The Mechanic

My cousin Ethelyn sent me another picture so her great-granddaughter Juliette:

That’s daddy J.F. holding her being watched carefully by their dog Montana.

The Mechanic

This morning, I went to AMC to see The Mechanic starring Jason Statham (you might have seen him in The Transporter movies) and Ben Foster. Although Donald Sutherland had a small part in the movie, he was a large part of the plot. Tony Goldwyn, the bad guy from Ghost was also in it.

It’s a remake of a 1972 movie starring Charles Bronson and Jan Michael Vincent, although the sex scenes were a bit more graphic and the violence was much more extreme. I liked the ending of this one better, though. For those of you who may not know, “mechanic” is a term for a fixer or assassin.

I recommend it to anyone who likes lots of action or car chases or Jason Statham. You won’t be disappointed.

The Sky You Were Born Under

Prompt: Write about the sky you were born under (after Joy Harjo)

Although I looked up Joy Harjo, I couldn’t find a reference to “the sky you were born under.” Joy is a Native American of the Muskogee tribe who is a poetess and musician and who has studied painting and theater. She has published seven books of poetry.

In any case, the sky I was born under is the sky everyone else is born under, the very same sky God created on that second day of creation. Two days later, God created the sun, moon, and stars that appear in that self-same sky.

It’s the same sky in which Greek mythology says Icarus tried to flee the island of Crete. His father Daedalus had fashioned wings from feathers and wax, but Icarus is said to have flown too close to the sun, causing the wax to melt and Icarus to die.

It’s the same sky in which two Frenchmen made the first untethered flight in a hot-air balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers on December 14, 1782.

It’s the same sky in which the American flag flew, inspiring Francis Scott Key to pen “The Star Spangled Banner.” The poem was originally called “The Defence of Fort McHenry.” “At the twilight’s last gleaming,” on September 13, 1814, during the War of 1812, Key watched the bombardment by the British of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore. The fort was attacked all night long. Key was amazed and delighted to see the American flag still flying over the fort “by the dawn’s early light” on September 14^th, despite all of the “rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air. “

It’s the same sky in which Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first plane flight at Kitty Hawk, NC on December 17, 1903. However, you would probably have had to lie on the ground to consider those first flights “in the sky.”

It’s the same sky Charles Lindbergh, a 25-year old U.S. Air Mail pilot, flew across when he made the first trans-Atlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis from Long Island to Paris. Oddly enough, he left the U.S. on my birthday, but on May 20, 1927, eighteen years before I was born.

It’s the same sky into which Apollo 11 flew to carry Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon during the Apollo 11 flight. These men stepped out on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969, watched by millions of proud Americans.

It’s the same sky in which the space shuttle Challenger crashed on January 28, 1986, (25 years ago today), from which the space shuttle Columbia crashed on February 1, 2003.

It’s the same sky in which we watched two planes fly into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, and in which we saw dark gray smoke announcing that the United States is not safe from religious extremists determined to bring us down as they did the towers.

What a sky to be born under!

Until next time…