It was two years ago, here in Valle de Bravo, that I lost my friend Rafal Luckos. But, back in the same narrow cobble stone streets, between the same traditional white-and-red houses, in the town garden in front of the same cathedral with the crazy pyromaniac priest shooting rockets from its roof at dawn, at a table at one of the cheap local restaurants at the market where we would have late lunch after a task, in the vans taking us on the red dirt road to launch, in the pine forest behind launch where we’d prepare our wings before takeoff, and, of course, back in the epic Valle skies – I remember my friend. And, with every letter and every word I write about him, I am reminding the world too that he existed, that he was here among us, laughing his big booming Polish heart out, shining his handsome teeth to any friend or passerby who would look his way, and, shouting the classic Rafal “ATTACK!”, charge the skies with the fastest and the best of us. Continue reading