Throttle back to idle, a full-rudder slip, and the Fleet and I fell sideways toward the ground. I saw the biplane there, thought about it for a few seconds, and decided it would be no harm to drop in. Mine’s a free life, but it does get lonely, sometimes. In four years’ flying, I had never found another pilot in the line of work I do: flying with the wind from town to town, selling rides in an old biplane, three dollars for ten minutes in the air.īut one day just north of Ferris, Illinois, I looked down from the cockpit of my Fleet and there was an old Travel Air 4000, gold and white, landed pretty as you please in the lemon-emerald hay. It was toward the middle of the summer that I met Donald Shimoda. I say that having done the very same thing myself.Įxcerpt from Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah – by Richard Bach. He dreams up a friend – someone who comes from out of the blue – and is exactly what he needs, at that moment in time. His ache for connection, communication, friendship … even though he must be “free” – he is dying for human communion.
But it is in the second chapter when we meet Richard and Donald.Īnd you know what I get from this book, reading it now as an adult? Richard’s loneliness. If you remember – the book starts with blotched-looking lined pages – a facsimile of a notebook – and handwriting, telling a fable about a Master who comes to “the holy land of Indiana”. Here’s the start of the second chapter of the book. The ending of this book is, perhaps, predictable – but I remember it packing a huge punch when I was a kid. They also experiment with things like walking thru walls, walking on water, moving clouds, etc. He begins to “train” Richard … first of all, by giving him a ratty little book called “The Messiah’s Handbook”. He is referred to as “The Reluctant Messiah”. How is that possible? But as Richard and Donald keep hanging out – it becomes apparent that this Shimoda is quite an extraordinary individual. Shimoda has a mystery about him … his plane is spotless, first of all.
And one day he meets a fellow barnstormer – whose name is Donald Shimoda. He sleeps in his bedroll beneath his wing, he lands in isolated fields and takes people up for rides. Illusions tells the tale of a man named Richard who is a barnstormer in the midwest. (Bach, when he got divorced from Leslie and caused a shitstorm among his most loyal fans, said that one of his major mistakes was NOT adding the words “Everything in this book might be wrong” at the end of Bridge Across Forever.
Also: the fact that the book ends with the words “Everything in this book might be wrong” is very enlightened. There are still snippets from “The Messiah’s Handbook” that I reference in my mind, from time to time – some great stuff there.
I was in high school – I think I was a junior. Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah – by Richard Bach.
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