Bliss KnightFOR AS LONG AS I REMEMBER, I have wanted to be a writer but I needed life experience to have something to write about. When I was a young girl, the eldest daughter of a colonel who was heading up the testing of missiles and rockets for the Army's Arcic Test Branch at Big Delta, Alaska, there was no television. Alaska wasn't even a state yet, so I read ... about far off places, and found that I yearned to see the world. I looked out our cabin windows at the clouds and the sky, and dreamed of learning to fly. Seeing my dad off on yet another Pan Am Boeing 337 and the flight crews with their worldly expressions made me wonder about their experiences. So, at the tender age of eight I decided then that I would become an International Airline Pilot which would give me some things to write about. Pursuing this goal gave my life purpose, definition, and direction. Living in a one room log cabin without the amenities of running water or indoor plumbing then, we bathed once a week in a galvanized tub centered in our great room, all in the same water; this was embarrassing for a pubescent girl. We had light from a single bulb when the generator would start, but when it wouldn't, I did my homework by kerosene lantern. Attending a one room territorial school in the early 1950s, I listened carefully to what the older children were learning. I found that I wanted horses in numbers. Black Beauty was among my favorite books. My mother always said Horse was my middle name. It wasn't really. My middle name is Bliss, the one I go by. I was named after an Army Post in El Paso, Texas, called Fort Bliss. I guess its good I wasn't born at Ft. Huachuca ... I have been married two times, the first time to an air tanker pilot who flew Grumman TBMs and the Lockheed Electra. Together, we flew smoke jumpers and repossessed big airplanes. During the winter, we went to college with our earnings. Our marriage ended when he could not endure that I had been hired by a commercial airline as one of the first female airline pilots. The second marriage was to a businessman who had a refinery, yachts, and a fleet of corporate airplanes. I couldn't figure out how to raise children well when always away, so I have animals. I write on my laptop with a view of my ranch and the Sierras around Lake Tahoe. I have written about my adventures in a first book entitled Air Affair and now my second edition of Air Affair. Read More Read Less
