Count me in with the misfits, all those glorious misfits, those square pegs in round holes, who had escaped from the dullness and sameness of urban life and gone to New Guinea because they could not - or would not - fit into their preordained niche of their own society back home.
A friend from my New Guinea-days sent me the links to these TALAIR videos which are memorable, if for nothing else than their amazing photos of an era long gone. As he emailed, "I watched the history of Talair on YouTube recently. Says it all really about PNG, and I can recall quite clearly the many times I flew with them. What an adventure it was at the time. Ah, the young and the restless. The music 'Conquest of Paradise' [in the fourth clip] fits perfectly; very stirring."
Thank you, Peter Logan! And thank you for reminding me that today is Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday. As you wrote, "For those of us who have had the opportunity to visit Vailima in Apia, how fortunate are we?" We even climbed the "Road of the Loving Hearts" to his grave on Mount Vaea overlooking Vailima. How fortunate to have such memories!
"Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live, and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: 'Here he lies where he longed to be. Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.'"
