Today we mark the birth of Charles Lindbergh, the aviator who captured the heart of America at 25, when he completed the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic.

F. Scott Fitzgerald described Lindbergh's ascension into American mythology this way:

In the spring of '27, something bright and alien flashed across the sky. A young Minnesotan who seemed to have had nothing to do with his generation did a heroic thing, and for a moment people set down their glasses in country clubs and speakeasies and thought of their old best dreams.

Lucky Lindy flew alone, but his aeronautic achievement was accompanied by a veritable cumulus of words born in flight. 1927 was the year copilot first appeared in print, and it was also the year of the airfield. It was the year fishtail became a verb with the sense "to swing the tail of an airplane from side to side to reduce speed especially when landing," and it was the year the flight maneuver known as wingover (in which a pilot puts the plane into a climbing turn until it nearly stalls, then points the nose down and continues the falling turn until the plane has turned one hundred eighty degrees) was first spotted in print.

In my collection of movies recorded off cable TV, there is Billy Wilder's 1957 "The Spirit Of St. Louis" with James Stewart as Lindbergh, one of my favorites.

Unfortunately, Lindbergh's later years were beset by controversy and tragedy. His infant son was kidnapped and murdered (it was the basis of Christie's "Murder On The Orient Express"). And his support of Nazi Germany in pre-WW2 America further tarnished his reputation.

His wife, Anne Morrow, is best known for her "Gift From The Sea" tjoeb};>

Lindbergh is one of my all time heroes. Lindy did not deserve his future tragedy.He deserves to be remembered for his great achievement.