Highway to the Sky: An Aviator’s Journey

Our special Off The Shelf guest this morning is the amazing and courageous Lola Reid Allin. Lola is an author, pilot, photographer, and adventurer. She is engaging and loads of insight and fun! During her explorations, Lola has visited more than 60 countries. Talk about being a passionate traveler. Places she has visited include Istanbul, Nepal, Morrocco, Chile, Peru and the Himalayas. She is a speaker with the Northern Lights Aero Foundation, Eastern Ontario 99s Education & Outreach Committee, & Women’s Travel Network. Books she has written include “Highway to the Sky: An Aviator’s Journey”. Listen to what she shares; get ready to be powered up and inspired!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the winning literary show Off the Chef's Books,
Talk Radio, Life, Your Post. Denise Turney, author of the
books Long Walk Up, Horsia, Love for Over Me, Spiral
Love Has Many Faces, and rosette Us Great Hope. Turn
up your dial and get ready for a blast of
feature author interviews, four one one on book festivals, writing conferences,

(00:22):
and so much more. Ready, let's go.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Off the show now, nothing is particularly hard if you
break it down into small jobs. And to our off
the shelf listeners, that quote is the source is anonymous,
but I just want to repeat that again. I'd like
to start our shows with a thought, something that helps
you to you can think about through the day, through

(00:52):
the week, maybe there's something you want to do. I
know January the first is, oh, we all ready to
march right before you know what.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
This year is gonna be over. I mean it's gonna
so you.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Have to daily just stay focused on what it is
you say you want it to do, so at the
end of the year you will actually have done it.
And sometimes if you have a big dream, it just
looks like too much. So nothing is particularly hard if
you break it down into small jobs or small steps

(01:25):
and to our lawyer listeners been with us for eighteen years.
We started out on Real Live Radio out of the
station was headquartered out of New York City of Rainbow
Soul with that smooth jazz.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Then we went over to blog talk radio and.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Now we are a record on Potbeam and then the
show actually goes out on Spreaker iHeart, which is a
huge company of iHeartRadio platform.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
So I want to welcome you eighteen years.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I always say thank you, thank you, thank you to
those who have been with us the entire way, and
if this is your first time listening to office show,
I just want to welcome you and I'm so delighted
to have you here with us for our March the eighth,
twenty twenty five show.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
We have an awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Author on deck for you and excited to introduce you
to the author. But before I do, and I had
the honor of being featured in I hope I'm saying
it right, Sonya magazine is an amazing magazine and was
in the March feature of that magazine and the book

(02:37):
that's also in there with the interview on yours truly
is He'll gorgeous wisdom within you know the Way. It's
hard to believe on some days, some periods, some seasons alike.
The guidance you need is actually a part of you,
is within you, and we have to get still to

(03:00):
tap into it.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
If that's something you are interested in or you feel.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Like, oh my god, I'm at a place in my
life where I absolutely need that. And this is a
book with short writings, the poems, things that really get
you to thinking without raising those those mine defenses, so
you can receive it much more easily.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
I'll encourage you to get a copy.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
It's an ebook and in paperback of He'll Gorgeous Wisdom
Within Your Knows the Way and and uh again you
can go to you want to read free excerpts, you
can just go to my website at chistel C ch
I S T E l l dot com and you
can get free free excerpts of it again, He'll Gorgeous

(03:47):
Wisdom Within Those of the Way by Denise Tourney. And
now this is what you all came. Okay, But let
us go and meet our very special office of guests.
And this morning's guests is Lola read Allan. And she
just told me she's way up there near I forget

(04:08):
the exact place, but she'll tell us when we kick
off the show at Canada. And Lola is an author.
She is amazing. I learned so much from all these
interviews and researching for them. When I researched for her show,
I was like, Wow, she is an author, pilot, she's
a photographer and an adventurer. And during her explorations, Lola

(04:30):
has visited more than sixty countries. Wow, that's impressive. Talk
about being a passionate traveler. She gets out. Places she
has visited include Istanbul, Nepal, Morocco, Chile, Peru, and the Himalayas.
She is a speaker with the Northern Lights, a Roll Foundation,

(04:53):
Eastern Ontario ninety nine Education and Outreach Committee, and the
Women's Travel Network. Books she has written include Highway to
the Sky. I love that title, Highway to the Sky
and ab Eight's Journey. I encourage you to check Lola
out online at Lola read Alan Shibershrimple dot com. And

(05:16):
that's spelled l O l a r e I d
a l l i n dot com. And again l
O l a r e I d A l l
i n dot com. Here's a great thing about the show.
You can actually go over to her website right now

(05:41):
as you listen to her on today's show. We're absolutely
honored to have Lola read Allan join us on Off
the Show Books Talk this morning.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Welcome, Welcome to Off the Shehelf.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
Lola, Well, thank you so much, Denise. I'm absolutely thrilled
to be here from cold but very so me Toronto, Canada.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Oh my goodness. When I was researching for your show,
Oh my gor show, I said, oh wow, just inspiring.
Some people the way they live their lives. They just
the way they live is the inspiration. I was just
very inspired. The first few questions I'm going to ask you,
I asked every guest who has come on, and we've

(06:23):
interviewed New York Times best selling authors. We've been so
blessed we've been We've interviewed people who are movie producers, actresses,
business owners, who've written books, and so you're joining a
very elite line of guests here on Off the Shelf.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Thank you, thank you to kick off today's show.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Can you tell us our Off the Shelf listeners where
you grew up and what life was like for you
growing up.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
I grew up in Belleville, Ontario, which is on the
north shore of shore of Lake Ontario, just sort of
the north of Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester in upstate New York.
So I grew up on the north side of Lake
Ontario in a small town thirty thousand people, even small
even for Canada, and it we were just east of

(07:13):
Canadian Forces based Trenton, and that was really inspiring because
at that time, in nineteen fifty nine, the Canadian Armed Forces,
the Royal Canadian Armed Forces, formed the first aeronautical group,
the Golden Hawks, and they flew with F eighty six sabers,

(07:34):
and so Belleville, my hometown, was just about ten ten
miles east of Trenton, so I'd see these planes flying
overhead and that was so inspirational, so exciting. And they
would actually also perform at the Bealville Fair, which was
pretty fun. It was basically just doing takeoffs and landings
in a few passes. It was just good practice for

(07:56):
them too, I think. But in nineteen sixty two, I
was all so inspired to become a pilot. My parents
took my sister and me out west for a family
reunion and we were terribly rich, but this was a
big event, or this was a big event even if
we'd been rich. I think in nineteen sixty two people

(08:19):
just didn't hop on airplanes the way they do today.
But you know, my folks saved up and it was
probably cheaper than driving out west to the annual family reunion. Anyway,
it was an epic flight. It was so much fun.
I loved it. It was late August, early September, lots
of thunderstorms. For me, it was like a ride at

(08:40):
the fair. My mom chain smoked the whole way, I think,
because of course you could smoke, and my dad too,
even took a cigarette and he had actually quit smoking,
so I think it must have been pretty rough. But
I loved it, and I expressed my desire to fly
as a pilot when I grew up, and my dad said, dope,

(09:00):
silly girls don't fly airplanes, and he was in part
he was right. There really weren't many female pilots, even
though the first licensed female pilot was Ramond Da la
Roche March eighth, nineteen ten in France, only seven years
before the Ripe Brothers at Kittiehawk. Women just didn't quite

(09:23):
keep up with the number of men who were flying
so there really weren't that many women that he had seen.
Probably a few in World War Two, of course, America
had the wasps, the women Air Service Air Force Service pilots,
but after the war they were because they were considered volunteers,

(09:43):
they were sent back home and so the pilots and
the factory workers got back their old jobs. So I
really was pretty discouraged by that. But that was the
atmosphere that we kind of all grew up in. We
might have had a but for girls, we didn't really
expect to go flying through the skies or design rockets.

(10:07):
I mean, yes, sure there were a few absolutely notable women,
but they whatever reason, made them much more motivated than
I was. I'm not sure, but I didn't start flying
until age twenty four, the same year, the same age
as Amelia earhert.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Oh, she's a hairm a lot of my yes, oh
my goodness. And so that putting that in perspective a perspective,
and I appreciate you doing that. I have recently watched
this show and they were saying that if you were
born I guess and maybe the eighties or later, you

(10:45):
probably don't really appreciate or understand how years ago. Women
were expected to shows in the United States and in
Canada if you could chair some of those titles. But
here it was like leave it to Beaver, and I
wasn't born in my parents where leave it to Beaver
and father and those bests.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
You had to look perfect as a woman.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
I mean you had to have the perfect body, your face,
your hair.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
I mean you had to look perfect all the time.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
And you could take college courses on I think my
grandmother told me this, like how to prepare a meal.
I just that to me is so absurd, but that
that was the most you would hope for is to
hopefully get married and be a wife and a mother,
and that's it.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
Well that's right. In fact, I don't know about in America,
but I imagine this is the same. Women were said
to go to university or college to get their mrs
degree as in their missus status, And certainly there were
some women who went to university's university or post secondary
education for other reasons. But quite often you did wind

(11:56):
up getting married, and even though you might have a degree,
you wound up getting married in and once you had children,
you often were expected to stay home. My own mom
worked in or with the Canadian National Railway, which was
then a Crown corporation owned by the government. And when
she got married in nineteen forty seven, she had to

(12:19):
quit her job, not when she got pregnant, but when
she got married because her boss said married women belong
at home looking after their quisbands. Yeah, and I have
this PowerPoint presentation that I've actually done four times this
week in various places in Ontario. And one of the
slides shows a woman vacuuming, and I've got a all

(12:42):
but all dressed up, you know, just absolutely perfect to
protect her outfit. She's wearing high heels. Who vacuums in hogh.
I'm sorry, I do vacuum, but I don't wear high
heels anyway. So there's a little quote beside it that says,
make sure every thing about yourself is perfect. A clean

(13:02):
house and a good supper or a delicious meal aren't enough.
You have to look perfect and your expectations if you worked,
and you were allowed to work. In many cases, my
mom transitioned from the Canadian National Railway to becoming a
legal secretary because, unlike a lot of women, she actually

(13:23):
had some post secondary college education. A lot of women
nineteen forties, so but we were expected maybe you could
become a teacher, a nurse, rarely a doctor, and a
flight attendant or then they were called stewardess. Is because
the gender was still attached to the job itself. I'm

(13:46):
like today when they're flight attendants. So there were options
for women, but they were really called forced choice options.
You know, if the men in your class are the
boys in your class, I guess and I know some
of them. I'm sure we're smarter than me. Some word
as smart. But they were looking forward to a life
of sort of doing what they wanted, you know, if

(14:07):
they wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, an engineer, plumbers, electricians,
But women just didn't do that. Things are changing, though,
because we don't hear firemen policemen too much anymore. Occasionally
kind of slips out, but generally we've tried to remove
gender from the job, and I think if that's that's

(14:29):
certainly a step in the right direction.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Oh my goodness, I want to ask you this and again,
are you just are an inspiration that you had that
thought in you to do something you might have seen
very very few women doing.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Do women still make up only five percent of the
world's pilots, even after all these years.

Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yes, the commercial pilots, there are more women today are flying.
So let's say there might have been forty thousand flying
in nineteen sixty throughout the world, and I'm just pulling
that figure out. So our numbers have increased since that,
But male pilots numbers have also increased, so the percentage

(15:15):
of commercial pilots who are female still hovers at about
five percent. There are some exceptions. India, Ireland, and Iceland
have the highest percentage of female polts. Interesting, so America
has the most female commercial pilots. So but by percentage

(15:39):
those three countries India, Ireland, and Iceland in that order
with Ice, with India having twelve point seven percent.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
India, I have never in my life I've seen a
female pilot when I've got on a point I think
I would pass up.

Speaker 4 (15:57):
Well, it is it is, yes, it is unusual, and
we do now really try to make ourselves much more
visible in the sense of, you know, when the passengers
are boarding or off boarding, the pilots would would often
stand in greet the greet the passengers or say goodbye,
I hope you enjoyed a good flight, or invite kids
up to the cockpit. Now that doesn't happen so much anymore,

(16:19):
but it does occasionally post flight, little children, boys and
girls will be invited into the cockpit because we don't
need to change the attitudes just of little girls. Little
girls know that they are capable of doing these things.
It's just society often can be pretty oppressive when the
toys for girls are very female centric. Not all of them,

(16:44):
for sure. I have a doll that's dressed in a
pilot uniform, a Barbie doll dressed in a pilot uniform
called Captain Barbie, so that kind of thing is important.
My granddaughter wanted and let me see Pediatrician Barbie, so
I gave her Pediatrician Barbie for her birthday. So there

(17:04):
are toys around that are changing, but there's still that
when you go into a toy store, you go into
Walmart or a toy store, very clearly you can see
these are toys for little girls. These are toys for
little boys. But there is a great website called Mighty Girl.
Not sure if you're familiar with it. The toys are fantastic,

(17:26):
and I should say the selections on Mighty Girl are
fantastic now anybody can order from of course, but it's
a selection of books, dolls like Captain Barbie, Pediatrician Barbie,
interactive toys like Mechano.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
I gotta check that out.

Speaker 4 (17:44):
Well, it's a fantastic thing. And what's really great about
it is it's an American site. So it's Mighty Girl
spelled exactly the way you would spell it, Mightygirl dot com.
And I am not in any way affiliated with them,
by the way. It's just such a great site. And
you go on the site and it's categorized and they
have great books about you know, women who've done amazing

(18:07):
things throughout the world and throughout history, and then you
click on the book and it'll tell you where you
can buy it, so you can buy it through Amazon
dot Ca, for example. So it's just a collection of
these great toys which are for boys and girls, but
focusing on girls. But I love doing, you know, presentations

(18:27):
like this, podcasts like this, because it's not just girls.
We need to change the attitude of moms and dads
and boys and girls to make it a more inclusive,
equal opportunity. And not every girl wants to fly airplanes,
just like not every boy wants to fly airplanes or

(18:49):
design rockets or work for NASA, but there are some
and for those who do, they need to know that
it is possible. And I love the quote, by the
way that you started with, because that's exactly right. If
I had taken my first flight lesson and thought, oh
my gosh, I'm never going to be able to fly
that big airplane, I would have quit. It's just like

(19:10):
thinking about if you start at college or university and
on let's say in the first week you start worrying
about whether you're going to pass your fourth year finals,
You're you're going to be so oppressed and so burdened
with worry that you're going to drop out. So yeah,
you need to block it, you know, in small chunks.

(19:31):
You know, I'm going to get through this test and
this month and this semester, or in aviation I'm pardoning.
I'm going to get I'm going to do my first solo,
which is usually a very sixteen to thirty hours I'm
going to take, you know, I'm going to fly that
airplane solo. Then I'm going to get my private license,
and then my night rating, and then my commercial license,

(19:53):
and then maybe my float rating or skis and then well,
you know I'm doing okay. Maybe'll get it instructor rating.
You get a job flying floats or working on the
ramp somewhere, and maybe you'll find that actual flying isn't
for you. But you want to go to university or
you want to join the military, and you've already sort

(20:14):
of got a foot in the door because you've got
all that aviation experience, and maybe they'll put you in
aeronautical engineering. Right, So you just never know where life
will take you, but you want to keep all your
doors open.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yes, yes, oh my goodness, yes, I have read about
amiliar airhard she was. You mentioned her earlier in the
show and in the book, if I remember correctly, she
says she really tried hard to be interested in like
the typical being a growing up and being a housewife,

(20:50):
but she just just didn't appeal to her enough, and
she tried to train and go to school with a
traditional job for women, but she just never was able
to And she I think it was initially, I hope
I'm remembering it right, and if I'm not, I don't
be correct me. I want to say it was her father.
There was a male in her life when she said

(21:12):
she wanted to fly, who encouraged her to go after?
And I know one of her husbands, I don't know
if it was first or second who also encouraged her
to go forward. Were you did you ever on your
way to where you went or did you ever work
a traditional job?

Speaker 3 (21:32):
Did you ever tell yourself you know, lolo just trying
to fit in.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
Yes, absolutely, And in fact you're absolutely right about Amelia Earhart.
She was only married once to the publisher G. P. Putnam.
But she worked as a nurse in World War during
World War One in Toronto, and then she went to
I believe it was New York City and worked in
the social working field, but was very interested in aviation.

(22:00):
Now interestingly, she had a female instructor, neta Snook, which
was quite unusual. But that would certainly be ins inspiring
for sure. But for me, I worked in the bank.
I started off as a teller for one of our
Canadian banks, and I worked up to be a supervisor
and then in the computer department, and I enjoyed it.

(22:25):
I actually when I was working in the computer department,
they they the bank sent me and several other employees
to various cities and villages in northern Ontario, and my
time was free after four pm each day and on
the weekends, and so I would go flying, which was great.

(22:48):
So I got a lot of varied experience in different
regions and that stood me in good stead. And when
I said my job was interesting, it was. I liked it.
I felt successful. But when I took my first lying
lesson March seventeenth, in nineteen seventy nine, I honestly I

(23:11):
never thought, oh, I'm going to quit my perfectly good
job and go flying commercially. But pretty soon, I mean,
and I don't know when, maybe five hours, ten hours,
it was like, wow, I'm really loving this. And again
it was even though I didn't plan it step by step,
that's how it worked out.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Right.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
It was like, okay, well I'm going to go solo
and that was great. And then I got my private
pilot license and it just it just sort of blossomed
from there. There was really no doubt in my mind
that I would get a commercial license and hopefully have
an aviation career.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
I'm just so impressed because anybody here it is now
if you were born twenty years ago or twenty five
years ago, they would be impressed, I think, but to
the time that I'm just there's something in you, a lot.
You must have a lot of confidence somewhere in you.
It really is looking out for you. So the next

(24:09):
question I wanted to ask you is, could you please
give us an overview of your book Highway to the
Sky and Aviators Journey.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
Well, it obviously has something to do with aviation. You know,
there's me on the on the front cover and it's
a it's a real photo the back. The background has
been changed because I didn't land on snow in the forest,
but there's a nice forest in the background, sort of
like the setting sun or perhaps the northern lights. And

(24:41):
I was in Whitehorse, uh in the Yukon, almost in
Alaska actually, but in the Yukon, and I'd spend a
week there getting my dog mushing license. So I just
wanted to go flying and I took this picture and
I actually thought I was writing about aviation, you know,
I thought, I'm a pilot. It'd be fun to write
about you and talk about my struggles, the barriers I had,

(25:06):
the encouragement that the challenges I had, but also the
great reward of doing something different, of feeling successful of
flying an airplane and being able to control, you know,
a big heavy piece of metal through the sky and
then and then land it successfully. But I had a

(25:28):
development a developmental editor, Sarah Chauncey, whom I highly recommend,
originally from Boston but now living on Vancouver Island in Canada,
in British Columbia, and she said, Lola, you're not writing
about aviation. And I said, what do you mean? What
do you mean I'm not writing about aviation. She said,

(25:50):
you're writing about women's issues. And she was absolutely correct,
and from that point on I had real clarity. So
she's suggested that I start the book with what had
been chapter five, and so the book now starts with
a student I have, and she's an older woman that

(26:13):
is older than the typical student who's often maybe from
age I'd say the average age might be eighteen to
thirty for someone at that time starting flight lessons. Well,
Joy was fifty six, and there were some problems. There
were three there were four instructors at our flight school,

(26:35):
and the first the other three were men, and she
had gone through all of them. And one day our
chief flying instructor, Martin, takes me into our private room.
I was the assistant chief instructor, and he said, you know,
I don't know. I think I have to have a
chat with Joy. She just can't land the plane. Well,

(26:55):
that's obviously a big problem. You have to be able
to land the plane. And the other directors said, you know,
she's a nice lady. She's really determined. She wants to
learn how to fly. And I knew that she had
also gone back to university. I also knew that her
husband was World War Two flew in World War Two
as a gunner on the Lancaster, and he who is

(27:18):
also a pilot. Post World War Two. Two of their
children were pilots, and she'd gone to university. Returned to
university at age fifty five to study creative writing, and
she ultimately wrote three books about aviation. So I thought,
this is an intelligent, determined woman. So I said, sure,

(27:39):
I'll fly with her, because that's what Martin was asking.
Would I fly with her? But I said, I thought
she didn't want to fly with me. He said, yes,
she didn't want to fly with you like everyone else.
She like many others, she thought I'd been hired to
be politically correct, that there's a female on staff, and

(28:02):
so she thought that too, And it's an easy assumption,
and yet, with all the fuss that's been going on
after the crash in Toronto with a female first officer,
we're trained, we're tested over and over and over, like
every rating we get, we're tested every year. If you're
flying commercially, you have a flight test every year. Not

(28:26):
just can I take off and land this airplane, but
you go through all of the emergency procedures and you
pass or fail, and if you do have a fail,
you get more training and then you do the test
and then you pass presumably. But you're tested annually on
every aircraft. So if you're flying three different aircraft, you're

(28:46):
tested on three different aircraft. It's pretty impressive. The training
is amazing, and the currency requirements are amazing as well.
So it was just sort of this easy assumption. And
then she said when we actually got to meet, she said,
she apologized. And I asked her what changed her mind,
and she said, well, when I learned you had the

(29:07):
same experience and ratings as my son. So this was
an intelligent woman. So I took her flying and she
was great in the practice area, but she couldn't land
the plane, so it was just a fluke. I was
just about to think, you know, to join the other
three men who thought this woman should not be flying,

(29:30):
when I happened to look over at her, and I
realized that she was so short she couldn't see over
the dash. So when we were flying in the air
away from the ground, she had no problem. She was
one of the best pilots I ever trained. But I
turned to her and I said, you know, Joyce, when

(29:50):
we're about to land, when you, you know, raise the
nose wheel a little bit, it's called flaring, when you
flare the airplane the nose so that the main wheels
touchdown first, can you see the runway? And she said no,
is like, what kind of a moron do you think

(30:11):
I am? So then she pauses briefly and starts to laugh,
and she says, oh la, oh lolah. You know, yes,
it's kind of it's quite helpful. Yeah, it's like you've
been driving a car on the road, but you can't

(30:35):
see the road or anything. And so we had to
do two or three more hours of flying, that is
to say, after we found booster cushions for her, we
had to do two or three more hours of flying,
so it costs her a bit more money, but because

(30:56):
she had to do more flying because now she had
a different frame of reference out windows. But my developmental editor,
Sarah Chauncey, said, this is a good way to start
because it sets the tone. This is an older woman
who has a dream, who's raised her children, been a
great wife, but she wants to fly. And in that

(31:18):
conversation before our flight with Martin, the chief flying instructor,
he says to me, he asked the question, I don't
understand why she wants to fly. Anyway, she has everything
a woman would want. She has a beautiful house, she
has a great husband.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
And all this was true.

Speaker 4 (31:37):
By the way, she has four wonderful kids, two boys
and two girls. And guess which two were the pilots.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
You guessed it.

Speaker 4 (31:44):
The boys, Yeah, although one was also a professor in
Lafayette at the University of Louisiana and Lafayette, but he
was also a pilot. One flew commercially, went through flew privately.
But he said, I don't understand why she wants to fly.

(32:07):
She's got everything already. And I said, well, if a
fifty six year old man walked in here and said,
I want to get my pilot's license. Would you say,
why do you want to fly? You just take him flying? Right,
So we're all products of our environment. So these three guys,

(32:29):
just like almost all of the guys I ever worked with,
were nice people. They weren't horrible people by any means,
but their frame of reference, the shows they'd watched on TV,
their friends, their parents' friends. It was all very traditional.
The dad worked, the dad often had a professional job.

(32:51):
The mom might work outside the house in addition to
working as a homemaker, but it was usually not for
personal gratification but for extra money. And I think whether
they call it pin money or something, you know, to
you know, buy extra things for the house for herself.

(33:11):
It was sort of like fun to get out of
the house. And again, if that's what you want to do,
I support you one hundred percent. But my mother and
father didn't want kids, but because of you know, birth
control issues in the fifties and sixties, they had two

(33:33):
of them. They were good parents. They weren't terribly loving parents,
but they were good parents.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
You know.

Speaker 4 (33:41):
They were you know, stand up people who did the
who did what was required of them and took us
wonderful places. But if it hadn't been for my mother's father,
my grandfather, and my grandmother, I think my life would
have turned out very differently because my parents, well you know,
I basely ruined their marriage. You know, if you don't

(34:01):
want kids and you envisional life that's very different without children,
and then you have children. And I want to emphasize
they were not bad parents. This is not a book
of you know, oh I got beaten up every night
or in an elect or not fed. That's not it
at all. But it just, you know, chose my journey

(34:25):
maturing because of the dysfunctional relationship of my parents. And
I suppose mine is a child of living in a
dysfunctional marriage. No surprise here. I married a great guy
who also came from a dysfunctional family and had substance
abuse issues. So that's another talking point in the book.

(34:46):
It's another takeaway of what do you do when you
find out this wonderful man that you married isn't maybe
quite so wonderful and doesn't have the great family background
that you thought he had. His mom and dad were
both professionals and you know, had a house, had an airplane,
a private a small private plane an Ironca Setabria was

(35:11):
a scuba diver used to fly up north into northern
Canada and live with the Ino wit. So he was
a really interesting He came from my husband, Paul, came
from a very interesting family, but one that was dysfunctional.
So there's a little bit of domestic abuse. But it's
it's just I guess it's my story of wanting something

(35:35):
that society said wasn't really for women, but just being
determined and believing in myself and being confident and courageous
in many cases to to to live that life that
I wanted to live for myself. Not the life that
my mom and dad wanted for me, or society or

(35:58):
my husband or anybody, but the life I wanted to live.
And there were challenges, for sure, but I and I
made mistakes and I heard a few people for sure,
But I think I made the right decisions in the
long run. Most of the most of the decisions were
the right decisions in the long run.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Now, somebody who gets a copy of Highway to the
Sky and Aviator's Journey, is this going to be a
book that is how much how much of it do
you focus on Uh, aviation. You actually you talked about
training an older woman.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Uh. And that's how the book kicks off.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
But how much of it is the voted for the
for our listeners to actually aviation because some people might
have a passion.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
For a yeah and everywhere of autobiographical yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
So everything relates to aviation. So aviation going solo gave
me more courage, gave me more confidence, And how did
I use that? And it's it's just it's the best
way to describe it is Aviation is the undercurrent. It
runs through the whole book. But how I used my

(37:09):
success and the confidence in myself to work through the
challenges that I had as a mom as a single
mom because my husband and I did split up. How
I worked through those challenges as a single mom, How
aviation empowered me, How doing something different than a lot

(37:30):
of women was a challenge in that some guys were
kind of frightened off in the sense of, oh, I'm
not sure I want to date her, but others were
absolutely thrilled to know a female pilot, and how that
worked to to make me a more rounded person and

(37:50):
everything during during the book, I also work upart me
work through my university degree and how that in increases
my knowledge and I build on that and actually talk
about that in my second book, how using how the
information I learned at university in anthropology led me to

(38:12):
my next career, which is doing ethnographic research in Mexico.
And believe with the Maya. So I think the takeaway
here is to believe in yourself. Don't listen to the naysayers,
because there were lots of people and there are still
lots of people who will say, you know, you shouldn't

(38:35):
be flying, or women belong in the home. And in fact,
the inspiration for writing this was a note that was
left on a west Jet flight. And west Jet is
one of Canada's air carriers which is out in Western Canada.
And the note and I paraphrase, and this note was

(38:56):
in twenty fourteen. It wasn't in nineteen seventy nine. It
was in twenty fourteen. And there was the note to
the female captain and it read, dear Captain of WestJet,
women have no place in the cockpit. We are short
mothers and wives, not pilots. The next time WestJet has

(39:16):
a fair lady at the helm, please let me know
so I can take another flight. Wow, that galvanized me.
I thought this, I need to write my stories because
at the time, it was hard to imagine that the
attacks weren't directed at me, and I mean the verbal attacks,

(39:38):
and sometimes they weren't didn't feel like attacks. They were
almost like microaggressions. So for example, I'm standing on the
ramp in the book and one of our our passengers
approaches me and I'm standing there wearing a pilot uniform
with the stripes, and he says, what are you serving
for lunch? And I similar, Actually, I'm not for me

(40:00):
anything because I have to fly the airplane, I said,
And I started to explain the stripes on my jacket.
He said, I know what those stripes mean. Didn't you
just borrow that jacket? I was astonished. And that kind
of thing is still happening. People are saying, you know,
land at an airport and people will say men and

(40:21):
women will say, oh, where's your husband or boyfriend whatever.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
Oh my god, where's the pilot?

Speaker 4 (40:28):
And that happened in the sixties the seventies, and it's
still happening. So I, because I knew that there were
a lot more female pilots flying commercially, I was under
the miss miss I misinterpret it as the percentage that
had increased, and I was so wrong. And then I
saw this note that was posted on Facebook, which is

(40:51):
amazing because of course, in the eighties and nineties, I
wasn't you know, personal messaging my friends or or taking
photos or or you know, with my iPhone. It just
didn't happen. It was I felt isolated. Now I never
I think one of the reasons the book has been successful.

(41:12):
And it's actually today on International Women's Day, it's number
fifty five on Amazon dot com. Ohime, oh yeah, I
know aviation and Nautical bios.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
I was so excited.

Speaker 4 (41:25):
It's been there in February two. It's been up and
down on the top one hundred and aviation bios. But
number fifty five was pretty impressive. But I was shocked,
actually bet astonish. But I think one of the reasons
for the success it's easy to read. It's not an
aviation primer. I do talk about some of the challenges

(41:46):
that the plane hands to me. You know, I have
an electrical failure, I have a system's failure, no engine failures.
But I take it more from the personal. What do
I do in this case? And what do I how
do I interact with the captain or the other pilot,
And it's more of a it's a personal journey. It's

(42:09):
not an aviation primer, but aviation drives the story forward,
and it's considered the most most typical reviews are well,
get this book, or amazing for my perseverance and my determination.
But that's what you do need almost in any job,
you have to have passion. If you don't love aviation,

(42:32):
you know, you might get your private license, but you're
not going to go through it. So it's just a
journey of a woman who wanted to live her life
and the challenges, and some of them were, when I say,
little microaggressions. Some people would like the man on the
ramp who was asking, didn't you just borrow that jacket?
He was a nice man. He was well dressed, well spoken,

(42:54):
well groomed. He was a businessman coming up to Northern
Canada from Toronto. He genuinely thought I was the flight
attendant or stewardess in that case, and he also genuinely
thought I'd borrow that jacket. But that's kind of an assumption, right,

(43:15):
Or if you're sitting in the in the airplane in
the captain or the first officers seat. People will still say, oh,
I bet you're saving that getting saving that seat or
sitting in that seat to keep it warm for the captain.
It's like, wow, is that funny?

Speaker 3 (43:31):
You know?

Speaker 4 (43:32):
And just recently I gave yeah, I gave a presentation.
Several presentations this week Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for
International Women's Day. And on Thursday, the woman who had
invited me to the group with an extended Learning opportunity
just north of Toronto, Extended Learning Opportunity group, and she

(43:54):
after the presentation, she said, you know, I was telling
a man who also was you know, well ed, catered
and well groomed, well spoken, a friend of ours. She
said about your presentation, and he said, oh, I bet
they have to give women extra special maps so they
can fly the airplane. And he left and she said,

(44:16):
you know, that's not funny. All pilots need maps. He said, yeah, yeah,
you know, but extra special you know, mass so they
know which direction they're going. And she said that's not funny.
He said, it's just a joke, and she said it's
not funny. Yeah, And he genuinely thought it was funny,
he was making a joke. So any kind of a

(44:37):
putdown like that, after a while, you know, one or two.
But the microaggressions are can be very overpowering. But so
I talk about them, and I also talk about, you know,
the difficulties with my husband and the challenges of as
I say, being a single mom and being stalked, and
he actually does become quite violent one time after we've separated,

(45:03):
but that's the only domestic violence, real domestic violence. And
then challenges with boyfriends. So it's a very readable personal
story about one woman who just wants to wants to
fly airplanes.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Oh my goodness, sorry, go ahead, no, no, no, you go ahead.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
Yeah, it could be just you know the story of
one woman who wants to live her life. Maybe that's
being a doctor, maybe that's being a lawyer. Maybe that's
being a teacher. Maybe that's being a biologist. But there's
so many careers, so many opportunities that and there are charities.
There are organizations, support groups, Women in Aviation International, the

(45:46):
ninety nine International Organization of Women Pilots that will when
you join those groups, you can get scholarships, and it's
also you get the camera of those groups. But I
talk about aviation. But this could be a book for anyone,
any girl or boy for that matter, who is interested

(46:08):
in a career that's different from the population. Therein something different.
They have a dream. Who knows why they have that dream,
but that you can succeed. It's going to take determination
and perseverance and passion, but you can do it. And
it's speaking about toys. When I was a little girl,

(46:29):
my two favorite TV shows because we could actually get
shows streaming up from Buffalo and Rochester, which was pretty cool,
my two favorite TV shows and both of them were
on reruns. My two shows were sky King about a
man named Skyler King who flew airplanes in Arizona and

(46:49):
saved people and his niece his sidekick who also was
a pilot. And the other favorite show was Sea Hunt
with Lloyd Bridges, you know the dad of Bow and
Jeff Bridges. Kenny was a scuba diver, and so again
when I was watching those shows, I never thought. I

(47:10):
didn't have a conscious, really conscious thought, I'm going to
grow up and become a scuba dive master or I'm
going to fly airplanes. But somehow that was imprinted that
there was Penny and how exciting it was flying and
how exciting it was scuba diving. So I actually wound
up having both of those as careers. So you never
know what's going to influence you.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Yeah, I want to definitely ask you.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
I want to talk about your photography next, but I
wanted to ask you a first before that. For our listeners,
I always like our listeners to walk away with something
that they can take personally, and you've already given that
into their life to help themselves. So you face all
these microaggressions in these comments, and just who knows what

(47:54):
else went on that you might not even be aware of.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
Where there was resistance, What was.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
The one if you had one to two go tos
that you did. Some people was meditating, some people was
talking to somebody. What were it like when you really
started to feel like it's too much the resistance? What
was your one or two go tos that helped you
they just keep moving forward?

Speaker 4 (48:23):
That I never blamed anybody. I think there were days
that I wanted to quit. There were days that I
was crying, you know, not in front of people, but
you know, wow, this is really really difficult. One particular instance,
I was sitting in a parked airplane, getting familiar with
the layout of the cockpit and the dashboard and all

(48:46):
the all the bells and whistles, and I overhear a
conversation outside the plane, a little little not immediately adjacent
to the plane. But I think these guys were had
strategy placed themselves there to talk about me, But they
weren't really talking about me. They were talking about women

(49:10):
have no place in the cockpit, and what they actually
said was boobs don't belong in the cockpit. And I
bet she got hired so that the captain, the the
the chief pilot can take her to bed. I hope
he's that's why she's been hired, just like the last
girl who didn't work out because she couldn't fly airplanes either.

(49:35):
So this was very hurtful. But they'd never flown with me,
so I think that that these three pellets had never
flown to these so I think it was that kind
of set the stage for me to understand. Even though
that was very hurtful, and I cried, and I went
home and I cried. It let me understand that they

(49:59):
were upset with me. There wasn't anything I had done,
so that was something I carried through my entire career
that they It wasn't that they didn't like me, It
was that they didn't think women in general should not
be flying. And they thought that just based on the

(50:21):
fact that they were a product of their environment just
as much as I was. They had never seen a
female pilot either, right, I mean I was the first pilot.
They were the first people pilot that they'd actually met.
I guess they'd seen a female pilot on TV or whatever,
but I was the first they'd ever met. So is

(50:43):
all new ground for all of us? What surprises me?
Is it still going on. There was a young woman,
Tzara Rutherford, who at age nineteen twenty twenty two, flew
around the world, so at the time she was the
youngest person to fly around the world.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
And what she.

Speaker 4 (51:03):
Said really surprised me. She said, growing up, so she
was born in two thousand and three, she was born
in this century. She says, growing up, she didn't see
many female pilots or computer scientists who were female. That
really surprised me. So that, plus the fact that of

(51:25):
the note to the WestJet pilot, I thought I should
write this book to reach out to people to continue
these conversations about what women can do and what we
should be able to do to stimulate the conversations that
exist like the one we're having today. And I've had
lots of good feedback from people who said it was validating,

(51:46):
like young people younger than twenty five, who are getting
their pilot licenses, and yet they're getting this pushback that says,
you know, women don't belong in a cockpit, or women
shouldn't fly commercially, or as I heard from relatives and guys,

(52:06):
guys I flew with, women are taking jobs or women
shouldn't be taking jobs from men who need them to
feed their family. And I said, wait a minute, I
have a family. I have a son. I need to
feed him. Well, I should get a low paying job
just because you want to fly. I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
Oh my goodness, good, good for you. And I think it's.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
As we keep showing people what can be done. I mean,
it's changed so much since the forties, fifties, sixty seventies,
the jobs that women have today, and they're just like
the WNBA here in the United States that would have
been no one would even have thought of that several
decades ago, that could even be possible, So you just

(52:53):
have to keep getting out there and it then, and
if you're worried about somebody taking your job, I guess
you better step it up. Then it's not like so
you can have that, I guess you better step it.
If you don't have a confidence and you're scared, I
guess you better step it up. Now, how long were
you flying when you started becoming interested in photography? And

(53:16):
it's a two part question, And can you tell us
somewhere you flew? And then you did photography that was
just remained so memorable to you today.

Speaker 4 (53:27):
Well, actually it was after I stopped flying commercially. Actually
that's not quite true. While I was still at home,
I took a course at our local college in black
and white photography and I really loved it, but I
didn't continue with it. But I did have a camera.
So then after I stopped flying and I moved to
Mexico to Cosmel, I started. I worked there as a

(53:48):
scuba dive, scuba dive master and managing a scuba dive shop.
But I started taking photos of the Maya archaeological side
and the modern Maya, so the living Maya, and I
did presentations and people liked what I had to say,
and I encouraged the visitors, and I did it. The

(54:10):
presentations were for the tourists who came to Mexico, and
the tourists liked what I had to say, and I
encouraged them to go visit the Maya archaeological sites and
get a tour with a Mayan guide. But they also
liked the photos. And I had, you know, artistically arranged

(54:31):
photos of basically piles of rocks in many cases, right,
because a lot of the structures of that were, you know,
fifteen hundred years old, were not obviously in pristine condition
at these Maya archaeological sites, and so that was just instrumental.
And I started doing more lectures, and I got more

(54:52):
and more feedback, positive feedback, and then I started branching
out and doing lots of photography and submitting to you know,
National Geographic, the Smithsonian, uh, major newspapers. And of course
that in itself is validating when people like your photos

(55:13):
and people buy your photos. So I guess it would
have to be Mexico that was still near and dear
to my heart for sure.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Okay, And as we get coming down to the last
few minutes in the day's show. Do you plan, Lola,
to take your adventures and incorporate them into a novel?

Speaker 3 (55:33):
I can see what you what you're doing. You could
even come out.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
With a series that could take off. Has that ever
crossed your mind?

Speaker 4 (55:40):
It has, and in fact, some one of the drawbacks
of writing a memoir is is you're revealing the truth,
and you're revealing the truth as it pertains to you,
which can be very upsetting and can be cathartic, but

(56:00):
it can also be very upsetting. But I in this case,
for this book, I wanted it to be a memoir
rather than a novel because some of the stuff that happened,
I thought people would say, oh, that's easy to make
up for a novel, but that would never happen in
real life. So the next book is also a memoir,

(56:21):
but about the Maya and my experience living with people
who have so little or so few material possessions that
are so rich in many other ways and come from
one of the most spectacular and brilliant civilizations the world
has ever seen. And yes, I do like to write

(56:43):
short stories though, and maybe they'll be a short story
collection because one of my favorite genres in fiction is
the short story I just find that has packed such
a punch. But there are a couple authors I love,
and Patchett and Barbara King salver a to my favorite novelists.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Okay, and can you just tell us the title of
your second book?

Speaker 3 (57:07):
And is it already out?

Speaker 4 (57:09):
No? No, but it's coming a lot more quickly than
the first book. So it was twenty fourteen when I
got inspired to write Highway to the Sky and Aviator's Journey,
but it took ten years to get published because very
quickly I realized I need to take courses in how
to write creatively my story. So I went through I

(57:32):
studied at Gotham Writers, New York City. I studied at
Wesleyan University, also in America, and then because I'm Canadian,
I went to the University of Toronto in the creative
writing department. But with the next book, because I was
doing a project, a long term or longitudinal ethnographic study,
I've taken all kinds of notes. So I've already got

(57:55):
about thirty five thousand words written in the next book,
which is I think need to be called Maya Loom.
It would be Maya m A y A l u
U M which means Maya Lands, my time in the
Maya Lands. Oh what, I'm working title now, but I'm

(58:17):
I'm pretty pretty sure about that this one highway to
this guy in Aviator's Journey. I deliberated with four or
five different titles, and uh, finally, with a friend of
mine and my publisher, we worked out this one. And
I'm really happy with the title and the cover. I'm
thrilled to bits.

Speaker 3 (58:37):
Actually, Okay, can you please share three to four steps
that you've taken, Lola, that you've found to be effective
personally for getting the words out the word out about
your books?

Speaker 4 (58:50):
Oh gosh, Well, I've done lots of publications online that is,
on Facebook, on Instagram, on LinkedIn. I i am on X,
but I don't use that nearly as much. I do
a lot of outreach. I'm the co lead for the
International the ninety nine's International Organization of Women Pilots in

(59:14):
our local chapter here, the first Canadian chapter in Ontario.
I'm the co lead for the Education and Outreach Committee,
so I do public presentations to libraries, to schools, to
service clubs. I have also done a lot of book
book official book launches or author events which have been

(59:35):
successful because I usually do a short depends ten to
thirty minute personally narrated PowerPoint presentation talking about women in
aviation history past and present and some of the early
female aviators, and so that's been quite successful sort of.

(59:56):
It's so sort of a win win. I sell the book,
but I also get the word out about other female
aviators and some of their personal journeys as well. I
think that's been a big, big selling point as well.
And then I'm encouraging people to buy my book of course,
and then to write reviews on Amazon and Indigo here

(01:00:19):
in Canada as well as Barnes and Noble and Books
a million. So it's been a lot of work. I
mean getting the book published. Writing the book was hard.
Getting it published was hard. But once you do that,
boy the job is not done.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
They get out of here.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
And the good thing though, is you can keep promote
generally promoting your book forever and ever and ever. But
can you tell off the shelf listeners where they can
get copies of Highway to the Sky and Aviators Journey, Well, it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
Is available at independent bookstores now. I can't say that
if you went down to your local independent bookstore you'd
find it on the shelf, but you can get it
from and that is order it online from an independent
bookstore and you can get it to Amazon dot Com
for Canadian listeners, Amazon dot Ca and Indigo Chapters, which
is in Canada Books a Million, Barnes and Noble, and

(01:01:15):
it's available in print and edition as well. And I'm
working on an audiobook.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
Awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:01:25):
Yeah, I'm hoping to read it myself because I think myself,
I love listening to audiobooks, but especially those narrated, those
memoirs narrated by the author. It just gives it more
of a punch.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Yes, Oh my goodness, we have had the pleasure of
having here with us today.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Lola read Allen. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
She's the author of the book Highway to This Guy
and Aviator's Journey and working on her second book. And
she's just traveled so much for her second book. Is
the meaning of it is My time in the Mayor Lands.
Oh my god, or Maya Lands. What a pleasure If

(01:02:08):
you came in midstream on today's show, no worries.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
Once it finishes, The show finishes streaming and.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
It goes out, It goes out for you to download.
You can listen to it and share it, share it,
share it and listen to it as many times as
you want. And I want to give you Lola's website.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
You are l again. It's Lola read Allen dot com.
L O L l O l A R E I
D A L l I N dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Against he's the author of the book Highway to the.

Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
Sky an avy Aior's Journey. Just look for Lola read
Allen when you look for it for that title. Oh
my goodness. Please go out and support her with her book.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
If you like audiobooks. I know some people have told
me they only listen to audiobooks. She signed up with
the Audiobooks. Some people have told me they do not
like paperbacks, they only read ebooks. It's available in an
e book some people only I'm one of them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
I do paperbacks, so everybody is different.

Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
So yes, absolutely, we could also get it. Well, sorry,
you can also get it at your local libraries. In
many cases, I can't. Again, I can't guarantee that, but
you could ask your library. They can bring it in,
which is also good. I'm also and I forgot to mention,
I'm going to be in Denver at tattered cover on
March twenty eighth, which is a Friday, and I'm going

(01:03:32):
to be there from five point thirty to seven for
any listeners who are in Denver, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Denver listeners, you get you can meet Lola read in person.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
You get to read.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
Her as you learn more about her travels, her journeys,
her photography and Highway to the Sky and Aviator's journey.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Lola for being here
with us today. You've been such a just an absolute
treasure and thank you for living an instant race, just
an inspiring life by just going after what you wanted

(01:04:05):
despite the odds.

Speaker 4 (01:04:06):
Well, Denise, it's been my pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
And to our listeners, as I always tell you, you
are so amazing, you are just incredible. Go out and
create a fabulous day for yourself today and I'll see
you back here next Saturday at eleven am Eastern time.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
On Off the Shelf.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Tell book lovers everywhere to catch off the Shelf books.
Thank you, thank you, thank you bye for now, bye
bye bye, miss Lola.

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
Thank you so much, thank you, Bye bye.