On the plane were three Veterans, one who had flown 35 missions during WWII on B-17’s. Mike got to sit in the gunner’s seat in the nose of the plane as we were flying over Charlotte. What an awesome feeling of connecting to 60 years ago! I stood on my tip-toes and waved my hand into the clouds through the dome of the plane. I just felt that my Mother and Dad were there waving back at me from heaven’s portals.
This was the same kind of plane in which my Dad, Lt. Col. C.L. Scott, who was chief of staff to Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest, flew as a replacement in the position of tail-gunner on the fatal Bonn Mission over Belgium on August 12, 1943. Through these many years my Dad, though I never knew him, has been my hero! Somehow being in that same kind of plane connected me to him, to his mission, and to the honor of giving his life for freedom.
Then, of course, my thoughts went heavenward, and I was keenly reminded of my God, my Hero, who has been my heavenly Father since I accepted Him as my Savior in 1952. Somehow in the skies, I felt even closer to the One who paid the ultimate price for my eternal life and freedom to live an abundant life here on earth. As I waved my hand into the clouds, I thought of the last line of my Dad’s favorite poem “High Flight”…..I put out my hand and touched the Face of God!
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
-Madell Price
