Many years ago, when I wrote my "Watermelon Letter" (see the first blog in this series) I realized the power of the written word. My writing skills were sadly lacking, but I made every effort to communicate in writing. When I started college classes in 1976, my world was turned upside down, and I began to write to people whom I thought to be important in earnest. 

I’LL CALL IT A HELICAR

            The mood of the country has changed subtly since September 11, 2001. An enemy turned America against itself and used American aircraft to destroy American life and property. We have become alert and suspicious. Our innocence is gone. Those with ugly intentions toward children have become more brazen; those with honorable intentions, more intense.

            Although none of my family was directly affected by the catastrophe of 9-11, my mind's eye goes back to a time when I saw something like this coming. The panic I experienced then almost cost me my life:

            More than thirty years ago I was a forty-year-old mother of four. Despite efforts to interest me in world politics on the part of my German father who had served in WWII, and the fact that my husband was a U.S. military man, I had no enthusiasm in political matters. All I knew was that I had absolutely no power to affect the decisions of those leaders who had their hands on the nuclear buttons, anyway. My attitude toward politics was, "Leave me alone and do what you want!" The idea of such powerlessness caused me some uneasiness about the future, but I had to find my personal raison d'être. I loved my family and didn't want it destroyed, so I cared for each child as if the future of the world depended on his or her survival. I loved America (warts and all) because I was free to do that here, so I gladly subjugated my own desires to the needs of my country. I had packed up and moved my home seven times in seven years. I gladly went where the Air Force sent us and eagerly restarted our routine. Suddenly, my simple patriotism and heart-felt love were shaken to the core: a professor I respected called me a “Cop-out.”

            My mind wandered back to my grandmother's place in German society before Hitler proceeded with his evil deeds. Could she possibly have affected the outcome of the holocaust if she had publicly expressed her private displeasure of the events of the time? She probably would have been dragged off to a concentration camp or even killed. She had no power then, just like I had no power now. Despair overwhelmed me, and I began to die.

            The faces of my family lost their smiles. Their only concern was that they might lose their wife and mother. They didn't worry about war, pollution, crime, or the energy crisis. They couldn't understand why those things meant anything to me. Their love healed my soul, and soon I was ready to take on the world.

            My choice of weapon was a typewriter. I had not learned to type very well in high school. When I was trying to type my first letter to a U.S. Senator, I started to cry after I had pulled the third messed up piece of paper out of the typewriter carriage. My ten-year-old son asked me innocently, "Why don't you just write it?" I knew that my penmanship wasn't much better than my typing, but I was immensely comforted by his naivete.

            Once I gained some confidence in my typing, spelling and composition abilities, I wrote letters to lots of important people. My main purpose in writing to manufacturers was to learn why or whether some things hadn't been tried in the solution of the energy crisis. The ensuing correspondence is the subject of this chapter.

            I’ve lost my copy of the original handwritten note that I sent to United Technologies on February 29, 1976, but it had something to do with building a vehicle on the principle of a motorized “Frisbee” for human transportation. At the time, I was sure that someone, somewhere was already developing such a vehicle, and I was merely curious. (Friends had confused me by telling me that we don’t know and won’t be told about the things that are being manufactured, but I couldn’t quite believe that a woman like myself—wife, mother of an American family, citizen and taxpayer—was to be kept in the dark).

            The answer I received convinced me that should pursue my quest for information a little further, but I had no idea that I would subsequently encounter so much opposition to a novel application of natural phenomena: centrifugal and centripetal forces. Nor was I prepared to encounter so many confusing interpretations of my question:

            “Is someone, somewhere working a ‘Flying Saucer’ made on Earth? And, if not, why not?”