When you pause to think about it, the years fly by so swiftly.  Sometimes it feels as though you are living in a dream, but then you realize that what you are experiencing is all too real.  And life is so short.  Our nation is only 245 years old, and I have been around more than a third of that time.  My grandfather Jordan fought in the Civil War.  When my father was born there were no automobiles or radios or airplanes, and he lived to see the first man in space.  What marvels I have seen in my own lifetime, and what comes next?

For the past day or so I have been sorting through so old family papers and came across an interesting letter from my nephew Bob Jordan, known formally as Robert Saunders Jordan, III.  Bob wrote this letter in December 2003 immediately after returning from a trip to Kitty Hawk, NC, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers first flight.  He and his family were honored guests at the memorial ceremony because of their relationship to John Daniels, the man who took the first photograph of man in flight.

John Daniels was a United States Coast Guardsman and became a friend of Orville and Wilbur Wright as they conducted their flight experiments on the Outer Banks not far from Daniels’ home on Roanoke Island.  John was asked to take the photograph of the first flight, and he succeeded magnificently.  Around thirty years later, John Daniels’ youngest daughter Beatrice (Bebe) Daniels was serving as a school teacher in High Point, North Carolina.  There she met and married my brother Robert S. Jordan, II.  Thus, the connection.

Sculpted Image of John Daniels at Kitty Hawk

Flanked by grandson Bob Jordan and Great Grandson John Jordan

December 17, 2003

Only yesterday.