Aurora Goddess of the Dawn

Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn. In the mythic world consumed by wine and turmoil, she was a supporting character. Every morning she lifted her chariot out of the ocean and brought golden light. She also enjoyed sprinkling dew on on green grass.

She fell in love with a Trojan whom was renowned for his song and love of wine. She pursued him, and in the end won his heart. She was not a fool. Aurora pleaded with Zeus to give her love immortality, and Zeus bestowed it in the way that gods sometimes do- exactly.

Days and years past and Aurora realized her mistake. Her love was immortal, but he did not have eternal youth. He aged and withered with each passing sunrise. In a final act of love, Aurora turned her love into a grasshopper, to live forever in the dewy morning fields of Rome.

Shakespeare and Tennyson both used her as a muse to describe longing and beauty. Her name is given to the magical lights that dance in the Northern night sky. For a supporting character, she sure did make an impression.

Aurora was also the name of the aircraft my father flew when I was a boy. It often took him away, and I always yearned to have him come home. Walking through dewy summer fields past barbed wire, I used to climb maple trees and listen for the Aurora's engines.

Auroras look for things that are hidden, and I do that too now. Sometimes the things we look for don't want to be found, and sometimes they do.  I will never be mentioned in the same breath as Shakespeare or Tennyson. They were terrible pilots, but I too have discovered Aurora as a muse.

To me Aurora has become the word to describe the longing for orange light in the morning.

Hats, Flats and Cats

I have a collection of baseball hats that lay on top of my bookshelves in my vanity room. They have been relegated to my room because there are too many of them to fit in the ‘hat cubby’ my wife has designed for the coat closet. So they rest a top of my book shelves, like gargoyles or exotic taxidermy.

Each of their brims have been carefully shaped to maximize protection from the Sun’s harmful rays. I blame prolonged exposure to the Sun as a leading cause of grey hair. It explains why young people or bats don't have any.

I think that the hats may be rare, because I have never seen them in a store or worn out in public. I’m not sure if they are worthless or extremely valuable. I do have a CH 148 Cyclone hat that may turn out to be a collectors item soon. 

Each hat tells a story. My ‘Big 2’ hat tells of a simpler time when I was just learning how to fly and talk with my hands.

The HMCS Winnipeg hat was my first Navy issued ball cap, and you never can forget your first. It was given to me in Brisbane Australia. I flew into my first volcano on that sail, cocked my first aircraft at sea, and learned what it meant to be a co-pilot. I will never forget the words my first Detachment Commander told me during in a night-flight debrief “I have never been so scared in a Sea King ever before.”

HMCS Athabascan was given to me in Glasgow Scotland. I was fortunate to take part in a large multinational naval exercise. A production crew was also sailing with us, making an IMAX movie about life at sea. The Air Detachment was asked to help capture the heroics of air operations at sea. They mounted an expensive camera on top of the hanger and would record us taking off and landing on the flight deck. My Aircraft Captain allowed me to take the controls. It wasn’t pretty, but the producers loved it. I recall them saying “Perfect! Holy moly did that look dangerous.”

Two months and one earthquake later, I was in Haiti. I have have already shared the story of me blowing the roof off the only standing orphanage in Leogone, but not many people know about my unfortunate and embarrassing ‘peeing in the bushes in Jacmel’ story. That is because I don’t like telling it and wont now.

HMCS St. John’s hat was given to me on a revisit to Europe, Belfast and lovely Dublin. It lead to my first and hopefully last article for ‘Flight Comment” the RCAF’s magazine for flight safety and related screw ups. It was also the hat I wore during my first stint at being a Detachment Commander six months later. 

HMCS ALGONQUIN’s hat was given to me in the spring of 2012. They needed someone to be a Det Commander for the largest naval exercise in the world- The Rim of the Pacific or RIMPAC. Luckily for me I was a ‘someone’ who just so happened to be standing next to the guy who answered the phone call for assistance. The Detachment was a rag tag bunch of inexperienced misfits and cast offs. It turned out in the end that they weren’t so bad after all.

My favorite hat has a cat with the red paws. It came from HMAS Perth. 

HMAS Perth was a modified Leander-class light cruiser operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) during the early part of World War II. 

At the start of World War II, the Perth was used to patrol Western Atlantic and then Australian waters, before she was sent to the Mediterranean Sea at the end of 1940. There, the Perth was involved in the Battle of Greece and the Battle of Crete, and the Syria-Lebanon Campaign before returning to Australian waters in late 1941.

It was perhaps, at this time that Perth's animal mascot Red Lead, joined the ship. There were the sailors' quarters with their swinging hammocks, the wide, wooden deck, towering masts, the round signal lamps and deep in the bowels of the ship the growling engines. But Red Lead's favorite spot was curled up in the captain's cabin. The new captain, Hec Waller, always had a moment to spare for the playful kitten. During one day at sea, the cat got into red paint and walked all throughout the ship, leaving tiny paw prints everywhere. By order of the Captain, the paw prints were not removed.

But Red Lead had little time to settle into its new home. On 27 February, HMAS Perth joined a fleet of British, Dutch and American ships to stop a Japanese naval convoy from landing on the island of Java. The fleet was hopelessly outnumbered and one by one, the Allied ships were crippled, sunk or forced to withdraw. The sound of firing ack ack guns and the shouting of the men surrounded the kitten! Japanese planes zoomed over ahead - there was no safe place to hide, except its one special place, Captain Waller's cabin. There it firmly stayed until the Captain gave orders to withdraw from the battle. Embattled but not defeated the warship steamed back to the harbour.

Back in the safety of the harbour, Red Lead somehow knew it would not survive another battle like that. It was time to find another job and another home. Quietly and stealthily it crept down the gangway. "Where do you think you are going?" yelled out one of the sailors and scooped up the little kitten, returning it to the deck. Foiled, Red Lead tried again and again. Three times in total, the kitten tried to leave the ship but to no avail. Some of the sailors looked at the unhappy cat and shook their heads - this was a bad omen. The official log at the end of the day read

Red Lead, ship's kitten, endeavoured to desert, but was brought back on board, despite vigorous protests."

Red Lead was right that things would not improve. The next day HMAS Perth and USS Houston sailed for the south coast of Java and met a large fleet of Japanese ships.

In February 1942, the HMAS Perth survived the Allied defeat at the Battle of the Java Sea, and then to be very shortly torpedoed and sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Sunda Strait. Of the 681 sailors aboard, 353 were killed in battle. All but four of the 328 survivors were captured as prisoners of war. Of those captured, 106 died in captivity and the surviving 218 were returned home to Australia after the war.

It is said on HMAS Perth’s present namesake that the cat knew of the impending defeat, and tried to leave. 

This story was told to me during a port visit in Hawaii, where I was given a hat and had a chance to tour the new ship. There too, are tiny red paw prints throughout the flats just to keep the tradition alive.

I had an opportunity to land on HMAS Perth. I only did it once, but I have the hat to prove it.

St. John's, via the Great Circle Route.

I was conceived in St. John’s, Newfoundland.  Born there too, but conception is far more interesting and typically not as messy.

Fog City. There is scenery in there somewhere.

From an elixir of rain, drizzle, fog and 69 cent beer pitchers, I was distilled. Quite frankly, I am a medical miracle. Subtracting my birthday from my parents’ wedding anniversary, I have concluded that I was 6 months premature. It probably explains why I have been premature and immature all my life.

I was a month old before I flew for the first time. At six weeks, I went to sea.  Combining the two took me 37 years. I am a slow learner and late bloomer. 

Cape Race, Newfoundland. Where Titanic's last calls were heard.

My first birthday was spent at a lighthouse. Birthday cake is pretty sweet when mixed with sea spray and nothing celebrates life more than the beckoning call of a fog horn.

I went to university in St. John’s to study Marine Biology. My desire to be a Marine Biologist had less to do with studying whales and other large fish, but with how I looked in a wetsuit. Girls love whales, and I thought at the time that Shamu was the perfect wingman.

I see whales a lot in my job. They are beautiful fish.

I finished school with a six year Arts degree. Thats what happens when Organic Chemistry and Statistics are schedule first thing Monday morning and last thing Friday afternoon. After an unplanned academic sabbatical, I returned to university and majored in Political Science. It was a perfect fit for me. I didn’t need to know anything, but just have a resolute opinion on everything.

My favourite lamp at Duke of Duckworth, where I formed most of my uninformed opinions.

I met my wife in St. John’s. She was impressed with my carefree spirit and liaise-faire attitude to societal norms like making your bed or picking up your dirty laundry. I wasn’t burdened by those restraints then and still not now. My wife however is not as charmed by my reckless disregard for tidiness like she once was.

She stocked me at first, and despite my best efforts to screw things up, she has stayed with me. Our wedding was postponed because I got a job opportunity in Zanzibar, Tanzania. When I returned from Africa, we moved into a cold apartment in downtown St. John’s. It wasn’t much then and still isn’t. We huddled for warmth and dreamed of bigger better things. I hope the people who live there now have fixed the drafts and dream big. 

Our old place. Still looks cold and drafty.

Our lives’ plan was postponed because I got a job opportunity in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Who can turn down Moose Jaw? The prairies led to Halifax and eventually gave me an opportunity to complete the great circle route, back to St. John’s.

When this pick was taken, I think we were the most easterly point in North America.

Flying off a ship in the rain and fog, past a lighthouse to ‘on top’ a city where it all began is pretty special. At a thousand feet you can still make out drafty apartments where couples dream big, university students skipping class, and lots of great places to have a beer.

Knuckles

Remember that dream you had when you were a kid?

The one where you were flying?

Remember how you felt soaring over the earth and waves?

I do that.

Being a military pilot is a dream come true for me, and like everything that is worth having, it didn't come easy. One of the great perks of being a military pilot aside from the box lunches, free hair styling products, and an expensive collection of velcro patches, are the nick names we sometimes earn.

A plane my Dad flew, now in someones museum.

One of the great misunderstandings about call signs is that they are cool. Cool in the 1984 Top Gun motorcycle fist shake at a roaring F14 Tom cat kind of cool. They are not.

Me, standing next to the airplane I fly, that is on display in someone else's museum.

I know a guy whose call sign is GIMP. In the three years I have known him, I have never seen him without a bandaid, crutch or stitch. Considering how uncoordinated he is, it is a wonder that he can use a fork let a lone hover a 20 thousand pound helicopter.

There is of course PADDY NO PANTS. That one is pretty self explanatory. In his defence, every story he tells that concerns him taking off his pants in public actually makes sense and was the best decision at the time. What has always been his downfall however was his choice in undergarments.

Mose no pants stories start like this.

I am particularly found of SKYWALKER. I gave him his nick name. While focused on the Tactical Display in the aircraft, he was asked if he would like to get out and stretch his legs while we fuelled on the back of the ship. "Sure," he replied then unstrapped from his chair, turned, and opened the passenger door, only to realize we were still hovering 60 feet off the side of the ship. He still doesn't like to talk about that story. I do however.

This is where Skywalker would have washed up.

I can not forget to mention HOT TUB. His is an account of an escalating game of drunken Truth or Dare with 3 ladies. His humiliation has lead to many thoughtful discussions of what one would do in a similar circumstance. I have told his story on 4 continents and although we have all laughed at his expense, I have yet to meet a man that wouldn't have done what he did.

Some call me KNUCKLES. Thankfully there is no story behind it.

Gilbert the Lion

Gilbert the Lion

Gilbert was not a happy lion. He was not an angry lion. Nor was he fierce or mean. He was just a lion living comfortably in the city zoo. He spent most of his day, lying under the Acacia tree. Lions are not happy or sad, they are just lions. 

He wasn’t interested in the crowds of people that walked by and stopped to beg him to charge or roar. Some taunted him and others snapped pictures. Boys who wanted to appear sensitive to their dates would whisper. Men who wanted to appear smart would quip. Most left disappointed that the ‘King of the jungle’ did nothing but yawn and stretch.

Every now and then a child would lose a balloon, and Gilbert would watch it float effortlessly away. He would stare at it long after it faded from view. For a moment, it would appear that the shaggy lion was musing about his life, but lions don’t muse.

If it was cool enough, or quiet enough, Gilbert would get up and walk the well worn path around his carefully designed enclosure. His Serengeti satisfied the on lookers and their limited attention spans. If Gilbert thought of such things it must have seemed that he was stuck on a boat. Gilbert didn’t think of those things, because he was a lion after all. 

A tired stroll around the yard never uncovered anything remarkable. There once was a French fry, and another time a set of car keys. People loose things all the time and wonder where they go. Gilbert never asked where they came from or what they were. People ask those questions, not lions. 

Regardless, there was never anything for a lion. The journey always ended where it began, under the comfortable shade of the imported Acacia tree. It was there, where he spent most of his time, seemingly waiting for balloons to float by. But lions don’t wait for balloons that would be silly. 

Gilbert lived close to other African animals. He didn’t know what they were, because he never lived in Africa. Still, he somehow recognized the connection. Occasionally, a yelp or a snort from a neighboring enclosure would cause Gilbert to open an eye, or twitch an ear.  If it was interesting enough, he would stand and stare. It would make for a nice picture if you were there with a camera. 

The noise would fade, and Gilbert would lose interest. Comfortable lions lose interest in most things. It isn’t the kill that sustains the lion, but the hunger. He would never say that of course, because he is just a lion. 

The night that Gilbert was freed was an unremarkable Thursday. It was like every other Thursday, or Tuesday or any day before. Lions don’t keep track of those things. They know when it is hot, or wet, dawn or dusk. Calendars are as useful as car keys for a comfortable lion. 

It was an accident of course. It wasn’t the zookeeper’s fault the gate was unlocked. Some said she was distracted by honey bees and butterflies. Maybe, she wasn’t distracted at all. Maybe it wasn’t her fault in fact. Maybe no one was at fault. Maybe this one time the lock didn’t work. Things like that do happen you know. It didn’t matter to Gilbert anyway. There is no such thing as fault or blame when you are a lion. 

On an evening stroll around the compound, Gilbert discovered something a lion could use- an escape. Into the darkness, the lion stepped. Since he was a cub, it would be the first time he did not know where he was going. He was not afraid. He was of course a lion in the darkness. 

There is something unsettling about the thought of a lion free in the night. To those of us who whisper, quip and sip wine the thought can be terrifying. Not to the lion of course, he doesn’t concern himself with those things. 

It was surprising where they found Gilbert the next morning. He was not found next to a carcass of hair and bones. No he was not found anywhere one would expect, unless of course you knew Gilbert. 

In the morning dawn, Gilbert was found sleeping under a cloud of tied red balloons.

Critical Memory Items for a Polar Bear Invasion

Do not look him in the eyes.

The government of Newfoundland and Labrador recently released a series of guidelines of “what to do if you come across a Polar Bear in your kitchen”. These guidelines come after a rash of break-ins and loitering perpetrated by unemployed polar bears.

I have since printed off the guidelines and placed them on my fridge. I have also instructed my family to commit these steps to memory. I suggest you do the same, for if you wake up finding a polar bear in your kitchen, you may not be able to get access to the check list.

If anyone encounters a polar bear, they should:

Remain calm

Give the bear(s) space

Back away, get out of the situation, never run

If you must speak, do so calmly and firmly

Avoid direct eye contact with the bear(s)

I did have some questions about the checklist however.

How many polar bears should I expect to be in my kitchen?

How much space do they need?

Is a brisk walk acceptable?

What exactly am I supposed to say to the bear(s) and in what language?

If I look the bear in the eyes, will he steal my soul?

Have these tips been tested, and what is their success rate?

Every man's fear, coming home and seeing your wife with a bear.

Walking on Water and other Savage feats.

We got Sandy when my wife and I were just married. Like everything at the time, we went about things the wrong way. She was an impromptu purchase from a sketchy pet store. She was scared, and shy and I’m sure she was dropped over and over again by the school kids who visited the pet store on their lunch breaks.

I recall telling my wife that “I wasn’t leaving the pet store without this dog.” When we brought her home, we were worried. She was listless and weak. We nursed her back to health with love and bacon. We bought countless books on Labrador Retrievers and puppy training and each one of them told us we had done everything wrong. We bought the the sickest, most withdrawn dog from a questionable store on an impulse.

In no time at all, the scrawny dog grew. Before we knew it, my wife and I weren’t a couple anymore, we were a family. 

The World continued to spin, as it does when you don’t pay much attention. We grew a little older and our family got a little bigger. Soon the Savages (as we were affectionally called by those who knew us) were storming through life. First steps were soon followed by walking on water- the learning curve is pretty steep in our family. 

Walking on water, a Savage tradition.

Sandy was always there. She was certainly there more than I was. As my kids were learning to walk and talk, I was learning how to fly. It was hard for all of us, especially for my wife as she gave up her dream so I could pursue mine. I’m not entirely sure how we struggled through it together but we did. I didn’t notice it much at the time, but the World continued to spin, and we all got a little older.

We moved to a beautiful home on a quiet street with a big back yard close to the ocean. My wife started teaching music again, the kids grew, Sandy walked the beach and I had my dream job. No one noticed much, but the World continued to spin.

I was away chasing bad guys when I heard the news. 

We struggled with Sandy’s loss as we have done with challenges before, as a family. As we mourned, the World continued to spin.

We got Ben from a great breeder in Annapolis Royal. His parents were Rhodes Scholars and beauty pageant winners. He is confident, well mannered and speaks four languages. 

World is still spinning, and the Savages can feel it now.