Unit 2: Selection Vocabulary 2

And I recall the moment the plane lifted into the air and, just three minutes later, how I would need to return to the runway, intensely focused on the tasks at hand.

I have had a few unforgettable flights in my life, and they continue to live in my mind, conjuring up a host of emotions and reasons for reflection.

It’s as if these moments from my life were deposited in a bank until I needed them.

I read a lot about “Lucky Lindy” and understood that his flight across the Atlantic wasn’t really about luck. He planned. He prepared. He endured. That’s what made him heroic to me.

The plaque read ONE RIOT, ONE RANGER, and told the apocryphal story of a small-town disturbance in the 1890s.

I had been enthralled by the early Project Mercury space missions, so I was excited to spot a short, thin man walking through the terminal.

She learned to fly the Nieuport Type 82 biplane, with, in her words, "a steering system that consisted of a vertical stick the thickness of a baseball bat in front of the pilot and a rudder bar under the pilot's feet."

Coleman's return to the U.S. caused a media sensation and catapulted her to stardom as one of the country's top stunt pilots.

Even though she achieved her initial childhood dream of "amounting to something," her greatest dream was to establish a school for young black aviators in America.

Unable to gain control, Wills also plummeted to the ground and died on impact.

At twelve I was an avid consumer of comic books—Supergirl being my favorite.

I had a recurring dream in those days: that I had long blond hair and could fly.

Once I saw our landlord, whom I knew my parents feared, sitting in a treasure-room dressed in an ermine coat and a large gold crown.

In the mornings I’d wake up in my tiny bedroom with the incongruous—at least in our tiny apartment—white “princess” furniture my mother had chosen for me, and find myself back in my body: my tight curls still clinging to my head, skinny arms and legs...unchanged.

The view was of a dismal alley that was littered with refuse thrown from windows.