The Search for a piece of history.
I love old machines. Old machines with history. Inanimate objects that somehow still breathe with stories and people and lives they touched. Not everyone is sentimental, I get that. Yet some of us attach ourselves to things in ways that can be a strong as family. Your first old car, your grandfather’s pocket knife, a note left from a loved one or a plane you’ve never even touched.
I was only 5 years old when Captain Bob Pearson made his now famous unpowered decent into the long unused (for aircraft anyway) airport in Gimli Manitoba, Canada. With incredible skill Captain Pearson and First Officer Maurice Quintal saved 69 souls aboard including their own when Air Canada’s new Boeing 767-200 ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet. (Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider)
Over 33 years have passed since that fateful day. After a long career, that old 767-200 Registration C-GAUN now rests in the Mojave Desert, her bones being picked apart for scrap. Keychains have been made out of her skin for sale to collectors (http://planetags.com/). I considered buying one and may still, but somehow it isn’t enough for me.
So tonight after doing a little digging and emailing, and way to much procrastination I finally sent an email to a keeper of the boneyard in the Mojave. I’m asked about buying a piece of her to keep. Perhaps to sculpt in a personal way in a tribute to piloting skill and aviation history that I feel is better presented than by a key-chain. I guess it’s important for me to get one of her bones that hasn’t been cleaned as it were, not processed and sanitized and stripped of its spirit. I feel connected to this machine and I cannot bear the thought of it becoming beer cans and aluminum siding in its next life. I wish she had stayed in Canada, sent to a museum or displayed proudly to be visited, but that ship has sailed.
I just hope I’m not too late and that somehow one of the Gimli Glider’s bones can come home and stay with my family forever. Stories come alive when people can connect with the past in a tactile way. Touch is a powerful thing. I sure hope this works out. I’ll let you know...