Latest / Legacy Stories / Time to Fly: Terri Knott Honors Her Great-Great-Grandfather Major James Pennington

Transcript

Time to Fly: Terri Knott Honors Her Great-Great-Grandfather Major James Pennington · Legacy Stories

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  Coming up on legacy stories. Coming back late in the day, sun
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  setting in the West off my right wing and nobody else in the
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  pattern and thinking, man, I'm good.
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  You know, if it ends tomorrow for me, what a trip I've had.
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  And I suspect Major Jim was probably right there with me.
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  Welcome to Legacy Stories. I'm Steve Young.
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  Each week I sit down with a guest who shares the story of
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  someone special in their family and the legacy they carry
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  forward. My guest today is Terry Knott.
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  Terry spent her career in journalism and marketing and
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  now, in retirement, has turned her attention to writing and
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  exploring the stories that have shaped her family.
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  She and I were connected to our mutual friend Mike Nolan, and
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  I'm really glad that we were because does she have a story to
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  tell? Well, Terry, welcome to Legacy
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  Stories. Thank you, Steve, and I'm really
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  glad to be here. This is a great idea that you
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  have put together. Oh, thank you.
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  I tell you what, this is going to be a treat because I've
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  gotten to read ahead so I know what we're going to be talking
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  about. But before we get to who you
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  want to honor today, tell our listeners a little bit more
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  about you. I grew up in Huntsville, AL,
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  originally went to Auburn, was a journalism major, started my
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  career in the news business in Huntsville.
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  And at that point, as a young person, working in hardcore news
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  in a newsroom was beginning to take its toll.
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  And a couple of friends said, hey, we're in Nashville.
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  It's a great town. I know this guy who owns an ad
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  agency. Why don't you give me your
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  resume? So I said, yeah, sure.
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  And in a matter of weeks, came to Nashville, started out in the
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  agency business, spent a number of years there, Then, as many
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  people do, transitioned to corporate and spent the rest of
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  my career in marketing. And then last year retired.
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  And so now it's fun to get to explore old stories and things
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  about my family and invest some time in other things that are
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  not part of that eight to five grind.
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  Boy, you know, that is so true. And you know, I think when those
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  of us of a certain age have the privilege of being able to take
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  time to reflect on things like stories and our family legacies
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  and upon whose shoulders we stand, if you will.
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  And, and so this has been a lot of fun for me and it's really
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  nice to meet you. Well, it's so nice to meet you
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  too, and to be connected through a dear friend.
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  And to your point, another thing that this dovetails into for me
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  is in part of my retirement. I joined a writers group and it
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  has just opened the doors of my heart.
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  And that is wonderful. If you have any of your writings
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  available, I'd love to put them in the show notes so listeners
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  can read what you've written. Oh, thank you.
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  That is part of my goal and I'm working on that.
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  Stay tuned. Great, great.
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  OK, Well tell us who you'd like to honor today.
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  This is such a privilege, Steve. This is such a privilege.
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  I would like to honor my great, great grandfather, Major James
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  Jackson Pennington, who was my grandfather's maternal
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  grandfather. This is going to be so much fun
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  because of course everyone's going to do the math and say,
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  oh, Terry didn't know him, right?
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  So they're going to ask this question, so why honor him?
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  Oh my gosh, because Major Jim had the first patent for the
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  state of Tennessee for a flying machine.
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  No way. Long before the Wright brothers
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  and. Wow.
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  This was family folklore for years and years.
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  And we thought it was just, oh, somebody's just made this up.
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  Sure. And so for years, decades, I'd
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  heard about Major Jim and, oh, he invented the airplane before
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  the Wright Brothers. And it wasn't until I just by a
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  fluke decided to learn to fly and getting just absolutely
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  hooked by the aviation bug, I started thinking about now what
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  were the stories about that man and our family.
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  And I kid you not, I looked it up, went back to family members
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  and continued to research and found that he had that patent.
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  I wrote to the US Patent Office and I have his patent and it had
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  to do with moving air through a balloon with a fan.
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  And it was the first flying related patent that was movement
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  of air through something in order to create lift.
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  And I was just absolutely blown away and.
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  So am I. I have to ask you, what time of
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  history, what year did he file this patent?
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  It was 1877, which of course is before the Wright brothers, and
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  it just kept getting better. Then I learned that a little
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  airfield in Lawrence County, Tennessee, where both of my
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  parents were from, was originally named after Major Jim
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  Pennington Field. I'll be.
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  And so I had my instructor fly with me down to Lawrence County
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  Airport, and Oh my gosh, the people who ran the field were so
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  happy to hear that I was a descendant.
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  And they were just, oh, we have a plaque, we have a historical
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  marker. They had moved it to one of the
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  hangers. And so I went to the hanger and
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  had my picture taken in front of this historical plaque.
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  And, and I have flown back down there.
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  And once again, there were some old timers on the field working
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  on their airplanes and a hanger and I walked up, told them my
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  story. They just lit up like a
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  celebrity had walked in the room.
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  They were so and they told me even more.
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  They said, oh, he had, you know, a miniature model that's that
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  was kept under lock and key in this airport for years.
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  And then the airport burned. And so it ventures off into some
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  parts are folklore. And then there's a lot that's
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  true and that. You've uncovered, yes.
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  Yeah. And I learned it through
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  research that because he was a dreamer and he had a very big
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  personality. And so he was the postmaster and
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  he was the mayor, and he was an inventor and he moved through
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  life with a lot of largess and so people.
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  Larger than life guy. Larger than life guy and
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  consequently he got brushed off. So what floored me was the way
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  he talked about what he believed in.
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  He said. I know that if I can just get
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  the funding for this, I know that this dream of flight would
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  change the world and how. My goodness.
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  In transportation, it would change the way wars are fought.
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  We would end all wars. And you know, sadly it didn't
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  end wars. But he, he, you know, he had
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  this contraption that is physics.
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  It's about flight. But he had the larger vision.
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  He knew the implications. Yeah, he attached it to higher
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  purpose. He attached it to higher.
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  And, and it's a beautiful thing to think about that this guy in
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  1877 was already thinking in those kinds of of ways.
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  Did he do anything with the patent?
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  Did he ever build the prototype? Did he show it off or just
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  curious? He took it to.
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  I'm going to read this part if that's OK.
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  Of course. The model, according to news
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  accounts of the day, said Pennington took the aerial word
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  to the Colombian Exposition in Louisville, KY, in 1883.
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  He sought financial backing for his dream from Nashville
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  entrepreneur EF Falconet to no avail, and also corresponded
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  with contacts in France. Letters convey.
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  This is what I love so much. I have power to go and to guide
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  right and left and up and down, and that's all that a Buzzard
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  has. Or any other foul.
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  I can cross the briny deeps and plane the North Pole and conquer
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  the world and we'll stop all wars.
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  I have the bird but not the money.
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  Wow, what a dreamer that made that hairs on my heart.
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  Yeah, it gives me chills. I have to come back to something
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  that you almost brushed over. You were going through his
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  story, but I want to bring us back to the fact that you sought
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  a pilot's license and flew. And I want to know if you think
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  that had anything at all to do with the family lore about Major
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  Jim. Absolutely, absolutely.
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  It just look, I'm a journalism major.
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  I There's no reason for me to learn to fly an airplane.
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  And I had read a great book about flying called Flight of
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  Passage. It's about a guy and his younger
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  brother pulling an old Piper Cub out of a barn and flying it
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  across America. It had been recommended by
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  someone at work. I sat out under my Magnolia
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  tree, turned the last page of that book, drove to the airport
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  out here near my house, and I went and I said, look, I just
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  want to take one lesson. That's it.
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  I'll pay you for that. Famous last words.
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  And, you know, I went up and I was just hooked.
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  It is absolutely one of the best things I have ever done in my
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  life. There's some kind of spiritual
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  connection and I just was pulled by something that is greater and
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  bigger than me. It was just just like ballet in
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  the air. You were.
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  You were tapping in to spiritual things, not pragmatic things.
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  Yes, but here's what's so interesting to me, Terry.
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  Yeah. That was your great, great
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  grandfather. I really, Steve, I really
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  believe it is. He tapped into spiritual things
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  from just the way you read that note a moment ago.
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  So yeah, I. I really believe it.
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  There's nobody else in my family who flies that I can think of.
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  And it's funny as we're talking about this, this is going to
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  sound so insane, but this is all come together as part of this
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  conversation. So what I did is when I would go
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  on vacations, I would call flight instructor to say I want
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  to get to fly in different geographic places.
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  Like my favorite place is Zion National Park in Utah.
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  So I hired an instructor and we'd fly 10 feet over the top of
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  a Mesa and watch the bottom fall out below me.
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  And then that instructor say, OK, we're going to spiral down
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  and I'll take you to go see some dinosaur trap fossils that are
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  nestled in that valley. I call that living large is what
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  I call that. What a neat idea to do it in all
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  these interesting places. And I tell you what, you sure
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  sound to me like you're the embodiment of your great, great
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  grandfather. Well, yeah, I didn't realize
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  that until I went back through all this.
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  And I think maybe maybe an an atypical kind of pilot, maybe
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  he's gotten a real kick out of this.
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  Yeah, I, I gotta believe he has. I Yeah.
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  When you think about what values, you've already embodied
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  it well, I think. But what values you think you
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  carry forward from your understanding of him?
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  What would you say those are? It's got to be whether it's a
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  big dream or a small dream, dream your dreams and don't give
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  it up and don't let people tell you you're crazy.
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  What going back and looking at all this has done for me is
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  everybody's got a different path.
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  I've lived kind of a non traditional path and he
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  certainly did. And so, you know, just it's
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  like, I think the message is, you know, you do you, you do
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  you. You don't know what kind of
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  blessings may come from it if you just do you, you know.
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  That's a beautiful sentiment. I I like to close my visits by
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  asking a question and if you had a day that you got gifted to
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  spend with Major Jim, what do you think you would do that day?
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  There's no question if I had that, I would take him up, you
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  know? Time to fly, Jim.
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  Time to fly, Jim, although I think he's already been there
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  with me. There's a favorite memory I have
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  of flying, and I can close with this as a flying sentiment.
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  Coming back late in the day, sun setting in the West off my right
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  wing and nobody else in the pattern.
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  Just absolutely quiet out there, which was kind of rare.
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  And looking over at that sunset and thinking, man, I'm good.
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  You know, if it ends tomorrow for me, what a trip I've had,
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  and I suspect Major Jim was probably right there with me in
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  that magical moment. I suspect that he was Terry,
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  this has been a delight. Thank you for joining us on
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  Legacy Stories. Absolutely.
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  Thank you, Steve. Thank you for having me and
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  allowing me to honor Major Jim Pennington in this way.
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  Take care. All right.
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  Thank you for listening to see photographs along with a copy of
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  Major Jim's patent. Visit us at Legacy Stories dot
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  US, and thank you for spending time with us today.
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  If Legacy Stories resonates with you, I'd be grateful if you'd
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  share this episode with those who might enjoy it.
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  We'll be back next week with another story from another
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  remarkable life. Take care.