Stelth96

“As I approached the field, I called the tower, identified myself, and said I would like to land and pay my respects to General Patton if that was agreeable and convenient. I was cleared to land. When I parked, there was Georgie in his famous Jeep with the three-star flags flying, his helmet reflecting the sun gloriously and his ivory-handled revolvers at his side. He rushed forward, threw his arms around me, and with great tears streaming down his face, said, "Jimmy, I'm glad to see you. I didn't think anyone would ever call on a mean old son of a bitch like me.”
― James H. Doolittle, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again

“Whenever we talk about a pilot who has been killed in a flying accident, we should all keep one thing in mind. He called upon the sum of all his knowledge and made a judgment. He believed in it so strongly that he knowingly bet his life on it. That his judgment was faulty is a tragedy, not stupidity. Every instructor, supervisor, and contemporary who ever spoke to him had an opportunity to influence his judgment, so a little bit of all of us goes with every pilot we lose.”
― Anonymous

“Old Man River!

That seems far too austere a name
For something made of mirth and rage.
O, roiling red-blood river vein,
If chief among your traits is age,
You're a wily, convoluted sage.

Is "old" the thing to call what rings
The vernal heart of wester-lore;
What brings us brassy-myth made kings
(And preponderance of bug-type things)
To challenge titans come before?
Demiurge to a try at Avalon-once-more!

And what august vitality
In your wide aorta stream
You must have had to oversee
Alchemic change of timber beam
To iron, brick and engine steam.

Your umber whiskey waters lance
The prideful sober sovereignty
Of faulty-haloed Temperance
And wilt her self-sure countenance;
Yes, righteousness is vanity,
But your sport's for imps, not elderly.

If there's a name for migrant mass
Of veteran frivolity
That snakes through seas of prairie grass
And groves of summer sassafras,
A name that flows as roguishly
As gypsy waters, fast and free,
It's your real name, Mississippi.”
― Tracy J. Butler, Lackadaisy: Volume #1

“I had never realized before how quickly men deteriorate without razors and clean shirts. They are like potted plants that go to weed unless they are pruned and tended daily. A single day's growth beard makes a man look careless; two days', derelict; and four days', polluted. Blix and Weston hadn't shaved for three.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night