A Day to Celebrate
Parades are canceled. Fireworks are canceled. Group gatherings are still discouraged. So how do you celebrate the birth of a nation when all the usual celebratory methods are unavailable? Good question. I don't have the answer. However, conveniently enough, Patrick provided us with an opportunity to celebrate the 4th of July AND his new title, "Airman". Airman Certificate is what it says on the piece of paper that makes him an official (private) pilot. It is the first, and arguably most gargantuan, step that takes him from being (just) a freshman in college to being a commercial pilot. COVID-19 put a sizable pause in his training, but once the most rigid part of quarantine was over, he was able to get back in the sky...when the weather cooperated. Then it was fly, fly, fly, and study, study, study all through May and June. When he came home from flying (what we thought was a routine practice flight) we learned that his flight was actually the long-awaited (and st