Free Bird Flies High, Crash Lands

Jacksonville, Florida physical education instructor Leonard Skinner was a simple kind of man. “Nuthin’ fancy,” he’d say. Yet, according to the New York Times, this sometime charter pilot — and full-time vinyl record enthusiast — would become “arguably the most influential high school gym teacher in American popular culture.” Indeed. While he was known to have little tolerance for shoeless, floppy-hatted long-hairs, two of them, sadly — former students of his at Robert E. Lee High, brothers Ronnie and Steven Van Zandt — were killed along with Skinner, when the Convair CV-300 plane he piloted crashed in a Gillsburg, Mississippi swamp. We remember Leonard Skinner — pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nér — and all those who died on that fateful day, October 20, 1977. Fly high, free birds. But be mindful of your altitude and fuel level in the bloody tank.