Yesterday

By lex, on December 12th, 2010

It was an elaborately planned plot, crafted in haste, timed to perfection and executed with abandon. So much abandon in fact, that your humble scribe was half way to Gillespie Field in Horrible East County on his moto when he realized that he had abandoned the key to Citabria 8643 upon his car key chain. There would have been much hair-pulling and tearing of clothes at this juncture, were it not for the fact that we were wearing a motorcycle helmet, leather jacket and gloves, so we were forced to settle on the gnashing of teeth. All was not utterly lost at this revelation, although it was too late to turn back to Chez Lex and recover the item. The situation might – might – be recoverable if there was someone at the club house, or else a kindly CFI willing to part with a spare to some stumblebum off the street. But: As I arrived at the aerodrome I realized that I had also left my headset in the trunk of my car. Anyone at an airport found going looking for not merely the key to an airplane but also a headset will shortly find himself wearing the white jacket with the buttons in the back, I should think. The combination served to wreck the experience utterly. Although! We wrapped up the last dogfight by 1600 and sunset was at 1645, so it would have worked, too.

Had we not been such a moran.

I used to worry about early onset dementia. Being a person of a certain age, now I merely worry about “onset dementia,” it being far too late for the early class.

So, anyway, three hops, the first with a pair of Asian-American brothers separated by 10 years but perfectly alike in their aerodynamic in-adaptability. My feller bore the bell away as being able to at last at least through the demonstration dogfight without becoming violently ill. His frére, alas, did not fare even so well as that.

Second, a pair of not-as-who-should-say “portly” software engineers with all of the customary social graces attendant to the species. They came, they avoided eye contact during the brief, they flew, they didn’t tip. They are not remembered.

Finally: A pair of retired firefighters, of all things. From Sandy Eggo county. Spent 31 years fighting fires and now they travel, and have adventures. Like dogfighting. There is no second career.

I should have been a firefighter.

Today: I golf! And so posting will once again be sparse, I should reckon.

But not before I leave you this really quite nice video taken last weekend by an even lovelier lass I had the honor to fly with, who was with her beau – a Gulfstream G550 pilot, and one of the few men whose work I have recently found cause to envy. She had not done much flying, but neither it seems, was she entirely passive.

(It is customary for us to object that we detest that song. These are among the little lies we tell ourselves.)

The flying itself? Oh, same as it ever was. A beautiful day in Southern California, air perfectly still, few clouds above and a persistent marine layer enshrouding the coast. (Bad joke: “What do you call a 300 pound woman in an Oceanside trailer park? A heavy Marine layer.” I told you it was bad.) The passengers, to a man (and woman) said what they almost always say after we land: “Wow! That really gives us an appreciation of what you guys did in fighters.” We nod, politely agreeing. These are among the little lies we tell others.

They have no idea.

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