BajaNomad

Bill Riffe-A Loreto Legend passes on.

Skeet/Loreto - 11-12-2008 at 04:34 PM

Bill Riffe-Loreto Passed away a couple of Days ago while in the Hospital in San Diego.

Bill and Betty and Jennifer came to Loreto in 1973-Built a "Round House and a Tennis Court located on the Beach in front of the Pier.

Bill was from a Texas Panhandle Family-A Minster, A Pilot-A PHD in Theology- A Sailor- A Fisherman and a Good Friend.
He will be missed.

May he Rest in Peace.

capt. mike - 11-12-2008 at 05:03 PM

never met Bill Skeeter but heard you mention him a lot RIP Bill.
well that's 2 this week. they come in 3s.....who's next?

For your friend, Skeet.

Pompano - 11-12-2008 at 06:05 PM

"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 falls of air...

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor eer 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."


Explanatory Note: How did these lines become so famous? Because they are a classic case of a speechwriter having the appropriate quotation to hand at the right moment.

On 28 January 1986, in his TV broadcast to the nation on the day of the space shuttle Challenger disaster, President Reagan concluded: `We will never forget them this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.'

This immediately sent people the world over on fruitless journeys to their quotation books.

Reagan was quoting `High Flight,' a sonnet written by John Gillespie Magee, a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. He came to Britain, flew in a Spitfire squadron, and was killed at the age of nineteen on 11 December 1941 during a training flight from the airfield near Scopwick.

Magee had been born in Shanghai of an American father and an English mother who were missionaries. He was educated at Rugby and at school in Connecticut. The sonnet was written on the back of a letter to his parents which stated, `I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed.'

The parents were living in Washington, DC, at the time of his death and, according to the Library of Congress book Respectfully Quoted, the poem came to the attention of the Librarian of Congress, Archibald MacLeish, who acclaimed Magee as the first poet of the war.

Copies of `High Flight' – sometimes referred to as `the pilot's creed' – were widely distributed and plaques bearing it were sent to all R.C.A.F. air fields and training stations. The poem was published in 1943 in a volume called More Poems from the Forces. This is a transcription of the original manuscript in the Library of Congress.

Skeet, may your friend rest in peace.

vandenberg - 11-12-2008 at 07:33 PM

Skeet, May your friend rest in peace.
Roger,
Didn't they always recite this poem at the close of the broadcast day on one of the networks in the "olden" days.:?::?:
It's one of my favorites and thanks for the information on its origin.

Your memory is good...

Pompano - 11-13-2008 at 06:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by vandenberg
Skeet, May your friend rest in peace.
Roger,
Didn't they always recite this poem at the close of the broadcast day on one of the networks in the "olden" days.:?::?:
It's one of my favorites and thanks for the information on its origin.


That poem was used for years as the close-down reading of a local Washington TV station and a few others, including my home ND station in the 60's and 70's. It was generally well-known in the United States (and much more so than in Britain).

President Reagan knew of the poem. `It transpires that Reagan had also been present the night fellow actor Tyrone Power returned from fighting in the Second World War – a party at which Power recited `High Flight' from memory. (When Power died, the poem was read over his grave by Laurence Olivier.)

It has always been a favorite of mine. "Oh I Have Slipped
The Surly Bonds of Earth...
Put Out My Hand
And Touched the Face of God"

I doubt you will ever hear it again on any public stations.

sourdough - 11-14-2008 at 09:22 AM

I share your grief. I first met Bill and Betty in '77. They introduced my wife and I to the joys of living in this community and are responsible for our living here today. Bill was a gracious host with a never-ending supply of jokes. He'll be sorely missed by all who were fortunate enough to call him a friend.

oldlady - 11-14-2008 at 09:31 AM

Skeet/Loreto, my condolences on the loss of your friend.

Pompano, thank you for the history of the poem.

Skeet/Loreto - 11-14-2008 at 03:03 PM

Thanks Pomp:
And when this old Peom walks into the Computer Room, there on the Wall is that Poem for:
"As I climbed on a 2600 Ft. Thermal in an old Army TG2 and topped out at 15,000 Feet , I looked South to Mt. Whitney, North to Desolution Valley West to Yosemite and East to the White Mountain, I knew in my Heart that I had indeed "Touched the Hand of God'. An Oh. How he has guided my Adventureous Life and shown me the Way to Happiness.


Skeet

diverbrian - 11-16-2008 at 11:28 AM

I was sorry to here about Bill . As a 14 year old in 1971 with help from a family friend I bummed a ride on Bill's plane. For the three weeks that summer Bill and Betty flew me around to Abrejos ,Bay of LA . Our friend Manuel manager of the Flying Sportsman Opened the hotel (closed for the summer in those days ). We had the run of the hotel it was a great adventure for a 14 year old . One that I will never forget Bill will be missed. Brian Donnell

sourdough - 11-16-2008 at 12:04 PM

Bill story: While he was a professor of sociology at Southern Oregon College, Bill was approached by one of his students who wished to forego the upcoming final test due to a very sick grandmother back East who needed her immediate presence. Bill gave in to her wishes.
Finals were completed that week and springbreak began and, as he often did, Bill flew his plane to Loreto to visit friends and get in a little fishing.
As he tells it, that evening he sat in the Flying Sportsman enjoying a c-cktail, when he happened to look down the bar and there sat his truant student enjoying a margarita with a young man. Bill quietly got up from hjs stool, approached the young lady, tapped her on the shoulder and, looking at the young man, commented "Your grandmother appears to have made a remarkable recovery!"
Oh yes, this is a pre-highway 1 story (The Tabor Era)