After church today I asked the Hobbit to move her car out of the way the better for to unlimber the motorcycle. I was scheduled to fly this afternoon at Palomar, and while the trip up the 5 is predictably smooth, the return trip south is predictably chaotic, for some reason. You’d think there would be some sort of unified field theory, a “goes inna – goes outa” constraint to limit southbound traffic to a less than or equal to value. But I’m telling you from experience that, for whatever reason? The math is out of balance. Eventually we’re going to flip poles and the south will be on top, what with all that accumulated iron down there.
Just you watch.
Before I headed out the door she sternly remonstrated with me to “be careful!” I wasn’t sure whether she was talking about the bike – she always tells me to be careful on the bike – or the flying. Of the two, the motorcycle is probably the more hazardous risk exposure. You do what you can to mitigate the risk – you have to drive as though you’re invisible, that no one sees you. That way it doesn’t surprise you when they pull out in front of you, or dart into your lane. You have to try and always keep a safety option in your pocket whenever you can – a protected place to go if things go wrong around you. Me? I always ride in the leftmost lane or the rightmost, never in between. That keeps the shoulder of the road in play if something happens up ahead.
The nightmare scenario is not so much what’s behind you or beside you. It’s the unpredictable thing that happens just in front of you, inside your breaking distance and reaction time. In a car you’ve got a fighting chance plowing into someone else’s mess at highway speeds. On a bike?
Not so much.
So anyway, I got up to the airport to discover that my flight had been canceled. A bummer, but it happens. The client got sick. I stopped off at one of the local training dumps to inquire about the cost of getting night and instrument refresher training in a Cessna 172 or 182 – preferably one with a glass cockpit – or maybe even a Duchess for some multi-engine time. The flying bug has bit me again and I’m turning the numbers over in my head, trying to see if they add up.
You see, I commute back and forth to Coronado every morning past Lindberg Field here in San Diego. And every single time I drive by I look at the runway, check the ramp. See who’s arriving, who’s departing. Who’s parked. Every time. I realized that I very rarely look at the office buildings as I go by and wonder what it’s like sitting in one of them pushing paper around. I’ve got that.
I actually had planned to do the airline thing after retiring as a commander at 20, but then 9/11 hit and we all got a little busy. One thing led to another and here I am a few years later finally ready to hang up my spurs.
Since the airlines are all about seniority, I used to think that going commercial after a 26-year retirement didn’t make a lot of sense – not enough time to get off the reserve/right seat/Christmas Eve flight schedule to make it work. But with the age limit going up to 65, it occurs to me that I might just have gotten five years back. And frankly the beltway bandit/consultant alternative doesn’t look all that appealing.
I haven’t decided on anything finally apart from the fact that maybe – just maybe – there might be more flying in my future. That means getting current. Which is nothing like cheap.
So anyway, I got the menu from the training camp and was heading out when a man pulled up in his car and asked me where the airport building was. An Asian gentlemen, with limited command of the Queen’s argot. I told him to take a left at the stop sign and he’d find himself where I reckoned he wanted to be, by the arrival terminal. Apparently he knew just enough English to ask the question, but not enough to understand the answer.
Hell with it, I thought: “Follow me.” Wouldn’t take but a minute or two of my time. Might give hizzoner a better impression of the natives. Not all of us do so very good a job of representing the side to furriners. Sometimes I like to smile and tip it the friendly. Hoping it might come back to us in time – “They’re not so very bad,” a man might say in Mandarin one day. Once this fellow went out of his way to bring me home.
So I dropped him off at the FBO where he met his friend and then I went about my merry. Toodled back down the south, working my way through the venturi until I got back home.
When I got to the exit leading to my house I saw a car a-laying on its side in the median between the highway and my exit. Something had happened at high speed I imagine. It had gotten right awkward there for a cuppla. There were a few folks sitting down, being comforted by some other people – witnesses maybe, or good Samaritans. Rubberneckers perhaps. It looked like it had been ugly there for a bit – there was still dust and steam in the air, the front tires turning lazily on what had been someone’s pride and joy, but what had become a liability. But everything appeared to be well in hand, so I rode on.
The highway patrol wasn’t there yet, which meant that I couldn’t have missed it by more than a minute or two. That minute or two, it occurred to me after a moment, that I had spent shepherding hizzoner the Asian gentleman to the FBO. I pondered the realization that if I had just blown him off and headed home, the mess that I was witnessing in aftermath I might have instead seen in real time, just in front of me. With no time to react, nor distance to stop.
Karma?
Hell, I don’t know.
Maybe.
Maybe this is God’s way of agreeing with you that there is more flying in your future. And that you HAVE a future.
Saying a prayer of thankfulness for the lost Asian gentleman.
What do you ride? I’ve got an ’03 YZF-R6.
Flying jobs…Maybe Homeland Security? I think one of the instructors at my school (reservist Marine officer) went to Homeland Security, but I’m not sure. Just a thought.
Amen, HF6.
I think “grace” is the technical term that describes this departure from controlled routine …
… while I do believe that “it’s all on the wheel — it all comes around”, this cycle is subject to disruption from pilot error (i.e. persistent refusal to accept direction from the Tower), and/or often requires entry into the next phase of existence to complete the cycle.
Lex, I am glad to see that you are still at Phase I status …. for our sake.
You could always call the LA FBI office, Lex, and ask for the brother of the special agent who does all of the advanced math. You know, the one who lives on CBS…
Having ridden bikes since college, I can certainly relate to your BMW Angel riding with you Saturday. Sometimes all we see of a car backing up is a puff on the exhaust, sometimes we’re just blessed. I’m glad he was there for you!
I remember the day I was riding down the mountains from Island Park, Idaho into West Yellowstone, MT. I was working in Yellowstone Park that summer and had the best time riding my Honda in and anywhere around the park.
This particular afternoon, I felt like testing the bike’s top end (yes, I thought I was bulletproof). Getting that old Honda rolling faster and faster was no problem at all, reeling off mile after downhill mile.
Just as I was passing the century mark on the trust Honda speedo, I felt a hand on my shoulder! Yup… a real, gripping hand, grabbing my arm and shoulder as I blasted down the 4-line approach to West. I turned my head slowly, anticipating a meeting with my maker, literally scared out of my boots!
Shocked isn’t the word for it when I saw a car-load of Yellowstone co-workers, one leaning out the window, reaching out for me. That was scary! All it would have taken would have been a small nudge and that speed and I would have been over the edge… me and the Honda.
I definitely had my Honda Angel with me that day! I guess that’s why I ride a Harley now; my Harley Angel still rides with me.
Oh, yea… the FBI guy’s brother? He could explain the traffic flow, along with the Chaos theory.
Holy crap, that has happened to me TWICE this year, where something held me up, only to find I missed a fatal accident by the exact amount of time I was late by. One time it was my ‘Southern Tour’ as I call it where its just me and my boys. The other was this past Thanksgiving, my entire family in the van. Both times have left me a bit unnerved.
I figured… it wasn’t my time. Blech.
Yeah, go airlines. “You can yank gear for me anytime.”
Lex, you know me. Karma my ___. There are no coincidences. The Boss ain’t done with you here. As HF6 offers. Bou- same to you too- no coincidences.
As HF6 and Bou stated, you’re supposed to be here, Lex — and thank God for the Asian gentleman and your own kind instincts. Had a traffic kerfuffle a few years ago that felt like the hand of the Great One holding me back, just enough to miss a big freeway accident. One does have to realize, then, that the Good Lord has a plan, even if you don’t yet know what it is.
Stay safe, you hear?
Marianne
Cap’n, you paid it forward and it came back to you a little quicker than you might’ve thought. Glad to hear it.
I prefer to believe it was Devine intervention. I’ve experienced the hand of my long-departed grandfather on the wheel of my car nudging it quickly back on course a moment before I realized I had crossed the centerline and was about to hit left headlights with an oncoming. How do I know it was him? His was the image that came to mind first. Trust the senses you can’t explain.
“And every single time I drive by I look at the runway, check the ramp. See who’s arriving, who’s departing. Who’s parked. Every time.”
My wife has watched me do the same thing for the past 31 years. Now the kids are grown up and moved out… and she said the other day that maybe it was time for me to get back in the cockpit.
Three weeks of vacation started two weeks back, and around the end of next week, my BFR should be checked off. (Assuming the weather doesn’t cancel the cross-country to Minden for some high altitude landing work ups.)
The Hand of Grace covering me? More than once that I know of, starting when I was five years old, surely more that I don’t. Something to be enormously grateful for.
Cap’n,
We’ve talked motorcycles before. Keeping the shiny side up is the result of constant vigilance, skill, and thinking several steps ahead of the flow of traffic.
Ride as if you’re invisible, and that any drivers that can see you are trying to hit you.
It may sound paranoid, but it kept me alive over 40K miles on my last 3 bikes.
Divine Intervention. Rarely are we witnesses to such a graphic demonstration.
Lex, we are living in dangerous times, as you well know. But there comes a time in every man’s life, if he is wise, he will learn to listen-listen. (Not a typographical error.) This is the reason the Good Lord gave us 2 ears and just one mouth. They are all put there a purpose. I hope you never experience this, but in some ways I had to crash into a wall, before I learned. I’ve had my health challenges, but at one point my body just said, “Grumpy, how about you and I spending some time alone and just talking, grab a cup of coffee and we’ll talk. This is not the place for family and/or friends, this is just between you and I alone! I did not want this discussion. But how do you run from your own body and its limitations? This meant dealing with some ugly questions. What is really important? Why? Who put it there? Are picking up somebody else’s load? Maybe, I should give it back to its rightful owner or just put it in the trash. If you want to think about it, call it, “body maintenance”. Then let your body be a full partner in the decision making process, if not the dominant partner. This is not just left up to the flight surgeon. This will make you a better pilot and person.
Lex, this is not written to say you are a bad person or pilot. But, I do know of the pain of that process. I would like to share with you the counsel of a man who worked with Albert Einstein. He said, “Grumpy, be creative make your own mistakes, don’t make mine.”
Bad day for general aviation in SoCal. I just saw that 2 planes colided mid-air over Corona, killing 2 in the air and 2 on the ground. Brietbart tv has it if you’re interested. Safety first.
Lex, you are fey.
Grounded, I think he rides the last-but-one version of the rational engineer’s insectoid Beemer Bike.
I haven’t been willing to get back onto a motorcycle since 1984 or so, because I can’t decide if I’ve had three complete wrecks or not. One of them had the offending cager just barely clipping and bending my license tag. Would have been a head-on collision had I not been alerted about 1.5 second previously by someone else attempting to pull out in front of me.
As an old leather-faced biker told me once, “All the car drivers want to kill you, or don’t care if they do.”
Maybe with more expensive petroleum we’ll see more bikes and fewer cars?
Please?
Love bikes but swore I would never own or ride one again after a HS friend – a NCAA class distance runner in college, have to learn to speak and walk again. You can mitigate risk but I chose to eliminate it with regard to two wheeled transportation. I even hate riding a bicycle around here for the same reasons that JTG ‘s leather face has it right.
The Captain wrote:
Hell with it, I thought: “Follow me.” Wouldn’t take but a minute or two of my time. Might give hizzoner a better impression of the natives. Not all of us do so very good a job of representing the side to furriners. Sometimes I like to smile and tip it the friendly. Hoping it might come back to us in time – “They’re not so very bad,” a man might say in Mandarin one day. Once this fellow went out of his way to bring me home.
Thank you, sir. I’ve heard enough stories from my adult students about frustrating experiences while visiting the States, that your small act of generosity and decency doesn’t seem very small at all. That man in Mandarin, and his memory of a simple kindness from a stranger, is a very real dynamic in world relations. Bless you, a second time.
Best regards, P-dub.
Japan
Indeed. There is a 6th sense and more of us need to pay attention to it. Thanx be to whatever that Lex paid attention…means you are meant for more Lex. As if that’s possible…
You should check out Net Jets. Whenever I use them the pilots rave about the job. Two weeks on/ two off. Live anywhere, fly great equipment and decent pay.
NetJets is a good idea Dan
I have a small sticker on my dash, with one word, “karma”. Put it there a couple of years ago, to act as a gentle reminder that the other guys transgressions weren’t worth getting worked up over. Sort of a calming talisman, if you will.
Definitely karma, Lex.
Definitely.
“And frankly the beltway bandit/consultant alternative doesn’t look all that appealing.”
The old saw: “do what you love (or even like) and you won’t work a day in your life”. My brother- in -law flew Falcon 900′s and Citations after his F-4 days in Vietnam for a large company until he retired. He liked it.
This Asian gentleman–was he old, bald, and holding a peach? Good guy to have on your side, iffn ya want to live to get older ….