{"id":4001,"date":"2012-08-16T12:10:01","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T16:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?page_id=4001"},"modified":"2012-08-16T12:10:01","modified_gmt":"2012-08-16T16:10:01","slug":"the-old-pilot","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/the-old-pilot\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old Pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>He discovers himself on an old airfield.<br \/>\nHe thinks he was there before,<br \/>\nbut rain has washed out the lettering of a sign.<br \/>\nA single biplane, all struts and wires,<br \/>\nstands in the long grass and wildflowers.<br \/>\nHe pulls himself into the narrow cockpit<br \/>\nalthough his muscles are stiff<br \/>\nand sits like an egg in a nest of canvas.<br \/>\nHe sees that the machine gun has rusted.<br \/>\nThe glass over the instruments<br \/>\nhas broken, and the red arrows are gone<br \/>\nfrom his gas gauge and his altimeter.<br \/>\nWhen he looks up, his propeller is turning,<br \/>\nalthough no one was there to snap it.<br \/>\nHe lets out the throttle. The engine catches<br \/>\nand the propeller spins into the wind.<br \/>\nHe bumps over the holes in the grass,<br \/>\nand he remembers to pull back on the stick.<br \/>\nHe rises from the land in a high bounce<br \/>\nwhich gets higher, and suddenly he is flying again.<br \/>\nHe feels the old fear, and rising over the fields<br \/>\nthe old gratitude. In the distance, circling<br \/>\nin a beam of late sun like birds migrating,<br \/>\nthere are the wings of a thousand biplanes.<\/p>\n<p><em>-Donald Hall<\/em><\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-4001\" data-postid=\"4001\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-4001 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He discovers himself on an old airfield. He thinks he was there before, but rain has washed out the lettering of a sign. A single biplane, all struts and wires, stands in the long grass and wildflowers. He pulls himself into the narrow cockpit although his muscles are stiff and sits like an egg in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4001"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4002,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4001\/revisions\/4002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}