The West Virginian. [volume] (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1914-1974, 1922-03-28
u,lIss MIAMI" AND ADVENTURE.

XYIaAT has fiction ever produced that can equal
w the adventure OF the pilot OF the s~eaplans
Miss Miami? Writers %conjure up wild adven.
lures, and tax their fertile imaginations to the ut
most,-to have life step IN and hopelessly outdIs.
lance them with simple fact. tl
While adventure naturally stalks the heels OF the
aviator, or perhaps, the wings OF the aviator, wouE
be a better term, yet heroes OF trying experiences
are not especially handpicked for adventure as life
frequently proves, and curious experiences, trying,
exciting, and funny wait around the corner for the
most unlikely individuals under the most unlikely
circumstances. Naturally, southern seas aud
tropic suns give the right background for amazing
adventure accompanied by desperate peril, and poor
Moore had the right setting for an experience
which he would have gone to any length to avoid
it 1t had been possible; yet adventure may hide and
does hide In the most prosaic country village, and
may softly walk over the most calm twilight hush.
Hardly an individual, In fact, but has had his
own adventure OF curious experience. Hardly a
soul but has hidden away In some secret corner
OF memory q strange happening which he has
never attempted to relate, lest the uplifted brows
and the significant mods OF his listeners put him to
confusion. Short story writer's can spread them
selves upon fictitious adventure and tell impossible
tales and get away with 1t, but let some honest,
truthful, everyday soul try '~haltinsly to tell about
something unusual which he had actually witness
ed or experienced, and the open disbelief which
his friends accord him will bring him to a stam-
mering halt before he has half finished.
Many pulpit admonishers and platform speak
ers OF the day try to impress upon listeners the
frailty and the poorness of the human clay. The
poor unconscious pilot borne off his wrecked sea-
plane under the ~blistering tropic sun, gives direct
contradiction to this. The average human being
will show inspired courage and unmeasured grit
when demands exacts 1t. Courage and sand is what
mortality is made OF, II it were not true the every
day grind of ~existance would reduce the race to
insanity. The adventure of the Miss Miami"
found everyone measureing up to the limit Of their
physical strength. There is no mention made by
Moore OF any cowardice upon tho part of any
member OF his party. They hung on as long as
they could, and the last man who sank into the
waiting waves bethought himself to hand over the
money upon his person which was never to be OF
use to himself, to the aviator who might survive.
This mans last conscious thought was not Of him
self but of the man who remained upon the float
ing hulk Of the %seaplanc.
1t is everyday people who have adventures, not
ones especially selected for the happening, and it
is of everyday ordinary stuff that heroes are made.
Naturally there are those who fail when the NOM
emit arrives but It is the exception and not the
rule. There were no towards in the "lost battalion"
nor in a thousand and one like adventures OF the
war. Humanity is big and brave and ~unseltish at
the core. II this were not true life had failed, and
fickeringIy gone out, long ago.