Monday, March 8, 2010

Eastern shuttle and Amelia Earhart

If you remember the Eastern shuttle, raise your hand. I do, and that does date me. I'm thinking about identity, if you come back and you know who you are and no one else does, including your own sister, what happens next? I'd say you'd decide to look elsewhere for confirmation of your own identity. And you might want to experience what this new world has to offer, in this case, flying on a jet plane. She would want to know about every improvement, and she'd surely enjoy the ease of flight.

She's on the Eastern shuttle bound for New York, yes I'm thinking of myself too here, because New York is where it began for me, and it also began there for her. Without that meeting with Putnam, she'd never have become a legend. She's somehow got to find her way, but how in a world where women pilot space shuttles? What could she really do to become the Amelia she was, or will she choose to give that up?

I ask myself these questions, as she settles in for the short hop, she'd dreamed of making flight affordable and desirable, but had she dreamed of what it's become?
Can anyone really see the future, I think it always surprises us. What if we woke up much like Robinson Crusoe did? What then?

I only hope that some things might surprise me, like you know, peace on earth, good will for all men and women, women actually having true equal rights, race not being an issue, class not mattering, poverty not existing, wait, this is humanity I'm writing about, how likely are any of those things? I'll end with this, one can dream, can't they?

7 comments:

  1. Just curious -- how come no one recognizes her? Does she look different?

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  2. She looks the same,but I thought this over for a while and realized, it's 1980, most people are quite young, everyone who isn't thinks she's dead, so she looks a lot like herself . . . and yet she's not herself, plus where's her proof? It being fiction I have some leeway, but it does make sense, when someone dies you see them everywhere for a while and then nowhere at all.
    Most people who knew her have aged, she hasn't. She's back at the age she left, that in itself would be enough. It is a metaphor obviously, but it's also realistic. . . or as realistic as I get, hopefully when it's done and in print you'll buy the premise.

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  3. Better not let her get near any gatherings of Ninety-Nines, then. They WOULD recognize her, even the young ones.

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  4. Y'know, the more I think about my last comment about the Ninety-Nines, the more I realize that avoiding them would put her in a bleak position. She'd have to isolate herself from her fellow women pilots' support and encouragement which could help her so much to get back into aviation.

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  5. And I have thought about this as well, wouldn't she want to go find them? On the other hand, there's so much to experience, think of all the changes in the last forty plus years. And there's also the character's attempt to understand what she's doing here, and where this here is. It's very complicated, but fun.

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  6. Come to think of it, maybe just putting on some weight and letting her hair grow out would do the trick for making her unrecognizable. Then she could go anywhere she wants, like 99s' meetings. I agree she'd want to go find them.

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  7. And there's hair dye too.To be continued, next . . .finding the time to finish.

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