Archive for August 22nd, 2008

A notch of confidence

Published August 22, 2008 Flying , Home Leave a Comment
When Arne told me this morning that my plane was available all day, and the briefer told me the weather was going to stay perfect all day along the route I selected, I knew the time had come to venture out on my own for a long cross county flight. My colleague Wolffy and his wife Carol were going to be a destination for a few more days and that clinched the deal. I set off at around 10 AM, heading to Katama via Provincetown and Barnstable and arrived a little after the estimated arrival time. I got a little lost after P’town because I had not properly programmed the GPS. I am sufficiently at ease now talking with traffic control along the way that I simply requested the correct heading to my destination which got me straight into Katama. Part of me was excited and part of me was very nervous; and so was Axel.
Wolffy and his dog waited for me at the airfield and saw a less than stellar landing on the grassy field, but a landing nevertheless. He took me to his lovely Main Street home where he and his wife Carol fed me ice coffee and something to eat; less than two hours later I asked to be dropped off again at the airfield. I could not quite relax the way one should when on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer because there was still that second half of the trip to complete. On the way back I turned on the automatic pilot and trimmed the plane to keep its altitude at exactly 2800 feet after which there was little else to do than watching the sail boats underneath and the miles counting down to Beverly.

Still in the plane I immediately called Axel after I landed; I knew he had mixed feelings about this trip, actually no different than mine. It was nice to tell him I had succeeded and that my confidence was, once again, one notch up from what it was before I set out on my own. He was having a late fried clam lunch at Woodman’s in Essex, something he craves a few times a year, an indulgence I don’t care that much about. He took his cousins Ben, 88, and his son Clark who had flown in from Florida for the family reunion. They had the same kind of craving.

When I came home I prepared a mega version of my Manhattan (Kansas) potato salad from a recipe that I learned from our friend Pam who hails from Manhattan, while we both lived in Dakar. It is a recipe that dates from the time when sugar, eggs and butter were considered good for you and so I rarely disclose the ingredients list (it has all of these in large quantities – ask me if you really want to know). I still have the 28 year old yellowed and by now brittle piece of paper with her handwritten instructions tucked in the front of my Joy of Cooking cookbook. I have created a reputation for the best potato salad; Axel’s bragging landed me the job of making such a salad for some 45 people for tomorrow.

Tessa and Steve and several friends congregated at our house on their way to a wedding of one of their own, one of the first I believe for her cohort. I never see these kids dressed up and it was quite a sight to see them in their Sunday best; except Steve who simply chose a tuxedo tee-shirt – this in sharp contrast to Tessa who loves to dress up. She had traded in yesterday’s shoe selection for another pair, with a wedge that was even higher, lifting her up to the length of a basket ball player.

When everyone was gone Axel and I donned our swim suits and sat by the high tide’s water’s edge, enjoying the view and the quite time, appreciating our luck to be living in the most beautiful place in the world, with the emphasis on ‘living.’
 

 

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