“God is my copilot” radioed Colonel Jacqueline Cochrane, Amelia Earhart listening on the inter com, the two female legends, cruising the heavens in a dazzling up and away, climbing 5..10…15…20….25…..their F 16 jet circling overtheir Mojave Desert landing strip, George AF Base, Victorville,California, Edwards Air Force Base.. Colonel Cochrane breaking the sound barrier**…..
II
Coexisting in Indio with Floyd Odlu0m, her husband, who just became RKO’s successor to “Slim”, Howard Hughes, at themovie studio, Colonel Cochrane, a daunting woman in her own “Katherine Hepburn” karma and image, lived an unspectacularbeat, on the date treed oasis in Indio, off Rancho de Mirage, cactus laden desert dunes, tempting racing cars..
Wherever **Murietta hot springs Highland hot sprigs, Desert Hot Springs, Palm Desert, Joshua Tree, Palm Springs, 29 Palm(“Yankee doodle dandy”, The Jimmy Cagney Historical Museum) Lake Havasu City, Apple Valley (Route 66 becomingan Interstate)
III
Their chutes on, the immortal duo climbed into the cockpit of their F 16 Fighter jet, the runway cleared at George AF Fighter Base, the engine transmitting a position in thrust of six hundred modules on the instrument panel, Colonel waving to the mechanics and her husband, the engine warming up the runway, Amelia Earhart waving in simulcast.
IV
Charting their mapped course over the Continent, ColonelCochrane in her senior seat, pointed down as she circled thebirde over Sheppard AFB, the Intelligence School, aka Ucla’s Mc-
gowan theater “Mozart and mushroom barley”) due west of the Oklahoma-Texas panhandle stretrch, South of Tinker AFB, she lifted the altitude to cruising speed at 30000, piloting the jet over Arlington, Virginia and Defense Intelligence , Western European Desk……a maneuver both aces radioed the Pentagon, Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence. “tower”.
The Senate Office Building where the Major passed Bobby Kennedy and General Westmoreland in the hall, on hisr way to the Senator’s office to give Frank Mankiewitz (Ucla Daily Bruineditor) the copy of his speech, arguing the passage of the Public Television Act of 19867.
V
Toward Governor’s Islamd, where theyt once practiced take offs and landings with the likes of Air Force pioneers….Billy Mitchell, Lindbergh….. Sprague……Peter Stuyevesant, then New Yokr’s Mayor, buying the island from the Indians for bracelets and sparkling jewelery.
The two ladies scouting Roosevelt Field, now a shopping mallon Nassau County’s Long Island, where once stood Mitchell field where the two women fought out their credentials, in Nasaspace..and over Hempstead L.I. where the Cream Cheese Bandit won his first Ppublic Parks tennis trophy (1939) in singles, with his father, the Name Detective, watching……Karol Kosalow,his coach from Czechoslovakia “Steady, steady…deep deep.”His practice court in Scarsborough.
Over Far Rockaway…..Robert Moses Jones Beach where the Cream Cheese Bandit once nailed his stick to trash, blowingover the boardwalk.
V.
And then a pass toward Coney Island’s boardwalk in Brooklyn, the Bay 7 are locale, where Cary Grant, into his Archie Leacchon stilt incarnation, celebrating Hebrew National hot dogs, knishes, beer and sauerkraut ,prior to his “MadameButterfly”heroics, and his Hollywood alias as C.G….
.Bedford Avenue’s Midwood High School and the expansive Brooklyn College campus landing strip, not that far from whereJackie Gleason’s alter ego Art Carney and his mother and father lived above the Bohack grocery, on the corner of Avenue H and 14th Street (Rugby Road) , a block down from the BMT local stop.
VI
Climbing to a 35000 height, the Colonel and Amelia Earhart swooped past the Big Apple’s up end Sutton Place. …Carrie Goldfarb’s flower bastion on Third Avenue and East 57th.……
“Colonel, hold it! Do you see what I see?” Two humans on those rooftops, readying to jump. Hari kari!””
VII
The first human who leaped to his death was a Doctor, married to a classmate of the Major’s back in Flatrbush, a Chinese pagoda still based in her parent’s lawn off Newkirk Plaza.. She going on to University, and then into an alias, marketing actors, voicing commercials via tv v and radio media.
VIII
“Heaven is on the wy to it”, as the second man leaped, his self destruction, occurring opposite a doorman building…400 East 57th Street.
The young man’s father an agent turned producer. Fanny Brice his grandmother…
Amelia Earhart and Colonel Cochrane climbing back into the confines of the Mojave Desert environs…….George Air Force Base. Landing their F16 on the pad, the radio voices, guiding their”16” into the security of the Fighter training base.
“GOD IS MY COPILOT’ radioed Colonel Jacqueline Cochrane, Amelia Earhart listening..
February 1, 2015. The City that never sleeps
