All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Copyright © 2012 – Capt. Steven Archille – All rights reserved. This publication may not be redistributed, re-sold, or reproduced in any part or by any means – electronic, photocopy, scanning or other without prior written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-9853-3160-3
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run…one cannot fly into flying.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
For Jeremiah, Emmarie, and Gavin: Believe in God, believe in yourself, and believe in your dreams.
Love, Uncle Steven
Acknowledgments:
To mom and Dad, thank you for believing in me and for helping me to believe that my dreams could come true. To Betty, thank you for always being my biggest fan. To my editors, Janel and Mackenzy, thanks for helping me bring my words to life.
Introduction
Preparing for takeoff
Flying has been my dream since before I can remember... literally. My Aunt Odette tells me that when I was three years old, she took me with her to the Port-au-Prince International Airport to pick someone up, and when I saw an airliner up close for the first time, I excitedly yelled out, “I want to drive that!” I don’t recall that event, but it serves as evidence that my fascination with flying began at a remarkably young age.
My first memory of wanting to fly came a few years later at the age of seven. I was on my very first flight, from Port-au-Prince to New York City, where I was going to start a new life in a new country. I remember looking at all the people boarding the airplane and wondering how that “big silver bird” was going to get us into the air (that silver bird was an American Airlines Boeing 727). To this day, the whole experience is vivid in my mind: being greeted with a smile by the captain at the aircraft entry door, the funny feeling in my stomach as the plane accelerated down the runway and leapt into the air, and my utter disbelief that we didn’t drop out of the sky! I remember how the people, cars, and houses seemed so small as we climbed; the sound of the bells and dings in the cabin that seemed to occur at random times during the flight; the pretty women in blue uniforms walking up and down the aisle, and the smell of hot food wafting through the cabin. I remember the square overhead reading lights, the strange blue water in the airplane’s toilet, and the bright, blinding white lights of the JFK airport terminal building pouring in through the cabin window as we pulled into our parking spot. I was mesmerized by it all, and by the time the plane came to a stop at our gate, my dream had been born… I wanted to become an airline pilot. I have been blessed to be living that dream since 1999. It’s a dream from which I hope never to awaken.
This is the story of the lifelong journey I have taken in realizing that dream. I invite you to come along with me as we go from my birth in Haiti to the present day, as I live my dream every day. You will come with me as I move to America at the age of seven, a country I knew nothing about and whose language I didn’t speak, a land that would truly prove to be “the land of opportunity”. You will feel my sense of wonder and bewilderment growing up in New York City, trying to understand my new world. You will face my struggles to fit in with the kids in the housing project where my family lived for a decade as Mom and Dad saved money to buy a house. You will meet my parents, who encouraged my dream of flying, and my fifth grade teacher who helped me to see that it was possible not only to dream it, but also to achieve it.
It’s a story of potential fulfilled, and my family’s sacrifices to get me through college and flight school. It’s a story of a mother’s love and encouraging words that spurred me on during my initial flight training when I thought it too hard to continue. You will fly with me from my first lesson to my first airline job as a copilot, to the day I earned my four-stripes and first heard someone call me “Captain”. You will sit with me in the captain’s seat as I fly an airline jet over Haiti for the first time, looking down from thirty-eight thousand feet onto the land of my birth where my dream had been born. You will soar with me over the majestic Amazon jungle in Brazil, over the desert-flanked Nile River in Egypt, and the sparkling Mediterranean Sea. You will fly with me through New York City blizzards, Indian monsoons, and Arabian sandstorms. You will travel with me on adventures to Europe, South America, the Middle East, South Asia, the Caribbean, and other parts of the world I used to dream of going to as a child; places that have affected me profoundly and where I left a little part of myself. You will come along with me as I travel the world in a quest to find adventure and love and will learn of the many lessons I have learned from that quest. You will experience what I have experienced, meet the people I have met, and learn the lessons I have learned from people I’ve encountered in my travels and from life itself: universal lessons about our common humanity, believing in our dreams, gratitude, and about finding meaning in life.
Flying around the world has allowed me to experience things that have repeatedly reminded me of the beauty and wonder of life. I have stared awestruck at the innumerable stars while flying at night over the Pacific Ocean. I have stood inside the Coliseum in Rome, imagining the savage spectacle of the gladiator battles. I have felt the passion of the crowd as I watched bullfights in Spain. I have felt the sensual rhythm of Samba dancing in Brazil. Flying has bestowed countless unforgettable experiences upon me in which I have bathed my senses, as I saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt immersed in each moment. I have seen all these things through the eyes of the seven year-old boy from Haiti that I was and in many ways, still am; the little boy who had a sense of just how incredible the world and life are, who dreamt of a life of worldwide adventure, and was blessed to have his dream come true. That is the reason for the title of this book, “The Seven Year-Old Pilot”, because even after years of flying around the world, in many ways, I still feel like that little boy, and I always try to approach my travels and my life with his sense of gratitude, amazement, and awe. The sense of excitement that little boy felt on his first flight from Port-Au-Prince is the same sense I feel every day I am privileged to push the throttles of a jet forward with forty thousand pounds of thrust under my hands and roar down the runway, lifting off into the welcoming sky. I see life through his eyes.
After the tragic earthquake in Haiti in January of 2010, I sat watching the heartbreaking images on television, and the desperate faces of the children struck me most because they all had MY face. Those little kids were just as I had been. They too were full of dreams and potential, and only needed a chance. The only difference between them and me was that I had been given the opportunity not only to dream, but also to work and watch that dream become reality in America. One of my reasons for writing this book is to give hope to children in all parts of the world wherever they may be that it truly IS possible to live their dreams, even in the face of hardship or poverty. I want them to know that no matter what their background or the struggles they may face, it is always possible to accomplish any dream that God has placed in their heart. I believe that if we have been given a goal or a dream, then we have also been given the means through hard work, dedication, and perseverance to achieve it.
I also believe truly that every one of us has life experiences and lessons worth sharing that can inspire, enlighten, teach, and benefit others because we have all lived through failure and successes, tragedies and triumphs. We all have a life story worth telling and worth hearing. In that spirit, I offer you MY life story... Of my dreams, my worldwide adventures, my quest for love, and the universal life lessons I’ve learned along the way. It is my sincere hope that in reading my story, you will be inspired to dare to believe that if this little Haitian boy’s dreams can come true, then yours can too.
Capt. Steven Archille
Chapter 1
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