Home, James!

 “Like no other sculpture in the history of art, the dead engine and dead airframe come to life at the touch of a human hand, and join their life with the pilot's own.”
― Richard Bach

The next morning, we were at Pease before the sun rose. I was ready to get going.  It seemed like it had been an eternity since we were in the air heading home.  I thought we'd be there by now, the journey long over.  But here we were, still in spitting distance of the Atlantic Ocean, granted at least on the right side of it, the worst (in my mind) of the trip, the ocean crossings, over, but still, we had thousands of miles to fly to get home.

The leg we planned to complete today, Pease to Chippewa Valley Regional in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was 900 nautical miles (1,030-plus statute miles), a very long haul, but I was ready to roll and get it over with.  We still wouldn't be home once we got there, not by a long shot -- or flight.  We'd still have to cover another thousand miles to touch earth at the old homestead.  America is big.

The morning was already warm, portending another hot, humid August day.  We pulled the props through. No hydraulic lock.  Pre-flight inspection: all okay.  I opened the cabin door at the rear and clambered aboard, happy to see the now-familiar interior once again, smell that unique old airplane aroma.  What is it made of? I don't know.  But I recognize and like it.  I stowed my gear securely, mostly my traveling clothes and the souvenirs I'd picked up for the folks back at the ranch.  I'd done some grocery shopping the previous evening and had the fixings for sandwiches for us -- Kaiser rolls, Semelle rolls, sliced roast beef, sliced ham, thin-sliced dry toscano salami and pepperoni, hard-boiled eggs, greenleaf, coral and iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, sweet red peppers, bean sprouts, avocados and tomatoes that I'd prepared for sandwiches and stored in containers, mustard, horse radish, mayonnaise and butter packets, thin-sliced Swiss, Cheddar and Provolone cheese, seedless grapes, sectioned apples and pears, Saltine and Ritz crackers, potato sticks and chips, Fig Newtons, sparkling water.... I probably overdid it, bringing aboard enough food to feed a small army. I stowed all this forward behind the cockpit.  I was not tense and keyed up as I had been during the Atlantic crossing and Canadian legs of the trip and looked forward to noshing away the hours watching the landscape roll by under our wings, each minute taking us almost four miles closer to home.

 “When he climbed into the airplane, the same transformation always came over him. He exchanged his earthly freedom of thinking for what had to be a series of disciplined facts. To absorb and segregate these facts, all in their right and proper order, was his duty. Not only was it his duty but it was his sole defense against depending on luck; and although he was aware of the power of luck, he never considered trusting it when he was flying.”
― Ernest K. Gann

I settled into the left seat, saying under my breath, "Hello airplane," and patted the steering column. I looked over the controls and gauges to re-familiarize myself with them, reaching out, locating and touching switches and levers, naming them in my mind and recalling how they worked -- throttles, mixture levers, manifold heat levers, cowl flap handles, ignition switches, engine selector switch, starter switch, primer switch, ignition booster switch, propeller levers, propeller feathering buttons, propeller anti-icing knob,  de-icer button, pitot heat switches, windshield wiper switch, oil shutter levers, oil bypass buttons, oil dilution switches, engine fuel selector handles, suction cross-feed handle, fuel booster pump switches, engine fire extinguisher controls, master switch bar, battery switches, generator switches, voltmeter switch, turn-and-bank power selector switch, instrument inverter switch, aileron trim tab wheel, rudder trim tab crank, elevator trim tab wheel, wing flap lever, emergency hand crank for same, landing gear lever, landing gear emergency clutch, landing gear lever emergency release, tail wheel lock control, parking brake handle....  

Dad settled into the right seat and got busy with the radios while I fiddled with the GPS.  Then we both went over the flight plan one more time and went through the pre-flight check list: this and that off, off, on, off, on, on....  It was already hot in the cockpit so I opened my window and dad did the same to his.  The air was still and no breeze entered.

 “As the years go by, he returns to this invisible world for peace and solace. There he finds a profound enchantment, although he can seldom describe it. Flying is hypnotic and all pilots are willing victims to the spell. Their world is like a magic island in which the factors of life and death assume their proper values. Thinking becomes clear because there are no earthly foibles or embellishments to confuse it. Professional pilots are, of necessity, uncomplicated, simple men. Their thinking must remain straightforward, or they die—violently.”
― Ernest K. Gann

 We'd kicked the tires, metaphorically speaking, and now it was time to light the fires and turn gasoline into noise.  Left engine fuel selector handle: left front; left cowl flap handle: open; left throttle: ease to one-eighth open; left mixture lever: full rich; left fuel booster switch: on; master ignition switch: on; engine selector switch: left; starter switch: on.  The propeller starts to turn, count the blades revolving past the window: one, two, three, four.  Then left ignition switch: both; ignition booster switch: on; primer switch: on. The top five cylinders cough and bark into life, followed, always reluctantly, it seems to me, by the lower four.  Once the engine is running smoothly, release the primer switch, release the starter switch, release the booster switch, adjust idle speed, fuel booster switch: off, engine selector switch: off.  Then do the same for the right engine. Once it's running smoothly, instrument inverter: on. Recheck the radios. When the oil temperature is within range, re-adjust engine idle, move propeller control levers to take-off rpm to get the maximum amount of air blowing over the cylinders to ensure the engines don't overheat. 

Now we taxi into the wind, brake to a stop, lock the tail wheel and set the parking brake, set engine idle speed to 1500 rpm, push in the left propeller feathering button.  The rpm should drop to 450 rpm. Once it does, proving the feathering system is working, push in the feathering button again to unfeather the propeller and hold it till the engine speed comes up to 1000 rpm, then release it. Do the same for the right propeller.  

Pilot thought fuel switch was on main tank. It wasn't. Both engines quit after take-off.

Then, left battery and generator switches: off; voltmeter selector switch: right.  Retard right throttle to 900 rpm, watching the volt and load meters to make sure that the generator control circuit disconnects the generator as the rpm passes through 1000. Then advance the throttle to 1900 rpm while watching the volt and load meters to make sure the generator reconnects at 1200 rpm.

That done, lower the flaps to 25 degrees while watching the volt and load meters as the flap motor operates, making sure the the voltage does not exceed 29 and the draw no more than a 0.3 load. And check to make sure the flaps really are at 25 degrees.  Then pull the right propeller lever to the low rpm/high pitch position and make sure the engine speed stabilizes at 1150 rpm. Once it does, push the propeller lever back to take-off rpm and make sure the engine rpm rises to 1900 rpm.

What happens when you don't follow procedure to the letter.

Are you bored yet? Tired yet?  Well, too bad, because we have lots more actions and verifications to do.  And we haven't even begun to taxi to the runway, let alone leap into the wild blue yonder.  But you absolutely have to do every bit of this, omitting nothing.  Unless, of course, you want to die in a cartwheeling, flaming ball of wadded up aluminum and high-octane gasoline.

However, I won't bore you with all this dull piloty stuff.  Some pilots get bored with it, too, and get careless, assume everything is in working order and positioned or set as it should be and don't verify that it is.  But they don't remain pilots, or on this Earth, for long.

 By and by, we do leave mother earth, climbing southeast over the coast, saying good-bye to Portsmouth on our left and Hampton on our right, circling north over the ocean, passing by the Isles of Shoals, covering distance in minutes that took more than an hour on the sailboat, finally settling on our destination heading, West by north, cruising altitude 10,000 feet and airspeed 186 knots, fuel burn with our brand-new carburetors and tuned engines 42gph.  That gives us a good six hours of flying time with a 45 minute reserve, allowing us a calculated range of over 1100 nautical miles, so Eau Claire is easily in range and we'd reach it with our usual five hours or so flying time that we'd done on each leg of this trip (excluding BTV to PSM).

We had left the hotel too early to have breakfast so once we were settled in for the long haul I let dad take the wheel and I went back to the cabin and fixed us sandwiches and coffee.  Dad wanted ham and Swiss with mustard, garnished with green leaf lettuce on a Kaiser roll. He also wanted a boiled egg and some chips on the side.  I made the sandwich, peeled the egg, put everything in small cardboard container along with some napkins and a Handi Wipe and handed it up to him along with a fresh cup of coffee and a pint-size bottle of sparkling water.  I made myself a tomato, coral lettuce and Provolone sandwich with mayonnaise on a Semelle roll with some potato sticks on the side.  

We put the Beech on autopilot while we ate, not saying much, just enjoying our meal and the view. I was hungry enough that I was tempted to make myself a second sandwich, but instead I ate slowly and when dad couldn't finish his chips I scored them.  After we were finished, I took everything back into the cabin and cleaned up. While I was doing this, dad let loose a loud, long belch.  I guess he enjoyed his meal.  

I called out, "Did I hear a barge coming through?"

"Don't get smart, young lady!"

"Too late!"

I poured us each a cup of fresh coffee, black as we both liked it, and settled into my seat in the cockpit.  I wondered if we should not start using oxygen at this altitude but dad, after asking me if I was feeling  okay (I was), said he didn't think it was necessary.  We'd both hiked and climbed mountains higher than this with no ill effects, but if we needed to climb higher we should break it out.  We had an SpO2 meter and I fished it out and we both checked our status: A-OK.  We decided to do that every half hour. Why were we flying this high today?  Winds aloft forecast made this the best altitude choice to avoid headwinds. In fact, we had a nice tailwind and our ground speed according to the GPS was a good 220 knots. I hoped it would last but knew it probably wouldn't.

Below us, the morning sun casts long shadows over the earth, every undulation of the land, every structure, every tree declaring itself with a dark doppelganger.  I could see mountains ahead and thought that if I had all the time in the world I would like to explore them as I'd never been to this part of the country before.  Upstate New York, as well as New England, were storied parts of the founding of our country about which I was only familiar through reading -- Arundel, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Musket and the Cross, In the Hands of the Senecas, to name four by Walter D. Edmonds that stick in my memory.  I recalled being struck by Edmonds' observation that the English overcame the wilderness while the French lived with it.  At the time, I thought the French way was better, but reflecting now, I suppose that was a romantic view that in practical reality I would not have been happy to actually live.  And, of course, Americans took that English attitude and ran with it, subduing the entire continent in a handful of generations.  

Avis & Effie Hotchkiss

Adeline & Augusta Van Buren

I remembered reading about two women, Adeline and Augusta Van Buren, who rode motorcycles across the country from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1916 in perfect safety.  On their way, they rode their motorcycles to the top of Pike's Peak. A year before, a mother and daughter, Avis and Effie Hotchkiss, ages 26 and 56, had done a similar thing, but going from Brooklyn to San Francisco in a side-car rig, averaging 150 miles a day.  Just a century earlier, only a handful of brave men, risking their lives against grave dangers, had crossed the continent -- and they walked or poled boats up rivers the whole way and only dared do so armed and prepared to fight and eating only what they hunted. The women slept in hotels and boarding houses and ate at restaurants.  Their greatest danger was being arrested by local cops who thought women wearing pants was scandalous. 

An old, abandoned wagon-haul road.

As far as travel times go, once the land was settled but before the automobile, the country was dotted with little towns in the more populous regions, some little more than two or three buildings -- a stable and blacksmith's, a boarding house, maybe a general store, sometimes a post office -- each about 20 miles from the other.  Why 20 miles?  Because that's what was called a wagon haul: the distance a loaded wagon and team could travel in a day. So after a day on the trail horses and men needed food, shelter and care.  Thus a town to cater to them, as well as the local farmers. Out on the plains of the west, the Indian-fighting cavalry's slog was 40 miles a day.  And here I was doing six times that in an hour in ease and comfort. Ain't civilization and progress great?

Looking down on all the green below, I began to think about the so-called greenhouse effect and global warming or, as it is now called, climate change.  I could never figure why those that switched terms thought "climate change" was the more suitable phrase, as if the climate has remained unchanged for the last 4.5 billion years.  I mean, really?  But then I know well-educated, professionally accomplished persons who have never heard of the ice ages, don't know what or when the climactic optimum was, believe the climate during the voyages of the Vikings to Greenland and points west was the same as that of today -- assuming they know the Vikings did that.  I don't mean to belittle them by saying this.  Doubtless, there are any number of important things that I am completely unaware of, too.  But it does show how difficult it is for a lay person to avoid being mislead about a particular scientific field.

For example, regarding atmospheric carbon dioxide, there has long been a scientific debate that doesn't include human activity about which is more important for its injection into and removal from the air.  One side says the most important are abiotic processes -- volcanoes put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, rain washes it out and it is then incorporated into calcium silicate rocks in an endless cycle, with sometimes more CO₂ in the air and sometimes less depending on random geological events.  They note that as volcanic activity has subsided over the eons, there has been a gradual downward trend in atmospheric CO₂: the early earth's atmosphere may have been as much as 30 percent CO₂ and at the very least 5 percent, but by the beginning of the Industrial Revolution it had declined to a mere 0.028 percent. The White Cliffs of Dover are a prime example of carbon sequestration in calcium carbonate rock, burial grounds for the huge amount of CO₂ present in the air of the early earth and removed by geological processes.

The other side of the atmospheric carbon dioxide debate argues that biological processes are the most important regulator of this gas. They assert that the metabolism of the Earth's plants draws down atmospheric CO₂. Thus, the CO₂ content of any well-vegetated soil is 10 to 40 times as much as that in the atmosphere. The plants extract the CO₂ from the air and incorporate it into their cells.  When they die, their bodies and the CO₂ they contain enter the soil. Over time, the soil is eroded into streams and rivers, and eventually finds its way to the oceans, carrying with it the carbon, as bicarbonate, originally extracted from the air by plants, where diatoms and other life forms, including periwinkles, corals, clams, cockles, oysters, scallops, sand dollars, etc., extract the carbon to produce calcium carbonate in the mineral form of calcite or aragonite to make their shells.  When they die, their shells sink to the bottom of the sea where, eventually, they form limestone and dolomite; this is why these rocks were formed in shallow marine environments.  So, in this view, the White Cliffs of Dover are the result not of abiological processes but the very contrary, at least since the beginning of the Cambrian, because they are made up of the shells of long-vanished sea creatures.

 Carbon-fixation from the air to life forms, from microbial mats floating in ancient coastal seas to continent-wide angiosperm forests, is what controls atmospheric CO₂ and has done so for billions of years.  Angiosperm forests are particularly effective at removing CO₂ from the atmosphere, about four times more so than conifer forests, and seem to have led to a cooler earth since their evolution during the Cretaceous. Without angiosperm forests, it is believed, the earth would have been 20 degrees F. warmer than it was at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Since life can't exist without carbon dioxide, it has been struggling to adapt to the constant decline of atmospheric CO₂. The efficiency of angiosperms in extracting CO₂ from the atmosphere has exacerbated this problem and resulted in the rise of the grasses, with vast areas of the earth that were once forest now prairie (or, more accurately, human-cultivated grasses -- wheat, corn, rice, etc.).   Grasses began proliferating beginning about 10 million years ago during the Cenozoic, a period of intense glaciation that saw carbon dioxide drop to 0.018 percent of the atmosphere.  Grasses expanded their range then and since because they are much better procurers of atmospheric CO₂ than angiosperms thanks to their significantly more efficient use of the enzyme ribulose diphosphate carbozylase (RuDPC).  If a plant cannot send CO₂ in sufficient quantities to its RuDPC, it dies.  Since atmospheric CO₂ is far below the optimum for vascular plants like angiosperms and other tree types, they have responded by using energy to mass produce RuDPC so that what CO₂ they can obtain from the atmosphere finds enough RuDPC to carry out the plant's metabolism.  Grasses have evolved the ability to funnel CO₂ more precisely to their RuDPC and so need to expend less energy to produce it than do angiosperms or other vascular plants. They don't need as much nutrients as trees do to survive and flourish, so they out-compete trees. Eventually, as the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere drops even lower, trees will disappear from the earth and it will become a grass planet. But then, as atmospheric CO₂ declines yet further, even grasses won't be able to survive and the planet will become as dead as Mars.  This will happen, scientist James Lovelock estimated, in about 100 million years, by which time man and all his works will long have vanished from the earth, and whatever rise in CO₂ in the air his activities produced will have dissipated, the only result a brief increase in limestone production.

We expected to encounter some building thunderstorms over the Midwest, so when the bright sun at this attitude warmed the cockpit enough to make dad drowsy he clambered out of his seat telling me he'd take a catnap now to be fresh for the upcoming events and stretched out on the couch in the cabin.  Alone in the cockpit, I wished we already had all that upgraded avionics gear he had talked about getting, especially weather radar and a Stormscope or Strike Finder and XM Weather. I did not like flying through storm fronts.  I guess we'd be talking to ATC a lot, and if things got very sketchy, there were plenty of airports we could divert to.  Looking ahead at the hazy horizon and clear sky, I hoped it would stay that way.  

In about a half an hour dad was back in the cockpit with a fresh cup of coffee.  He offered to make me one, too, but I was coffeed out.  In fact, I felt drowsy myself, so, for the first time, I went back into the cabin and, wrapping myself in our wool blanket, stretched out and let myself relax.  Resting my ear against the couch back, which was mounted against the side of the cabin lengthwise, replacing what would otherwise have been two seats, I could hear the susurrous slide of wind rushing past the fuselage.  The steady drone of the engines was quieter back here than in the cockpit. Looking up, I could see sun shadows on the cabin ceiling.  The rays streaming through the windows were filled with dust motes dancing in the light the same way they did in your house down on Mother Earth.  I watched them until my eyes closed involuntarily and I was asleep.

A dream dissolved as I awoke.  One moment I was deep in that alternate reality and then suddenly I was back aboard the Beech.  More than an hour had passed. I hadn't realized I was that tired.  I sat up, elbows on my knees, head in my hands, still groggy with sleep.  The sun shadows and light beams had shifted aftward, the sun moving west ahead of us.  I washed my face, cupping water in my hands and drying off with a paper towel, made a cup of coffee, asking dad if he wanted one, too (he didn't), climbed into the cockpit and buckled into my seat. We had descended several thousand feet, having run into a steady headwind.  We still had one, though not as strong, so we were just about to drop down a few more thousand feet when I sat down.  I was content to let dad do the flying while I just looked out the window and sipped my coffee.  My mind felt fuzzy.  I wanted to go back to sleep.  I checked our position, noting how far we'd come, how far we yet had to go. We weren't as far along as I had hoped.  I wished now that I had kept sleeping.  I don't know why, but I just wanted this trip over with.  The feeling was very strong for some reason. I wanted to see my kids, to see our living room with its stone fireplace and the view out towards the mountains, sit in the big farmhouse kitchen, bright with eastern- and western-facing windows, its cozy breakfast nook always piled with books, mail -- mostly bills -- account ledgers, shopping lists and everything but breakfast.  I wanted to see my bedroom, my closet full of my things, my bathroom, my bed.  I wanted to cook a meal for my family, made with choice, fresh ingredients, knowing just what would be liked by everyone. I never wanted to see a hotel bed or a restaurant meal ever again. I just wanted to be home.

 “Flying through thunderstorms, a pilot may earn his full pay for that year in less than two minutes. During those two minutes, he would gladly return the entire amount for the privilege of being elsewhere.”
― Ernest K. Gann

With me back in the left seat we dropped below 3,000 feet before we got out of the headwinds and began making good progress.  We saw some thunderheads looming over the horizon to the south of us, but nothing close.  That changed as we flew past Wausau, and a building storm front rose up ahead of us.  We climbed to 10,000 feet to get over it, then climbed again to 16,000 feet, talking with ATC to get us steered around cells.  We discussed alternates, even radically changing our destination, considered turning back to outrace the storm and get on the ground in clear air, but ATC said they could vector us through and the storm should have passed the airport by the time we got there.  So we continued on.

We hit solid clouds and some seriously bad turbulence as we neared Eau Claire, getting jounced around petty good.  ATC was unable to vector us around the cells popping up, there were so many, and advised us to "navigate as required." I used the ADF tuned to an off frequency to try to avoid the the worst cells -- the ADF needle would swing in the direction of lightning discharges. That's where the most violent turbulence was.  I'd turn away from those only to encounter more whichever way I pointed the airplane.  Severe up- and down-drafts made holding our altitude a challenge. I reduced our airspeed to 130 knots, as slow as I dared go, to reduce stress on the airframe, and focused on maintaining the aircraft's attitude, nose and wings level, and let the weather have its way. We dropped so fast once that it felt like the big drop on a roller coaster, leaving my stomach playing catch-up. Then we were hurled upward just as fast. We got visible lightning flashes and once I thought I actually heard, or rather felt in my chest, a crack of thunder.  The noise of the storm was terrific.  Rain pelted us pretty good, sometimes in sudden, intense bursts that overwhelmed the windshield wipers, and hail rattled against the windshield and bounced off the fuselage and wings. It sounded like somebody firing bird shot against a metal garage door. I glanced out a few times to take it in, but mostly kept my eyes glued to the instruments. If I kept the needles on those gauges where they should be, all would be well.  Dad could be my eyes looking out.  

As I flew the approach to EAU, the wind was 130 degrees at 19 knots, gusting to 30 knots, visibility six miles in moderate to heavy rain, broken clouds at 8,000 feet, overcast at 6,000 feet, scattered clouds at 4,000 feet.  I wanted to land on runway 14 but was directed to runway 4 so I came in like that famous Chinese ace, One Wing Low, maintaining my direction of flight with differential power, rudders and ailerons, creating a slip in line with the runway, adjusting the slip to counter the varying drift caused by the gusting crosswind.  I had 8,100 feet of concrete to roll out on so I came in fast without flaps, as at Iceland,  flying the plane onto the runway in the slip, straightening out just before touching down lightly on the right main, easing the left wing down till the wheel touched, holding the tail high as long as possible, working the rudders and doing some wrist action with the throttles to keep her straight. Then, as we slowed and the tail began to sink, I pulled the yoke back quickly but smoothly into my lap, dropping the tail wheel smartly to the pavement and holding it firmly on the runway.  As the rudders lost effectiveness, I began tap-dancing with the brakes as well.  Taxiing off the runway and to the ramp, which was not easy in that crosswind, the windshield wipers going like mad, the rain sounding like a freight train, we noticed hail on the ground.  In some places it looked like snow, it was so thick.  I couldn't believe it but I was cold.  Really cold.  I turned on the cockpit heating.  Dad looked at me and nodded.  The cold was not only from the weather, but from the heart.  It had been pretty damn close there.  I realized that I was repeating to myself, "Oh, thank you, sweet Jesus.  Thank you!"  Jesus may not have taken the wheel, but he put his hand on mine when I dearly needed it.  You think that's silly?  I don't care.  I know what I know.

When I swung the tail around and set the parking brake, I let the engines idle, chugging at 450 rpm, just savoring the fact that we were on the ground, safe.  It was very dark outside although it was still early afternoon.  The rain, mixed with hail, was pouring down in sheets. I rested my hands in my lap.  They were shaking.  I couldn't stop the shaking. I lifted my right hand and pressed it to my cheek.  It felt like ice. I tucked both hands into my armpits and shivered.  Dad asked me if I was okay.  I said, "No.  But I will be.  Just give me a minute."  "You handled the airplane as good as anyone could have," he said. "And that was a very good landing, little girl.  I couldn't have done it better.  No one could have."  We looked at each other.  Without speaking, what we exchanged was love, affection, understanding, comfort, relief.

To be continued...

 

Getting rusty

 

November

 

November comes
And November goes,
With the last red berries
And the first white snows.

With night coming early,
And dawn coming late,
And ice in the bucket
And frost by the gate.

The fires burn
And the kettles sing,
And earth sinks to rest
Until next spring.
~ Elizabeth Coatsworth

 

Sea Cruise

 The next morning, I went for a walk before sunrise and ambled around the town, ending up at Harbor Walk Park, where I watched the sun come up.  A big ship came through and the bridge raised up to let it pass.  I don't think I'd ever seen a drawbridge in action before.  It was pretty cool.  

Approaching the Isles of Shoals.

As I walked back to the hotel, I got a call from my dad. I thought he'd still be sleeping but he said to meet him in the hotel breakfast room.  While we ate, he asked me if I would like to go sailing.  I said Yes! but how, where?  And he said he figured that the Navy base, the storied Portsmouth Naval Shipyard -- founded in 1800, but facilities on Seavey's Island where it is located have been building naval ships since 1690 -- doubtless had a yacht club so he checked and it surely did. He further found out that there was a Cape Dory 36 available for bare boat charter and if I wanted to sail her, a phone call would make her ours for the day.  Of course I said yes, and then said so we'll just motor around the harbor and local waterways and dad said we could do that, but how about sail out to the Isles of Shoals? They're only about two leagues across the open ocean, an hour or so sail, depending on the wind.  I'd never heard of the Isles of Shoals, but I said let's go!  What are we waiting for? 

Later, I looked up the Isles of Shoals, a collection of nine islands, and learned that they had been the base for European fishing fleets since at least the early 16th century, with scores of sailing vessels from England, Wales, Brittany and even Portugal frequenting them, "the Doggers and Pinckes of the English; the clumsey Busses of Holland and Zealand, the light Fly-Boats of Flanders, the Biskiner, and the Portingal, and many another," as J.S. Jennes wrote in his 1873 history of the Isles.  The "shoals" in their name don't refer to shallow waters but to shoals or schools of cod, which swam in such enormous abundance that it was worth the sail across the Atlantic in a small fishing boat to net them.  

Once Britain acquired the Isles, they were considered one of the country's most valuable colonies because of the astounding  quantities of cod caught, dried and shipped to the mother country.  The first confirmed written mention of the Isles dates from 1605, when Samuel de Champlain, voyaging south from Port Royal, sighted them, noting in his log, "Nous apperceusmes un cap a la grande terre au su quart du suest de nous, ou il pourioit avoir quelque six lieues; a l'est deux lieues, apperceusmes trois ou quatre isles asses hautes, et a l'ouest, un grand cul de sac." I can't imagine why he called them "high islands."  John Smith visited the Isles in 1614 and was so captivated by them that he wrote, “Of all foure parts of the world that I have seene not inhabited, could I have but the meanes to transport a Colonie, I would rather live here than any where.”  By 1680, the thriving fishing village of Gosport was established on Star Island and prospered until the Revolution, when it and all the islands were evacuated in the face of British attacks.  

Celia Thaxter

After independence, the Isles became a popular resort and health spa hosting hotels and restaurants serviced from Portsmouth by a daily ferry service. The first hotel was built by the  White Island lighthouse keeper on the larger Appledore Island in 1850. It soon became a popular watering spot for the New England literati, including  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sarah Orne Jewett, Childe Hassam, and John Greenleaf Whittier. One of the attractions of the Isles was the lighthouse keeper's daughter, Celia Thaxter, a popular poet of the day.  She called the Isles of Shoals “these precious isles set in a silver sea.”  Another hotel, built on Star Island in 1872, catered to a different crowd, advertising itself as "Pre-eminently the place for the tired worker. No noise, no dust, no trolleys.”

A whale tail!

It had been some time since I'd been sailing, but I recovered the skills fairly quickly.  This boat was fully-equipped for hard-core sailing, even having a traveler, an essential piece of gear that a lot of sailboats are not equipped with, as well as a boom vang, preventer for the main and other useful goodies. The owner, so we understood, made frequent trips to the Maine Islands and farther north to the Maritimes and had set up his boat to make such voyages.

It had also been some time since I had been on a Navy base and it felt good, like coming home.  I knew the routines and procedures, what everything was.  The base was neat and clean and full of people busy with jobs that needed doing.  I wanted to linger and wander around, but I couldn't do that and go sailing, too.  So sailing it was.

Those bobbing black things are the heads of seals.

After navigating carefully, following sailing directions to the letter and avoiding lobster buoys and commercial moorings, we anchored in two fathoms of water near a rockbound shore and were immediately surrounded by curious seals.  The water was clear and I could see them swimming around, cavorting as only seals can.  I'd dived off the Channel Islands into the kelp beds with seals, but here I saw no kelp, although there was plenty elsewhere, just a rocky bottom.  I felt the urge to dive in among them although I knew that without a wet suit I couldn't stay in the water long. I'd looked up the water temperature for August at a diving site I belong to and learned that the average water temperature around the Isles in August was 70 degrees (compared to 60 degrees at Santa Barbara and 85 degrees at Guam, where I'd also dived).  I figured in this shallow cove the water would be warmer because of solar heating and the heat of the rocks.  

Anyway, I mentioned to my dad that I was going to dive in for a few minutes and to turn his back while I stripped out of my tee shirt and jeans, shoes and socks and dove in.  The water hit me like jumping into a bowl of ice cubes but in a few moments I was accustomed to it.  Seals immediately surrounded me, one approaching within about five feet before banking away.  I swam for the bottom, seals following me, and looked up at our boat.  As I did so, I saw dad, stripped down to his skivvies, dive into the water.  He swam down to me, rolling over on his back and waving, then kicked up to the surface and began swimming a lap around the boat. I followed, just about out of breath when I surfaced.  I treaded water, saw some seals sunning on a rock and thought about joining them but decided they might be aggressive and if not, would just dive into the water when I approached.  I looked around and spotted a flat rock barely above the surface and swam over to it and clambered out of the water. 

It was warm to my feet and the sun on my skin felt delightful.  I realized that already my body core was chilled, just after that brief time in the water.  I lay down, closed my eyes, and soaked up the sun. After a few minutes I heard splashing and some animal crawling up on the rock, as I imagined.  Alarmed, I opened my eyes to see what it was.  It was my dad hoisting himself out of the water.  He was cold, too, and lay down beside me, breathing heavily.  I didn't like hearing that.  It worried me and reminded me that although I always thought of him as he was when I was growing up, he was really long past his prime. I shouldn't have encouraged him, if only by example, to over-exert himself. In a minute or two, though, his breathing returned to normal.  He sat up and looked out across the water to our boat and asked me if I had seen the sharks.  I had not seen any sharks.  I asked what kind.  He said he thought they were sand sharks, about three  or four feet long. He'd also seen some horseshoe crabs.  I hadn't seen those, either.

Not wanting to get sunburned and warmed up I said I was going back to the boat.  Dad said he'd follow me.  I swam back circled by seals.  The water felt colder to me than before.  I clambered up the swim ladder and turned around to see dad swimming up to it.  He grabbed for the ladder and missed as the boat rolled, then got it when the boat rolled back.  I got down on my knees and leaned over, stretching out a hand for him to grasp, which he did, but mainly to steady himself rather than needing me to help him climb.  He looked up at me, then quickly averted his eyes.  I stood back as he clambered aboard, panting slightly.

"Daughter," he said, "You shouldn't do that to an old man!"

"Do what?" I asked.  He just looked at me and shook his head.

I noticed that he was shivering slightly so I said he should go below and take a hot shower and get into his clothes.  I'd make some coffee in the galley and have it ready for him.  He didn't object.  While he was showering he began scat singing the Triumphal March from Aida, bellowing it out pretty good.  I began humming it under my breath, too.  There was only instant coffee aboard so when the water boiled I spooned enough into the pot to make a strong brew and told dad it was ready on the stove and that I was going topside while he put on his clothes.

I went forward and lay down on the warm deck, looked up at the sky. It had been fairly cloudy sailing over, but now the clouds were almost gone and the sun was strong.  I propped myself up on an elbow and looked around at the islands. They were flat, practically treeless, covered in scrub brush where they weren't heavily built up with all sorts of structures and their manicured lawns.  There was nothing attractive about them at all.  What a contrast with Anacapa, or Santa Rosa, never mind Santa Catalina.  Even Santa Barbara Island was more interesting.  Yet these isles were popular with New Englanders and had been for hundreds of years, with, as I've noted, rhapsodic descriptions of their wonders. I honestly didn't see what the attraction was, especially since the anchorages were so crappy and dangerous in any kind of foul weather.

While I was thinking these thoughts, suddenly it popped into my head what dad had meant when he said I shouldn't do "that."  Boobage.  I hadn't considered the view I was giving the poor man practically right in his face.

Thinking about boobs and their effect on the male, I recalled reading somewhere once, maybe in Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape, that women had breasts to represent their buttocks.  Other primates mated doggy style but humans mated face-to-face he had written, so to attract the male, the female had to grow pseudo buttocks in front.  I remember when I read that thinking, wait, wait -- you're telling me I have a butt hanging off my chest?   That I have two butts, uptown and downtown, so to speak?  Oh, nuts. Just get out of here! Hasn't this guy ever seen photos of topless "native" women?  Their breasts don't look anything at all like their hind ends.  I guess if your mind went that way a woman clad in a western-style dress with cleavage could bring to mind a plumber's butt crack.    But you know... I don't think so.  Oh, and although the author of that book may not have been aware of it, humans do it doggy style, too. 

Schooner at White Island, Isles of Shoals.

About this time, dad climbed up on deck with a mug of coffee and sat down in the cockpit by the helm.  I went below, showered, and then changed into my maple-leaf dress.  I'd brought it along as an emergency change because you never know.  I rinsed out my panties and bra, wrung them dry, poured myself a cup of coffee, grabbed  dad's skivvies from where he'd hung them and went back up on deck.  I laid out our underthings on the cabin roof but dad had a better idea and clipped them onto the pennant line and hoisted them aloft, where they waved in the breeze.

He then suggested we go ashore at Star Island and have a stroll and eat lunch before heading back. We clambered into the zodiac and each taking an oar, paddled briskly to the pier. It was hot on the island, but there was a pleasant zephyr wafting across what was basically a big, flat granite slab.  We saw everything there was to see in about a half-hour stroll, then checked out the old hotel. It had a cute little gift shop that I pounced on to buy souvenirs for my kids and mom.  I was pleased that I found some unique items for them because in Portsmouth I didn't really find anything aside from some glasses and mugs celebrating the 400th anniversary of the city's founding in 1623.

At the harborside Gosport Grill, we ordered New England clam chowder and fish and chips.  The food tasted delightful in that nautical setting, with the bright seaside sun and salty sea breeze. I had an ice tea. Dad ordering a Stoneface festbier, a local brew.  I didn't know what a festbier was so he offered me a sip. It just tasted like beer to me. But he said it was pretty good and after finishing it he ordered another and a third after that. I thought, dad, you are going to get blasted out of your skull, but I said nothing.  Let him enjoy.  What was the harm?  I recalled el jefe, when I was with him at Ramstein, raving about all the great beers in Germany and saying poor old Germany: if there's any country that has been screwed more times than it by history and still managed to survive, he didn't know which one it was.

While we were eating, I couldn't help overhearing the conversation of an older couple at a table diagonally across from us.  The woman was looking out over the anchorage and remarked to her husband (I assumed) that one of the boats was flying some sort of flags.  The boat she pointed to was ours.  She asked him if it was a distress call and shouldn't they tell someone.  He looked over at the boat and said, "Oh, no.  That's just their underwear.  They probably hung it up to dry."

"How can you even tell what it is?  I only see what looks like white flags."

"I looked at it through the binoculars while you were taking that call from your sister.  Here, have a look," he said, handing her a small pair of folding spy glasses.  She took them, fiddled with the focus, and scrutinized our Cape Dory.

"Why, yes," she said after a moment.  "A bra, panties and boxer shorts.  Now why would someone fly those from their flag pole?"

"It's not a pole, it's a rope."

"Well, whatever it is."

"I saw them, a man and a woman, swimming earlier and then sunbathing.  I imagine after they got back on the boat they hung their underwear up to dry."

"They were swimming in their underwear?  Why would they do that?  Don't they have swim suits?  And how could you tell they were in their underwear?  That's pretty far away."

"I guess they didn't bring swimming suits." After a pause, he added, "I was watching them through the binoculars, my dear."

 "You were watching a woman swimming around in her underwear through binoculars?"  She frowned and shook her head.  

The man shrugged.  Finishing his coffee, he said, "Are you done?" When she nodded, he said, "Well, we might as well see what else there is to see here," and they rose to go, the woman saying, "I think you've seen quite enough."

"I wouldn't have minded seeing more."

"Dear! There are other people here," she said, glancing in our direction.  Then as they walked past our table she glanced at us again, looking at me, then my dad, then back to me.  As they walked away, she said, "I don't understand those December-May couples.  What do they have in common?  What do they have to talk about?"

The man, looking back at me, said, "Maybe talking is not what the relationship is about."  I stuck my tongue out at him.  He stuck his tongue out back at me.  

My dad, who had been gazing off in the distance, not paying attention, noticed and asked what that was all about.

"Oh, we were just flirting."

"Huh."  

 "So, what were you thinking about?  You looked lost in thought."

"Oh, nothing.  Just sitting here enjoying the view and digesting my food.  It's been a nice day, don't you think?  Nothing better than messing about with boats."

"Wind in the Willows!"

"A happy book." 

_________________________________________

Off Shore
The waves are full of whispers wild and sweet;
They call to me, -- incessantly they beat
Along the boat from stern to curvéd prow

Comes the careering wind, blows back my hair,
All damp with dew, to kiss me unaware,
Murmuring "Thee I love," and passes on.

Sweet sounds on rocky shores the distant rote;
O could we float forever, little boat,
Under the blissful sky drifting alone!
~ Celia Thaxter 

 

 

Cheer up...?

 I guess you've got to look at the sunny side of life, no matter what happens.  Isn't that what they say? Stiff upper frontal lobe and all that.

Interlude

 There's no better antidote to the blues than to dance. You get lost in the moment, living in the eternal now.  No yesterday. No tomorrow.  Only this instant, which extends forever. You pirouette in this flash of lightning between the two great darks.

 

His girl

Feeling a bit glum, to cheer myself up,  I recalled an incident last summer when I was in Germany rendezvousing with el jefe, eating at the Ramstein Inn Dfac. It was very crowded and we sat across from a guy who seemed very interested in us, looking first from one to the other as we chatted.  At one point, I excused myself to go pick up desert for us and when I came back I saw the guy talking to el jefe.   I heard him ask, "How do you get a girl like that?" Then he saw me approaching and clammed up. I smiled at him and he blushed. I don't know what prompted him to ask that but it certainly made my day.

Walking through the night

“You hope your bucket of experience fills up before your bucket of luck runs out.”
~ Dad

 ...continued

I think dad had wanted me to save him from having to say no to his friend by saying I was tired or had a headache or something and wanted to go back to our hotel because of the pained way he looked at me when I said that.  But he manned up and said that we had a long flight ahead of us tomorrow, so we'd best be getting back to the hotel for some rack time.  He shook hands with his old friend and told him to give a shout now and then and his friend promised to do so, but not, I thought, with much enthusiasm.  I said good-bye to my cousin, thanking him for filling me in on some family history, and we left them standing there as we turned away and headed back to the hotel.

We walked in silence for a while and then, at the same time, we both said, "Sorry...,"  then fell silent.  I was going to say sorry I was so late, but not explain why because that would sound like an excuse and my father does not like excuses; they sound like requests for forgiveness.  Don't ask others to forgive you for your own decisions, he says. Accept the consequences, acquiesce in any opprobrium due you and learn.

After a minute, he said, "I was going to say that I was sorry that you had to suffer that fool gladly."

"Oh, he wasn't a fool, just a little tipsy."

"He shouldn't have behaved that way to my daughter.  That was rude to you -- and to me."

"I thought that, too, to be honest." 

"He was getting at me through you.  I appreciated your patience with him.  I wanted to slug him."

 "Why do you think he acted that way?"

Dad then told me a little about his friend. I'll call him Dick.  He left the Navy as soon as his obligation was up. This would have been in the early 1980s. He got a great job with Pan American and was living large while dad was still in the Navy, struggling to rebuild the fleet after the demoralization of the Viet Nam War era and trying to modernize it and redirect it to the challenges of the post-war world.  Dick's wife divorced him due to his relentless philandering and reckless spending, taking his children out of his life.  Shortly after this, Pan Am went out of business and Dick was out of a job.  No major airline would hire him because of his age.  He eventually settled in to flying for charter and other non-scheduled airlines, picking up jobs delivering leased airliners to operators all over the world.  It sounded kind of interesting to me, but dad said it didn't pay well, and left Dick uncertain where or when he would get another job.  Eventually, those jobs dried up and he became a flight instructor, supplementing his income by working in real estate, then as a parts manager for a Volkswagen/Subaru dealership.  Along the way, he married and divorced again.  He inherited his house from a relative and lived there alone, never hearing from his children or ex-wives, spending his days, according to what dad learned from him, mostly taking long drives, watching TV, eating fast food, drinking and going to strip clubs.

"So you guys didn't hit it off too well in your reunion?"

"Sometimes, it's best not to renew old acquaintances.  The things you had in common a half century ago in that brief, intense time you were sharing the adventures of youth don't persist into old age. You are strangers to each other, vaguely familiar in voice and face...there was something between you once long ago but what it was...is no more...could it have ever been...or was it what you thought it was?"

Dad fell silent.  I didn't know what to say in response but I was thinking over what he said and wondering how it would apply to my life as time went by.  Suddenly, dad said, "I wish I had a cigarette.  I could use one right about now."

"But you don't smoke."

"Oh, I used to, before I met your mother.  'The smoking lamp is lit,' were sweet words to me."

"I never knew that."

"No reason you should have."

"We could stop somewhere and buy a pack."

Dad didn't respond right away. We walked in silence.  Then he said, "No.  It's okay.  The moment has passed."

I thought about dad as a young man walking some lonely street in a harbor town at night, fog rolling in, pausing under a street lamp to light a cigarette, taking a drag, then walking on, disappearing into the darkness.

There were scarcely any people on the streets at this hour, but the night was warm and pleasant, rich with the scents of a seaside town.  A police car drove by, slowing as it passed us.  I thought, remembering a recent episode, oh, crap, not this again.  I figured the cop would circle the block, come back and stop us, probably asking if everything was all right, even though we were just walking down the street.  But he never came back. 

I think what dad had told me was that his old friend had followed a path in life that had not led to much in the end. But my father, plodding the route of a career naval officer, staying married and loyal to the love of his youth and the children that that love produced, basically doing the same job, but in increasingly responsible positions, all his life had ended up having a more fulfilling life than had the more free-wheeling Dick. And Dick  knew that and envied and resented my father.  I don't know if dad meant to say that, but that's the message I got.  Considering some of the dumb things I had done in my past, starting and retreating from paths I could not have returned from had I continued on, teetering on the edge of the abyss at one point, but stepping back at the last minute, sweating in fear, heart pounding....  Yeah, dad had made the right life choice.  I wondered if he had had his moment of realization and what it was. I would never know.

 We continued on in silence for some minutes before my father, looking at his watch and remarking on the lateness of the hour, said that we had two choices for tomorrow.  One was to leave around mid-day because, although I might be able to get up at the crack of dawn, he was going to need a full night's rest. If we left around 10 or so, unless we wanted to fly long into the night, as we had done the other day, we should stop somewhere in Ohio or Indiana and spend tomorrow night there, then have a long flight to reach home the next day.  Or we could lay over one more day in Portsmouth, then leave early the next morning and fly on to Eau Claire as had been our original plan of departure from Burlington.  Then the next day would be a shorter flight home.

We had reached the hotel by this time and stood discussing our options in the lobby.  I couldn't help noticing how ramrod straight dad stood, thin and fit, the very picture of military bearing.  Funny, but I'd never noticed that before.  I don't know why I did then. I asked where in Ohio or Indiana and he said he hadn't really thought about it till just now and would have to map a route out tomorrow morning.  He was too tired to do it tonight.  Considering that, I said that I would not mind another day in Portsmouth, so why didn't we just do that and so have plenty of time to work out the next day's route, file a flight plan and so forth.  Dad agreed, looking relieved, and only then did I sense how tired he was.  It showed mainly around his eyes.  This day had been not only a physically tiring one, but an emotionally tiring one, as well, for him.  

We walked up the carpeted stairs, one step creaking as we trod it, said our good nights in the hallway, and parted company.  But before we did, dad took both my arms, pushed me back so he could get a good look at me and said, "You look just like your mother did at your age.  It's hard to believe I used to change your diapers.  The time goes so fast."

In my room, I stood staring out the window at the city lights for a while, reviewing the incidents of the day.  Then I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror.  The dress I had bought because I thought it was wicked cute I now thought looked like something only a moron would wear. I took it off, tossing it on a chair, showered and went to bed.

 

Burlington to Portsmouth

 Training, Mentors, Practice, Proficiency, Planning, Maintenance and Vigilance.
-- Father's rules for becoming and remaining a good pilot.

 Dad got everything squared away with the scareplane and came back to the hotel in time to take me to dinner.  He was in excellent spirits, saying the plane flew like new.  He'd not only swapped out the carburetors but had a general tune-up done to the engines, new spark plugs and whatnot, and also had the whole plane washed and waxed.  He'd also gotten an offer to buy it from a bystander who said he'd pay $500,000.  Dad said not for sale at any price.  We chowed down at the Farmhouse Tap & Grill on Bank St., eating on the patio.  I had fish and chips.  It was really good.  But then I was hungry, relieved of the worry that the stupid airplane would  need some dumb part that was back-ordered for months or something. 

Dad had a burger with fries and onion rings and a Star Wayfinder beer, a Czech-style pilsner locally brewed, that he liked so much he ordered another.  He couldn't finish all his onion rings so I scored them.  Dee-lish. Onion rings! Onion rings! Eat 'em up! Yum! (Sing that to the tune of Barnes & Barnes' "Fish Heads." Heh.)

While we ate, dad talked about the need to update the cockpit of the Beech. Most of the instrumentation was original and even the radios, though updated, were pretty long in tooth.  If we were going to be doing a lot of long-distance flying we needed to get some top-quality avionics in the cockpit.  I thought who is this "we" you are talking about?  It sure don't include me. I've had my adventure and desire none more. But I just smiled and nodded.  He also talked about teaching my boys to fly, first in a J3 we had, the same one he had been taught to fly in by his father, my grandfather, then graduating them to a Cherokee, maybe get them some time in the Steerman, the old N2S I had seen in the ranch hanger but never noticed anyone fly, then get them into the Beech 18.  I was okay with all of that, though I wondered if, by the time they were old enough, the government would not have banned private aviation.

Dad also said that before heading for home he wanted to take a short hop somewhere to make sure everything was functioning properly and get it straightened out if it was not.  He asked me if I had any preferences. I thought for a minute and said why not let's go down to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, flying into Pease, now a civilian airport with good facilities. That would only be about an hour's flight.  Dad thought that was a great idea, especially as he knew a guy he had flown with in the service who had retired to Hampton, NH, lived in an ancient farmhouse with attached barn out towards Exeter, and maybe he could touch bases with him.

We walked over to the waterfront before heading back to the hotel, dad wanting to see it and stroll around a bit.  I would have avoided it, were it up to me, but I guess it did me good to make new memories of the place, listening to my dad reminisce about walking with my mom in San Francisco when they were dating, eating at Salmagundi's an inexpensive soup and salad cafeteria-style restaurant on, he wasn't sure, maybe Geary St., that played classical music softly in the background and gave you a free soup refill, then taking the cable car to Hyde St. Pier and walking from there along the waterfront over the hill to Ft. Mason, Marina Green, the yacht harbor, detouring over to the Palace of Fine Arts, then Crissy Field, Ft. Point, sitting there enjoying the view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, then cold, tired and happy, taking a trolley bus -- he thought it was the No. 34 -- back, sitting together, not talking, content with each other's company, looking out the window at the shops and houses, cars and people, all the lights coming on as evening fell.

He sighed.  He was afraid to visit San Francisco again, dismayed and uncomprehending what it had become. He wondered if the concrete bench above the Ft. Mason piers was still there, halfway down the steps from the road passing above.  He and mom had spent many hours there, just sitting together.  He said it was the same bench that his father and my grandmother had sat on when they were young.  I knew that bench. I had sat there, too. Was it still there?  If it wasn't, I didn't want to know.  At one point, dad stopped, looking out over the lake but I think not seeing it but seeing San Francisco Bay, and said to me, "Our country's gone, isn't it?  We're still here but our country is gone."

We were at the airport the next morning before dawn, both of us eager to get going.  The starting ritual to get the old bird fired up (the Beech, not my dad), was to pull the props through several turns on each engine to be sure there was no hydraulic lock.  If there was, we'd pull off the cowling and unscrew spark plugs until we got a gusher of oil, pull the prop through a couple of times to get it all out, replace the plugs and cowling and pour the oil we'd caught in a pan (well, most of it) back in the engine. We clamber into the cockpit and go through the starting ritual: cycle the props, verify feathering actuation, oil by-pass in, fuel selectors front, cross-feed off, mixture full rich, open the cowl flaps, close the oil shutters, select the fire extinguisher for the engine we're starting first, by habit the left one.  Then crack the throttle open slightly, shout “clear” out the window and energize the starter. Vreeeee! Slowly the big two-bladed propeller begins to revolve and after it completes two complete rotations turn on both magnetos. There's a cough or two and some gasps and barks as a couple of cylinders fire. If you've opened the throttle a tad too much, you may get a backfire. A few more cylinders fire and the engine begins to stutter and growl. Smoke streams back from the exhaust in an oily cloud and then the remaining cylinders burst into life, turning the propeller blades into a shimmering disk as the engine  settles into a steady rumble.  Then repeat the process for the right engine.

We let the engines idle while we do other piloty things. When the oil temperature reaches 20 degrees C and the cylinder head temperatures rise above 100 degrees C we throttle up to 800 rpm and taxi to the runway, mag checks, trim tabs set to neutral, cowl flaps set to trail, flaps 15 degrees, lock the tail wheel once we're lined up, throttle to 36 inches and props to 2300 rpm, leading with the left engine to keep her straight, and away we go, 80 knots, rotate, gear up, flaps up, cowl flaps closed,  adjust trim, at 500 feet reduce power and props to 33 inches and 2200 rpm, at 1,000 feet reduce again and climb out at 28 inches and 2000 rpm, 110 knots, 1400 fpm, turning on to our southeast heading. At cruising altitude mixture manual lean, throttles and props to 27 inches and 1800 rpm.

I left-seated for the take-off, dad monitoring the gauges and listening to the engines intently, then once we were at cruising altitude we switched seats and he took over as PIC and wrung the engines out, climbing, descending, pushing cruise up to 90gph burn, which saw us really boring a hole in the sky, then dropping it down to Lindbergh max range speed.  Everything checked out, the plane performing like Jack the Bear, as dad said. I knew who Smokey the Bear was but  I didn't ask who Jack the Bear was. 

I took the left seat for the landing at Pease. I really wanted to do that, considering all that I had thought about my grandfather flying B-47s out of there in the 1950s, as I've written.  It had surprised me to learn there was only one runway, but what a runway --11,300 feet long and 150 feet wide, elevation above sea level just 100 feet.  Wind was 140 degrees at five knots and I set the mighty Beech down on Runway 16 like a feather and paced it so that as we slowed to taxi speed I was just at the first turn-off and taxied to the ramp, opening the window, as did my dad on his side, to get some air because it was a most warm morning.

I tried to imagine what it would have been like to howl down on that runway at 200 knots, drogue deployed to slow you down, in the hottest airplane in the sky after a 10-hour mission to taunt the Soviets into launching interceptors after you, then out-running them and skedaddling home.  But I really couldn't.

I supervised refueling while dad went to arrange meeting his friend and rented cars for both of us. I was pleased he trusted me to do this, but, you know, it really was not a big deal, just make sure they put blue gas in her and top off the oil with the right grade.  I then taxied to the tie-down area, got everything secured and went to meet pop.  He had reserved a hotel for us to stay at since he wanted to visit with his friend whom he had arranged to meet.  He'd also set up a dinner with my cousin, whom he had visited with on the way to Britain and who was, dad said, looking forward to meeting me.  So, handing me the keys to my rental, he bid me a fond farewell, saying he would see me for dinner. Au revoir mon paternel!  

Hmm.  Now what to do?

My grandfather's B-47E at Pease. Photo by him.

 First, I wanted to look around Pease a little bit and absorb the fact that I was actually here, where my grandfather had flown B-47s during the height of the Cold War.  It was hard for me to believe I was actually here, that Pease AFB actually was a real place, not just something conjured in the mind from old letters, documents and photos.  Here it was. Or what was left of it, Mostly the runway, which is the heart of any air base anyway.  And here I was.  I had actually flown in as PIC of a pretty good-sized airplane myself, one that my grandfather would have been familiar with, perhaps even flown the C-45 Air Force version.  I tried to remember all I could about him, which wasn't much. I never had a chance to see him very often, as I've written, and each time only briefly.  He seemed like a contented and cheerful man, easy going and friendly,  not like my other grandfather, with whom I spent much more time. He was rather stern, never talked much and kind of scared me.

Harl Pease in high school 

Pease Air Force Base was named for Harl Pease who won the Medal of Honor piloting a B-17D, which he had flown from the states to the Philippines in an epic, ground-breaking trans-Pacific flight, as part of a squadron reinforcing the islands in anticipation of war with Japan.  Many of these planes were destroyed in the Japanese attack when it came, but not Pease's. He flew it on attacks against the Japanese invaders, then, when all was lost, he flew it to Australia, from where he bombed Japanese forces at Lae in New Guinea and Singapore.  He led a force of half-a-dozen war-weary B-17s

B-17Ds at Hickam Field, Hawaii, on their way to Clark Field,  PI.

from Townsend, Australia via Seven Mile Strip in New Guinea  to attack the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul in the Solomon Islands in support of the Marine landings on Guadalcanal, August 7, 1942.  On the way, his plane lost an engine, but instead of turning back, he continued on, trailing behind the other bombers.  Over Rabaul, his plane was pounced on by the defending Zeros of the Tainan Kokutai and was shot down and he was captured by the Japanese.  On October 8, 1942, he was forced to dig his own grave, then beheaded. As I've written, my grandfather fought against the Tainan Kokutai.  He would certainly have known very well who Harl Pease was.  Maybe their paths had crossed.

When I was digging around through boxes and suitcases full of old family memorabilia -- okay, junk -- I came across some photos of my grandfather's family life in New Hampshire, their pet cocker spaniel, their new 1956 Ford Crown Victoria, their kids dressed up in their finest for Easter, Christmas morning present-opening and so forth.  One photo I noticed was of a statue being unveiled at Hampton Beach, a woman holding a wreath as I recalled it that somehow I thought was a memorial to fishermen lost at sea. Anyway, since I was here, I thought I'd drive down and take a look at it.  While looking up how to get to where it was, I learned it represents a Gold Star mother mourning her lost child, and was actually a  memorial to sailors lost at sea during World War II who had no burial service or other remembrance. It was originally intended to be placed in Washington, D.C., but, for some reason, it was not allowed, so it came to New Hampshire, the man who initiated the project being a New Hampshire native and it was the loss of his son at sea in May, 1945, that prompted him to get the project started.  I'd seen the snapshot of my grandfather's family at the unveiling on Memorial Day (then always the 30th), 1957, so I felt both a desire and an obligation to go see the statue.  It was still there, a relic of the old America that had a sense of itself as a people and a nation, aware of and proud of its history, eager to memorialize it for future generations whom, it was naturally assumed, would spring from those who came before and who had roots in our country, their native land.

I walked the beach, full of vacationers from points south.  I listened to their talk.  It sounded alien to me, a westerner, used to the accents of California, career military (a kind of generic, mild southern accent) and the inter-mountain west.  I suppose a lot of the vacationers came from the Boston or New York City areas where lots of ethnic whites reside. In any case, I felt a stranger among them. I listened for the famous Yankee accent I had read so much about in old books and heard in old movies and radio plays but I never discovered it.

I drove back up to Portsmouth and walked around.  It was a lovely small city that charmed me. I took a boat ride along the harbor and the Piscataqua river and back into what was called the Great Bay.  It was all so different from where I lived or had lived in the States that I felt like I was not in America but in a foreign country -- not quite as foreign as England, more like the foreignness of Canada.  I guess that's to be expected in a land as large as ours.  But it did make me feel homesick and eager to get going.

While I was on the boat, I heard a familiar sound, the unmistakable rumble of big radial engines in the sky.  Looking up I saw a twin Beech and for a split second thought, huh, somebody has one here, too.  Then I realized it was ours and for another panicked split second I thought dad had taken off without me and was heading home alone.  Hey!  Dad!  Then I realized that, of course, he and his pal had taken the Beech up for a spin.  I waved and a man standing next to me waved, too, remarking, "Pretty airplane."  I agreed and almost said that was my dad up there and it was our airplane (well, his), but I didn't.  

The ice broken, we chatted a bit.  His wife was sitting in the stern with their kids, they had driven down from Concord to enjoy the sea breezes and eat some fresh-caught lobster.  I wondered if there was a lobster season and he said he didn't know.  He asked where I was from as I didn't sound like a local.  He guessed Tennessee and I said not even close.  I've never even been to Tennessee.  So where, he asked and I said California, which was true enough for conversational purposes, not wanting to get into an explanation of where a service brat is from -- nowhere, really.  And my new home on the range didn't yet quite feel like a place I truly belonged.  I hoped it would someday.  So California it was.  I could talk about Cali with familiarity.  He wanted to know what I thought about Newsom and one political thing or the other but I just uttered a few platitudes which was fine with him because he didn't really want to hear my opinion but tell me his.  I didn't want to listen to any political crap -- I hate politics -- and I wanted to enjoy the experience of being in this place where I was and savor it. I didn't pay for a boat ride so I could listen to some stranger's rant, so I pulled out my cell phone, excusing myself that I just got a call I had to take and moved away, praying he wouldn't follow me.  He didn't.

After the boat ride, although I wanted to do and see more -- Portsmouth had really captivated me with all its waterways, bridges and lovely old buildings -- I was tired and wanted to clean up so I went looking for our hotel. Dad had taken our luggage with him and checked into our digs, the Hotel Portsmouth right downtown on Court St.  We each had separate rooms and when I got there I found that the staff had put my bags in my room already.  The hotel was in a Victorian-era building with lots of wonderful wood work.  I cleaned up  and sat down to think what to do next.  I felt tired so I flopped down on the bed and dozed off.  My phone woke me.  It was my dad letting me know that we had dinner reservations at the Martingale Wharf restaurant on Bow St.  He and his friend and that cousin I had never met would meet me there.  I told him I had seen him flying over the harbor while I was taking a boat ride and he said if he had known I was on that garbage scow he would have buzzed me.

Looking at the time, I gave myself a half hour to do some souvenir shopping. So I headed out to Market Square, which the hotel staff told me was the best place to shop and nearby. I was mainly looking for something for my kids and mom but a square-neck, shirred-waist, ruffled-hem dress caught my eye and I immediately fell in love with it. It was like this dress on the left but the one I picked out after trying on several was a dark forest green. I knew el jefe would love me in it and I just had to have it.  I bought some matching bow-front cone heels to go with it and a tote bag.  By this time almost an hour had passed and I had to rush back to the hotel and change before heading to the restaurant. I had intended to wear my Vermont sundress and flats, which was more modest, but holding up my new dress and admiring it in the mirror I thought, oh, why not?  So I took a quick shower and as I dressed thought I should have bought some perfume and then said to myself you're not going out on a date, you dope, but somehow I felt I was and that I was getting ready to go have dinner with el jefe.  Isn't that stupid? I imagined dinner, then going to a show, maybe dancing, a nightcap, then back to the hotel and.... It's what I really wanted rather than chowing down with pop and a couple of strangers, making small talk -- how's your steak tartar?  A little underdone is it?

I thought about driving over but then figured either I would get lost or not be able to find a parking spot, so I shoved my heels in the tote back, put on my sneaks and set forth at a brisk trot for the waterfront after getting directions from the friendly hotel staff.  The desk clerk complimented me on my dress and the bell hop said, "Looking good!"  I was embarrassed to be wearing sneaks so I pulled out my heels to show them I had some fashion sense.  They asked me to try them on and I did, doing a little pirouette and curtsy, then thought, crap, I'm so late and I'm doing this, put my sneaks back on and darted into the evening.

I found the restaurant with no trouble and paused to put on my heels before going in. I freshened up in the little girl's room then asked the hostess if she had a party of three, two old geezers who probably called her honey or sweetie and a younger guy. She made a wry face and steered me towards the bar.  Hoo boy, I though, if those jaybirds have been knocking back the happy juice all this time....  My thought was interrupted by my dad, having spotted me, calling out, "Well,  look at that, the Queen of Sheba has arrived!" and the old coot next to him, who I assumed was his navy buddy, said, "Holy bazoombas! Honk! Honk!"  The other guy looked me over, smiled, and said, staring at my boobs, "Hey!" slurring the word a bit.  I thought, oh, great, just great.  I should have worn a burka.  But I had to admit that I had put the girls on display, so to speak, so what did I expect from a bunch of drunks?

The hostess, giving me a sympathetic glance, led us out to our outdoor table on the terrace overlooking the harbor.  There was an argument over who would sit next to me.  I thought about asking our waitress to seat me at a separate table.  But I said, "Dad, sit next to me!" in my naval officer command voice.  And he did so.  The others sat down, too, looking contrite. The dinner was okay.  I had baked halibut and I don't remember what the others had. I was famished and realized I hadn't eaten anything since we left Burlington. I had been feeling cranky but with some grub in my gut I mellowed and got the conversation, which had dried up, going again, asking my cousin, the younger man, about his family and the area, and bantering with dad's friend.  I could see that relieved and pleased pop and I wanted to make up for being so late so I let the conversation get a little risque.  When his friend, loosened up with another whiskey sour, told a raunchy farmer's daughter joke involving a mistaken milking episode and I offered an amused chuckle my dad patted me on the shoulder. He was saying thank you for indulging my crude, lewd old buddy.  Earlier, dad had told me that the guy had saved his life over North Viet Nam and my dad had saved his, so they were sort of like blood brothers.  So him ogling my cleavage and telling bawdy stories and me smiling was, I guess, my way of thanking him for keeping dad alive.

The time passed, neither my dad nor my cousin drank anything more, their conversation was normal and interesting, the view of the harbor lights and boats passing by was pleasant, and soon the restaurant was closing and we were shooed out.  We stood in the cool night, a hint of sea fog in the air, aromatic with salt and seaweed, still chatting. Dad's friend suggested we go to this great bar he knew nearby, the Thirsty Moose or something. Dad hesitated and looked at me.  If we went to a bar at this hour we were definitely not flying anywhere tomorrow. I wouldn't mind spending another day in Portsmouth.  But then I also wanted to get this trip over with.  I also worried how much more obnoxious dad's friend might get with more drinks in him.  I was getting a little tired of laughing at oafish jokes.  But I said, "It's up to you, dad.  Whatever you want to do."

 To be continued

October!