Chance Encounters

For those who don’t know, I wanted to be a pilot when I was younger. Not just any pilot, I specifically wanted to fly the F-14 Tomcat, which was featured in a little know movie called TopGun. Sadly, my eyesight being abysmal led to me being told I’d never be a pilot so I scrapped any hope of joining the flyboys. I kept up with as many combat flight games as I could find - not even close to the real thing, but as close as I could get - until March 13, 2025.

Back in September of ‘24 I’d left my job of seven years managing a bookstore and moved back into the tech world helping to run an audiovisual department for an event center; that move was, itself, brought on by a completely different chance encounter of meeting my current boss at my previous job and being likable enough that he offered me the switch.

Part of my current duties include helping run corporate events, and this most recent event had a keynote speaker who went by “Gucci,” Only a handful of different groups will call themselves Gucci, and as luck would have it, one of those groups are pilots. John Gucci Foley was the keynote speaker for the event I helped run. He was a member of the elite Blue Angels squadron. Gucci also brought his wingman Mike “Smacker” Smack. Smacker was a trainer pilot for the F-14 Tomcat before being a Blue Angel.

Once my duties were completed I got the chance to speak with Gucci and Smacker for a few minutes. Smacker was thrilled that being an F-14 pilot had been my dream, saddened that my eyesight killed it (his son had dealt with pretty much the exact same thing, so he sympathized greatly) and was beyond thrilled when I pulled out my keychain featuring none other than an F-14 and a “Pull to Eject” tag. We’d already taken a photo but he insisted that we take another because he loved the keychain so much.

So here’s to you Smacker. Thanks for taking the time to chat and I’m glad I could make your day simply by pulling out my keys. For as frustrating as this event was from a technical standpoint, this absolutely made it worth it.