Hero Interview from Ashton Park by Murray Pura

» Posted on Dec 14, 2012 in Blog | Comments Off on Hero Interview from Ashton Park by Murray Pura

This week I’m hosting  Liz Johnson with A Promise to Protect, Lacy Williams with Counterfeit Cowboy, Steven Hunt with Chasing Christmas and Murray Pura with Ashton Park.  If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (December 16th) evening.

Interview with the hero from Ashton Park by Murray Pura:

1. Ben Whitecross, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

I started out as a groom in the Danforth family’s stables. But I was ambitious and soon became the man who drove their coaches. And I just kept on working my way up the ladder from there.

2. What do you do for fun?

I love flying. Air races have become a big part of my life.

3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?

Aircraft maintenance, I suppose. I know a bit about it but I prefer to leave that to my mechanics if I can wait for them to get around to it.

4. What are you afraid of most in life?

Not being able to go any father or achieve anything higher. Being forced to stop when I’m not ready to stop.

5. What do you want out of life?

A wife, children, a large extended family, a faith that makes a difference in my day-to-day life.

6. What is the most important thing to you?

God, my wife and family, and flying, in that order.

7. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book?

I love true adventures, you know, where somebody has done something absolutely amazing in real life. I’ve recently read true stories about missionaries in Africa and have also read Charles Lindbergh’s account of flying solo across the Atlantic. Eddie Rickenbacker’s book about being a pilot in The Great War was also a terrific read (Fighting the Flying Circus).

8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I’d like to have brown hair without any curls and brown eyes to go with it. Not sure why the good Lord gave me curly black hair.

9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

I don’t right now but if I get one it would be a dog, a golden Lab.

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?

Hmmm. I’d rather go forward – don’t you think the airplanes in the 1970s and 1980s will be marvelous? I’d love to see them and jump in the cockpit of two or three and take them up into the wild blue yonder. If you make me go back to before we had airplanes, well, honestly, I’m not that interested.