The Beatles ... my how time has flown.
Thanks very much for your kind words Steve.
Here's my theory of the US Hawks ... and people in general.
People have many many dimensions in their personalities. Each dimension has its own distribution with most folks clustered around the middle and fewer people distributed at both ends.
If there were just one dimension, it wouldn't be too hard to find people aligned with you almost anywhere along that line. But with dozens (or hundreds?!) of dimensions, it gets harder and harder to find people who agree with you on all of them ... especially if you move out toward the fringe.
We're all hang glider pilots, and that certainly puts us out on the far end of one of those dimensions. Many among us (including Scott) are highly intelligent and highly individualistic. That's out there on another fringe of that distribution. Many of us are also not happy with the mainstream direction that USHPA has gone. That puts us out in another fringe group. Now if you throw in things like politics (left and right), religion (many to choose from), and a million other little differences (paper or plastic, Beatles or Bob Dylan, Ginger or Mary Ann) then it's really very very unlikely that we'll be able to find enough of us to actually accomplish the goal of building a new hang gliding association. That's why I generally try not to bring up too much about religion or politics or anything else because it's just not helpful to us coming together to accomplish the monumental task before us.
If the US Hawks is going to survive, we're going to have to realize that we're all very different and maybe don't agree with each other on a lot of things. If we're going to work together, we're going to have to ignore all those glaring differences and focus on our common goals. That's our only hope. Unfortunately, there are many out there who want to torpedo our efforts, and that makes it all that much more difficult.
Steve, I've been reading your posts on other forums, and I really appreciate that you understand what we're trying to accomplish. Whether we ever get there or not, it's great to have met and worked with so many great people along the way. Scott is certainly included in that list, and I hope he'll consider rejoining us when it feels right for him. I hope your words have helped him in that direction.
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