Wager with the Wind: The Don Sheldon Story Book

Before he started flying lessons, my dad bagged Don Sheldon's groceries when he came into Anchorage. He always tipped despite Safeway's policy against it. That is my tenuous third-person connection to the romance and daring of Alaska's wilder frontier days.

This book was obviously written by a big fanboy. There is not the tiniest breath of criticism. I'm not an airplane person, but there are stories in here like, damn, even *I* can tell this was a completely unnecessary risk to take. Enough so, it made me wonder if having lost his parents as a child and flown a bunch of combat missions in WW2'maybe Don gave less weight to the importance of staying alive. Author says more than once that Don Sheldon prided himself on never having lost a passenger (loads of wrecks though!) and also, that seems like a low standard?? Then again, flying was pretty nuts back then.

Fun read for all the Alaska history. Amazing how much flying he did on Denali with climbers, and how much death he saw because of it. Lots of folks "assaulting" and "attacking" the mountain from new angles, in new seasons, and then falling into crevasses or freezing to death in a storm etc., etc. What a weird nihilistic hobby.