Free Ranging

Sometimes it's extremely hard to write about life experiences. I write and rewrite and so on without ever achieving a final product I like enough to leave alone from then on. The recent non-war kinetic assaults the convicted felon in the White House is hurling upon Iran have stirred deep-seated memories of arriving, living in, and exploring Tehran in the early 1970s. That was a time before the USA and Americans were considered as demons to be despised and killed on sight if caught traipsing around that ancient land of Persian history and culture.

It feels like a good place to begin is the night in Tehran I was sure I was about to be kidnapped and held hostage for untold amounts of money my family did not have, only to end up joyously leaping over seven fires burning in a dark alleyway just off of Saltanatabad Boulevard as Iranian men, all strangers to me, applauded and cheered me on enthusiatically.

I had been out roaming that city of four million people from all over the world all day long playing hooky. It was easy to play hooky from the Tehran American School because teachers and administrators knew that kids having grit and courage enough to set out into the city on their own to explore and experience its cultrures and sights and sounds were bound to learn vastly more valuable stuff than can ever be taught in any classroom. They understood the potential of free range learning, never penalizing me or even calling out any of my class cutting. It was a grand time of life and a wonderful place to be a teen surging with curiosity.

But then I think, well hell, I'm getting way ahead of myself in writing this piece, providing no foundation for what happened to make me so convinced that free range learning is the best. I should start with my earliest memory in life at age three when my father would come home from working as a landman in the oilpatch of central Oklahoma and greet me by tossing me into the air. I recall being very exhilirated to the point of breathlessness while he tossed me high enough to feel the ceiling of the house touch the back of my head ever so gently. And then move on from those earliest memories to first memories of going to first day of school. So, yeah, that's where I'll start instead, keeping in mind how current events are triggering (pun very intended) this stream of consciousness writing session which will carry on for days.

I somehow became entranced at early age, possibly as early as three years old, with aerospace current events. I think it happened because my father would talk with me about it and show me photos of the aircraft being developed and flight tested as I was developing. The Bell X-2 Starbuster held top spot in my view of all things flying in those days. Having set a speed and altitude record a few months after I was born, tragic loss of its pilot named Apt after breaking the Mach 3 record wasn't revealed to me until a kindergarten teacher taught our little class of free-range leaners all about it by reading aloud from an industry magazine.

More to come...