It was a mosquito that lived at the airport of Orange, MA, where Bill and I landed in the middle of the morning. It was a glorious blue sky kind of day, without wind, perfect for parachuting which is taught and practiced there. We watched the sky divers for a while; a wonderful sight as they twirled downward with their brightly colored parachutes. A grey haired gentleman stood by the fence intently watching the plane circling upwards for another round of jumping. I asked him whether he wanted to do that himself self and he answered yes in a way that indicated this was an impossible dream. Sigh.
I never felt a great desire in my adult life to do this kind of jumping although Axel and I did jump of a mountain in the French Alps, some years ago, on the back of our instructors. But somehow that’s different from jumping out of a plane at 5000 feet.
As a child I had a poster by my bedside that was developed by the Dutch dairy industry (or may be the Dutch Ministry of Public Health) to increase milk consumption by kids. Every time I drank a glass of milk I was allowed to cross off a small white glass in rows and rows of such glasses. Around the edges of the poster were pictures of various professionals with glasses of milk in their hands. There were only very few pictures of women in the poster (the nurse, the sales girl and the teacher) but one stood out: a young woman in a skydiving outfit. She became my heroine. I wanted to be like her and I drank all my milk to make that happen. Sometime during adolescence I lost that fervor and skydiving lost its appeal.
Bill and I took off from Beverly airport under special VFR because of the wall of clouds coming our way from the ocean. Westwards all was clear and sunny but we had to get through the wispy clouds and so I got to experience flying under stricter rules. Since it was new to me Bill did all the radio work. On the way back Bill had to request IFR clearance to land at Beverly and I was happy he was the pilot. I had already decided that an instrument rating is not something I am eager to do quite yet, and yesterday’s landing confirmed that; too complicated, and too much work.
In between the departing and arriving at Beverly I did a few landings at Gardner. This remains a tense experience for me, especially when I come in too fast and too high – but with coach Bill by my side (and Arne earlier) I have been doing pretty decent landings at my former crash site.
I made my usual phone call to Axel (‘the eagle has landed’) and drove home to see him mow the grass with his new machine as if it was actually fun (and fast). And then we drove to Gloucester to pick up a present for Molly and Brandon who were re-celebrating their marriage, about a year after the original ceremony – for friends and family in their old stomping ground of Salem. We picked a book of children’s stories by Virginia Lee Burton (from Folly Cove Designers fame) not knowing that a baby is on its way. We spent the evening with them, family and friends at the magnificent Hawthorne hotel in downtown Salem to celebrate unions, friendships and new life.
Sylvia's Journal 
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