Imagine.....you're sitting in a small recreational plane flying 200 mph thirty feet off the ground when all of a sudden WHOOOOSSSSHHHHH!!!! The plane makes a vertical lift to the clouds and you're going straight up into the air higher and higher and higher. Your stomach drops to the floor and you clench the seat with all your might as you stare out the window watching the people, trees, and fields get smaller. Now imagine me seating in this plane clinching for dear life and screaming a bit. Ok a lot!
Today, I experienced a plane ride of a lifetime while in Alabama. You see, the town of Litchfield, Minnesota has a sister city with Hartford, Alabama. Together the cities exchange guests everyear including community members and FFA members. It was our 40th anniversary this year and twenty seven Litchfield delegates made the trip and I was fortunate enough to be one of the twenty-seven and return.
It was late afternoon and my host family brought me to the local airport near town and I was going to go for a plane ride. I was extemely excited until I got there. I'm the type of person who is not a fan or rides. I can't even handle the tilt-a-whirl let alone the carrousal most likely. However, I told myself to take a chance. I got in the plane with two other Litchfield FFA members, Anna and April, and joined the pilot. My stomach felt uneasy, my legs and hands were shaking, and I was shaking my head in disbelief to the people outside the window looking toward me. I put on my headset and got acquainted with the pilot Mike. The plane started down the grass runway and we became airborne. We angled up high enough to start flying. The plane took an immediate drop and my stomach sank. We flew over the Alabama country side and over the town of Hartford. Houses, pine trees, beef cattle, peanut fields, and cotton fields dabbled the country side. We flew back over the runway when Mike said "have you ever wondered what it was like to be a nascar driver racing at 200 mph?" I replied "No, should I now?" The plane was only thirty feet of the ground. We flew by the people and all of a sudden the plane took a sharp angle upward. I'll admit, I screamed, while the two girls in back laughed. Before I knew it the ride was over and I was glad I took the chance and would do it again in a heartbeat.
Later that day, the Minnesota delegation had a barbecue dinner with the citizens of Hartford honoring and celebrating our forty years of tradtion and friendship. This tradition and program started with a man my the name of Bruce Cottington. You see, Bruce had a vision to start an exchange program witht the city of Litchfield and a city in the south. Through his magic ways, Bruce set up a program in 1971 with the city of Hartford, Alabama and created the Peanut Butter and Milk Festival. The peanut representing the flourishing peanut industry of Alabama and milk representing the dairy industry in Minnesota. Bruce in a way took a chance. He took his own plane ride. And much like a plane ride, he knew the possibilities of ups and downs, the excitment and nervousness associated with it. In a plane ride, you see so much of the landscape and country side, just like the people of the sister cities sees each other's areas. And numerous people climbed in and out of the plane ride that afternoon taking turns, similar to sending people back and forth between the two cites. Bruce took a chance and started something wonderful. A program that valued youth, agriculture, and rural America.
At the banquet, I talked to the pilot Mike again. We talked about the plane ride I had had earlier that afternoon and began talking about the future and my goals. He knew I was nervous for the plane ride and began to pick up on my nervousness for my future asparations in life. He pointed to a table and said "Tyler, life is like this table. You stand in the middle of it or on the edge. On the edge is where oppurtunities are and where chances are taken. You want to be there." It was a strong yet simple analogy. He then went on to talk about pantries, "Tyler, I want you to go home, look in your pantry and grap soup and tell me what it's in. A can right? How about corn, or peaches? They're all in cans right? Nothing is in a cannot."
I had such a powerful plane ride, trip, and words of wisdom from both Bruce and Mike. Enjoy life, carry on tradtions, and take a chance. Everything that surrounds us in our lives and the oppurtunties that have come our way are a result of a chance. Take a chance!
Stationed by the emblem of Washington,
Tyler Warren
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