Becky Condon
Novelist, Fiction Writer, Storyteller
Novels
She Flies
What is it like to be a woman in a man's world? Discrimination? Sure. Harassment? Certainly. Abuse? Sometimes. Me too? Who hasn't? Adventures? You bet. Exciting job? Absolutely. Meet and befriend people from every walk of life, all with fascinating stories to tell? Yes, indeed. Take the good with the bad? It's the only way to fly.
Excerpt for She Flies
The instructor was very nice, but insisted on the preparation for the flight being complete and thorough, and he quizzed me carefully before we touched the plane. At the plane, he carefully scrutinized my checks and procedures and seemed pleased with my preparation as well as my enthusiasm.
He showed me the first takeoff, talking throughout, pointing out nuances, and highlighting the rhythm and order of the procedures. Then he turned the airplane right around, landed, and had me try a takeoff. Awesome. Exhilarating. He coached me throughout the takeoff and instructed me during the climb-out. He explained we'd climb to altitude to practice some basic air work and cautioned me firmly that I was never allowed to do what he was about to do with only a private license. I had to have my instrument rating as well.
He said, "I'll take the airplane now," whereupon I let go of the controls.
He frowned and said, "You need to say 'You have the airplane,' after you are sure I have it," and frowned at me until I put my hands back on the controls with him. He said, "I've got the airplane."
I said, "You’ve got the airplane,” and let go of the yoke. He smiled at me in a “That’s right, Grasshopper,” manner, and I tried to control my breath and heartbeat over how excited I was. I wasn’t too sure what he meant by all the business about instrument ratings, but observed he was climbing and the heavy overcast ceiling was drawing closer. Oh! He was going to fly through the overcast! What was that going to be like? How thick was it? Go above it? Was there an above to it? It was always so gray and cloudy at home that I sort of considered that the clouds went all the way up to space. I held on.
Suddenly we were in the cloud. I’d never seen this before. I was shocked and thrilled and amazed. Within a few seconds he popped the airplane out of the top of the layer and there we were in a gorgeous, cloudless (but for the cloud layer now at our feet) blue sky day.
“Oh!” I whispered reverently, amazed at the blue of the sky and the clouds below us as far as the eye could see, looking like a beautiful snowy field.
He chuckled and smiled at me and said, “Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes,” I replied, completely awestruck.
“Now you know the secret. In aviation, every day is a blue day.”
Whoa. This was so earth shattering and moving to me I was almost lost in it. I had to work to focus as he demonstrated turns, climbs, and descents, and was asking me to mimic the maneuvers.
What a blast. I was so excited it was hard to concentrate, but he seemed pleased with my early grasp of the fundamentals he taught. What a great day.
Back Cover Blurb for She Flies
A young girl decides to try for a place among the clouds. She wanted to fly. There were many hurdles to jump, hills to climb, obstacles to work around, and pitfalls or traps to either avoid or climb out of. It wasn’t the easiest course to choose for a life’s work, but it was worth it to be among the clouds.
At times it felt like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, but Don Quixote reminds us of the importance of honor and the fight for right, even in the face of nay-sayers and those that don’t believe. This is the story of a girl that would fly, working around the obstacles, striving for excellence, and ignoring all that didn’t believe.
City Slicker’s Guide to Country Living
Once upon a time, there was a young family who had a dream of owning land and operating a farm. Then they got neighbors. They got Neighbors-From-Hell. Does the young family survive? Can they win against the local establishment and seemingly insurmountable odds?
Excerpt for City Slicker’s Guide To Country Living
One day in the spring, we were enjoying coffee in the early morning. We heard noises in our driveway and then on our porch. I was on high alert – there was someone on our porch!
The porch wrapped around the house on three sides. Our visitor was on the side and seemed not inclined to come to the front door and knock. Don took charge of the security of our place and ordered our daughter and me back while he checked it out.
“It’s our neighbor, Dick Sherman,” he announced. “And he brought his camper,” he added bemused. I got up to go take a look and greet this strange visit, but Don said, “No. Let’s sit down.”
I was ready to crawl out of my skin. What was going on? Why would a person come up onto the porch of another person and not knock or say anything? What was he doing? Finally, from the noises and surreptitious peeks, we discerned that he was trying to fill up his camper trailer with water from the outside spigot on our porch. I was livid! If he’d come up and asked, I would have certainly granted permission to take our water, even though I had not connected with this neighbor in any friendly way so far, but to come up and just take made my blood boil and made me want to throw him off our property!
Don calmed me down and said he just wanted to see what he was going to do.
“He’s stealing our water!” I exclaimed.
Don calmly replied, “The water is still off on the outside spigots. I haven’t turned them on since they were off for the winter.”
He can’t steal our water, and again, not that I would begrudge anyone some water, but the whole idea of stealing up on our porch in the early morning (it wasn’t 8am yet!) and taking without asking was almost more than I could take. Don stayed calm and was enjoying watching this play out. I was having an infarction, but I followed Don’s lead as best I could and stayed quiet.
Finally, after some time and much fiddling with our spigot and the hose on our porch, Dick knocked on the front door. Don sauntered over to the door and opened it to him.
Don said, “Oh! Good morning, Dick!”
Dick sort of stammered that there was something wrong with our water on the side of the house.
Don said, “No. I’m sure it works perfectly.”
Finally, Dick stuttered that he needed water for his camper and came over to borrow some. He said he’d tried everything and couldn’t get any water.
Don calmly said, “Well, that’s because I turn it off to the outside spigots during the winter and I have not turned it on yet this early in the spring.”
Dick sort of stood there looking pitiful. I’m sure there was visible steam coming out of my ears, so I kept my head down and my mouth closed.
Don went, “Just a second,” and proceeded to crawl to the farthest reaches of our crawl space to turn on the outside water. It was sort of a pain to do this chore – a small design flaw. I couldn’t believe Don was going to the effort for a thief! That’s how I saw it. That’s how I still see it.
This early story in the relationship we had with these neighbors, even though it got a whole lot wilder and a whole lot worse, still to this day makes my blood boil. I tend to think it might have been an early “give” on our part that emboldened them to further atrocities as to our property. Don saw it as being friendly and neighborly. I saw it as condoning theft.
Don came back from the crawl space, dusting off after his belly crawl the length of our house, and then back onto the porch to help with the hose. He stood there filling their camper with our water and chatted amiably with Dick about how they enjoy coming to the property on a weekend and hanging out on their dream property. We learned that someday they would build their dream house on the property and live there permanently. I had to work very hard to curb an audible groan and a visible eye roll. I planted a smile on my clenched teeth and did not comment or participate in the conversation.
As Dick was getting ready to leave, I noticed his black water valve open and the lid hanging by a chain. Black water, in camper parlance, is the stuff that comes from the toilet, mixed with whatever fluid is used to disinfect and fight the smell. Gray water is the stuff that comes out after use in the sinks. I pointed out this valve hanging by its little chain. If you lose the lid to this, you are dead in the water as to toilet facilities in your camper. Driving like that seemed like a mistake, so I sounded the alarm to the situation. Dick, as was his habit, ignored me. I made Don hear me.
Don said, “Yeah. I saw it.” Then he called, “Hey, Dick. You’re black water
valve is open.”
Dick answered, “Oh, I know. It comes off now and then.”
What? Where does your poop go? Gross! I was pretty sure he didn’t know what he was doing and that their campsite must be totally disgusting.
As I mused this, he got in his truck and drove back down our driveway. Don immediately set to work with the hose, cleaning off the driveway.
“Whatcha doing?” I asked.
“Cleaning the driveway,” Don answered.
“What for . . . ??? Ew! Is that their poop? Is that their toilet paper? Oh my God!” and I stormed on as such while Don studiously got rid of the black water dumpage that Dick left on our driveway. As we observed him return to his property and pull into his long driveway, the first thing he did was stop, get out, go to the back of his trailer, and it appeared that he was returning the cap to his black water tank.
Dick not only came to our property to steal water! He came over to dump his lavatory tank!
Worst neighbor ever, and I didn’t even know the half of it yet.
Back Cover Blurb For City Slicker’s Guide To Country Living
Once upon a time there was a young family who had a dream. It was a nice dream, a pastoral dream . . . quite literally. They wanted to own land and operate a farm, and this dream became a vision of their future.
They saved diligently for the acquisition of their dream property. They hoped to build their house there of their own design, and live there for ever and ever and ever.
Things went pretty well for the first part of their dream. They became land owners, house builders, cattle ranchers, and worked to assimilate and connect to this new lifestyle in a new neighborhood. Their young daughter was growing up in a peaceful, pastoral, and healthy setting, with plenty of work to go around teaching her about the animals, work ethic, and life. They were all so happy.
Then they got neighbors. Neighbors-from-hell. These bad neighbors were pushy, arrogant, and mean. The neighbors also had close ties to anyone in charge of almost anything in our little family’s new area. These neighbors had in mind to build their house on their property next door to our heroes’ property, which was not the argument our heroes had against these neighbors at all.
The neighbors’ property had some unfortunate attributes that was not at all the fault of our family, but it became clear that the neighbors’ property wasn’t very conducive to building a home. The neighbors had water runoff and space problems, since most of the acreage they owned was under two large water runoff retention ponds.
These neighbors pointedly insisted on utilizing portions of property they didn’t own to construct their project. They wanted and tried to steal the property and property rights of our little family of heroes.
There were other solutions to the construction dilemmas these neighbors faced, but would have been costly. They wanted to use our little family’s land for free and insisted, “Y’all ain’t usin’ it.”
When the family stood firm on their property rights, these awful neighbors tried it anyway. When the young couple complained, the neighbors lied. When the family sought the help of the authorities, they found out the difficulties of “fighting city hall” when the local power came to the aid and assistance of their county crony, even in the face of proven and documented lies on the part of the bad neighbors and their county cronies.
The common refrain used as their excuse for lies and deceit was, “Y’all aren’t from around here, are you?” This bigotry and clannish attitude was brought to full force against our little family, whose only desire was to be left alone on their own land. When the neighbors couldn’t steal the part of the land they were after, they tried to take everything.
Our young family stood their ground against almost insurmountable odds, where it seemed like all the judiciary and all the authorities were against them. They stood and fought, told the truth, and refused to let lies and liars win the day.
This is a story of truth, justice, and what goes around comes around. Sometimes you have to stand and fight. Everyone says that you can’t fight city hall.
That it is or can be a fruitless and pointless fight might be true, but standing your ground and fighting honestly with truth, honor, and right on your side can be the only answer aside from giving up.
Our little family refused to give up. They stayed truthful, calm, fair, and right. The lies and deceit caught up with the neighbors. It’s a story of what goes around comes around.
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About The Author
Becky Condon is a veteran Naval Aviatrix and a retired commercial airline pilot. She lives on the small farm that she and her husband operate. Becky always wanted to be a writer but got busy with life and her career. After forty-three years in the skies, she now has her feet firmly on the ground, pursuing her next dream of writing.
Her Interests
Becky has always been interested in writing and has dabbled in it for decades, during and around an aviation career. She is fully retired now, and writing is her main interest. She has two novels out there, a third working its way to paper. She is a passionate storyteller and loves all opportunities to hear stories from others.
A COUNTRY GIRL WRITER
She and her husband live on a small farm and have a motorhome to tour the countryside. They enjoy trail hiking, seeing historical and natural sights, and visiting family and friends, bringing their accommodations with them, not to mention their very spoiled cat, Buttercup.
Also Loves
Becky’s other interests are all the book clubs she can conceivably belong to, watching old movies, sewing quilts, crocheting the odd afghan or scarf, and having her cat in her lap as much as possible.
