Flyboys

“What the?!”

As I tore away the birthday gift wrap, it revealed a child’s brightly colored toy plane. I stammered a bewildered attempt at enthusiasm for son Garrett’s gift on my 60th B-day.

“Dude, we’re goin’ flying”, he explained.

And last Friday, our adventure began....







“Bank 20 degrees right”, said my flight instructor. “Hold the controls lightly.”

I realized I was so focused that I was clutching the yoke. I began to relax as Sky Trekker, Sue Bellew, with her 6000 hours of flight experience, talked me through the training process. After all, she was being the brave one by relinquishing the controls to a total stranger.










I flashed back to my aerial photography days in PA and the flight lessons I’d taken as a survival back up. After 30 years my minimal skills were more than rusty.





Gradually gaining confidence, I began to feel the freedom of soaring 3000 feet above the freeways I’d jockeyed on only an hour beforehand.

Later, being back on the ground felt anticlimactic. How could we regain the wonderful rush and contrast to our earthbound reality? How ‘bout a surf we reckoned!

So, on Saturday, we hit the surf at Pacifica.....along with about 100 of our closest surf buds. As I sat in the crowded line up, I fantasized flying off to an out of the way surf destination in my own small plane.

Tattoo: Da plane. Da plane.