Happy birthday, Amelia Earhart

When I was in Newfoundland, I took the time to visit Harbour Grace, the place where Amelia Earhart took off on her first solo trans-Atlantic flight on May 20, 1932.

The field there looked too tiny to be an airstrip, more of a place for launching kites than planes.

Her intended goal was Paris, but weather forced her to cut the trip short. Luckily, Ireland intervened. The story goes that she landed in a pasture near a small village in Northern Ireland, and didn't even know that she wasn't someplace in France.

So, why am I thinking about her today? It's her birthday, a day observed by some as 'Amelia Earhart Day'. She liked the colour yellow, so when I visited her statue in Harbour Grace, I stuffed a bouquet of fresh dandelions into her hand, an early birthday present.

Earlier this month, July 3rd, was the anniversary of her disappearance, a mystery that lingers, with occasional reports of evidence (often less-than-reliable) of what her fate might have been.

But I'm not the only one who still thinks about her. A woman named Amelia Rose Earhart recently completed the round-the-world flight path Amelia intended to make. Yet I doubt that even this will be the end of the news about this object-of-my-fascination, Amelia.

And oh yes, those feet of mine are standing on a rock in the field at Harbour Grace. I couldn't help but think that on that May morning in 1932, Amelia may well have thought to 'ground herself' for a moment before climbing into her plane, and that she may have paused for a few seconds, standing on this very same stone.