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You can't think about health care all the time. I like to travel, ride motorcycles, fly-fish and write. I've been working on a series of essays based on the theme On My Way Home. They're just observations made while traveling around.
Some of my adventures are grand--to me anyway. Some trips, and the thoughts they inspire, are pretty trivial. But in the life-long journey home, nothing is truly meaningless.
Here's one of my essays . . . just for fun.
Flying With My Father
The week before Father’s Day I am headed home on a flight from Houston. The view out my window is something of a surprise this evening. I have forgotten how close Houston is to the coast. Within minutes we are over the Gulf of Mexico.
Flying fascinates me most times, but especially at sunset. On this hazy summer evening the vast water and sky are similar in color, slight variations of gray and blue. I look out and see oil tankers below that, in the fading light and color, seem to be floating not on water, but air. They appear to fly silently beneath us, leaving V-shaped vapor trails behind.
It is moments like these that must have captivated my Dad and compelled him to fly.
My father was a poor pilot. By that I don’t mean his skills were lacking. What he lacked was money. Some pilots fly by the seat of their pants. My dad flew by the change in his pocket and shameless perseverance.
He was actually an excellent pilot. “You’re dad is one of the best,” a flying buddy of his told me one day. “If I’m in a tight spot, I want your dad in the pilot’s seat.” That’s a statement a son doesn’t forget.
Dad was good because flying came to him naturally. I went along with him for his first lesson. I was about 10, which means he was well into his 30’s when he first climbed into a cockpit. The instructor took us up, and after a few demonstrations, gave Dad the stick. It wasn’t long before Dad was pulling the nose up and forcing us into short controlled stalls. The Cessna would climb until it lost momentum and began to slide backward. The wing dipped, and the nose turned down. Dad gave the engine throttle and pulled the plane up and out. It felt like a rollercoaster at the bottom of a plunge. Dad cackled with a laugh I rarely heard as a child. The instructor looked bemused, but approving. I gripped my seat excitedly and wondered when the ride would end.
Dad threw himself into flying like an addict seeking a fix. I did not get to go on any more lessons because he used a Cessna 150, only a two-seater, the cheapest ride available. He soloed after only a few months and got his private pilot’s license shortly thereafter.
He could not afford to fly as much as he wanted, so he resorted to any tactic that would get him in the air. He hung out at the airport, did odd jobs, begged for time behind the wheel. He offered to fly copilot for others. He ran up tabs that, when payday came around, I heard he and my mother argue about paying.
Although he was never a licensed instructor, he gave people lessons. Although he never got a commercial license, he flew businessmen on trips. He flew fishermen across the Gulf to Costa Rica. He once flew a record producer from Nashville to New York City and somehow convinced air traffic control to let him land his rented Cessna 182 at La Guardia, one of the busiest commercial airports in the world. “I always wanted to do that,” he said. “The guys in the control tower had to be cussing me.”
He flew lots of people, but I think the thing that attracted him most to the air was the time he could spend there alone. He told me once about flying alone at night from Charlotte after dropping off some passengers. A violent storm blew up over the Smoky Mountains, but rather than turning around he picked his way through. The winds blew the little plane all over the sky. No stars above, no lights below. I suspect he never felt more alive.
Dad was a middle-aged lover of flying. But like a middle-aged lover of women, his money and his body gave out. Flight as mistress is actually a good analogy because his passion for planes definitely compromised his relationships with my mother, brother and me. He wrote one time about seeing me in the side mirror as he rode off with buddies to the airport. I had my baseball glove on, but no one to play catch with. He wrote that he always regretted not getting out of the car and coming back home.
There are things I begrudge about my dad, but flying is not one of them. As a middle-aged guy myself I understand the need for passion in a dwindling life. Some men look for it among women. Some men look for it on a golf course, or in a bottle, or on big boats.
My dad found it in an airplane. On this hazy gray-blue evening, with ships floating in the air below me, I understand why.
If you're not yet bored, here is another one . . .
Sir Raymond To The Rescue
It is day four of a four-day motorcycle trip and my friend Raymond and I are on our way home. The road is a descending series of S-curves just east of Asheville, North Carolina.
I check my side mirror for signs of Raymond behind me, but as usual, there are none. Raymond and I are riding partners only in the sense that we stop in the same places, admire the same views and appreciate each other’s stories at the end of the day. While riding I like to push the speed limits, lean through the curves and accelerate on the straight-a-ways. Raymond likes it slow and cautious. Now, as always, he is far behind.
Waiting for Raymond is part of every ride. In the mornings I am gassed up, revved up and ready to go while Raymond patiently rubs his visor with an anti-fog cloth, inspects his saddlebags and performs another safety check. I am antsy. He is calm. I find him only mildly irritating.
It is morning in early November, out-of-season for the Blue Ridge Parkway, and we own the road. Competitive species of mini-van and camper have migrated for the winter and I have not seen another vehicle or person for many miles.
So the woman is a surprise. In a curve, in the middle of a vista of smoky ridges and valleys, she stands barefoot and balanced on the guardrail, wearing a long, black formal gown and holding flowers in one hand.
She does not turn her head as I roll by. She looks young, but I can’t guess an age. The wind blows her dark hair and dress; otherwise she is motionless. She looks . . . darn mysterious. I see no car parked nearby.
At the bottom of the descent near an exit road for Asheville, I wait for Raymond to catch up. As he slows beside me I hand-signal the need for a cup of coffee. We ride to a sandwich shop nearby.
After removing our heavy coats and helmets and sitting down with our cups, I ask Raymond if he had seen the woman. Yes. Like me he had thought about the mystery of her all the way down the mountain. How did she get there? What was she doing? Where were her shoes?
It does not take long for Raymond and me to reach the same solution to the riddle-- however she got there, the woman’s intention must have been suicide.
We’ve got to go back, Raymond says, and I agree. But before the words are out of my mouth Raymond is zipping his coat and buckling his helmet. I leave the coffee and follow Raymond to the parking lot. I have to hustle to catch up with him as he scratches onto the highway and accelerates around through the mid-morning traffic.
The speed limit on the Blue Ridge Parkway is 45 miles per hour and Raymond has always, I am confident, observed it faithfully. But now he is roaring up the mountain, leaning into every curve, his knee just inches above the pavement. I stay close, but it takes all my skill and concentration.
I’m thinking that if a park ranger or tourist sees us riding this way, he will think us a couple of careless hellions. But that would be far from the truth. At least in the case of Raymond they would be witnessing an act of heroism--the gallant knight riding to the damsel in distress.
We are going so fast that we pass the spot and have to turn around. There is still no car and now, no woman. We dismount and look over the railing, expecting to find a sad, black figure at the bottom of a cliff.
The drop is steep, but not shear as we imagined it would be. About 15 feet down dense vine and brush create a natural mattress. The only way to kill yourself by jumping there would be to possibly break a leg and then starve to death. We comb the hillside to rule out that possibility.
After a while we call off the search, get back on our bikes and resume our trip home. I go first, Raymond second. Soon his headlamp is far in the distance.
As the miles pass I think about my cautious friend and his unexpected abandon when he thought someone was in trouble. I am impressed by his courage. After all, I reason, what is courage, but simply forcing one’s self beyond what is comfortable to do what must be done?
Some months later Raymond announces he is quitting his good job and, at age 40, is moving to Israel to enter rabbinical training. Hearing the news over the phone in my secure and comfortable home, I marvel a second time at my most courageous friend.
And if you're truly a glutton for punishment, here are two more . . .
Looking For Eden
In the corner window of the Budget Shop in downtown Luverne, Alabama a two-foot-tall ceramic pig sat for at least 20 years. Far from an ordinary piece of yard art, this pig wore a cowboy hat and carried a sidearm on his hip. He watched over the streets of Luverne from the same spot, untouched all that time.
I know this is true because spotting that pig became an annual tradition for the family of a friend of mine. His youngest daughter became especially attached to the cowpig, wanting to be the first to spot it as the family passed through Luverne on their way to vacation on the Gulf coast. She would press her cheek against the car window and eagerly wait for the opportunity to shout ‘there it is!’ on the way South and ‘good-bye till next year’ on the way North.
The tradition ended when the youngest daughter turned 21. Her older sister bought the pig and presented it at the birthday party. The disappointment in the gift was stifled, but apparent to everyone in the room. She did not want the statue in her apartment in Atlanta. She valued it in that window, waiting for her next drive through south Alabama, waiting in Luverne for her children to see.
Little totems of familiarity are important to us when we journey out. They comfort us. They shape our itinerary. They help us feel at home in a strange place. And when they disappear, they leave us feeling disoriented and diminished.
When my wife and I were young we would finish work at five on Friday, and by six our little Toyota was loaded and pointed to Vero Beach. We were road warriors, driving all night with the goal of watching the sunrise over the Atlantic somewhere on A1A.
On our first trip we happened upon a truck stop in South Georgia where the food was fresh and the waitress incredibly welcoming for the middle of the night. From then on, year after year, we pressed on past sunset, ignoring our hunger and all the fast food options until somewhere in the rural darkness above Cairo, Georgia, we spotted the glow of Peerless Truck Stop.
Then one year we stopped and the name had changed. The lights seemed dimmer, less welcoming, less maintained. Inside the waitress was indifferent, the food heavy and greasy. Each year thereafter we mourned a little as we passed by without stopping ever again.
Years later, after children, our family vacation target became Hilton Head, South Carolina, and our roadside oasis Sweat’s Barbeque near Soperton, Georgia. The year we rolled up and found a mega filling station and convenience market where Sweat’s once stood, the thickness in our throats was palpable.
When we venture out, we long for something familiar, and we will ignore all distractions and potential options until we find what feels right. We go to the same beach and rent the same house. We eat in the same restaurants. We look for the waiter who was funny and treated us well the year before. We go to the same ice cream stand and try to remember the flavor that was so good the last time we were there.
These little traditions are good, but of course they are also restrictive. Near the end of his life, my father would only eat out at Red Lobster, which had a tendency to limit his travel options to the distribution of that particular restaurant chain.
The obvious lesson is that these comfortable little traditions would not exist if we had not once ventured out, took a little chance, tried something new. We are not abhorrent to experimentation, just adverse to it. We’ll try something new, but usually armed with a recommendation, travel guide or review.
Imagine the terror that must have pierced the hearts of Adam and Eve as they stepped from the familiar comforts of Eden for their first day of wandering past unknown landscapes, scrounging for food, looking over their shoulders. Every minute was foreign and uncomfortable. Every experience was unexpected and strange. Did Eve recoil in horror the first time she saw sweat running down Adam’s face? Was Adam filled with curious dread as he pondered the first blisters on his hands?
How long did it take before Adam found a new favorite patch of shade? How long was it until Eve learned she could lighten the tone of the household by concocting a recipe she had not made since the last time there was snow on the hilltops? Was there a time when Adam said to the family, let’s go back to that hillside and stream where we were so happy once before.
Truck stops, familiar beaches, favorite chairs and family traditions are instinctive efforts to recreate Eden. Unconscious within us is age-old longing to find our way back in. We want to experience, even fleetingly, the notion that everything is perfect and unthreatening--as comfortable tomorrow as it was last year.
There’s nothing wrong with it. Enjoy. Make it last. Leave the cowpig in the window. These little imitations of paradise will have to do until heaven.
Genuine Adventure
I’m on my way home from the Hiwassee River, one of my favorite trout streams. The sun is almost down, the sky is orange and deep purple, and I’m thinking about adventure.
Fly-fishing has always seemed adventurous to me. Standing thigh deep in fast moving water. Angling for position on smooth, slime-covered rocks. Searching the flow for evidence of a feeding fish.
There are times when my preoccupation with elusive trout has led me to step into danger, where one ill-placed step will throw me into a cataract of water that could threaten my life, if not my $400 graphite rod.
Even the gentle drop and pool streams that are common to my home in Southeast Tennessee evoke a sense of drama. As I wander further away from people and cars I wonder if the next rock I throw my foot over will be home to a snake or if my path will intersect with that of a bear or boar.
Of course fly-fishing is not really hazardous. Fishermen do drown on occasion, but not nearly so often as children in the neighborhood pool. I have seen snakes, bear and boar, but they all seemed anxious to let me have as much space as I required. The likelihood of safety in spite of our mind’s fantastic creations is what makes adventure tolerable, even fun. If the risk of disaster were truly high, most of us would never get off the couch.
There are many adventures I enjoy that are modest, calculated risks. I love to motorcycle along narrow rural roads (often in route to some trout stream). I love to snowmobile and ski in the great mountains of the West. I love to backpack and camp in the wilderness.
When I say I love these things, I mean they call to me. They dance in my mind, distracting a slice of my consciousness that should be devoted to work and responsibility. They pull at my chest and throat like sexual desire, demanding to be satisfied.
And I give in often, suit up and go. I find the time. I finagle the money. I throw myself headlong into the passion of the day until temporarily satisfied.
I am feeling quite satisfied this day. I have waded and cast, caught fish and released them until I am in a state of afterglow. My happiness is expanded by the fact that on this trip I have helped introduce a new fisherman to the glories of the Hiwassee. His name is Chris, the son of a good friend. We have had a good day.
Our drive to the river earlier this morning was filled with good-natured conversation and anticipation. With our mission over, the car was engulfed in an atmosphere of sated silence that comes naturally to most men. It is the same pleasant silence men enjoy as they sit around a fire after a great camp meal has been consumed.
One of the differences between men and women is that women feel the need to analyze such moments, to exchange the recipe, to recall another time that was similar, but different because it involved Ellen who —did you know? — has not been well at all, and her doctor suggested physical therapy, and Kristen went to that same doctor but moved after the promotion and really enjoyed her vacation in Greece.
Earlier, before fishing, Chris and I talked a lot, mostly about Chris’s family, including his dad, my friend.
We talked good naturedly about how we would like to get Chris’s dad out on the river, but how unlikely that seemed. For Chris’s dad adventure comes from work--from building businesses and turning them into profitable sources of revenue. Like me, Chris’s dad is pulled by the thrill of risk and reward, but he slakes his thirst in the stock market, where he wins more than he loses. His successes have given him opportunity to be generous to his family, friends and faith.
In the quiet of this trip home, I am wondering who is the true adventurer? My day has gone well, exactly as I had hoped, but what did my adventure produce? A nice memory. The smell of fish on my fingers.
It occurs to me that the pursuits I love are really not adventure at all. They are simply pastimes, valuable as recreation and renewal. I take a tiny risk and turn it into self-actualization.
The great adventurers of history took risk and changed the world. Magellan defined the sphere we know as Earth. Lewis and Clark opened the West and its abundance to American expansion. Alan Shepherd touched the black heavens and defined the beginning of the Space Age.
It seems now that real adventure involves taking a risk and turning it into something tangible, something with a lasting impact. Building a business; creating a profit stream that supports families, government and charity; taking a small amount and nurturing it into a great legacy—the man who does these things is the true adventurer.
Chris and I continue home. The tires hum. We remain quiet. Only now my silence is not prompted by any sense of satisfaction. I am unsettled. Did I have a good day? Yes. Could it have been better? I will never know.
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