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Sunday, January 4, 2015

Mark's Remarks - HL 223 (3)



High Life 223  PCN Home  |  Post to PCN   | G-Group   |  Calendar   |  PCN Ads  |  Sign Up  |  FAQs   


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Dear PCN (of over 2600 subscribers),

2015:
It’s always a hard one to remember to write on checks but soon it will become common.  Can you believe it is 2015 already?  I would like to wish all of you in the PCN community a

Happy and Prosperous New Year!


Reflections on Last Year:
It is a personal ritual of mine to reflect upon the last year as that year ends.  I try to assess the good times the bad, the goals achieved those that remain, the unmerited blessings and the challenges.   For me personally 2014 wasn’t bad.  It doesn’t go down in my scrapbook as outstanding either but all in all a pretty good year.  The older I get I am just glad to have important family and friends time.  There were events with the family that were very memorable and meaningful to us.  I hope that as you take stock and look back you can see the blessings that can propel you forward to great year in 2015.

The American Dream: 
I have a number of occasions, throughout the year,  to non-rev on the airline I gave a career to, and it always spurs a flood of thoughts.  A few that I cannot share here.  But the one thought that I care to keep and is the focus of the next paragraph which is the privilege that I felt flying for the old Delta. 

In November of 1978, a country boy from a rural Michigan town (population 350 without any airline personnel for hundreds of miles around) rose to achieve my personal American Dream.  Today we hear a lot about this American Dream.  Is it alive?  Is it still possible?  Well, everyone grows and develops a dream……a dream job……a height most assuredly unachievable in literally hundreds of other nation states.  I believe that here in the US, the American Dream is still alive, though under attack.  A changing society, a bulging bureaucracy, a misplaced do-good ideology, and other cultural issues are combining to make achieving the dream more challenging.    My “dream” was to fly!  When I grew, I then refined the dream a little I targeted to fly for a major airline in the states.  To fly in the world’s biggest and busiest ATC system, with the best tools available including aircraft, for one of the world’s most prestigious airlines was and is my American Dream come true. 

I know that a lot of you have put it all behind.  You may stay connected to the PCN for other reasons.  Some of you don’t even admit to missing the flying.  I am currently flying yet still miss the days in command of that shiny Delta jet.  During these years, I flew with and alongside of some of the finest people I have ever known.  It was also a serious privilege to take sooo many people safely and timely to their important meetings and reunions.  Simply put, serving as a Delta Captain, meant a lot.  To me it meant it was my dream job and I wouldn’t trade it for any other. 

I guess volunteering my time to keep a network alive of this flying community called the PCN, is my way of giving back.  Flying for Delta gave me something irreplaceable……it gave me the best vocational period of my life.  You, with your skills, training, friendship and quality of character, have all been a big big part of making that time fondly remembered.  So for that I say thank you and to keep us first connected as a network of aviators and secondly as a community of friends, here is to long life of the PCN!

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1 comment:

Scott Hersha said...

Mark,
Happy New Year to you and yours. I appreciate your PCN post related to your (our) career at Delta. My career closely mirrors yours. -Boy from Michigan ('big' town - Jonesville, population 2000), I landed my dream job, and always felt honored to put on that uniform. There are times when I feel betrayed, because we were, but when I reflect upon the job and the people, I feel more disappointment in myself for following the crowd to the exit instead of listening to my heart. I have regretted that decision countless times, and always will.

I too have continued to fly - corporate flight department for me - but will retire from that job in a couple months. I still feel like my years at Delta is what defines me as a professional pilot. Whenever I lament about our Delta retirement and the aftermath of that, my wife tells me that God was and is in control of that decision and there's no way of knowing what would have happened in our lives had I stayed at Delta. She of course is right, but I can't help feeling that God blessed me with that job, and it was me that decided to give it up. From a heavenly eternal perspective, I don't think it matters. I sure miss the good old Delta, and all the people, and think I was pretty lucky to have that job.

Scott Hersha