenly, the aircraft lost total thrust and became a glider. Unearthly sounds and vibrations from the destroyed engines filled the cockpit, plus smell of burned birds. Only a few seconds later, it came the destructive sound of the unfamiliar and freezing cold silence at an altitude close to 2,500 feet. Very soon, the plain started to fall down back to Earth, faster than usual, a cacophony of synthetic voices and alarms in the cockpit, all in a background of deathly silence. The captain took control of the aircraft and, with the invaluable and professional help of the first officer and the air controller, were able to ditch safely the plain in the Hudson river only 3 minutes and a half after the strike. All passengers and crew members, 155 total, saved their lives. The story will be remembered and studied for decades as an example of a great job done by everyone involved in a fatal emergency.
The book of Sully Sullenberger, Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, is one of the few that has moved me as far as the point of letting me cry. Not only once, but quite a good few times my vision got blurred. It happened on a lazy morning in bed, amidst the rattle of the underground and even at a pub with a beer in front of my nose on Friday night -wherever I was reading, the story of Captain Sullenberger touched me. Human comradeship shines dazzling all over the story, from the experiences and influences of a single man that led him to be what he is to the response and solidarity of a whole lot of people. It was indeed a true miracle. As Sully points out several times, it served as a powerful hope-retriever to a distraught and somewhat strained American society. More important for me is the fact that -let me use a hackneyed term here- all the humanity in the story that brings me to tears does actually bring a lot more of people to tears. We all feel the same -the thank-you letters, the confidences, the personal interactions. The chapter in the book is quite revealing. You can find interviews in the Internet with different people -especially people who were not passengers in the US Airways Flight 1549 and were not related to the event in any way- expressing all the good this event did to them. It is in the same wave we are all transmitting. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a core shared by all human beings, a special core of good feelings, of individual sacredness and community realization that define us as humans. The rest is the background noise of evil.
**
Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger became a hero in a matter of hours. He and his wife have claimed repeatedly that the term "hero" is improper, though. A hero throws himself into adversity for a higher goal -it is a self-less choice that leads him to a self-giving, sacrificing action. Sulenberger and the other 154 in the plain did not have any choice.
I agree. As a matter of fact, the point of Sullenberger throughout the book is clear: be prepared. Un-intently, his whole life has been a preparation for that unique apex. In an interview, he summarized it in a way that is not reproduced in the book: "it is like my whole life, through studies, training and practice, I have been making small deposits so, when that moment came, I was able to make a sudden, large withdrawal". It is a story of integrity: it all started with passion for flying as a kid. Logically, the retrospective review of his life allows him to ponder and emphasize upon the importance of passion, mentoring and serious work day after day. "Be vigilant and diligent, because you don't know when or how", it is said in the Gospels. Your daily work can help saving lives when the time ripens up. Significantly, one of the letters that most impressed on Sullenberger in the aftermath is that of a old Austrian Jew who saw the water landing from the window of his flat. The man was a survivor from the Nazis and is alive thanks to his father's sacrifice. For him, "saving one life might mean saving the world".
Sully Sullenberger states clearly that he is not a hero, but a man of integrity who prepared, studied and worked towards the right thing every single day of his life.
**
This makes me shiver in worry. I have lost a lot of time, then. I can't remember what my childhood dreams were, I can't remember myself having any passions. I sense my life fragmented. It feels like having a simple bag full of pieces of the past without connection. Sometime ago I used to be pretty confident in the formula all counts. No matter how bad the pieces of your collage are glued together, your life will always count. Your past, your learnings, your failures and pains, your joys and happy moments, all will count. A few weeks ago, however, I had a sort of nightmare. Did not wake up sweating and panting; my nightmares are less physical. I saw my bag of little pieces losing its value, sinking down a river of dark green waters or fading away... This vision came probably right before I woke up.
So, what about all that is wasted? What about all who are being wasted? It happened before - it will happen again.
(I am hinting... It is time to say: "my airplane").
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
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