Today our club is hosting a 2 day Control Line Stunt Contest and have added Carrier Events after a successful trial two years ago. Many hard working volunteers have had a hand in making this happen, and as luck would have it, even the Governor of Maryland is helping us today. No, the Governor isn’t attending and cooking burgers, but the Governor has opened up the State of Maryland for full capacity ‘Open for business’. So the circle of life is at work in our lives- collectively we have managed to do enough of the right things to where it is legal for us to get back to our lives. We had to cancel most of our activity last year and contend with massive doses of the unknown, and lots of dubious sounding science. For sure, we have all lost friends and family to Covid- so there is certainly something big happening, and the world has pretty much worked out a solution. Not everyone is as lucky as we are in Maryland - we have around 500 people in the hospital at the moment battling the disease and new cases statewide in the 300’s per day. The US reported 215,561 new cases for the week ended 5/20 while India reported over 2 million new cases in the same week. Clearly we have reason to be joyous personally.
The reason for these words today is my gratitude that despite all the fear and misunderstanding and even misinformation, enough of the right stuff has happened so that we are free to get on with life. My thoughts go to my Dad after his recovery from quad bypass surgery. His doctor told him that his heart would not be the thing holding him back from doing what he wanted to do. He was encouraged to get back to his life- “you are free to move about the world again.” Unfortunately, he got stuck in the fear that something bad was going to happen and he chose to do less. It feels the same way for me today- I can go out to do something on purpose with friends. I still have to contend with bad stuff out there- like auto accidents, other illness and I could even get the flu or covid- but my chances are in the range that it is worse to not live than to choose to go out and live. So today, our pilots will be flying in circles, and life is marching on. For us, there is much to be happy about today!