Squaring the circle

This old pilot had an experience of the lifetime last Saturday. I loaded my cousin’s granddaughter, Lizzy, into my old Aeronca Champ trainer and introduced her to general aviation. What made it so special was that it squared the circle as her great grandfather did the same for me so many years ago. My old Champ earned its reputation for training a huge number of pilots during WWII. It is still today a preferred training aircraft for tail wheel pilots today those that go into flying ag airplanes and besides that it’s just fun to fly.

Libby lives in Colorado and is a quite accomplished young lady with 4-H projects and in school. It seems that she has long time hankered to learn to fly and maybe pursue a career as an airline pilot. Small wonder as that is the occupation of her proud father who is a captain for Southwest Airline. This was her first ride in general aviation aircraft and she actually operated the controls. In this long time flight instructor’s judgment she has “good hands” and will be an apt student.

This politically conservative leaning columnist was a bit disappointed to note that Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon (R) voted in favor of Nancy Pelosi’s “Infrastructure” spending bill. Don Bacon, retired general representing district 2 of the Omaha area. Maybe he was voting the wishes of his constituents as I remember that one of those Eastern districts leans democrat and cast an electoral vote or two for a democrat presidential candidate. Actually that is the way our democracy is supposed to work with the elected representative voting in the way that his/her informed electorate desires. Sadly our current politicians vote the way their caucus, Republican or Nancy Pelosi dictates.

So now Pelosi’s “Infrastructure Bill” will now be the law of the land and as she famously said “we will have to read it to see what is in it.” Probably our Interstate Highway system needs additional money for maintenance and delayed repairs and that would include bridges. Most state and local hiways are taken care of by gas tax money and probably most of the new Federal spending will not be used for their care. Those who have digested the bill have noted that only about ten percent of that new money will go to what normal people know as infrastructure anyway.

Lots of federal spending of new money and additionally in the additional “Build Back Better” bill that President Biden is now pushing. Just print and throw money out into the system and it is a sure promise that the new inflation that we are experiencing will only get worse and those new dollars haven’t even hit the system yet. I think that we all are in for a rough future.

The inflation of gas prices that we are seeing currently can pretty well be traced back to President Biden’s executive orders that canceled pipelines and cut off all drilling on federal lands. I drive through the countryside and note all the propane tanks aside about every rural residences plus next to irrigation wells and think that our local rural area will be pretty hard hit by the current and inflation of our dollars. Diesel fuel getting more expensive will also hurt our farmers as well as truckers. We in our wonderful little town will also see higher heating bills due to the increase of natural gas. Then too we can speculate that electricity will increase in price as it is mainly generated with fossil fuels. We will all have to buckle our belts and grin and bear it.

Remember next time you vote!

Oh yes the supply chain troubles we are seeing and totally misunderstood by our President. I wonder if it has dawned on him that the unions that he so loves might have something to do with the current high price of labor and rules of our longshoremen that cause inefficiencies that back up the container ships off shore that await to unload the goods manufactured with cheap labor overseas that we want and need. Nothing to see there—it is all caused by us having excess money and therefore higher demand. Yes that is what our socialist loving elite are telling us.

To close on a happier note all the Veteran’s Days activities were fun and appreciated by this old retired military guy and my Grannie Annie. Watching the sea of smiling elementary students, including a great grandson, made our hearts happy. Of course we also liked the soup, fried chicken and steak suppers that we were privileged to attend. We live in a great community.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail