Birthday reflections

• We took the youngest child to the airport today for a trip to see her Uncle Scoop.  It got me thinking about flying, and my history with it.  I struggled with what to tell the girl.  I have very conflicted feelings about the whole flying thing.
• Today, I have come to the point where I enjoy it, focusing on where I am going and what we are going to do when we get there. It has not always been that way. It has been basically a full circle.
• I first flew on September 10, 1985. I was 17 years old and had never been higher off the ground than the top of the Washington Monument. The flight was uneventful, but I think I will always have in the back of my mind, that I once got off a plane, and people were horribly mean and disrespectful to me for 8 weeks as a result. It leaves a mark, you know.
• I flew for the second time, home at Christmas. I had never been in a place like OHaire Airport before. I had been to the city, and in the Metro, but never in a place like that. What a zoo. I flew into National Airport, (now Reagan National), over the 14th Street bridge and knew what that was when I flew over it. Kind of unnerving. It was such a madhouse, and rush and nightmare, that whole trip.
• I got home to a world that was forever changed. My grandfather passed the day after I left for the Navy. I had not expected the hole in my life to be as large as it was. Again, I think it left a mark on my psyche, that getting off an airplane equals enormous and uncomfortable change.
• It was at this point, that I began to not like flying very much. I was not afraid, but I didn't like what it resulted in very much. I began to prefer to drive, almost to the point of obsession about it. I would fly home in March of 1986, and not fly again until June 1988. That flight was to Florida, to get married.
• We were doing fine, until we flew past Fort Lauderdale. I knew we had, because of the time. We had descended and circled a bit, but we did not land and then climbed again. About 10 minutes later, Billy Bob from Texas, the pilot, came on the loudspeaker. Seems we can't get this itty bitty landing gear lock light to light. So, we are diverting to Miami, where the runway is longer. The airline was sorry, but they would ensure we either got a flight to Fort Lauderdale or a bus to the airport immediately.
• I did not know what that really meant was they were fairly certain the front gear would not move at all. They could not tell from the cockpit obviously. Now, I have never liked landings. It is a logic thing. The odds of dying in an airplane are astronomically low, except as a byproduct of the plane hitting the ground in an uncontrolled manner. Lightning isn't going to kill you, there are no tigers or lions or bears to avoid. You know, pretty safe, except when in the unhindered thrall of gravity.
• We got to Miami, and every fire truck in the city was lining the runway, you could see it from the plane as we circled. I thought, that is pretty good, we have all the right equipment. The old guy next to me just shook his head and said they are only there to minimize how long our crash impacts flight patterns. It was not a helpful statement.
• The pilot brought that jumbo jet in about 20 foot off the runway and flew directly down that runway from end to end, for the ground crews to do a visual inspection as we went by. They were not looking the right direction, so Billy Bob dropped us down and took her down the chute one more time. His words, not mine. Not a helpful statement.
• Billy Bob said, nobody is sure about anything, so it is up to me, and we are going to give it a shot on the gear. I am about to climb out of my skin, no amount of Jack Daniels would have prepared me for what is basically my third landing in 10 minutes, but I had not had all that I should have tried to imbibe. They had told the families back in Fort Lauderdale they were foaming the runways and hoping for the best. TV crews were there to film their reactions.
• Billy Bob is the absolute best pilot that has ever flown a plane. That landing, that night, was the smoothest I have ever experienced. We only knew we were on the ground when he reversed the engines to slow us down. Never even felt the touchdown. That was just no fun whatsoever. I had learned to be afraid in a plane.
• The trip back was uneventful, or I was too drunk to remember the drama, as I got plastered before I got on that plane. Slept to Norfolk, and the stewardess had to help me off the plane at the end. I slept in the terminal for 2 hours before I could go drive back to the base.
• I flew back 2 months later to move the family to Norfolk, where I was stationed. I flew Piedmont, which does not exist any longer, thankfully. There was a huge strike going on. It never dawned on me. I was not happy about having to fly, but even with my normal rate of travel in a car, I could not make driving work. We had only been in the air about an hour when we turned and flew out over the ocean. I knew that we were not flying the correct route, as that is not how the flight lines ran. We started dumping fuel shortly after that. 
• I knew enough to know what that was, and enough to not say anything. But, I started looking around the cabin at the passengers. I was looking for anyone of Mid Eastern inclinations. This was around the timing of tension with Libya and terrorist threats. I was military, so we were trained to look for them as the enemy first. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I knew I was going to do something. 
• We came in and circled a city I was not familiar with. I had not flown much, so I did not know what cities looked like from above, but I had seen Fort Lauderdale before, and this was not it, and not the right city. We landed and taxi'ed as far away from the terminal as we could, behind some mound of dirt. The back end of the plane opened up, all the doors. Please exit by the nearest exit, and proceed to the terminal as quickly as you can. Someone said bomb, and then there was bedlam.
• Two things I remember clearly. I was a pure ninja, getting to that rear door. I can swear to you Jackie Chan would not have been able to duplicate the kung fu voodoo I was throwing down. And I still could not keep up with the 78 year old woman that had been sitting next to me. I was much younger, and in much better shape, and she beat me to the terminal. I remember she had on heels, and never even staggered.
• We arrived together, she went directly to the bar, and ordered a double shot of bourbon. I did likewise. She and I watched as the rest of the passengers came into the terminal. They kept us all in one unused gate. We could see the bomb dogs go through the plane. They pulled the plane up to the gate and told us that they would happily give us hotel rooms and connect us through the next day, or we could continue on. One lady asked if we would go in the same plane. When the stewardess said yes, everyone but me and the older lady started to go get tickets. The stewardess asked me why I wasn't going tomorrow.
• The bomb dogs had searched that one. I am going to sit here and watch everything that goes on, and then take that plane, that you have searched and secured, not some new plane tomorrow that might blow up on take off. The entire passenger line turned around and sat down at the gate, and waited to get on that plane. I do not think that anyone took their eyes off that plane.
• Those were my formative flight experiences. I would not fly after that. I drove everywhere, until the Navy sent us to Idaho. I drove cross country 4 times. I had to fly once for a family event, and it was uneventful, except that to get from God forsaken Pocatello to an airport requires use of Alaskan bush planes, and it was a horrible turbulence experience over the mountains. I know what it feels like to fall 1000 feet, and not be sure it stops, or you land in an uncontrolled fashion.
• I would not fly after that, until the Navy sent me to the Persian Gulf. I read all the touching stories about how the guys get upgraded to First Class, and how they are on real airplanes and stuff now. We flew on chartered jets that were 40 years past their prime, flew out of the industrial terminal, and struggled to have working heating and lights. I hated military flights, always have and always will. 
• Then, once you land in Dubai or Bahrain, you get confusing instructions, and then you get on a prop plane that takes you to the ship. There are people who have arrested landing and catapault assisted launch on their bucket list. Idiots. Don't every willing let someone do that to you. I know the folks that do that for a living, I was one of them. Don't do it.
• All I can describe it as, is the Hand of God grabs you out of the sky, when you are landing. And then, when you are taking off, that same Hand throws you off the ship. Hated it. I am not a roller coaster guy, I am not a thrill seeker guy. I know too much of the physics to be comfortable with testing the laws of nature in those ways.
• So, I avoided flying whenever possible. The military flights got better, and I learned to time my arrival to avoid the COD flights with the arresting gear and catapault crap. I did not like it, but the family flew to Disney for vacation. It was completely nerve racking, because I know what my track record in a plane was. I had come to accept that a plane was likely to be the end of me. I just didn't want my family next to me when that happened.
• It was uneventful. All my flights since then have been uneventful, basically. Some delays, some turbulence, but nothing remarkable or out of the ordinary. I have come to relax and enjoy thinking about where we are going. I guess that is maturity, or acceptance. I have still not perfected travel luck.
• I flew to Denmark for work, and landed the day before the Icelandic volcano ended European air travel for days. I spent 28 hours in a bus across Europe to get to an open airport. What a joyous way to see Europe. The flight was fine however.
• I did not know what to tell my daughter, as she prepared to travel. She was really nervous, that is her way. I did not want to tell her it was nothing, because I don't know that I believe that. I just told her that I loved her, that the flight was going to be fine. It was. It will be on the way back.
• But, there is a long history involved with things that we do. It builds and changes. I no longer fear flying, to the point of needing medication. I still don't like things that I don't have control over, like airplanes in flight. I just have learned to trust in others to some extent. And, I have come to value the time enjoying the other end more, than the discomfort of how I get there. Better a few more hours with family or on vacation, than in a car taking forever to get there.
• I do know that I prefer to drive, but won't hesitate to fly to save my time and energy. I do know that I worry more about the rest of the family travelling than I do about me. It is nerve racking when any of them are travelling. I know that it will be okay, if we trust in God.
• That is what struck me tonight. I just leave it up to God, and go with the flow. Or I try to do that as much as it is possible for me to do.
• I love you all