Day 123 - Then and Now

The Alabama sun shone squarely down upon me as I leaned on my Callaway #8 iron. The eagle on my retro-styled American Airlines baseball cap spread his wings defiantly in the afternoon heat, and blades of grass tickled my feet through my standard airport uniform flip-flops. Matt and I had decided to take in an afternoon of golf at our new private resort, and it occurred to me now that, in the history of bad ideas, my selection of a navy blue t-shirt for today’s attire had to rank somewhere in (at least) the top third.
“Fore!” Matt announced.
I stood a fair distance from him, and a good 60-70 degrees offset of his point of aim. He glanced in my direction, making eye contact with me despite his oversized, highly exaggerated aviator sunglasses, which have apparently clawed their way back into contemporary fashion. I never really understood the nomenclature; they seem more like something a highway patrolman from 1973 might wear; or maybe Hunter S. Thompson after a drug binge.
I peered through my much more conservative, much smaller, metal-framed Revo specs and nodded in approval, confident that I was in no danger. This confidence evaporated instantly as he released a furious swing that sent the diminutive white ball rocketing toward my head. In my best Matrix-like response, I rocked backed on my heels and bent aft and left at the waist. Time seemed to slow, the air blurred, and I even performed the melodramatic windmilling of my arms as the ball passed. It inched a long, leaving a trail of wake as it flew by, headed for God knows where. Then all at once, the earth caught back up with my time warp and I stood back up straight.
“Good Lord, Pitts!” I yelled (Pitts is Matt’s last name). Rapidly I glanced around, checking for successive line-drives aimed at my head, and also for witnesses to my spectacular evasive maneuver.
“What?”
“We’re awful!” It was true. I was making a 100% accurate and totally clinical assessment of our respective performances. We each had slices that would make jealous even the most skilled of samurai, and that is only if we actually made connection with the ball. The few that did not slice lacked in other ways. Matt’s skipped across the earth like grounders at a little league tee-ball game, while my shots performed more like bottle rockets: straight up and straight back down, landing merely a few mocking yards in front of me with a sarcastic “thud.” It was sad.
One wrestle with Hola Alpha usually takes us somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 minutes by the time each of us chase a ball all over the airport, but today we had to modify our game slightly. Someone had arrived overnight in a Diamond DA20, identical to the ones that I had completed my primary training in years before, and parked it next to our Seminole. Unfortunately for us, the crew of this particular aircraft had apparently mistaken this place for an airport. They had maneuvered their airplane to the edge of the ramp in such a manner that the tail now encroached upon the fairway of Hole Alpha. So, being the considerate folks that we are, we had decided to shorten the hole and modify the par accordingly instead of risking damage to the offending Diamond with our wildly unpredictable, drunken-monkey style of golfing.
Though slightly miffed by its insult to our afternoon game, I found the tiny bird to be an interesting sight to behold. It was almost a paradox of “then and now;” my beloved trainer aircraft of yesterday parked beside my current mistress. It made me wonder longingly if one day I would lay eyes upon a Seminole parked beside my next conquest, say, an MD-11 or 757. Would I react the same way upon visualization? Would I ever even reach that point? I certainly hoped so. This vista of encouragement illustrated to me the progress that I had made, with more to hopefully be made in the future. I let out a sigh as the visions of David and Goliath comparisons of Pipers and Boeings ricocheted through my brain. Maybe one day.
“Ya know,” I said to Matt as we set off, side by side, trudging across our makeshift country club. “We’ve really gotta get the golf cart fixed.”
“Yeah, all this walking isn’t healthy.”
“Oh?” His response shocked me. Matt is an avid health nut and connoisseur of finer weightlifting equipment, as has been previously discussed. I couldn’t imagine him finding any form of exertion or exercise repugnant; that was my job! Thus, I could not help but investigate further. “How so?”
“It’s giving me a rash,” was the matter-of-fact response.
“Ah!!!” I reeled from the nauseated amusement at his excessive revelation of information, unsure which to perform more; chuckling or gagging. “Niiiiice…”


So I’m in Montgomery for the weekend. I’ll be staying with my grandfather, so God help the citizens of this fair state as the two grumpiest old codgers ever to unleash their coffee-fueled wrath upon a population have once again been reunited. I’m really looking forward to it, as we always have a great time together. I’ll be returning to the airport on Monday, and I learned this evening that it shall be empty upon my return (or at least the school and pilot quarters will be). Matt is being sent to Las Vegas for a few weeks, leaving me all by my lonesome, and once again on the back burner. In fact, I’ve been taken off the back burner and put all the way back in the cabinet. The back burner would be an improvement. That’s the bad news. The good news is that since single-pilot ops in the twin are prohibited, I’m basically guaranteed that my recheck will be with The Boss, as I had hoped, since I obviously can’t fly anywhere else to take my recheck.
I’m not sure how this is going to work. I just know that the time keeps passing, I’m growing increasingly restless and impatient, and the circus music keeps getting louder. But I guess as Hailey says, “one day at a time.” I don’t know, though. It’s just hard to keep focus when it feels like you’re spinning your wheels. At this rate, I’ll have to go straight into retirement upon graduation. But then again, maybe that’s not such a bad idea after all.


Shuffleboard, anyone?

Joey