77 and puttering along.

Well on Tuesday I reached 77. 50 years ago, the only time I thought I would reach 77 was in a 35 mph zone. Thank you all for your well wishes and your gifts.
Last week Eddie and Sean were both Confirmed here at OLL. I was Seans sponser and Mom was Eddies sponser. It made us very proud to stand there with these two fine gentlemen. They will both be starting High School next fall and both will be in an honors program. We all went out to dinner on Friday and Joe and Lisa had some people over on Saturday.
Matt secured an internship for Justin at his company for the summer. He arrived down here on May 28th and will be here for about three months. He will be staying with Matt. They came over last weekend and Justin really enjoyed going out on Joe's boat.
Bren, Jana and Coleen will be arriving here tomorrow for a week.
I was sitting at my desk yesterday and noticed my old USMC pilot logbook. I opened it and saw that I had my first solo flight in a SNJ (pictured above) on June 8, 1954. I will never forget it. The takeoff and flight were all normal. The fun didn't begin until I was on my final landing approach to Corey Field in Pensacola. I had the airplane all over the sky. It was every way except upside down. I decided to take a waveoff and go around for another approach. At Corey Field, you had to go out about ten miles to reenter the landing pattern. I was at 1000 feet and going to the reentry point when I looked down and saw that my airspeed was only about 80 knots dispite my having full power on the engine. 120 knots was normal. I concluded that the airplane was having engine problems and I started tightening my parachute and prepared to jump out. Luckily, I took another look and saw that my wheels and flaps were still extended and that was causing my lack of speed. I corrected that and came around and landed without any problem. I flew about 20,000 hours without putting a scratch on any aircrft.The moral
When a problem happens always be quick with a prayer and a second look.