I Could've Been A Pilot

Twenty minutes ago I was taking my dog Underbrush out for her final pee of the night. It's a clear night, and I always look up, hoping to see whatever stars happen to be out. Tonight, though, my eye was captured by a crystal clear plane going from one side of the sky to the other, lights blinking. He was doing it right.

Looking up at that beautiful craft, as I did, I felt a lot of emotions surging in my psyche. I had the emotion of relief, for one, that I am smart enough to realize it's just a plane and not a UFO. For had it been a UFO, that would've been awful. But the bigger emotion I had was one of wistfulness for the past, and all I could've been.

Seriously, it never occurred to me when I was a kid that I might be a pilot. Not once. And I was a kid who slept in the southeastern bedroom, the same direction of the airport here, where I saw the green and white lights flashing through the sky every night. I was always thinking of the airport, even though it was just a local airport and not anything major.

Now, though, that I'm grown up, and more naturally given to wistfulness about what might have been -- I'm rich in regrets -- I'm thinking, Why didn't I go into the piloting business? How cool it would have been to be jetting across the country with a front row seat on the destination. I'd be walking through an airport with my co-pilot, in a nice suit, with a carry-on bag, heading for the exit, ready to go cross country. And I would never have been like some of the bad eggs you hear of, guys who try to fly drunk. That's reprehensible to me in every way!

But what would it have taken? 1) Ambition to do it; 2) Applying myself to get the right education; 3) Then going for it! That's basically it. (Heck, had I been a pilot I would've been retiring right about now, since it is almost my 60th birthday. I believe I heard that pilots (jet airliner pilots) have to retire around 60.) But how great would those years have been. Instead of sitting here, basically vegetating in my grandparents' old house. Nursing along my game toe, from an accident that likely wouldn't have happened had I been a pilot.

That's not to say pilots don't have accidents. Some of the worst accidents in history have been caused by pilot error. The whole plane goes down. You crash in the mountains, or you crash at sea. Everyone dies, including you. There's a whole investigation, and very possibly your name and memory are mud. I was in a waiting room one time with an ex-pilot, true story. He told me a story of himself somehow missing the runway, or overshooting the runway, with the plane then going nose down or off to the side somehow. And with that one little accident he was out of a job. Smacking a mountain, if you survive, multiplies the penalty.

Still, I've been pretty lucky. I haven't had real bad luck. So I probably would've been a successful pilot, had I only done it. By now I would've been an expert in the various facts of aerodynamics. But now it's never going to happen, that's for sure. Too much time has slipped by. And so ... here I stand in my back yard with a pissing dog, watching other guys fly by. It's sad.

Thorax -- The Space Visitor

Those who saw it say they will never forget it. And you know what? I'm forced to admit they're probably right! How could you ever forget a space ship -- a flying saucer -- pulled by a 20-mule team? And an all-but-incredible, a being just shy of incredible, a space alien named THORAX!

They're all fortunate, most of them, that they lived to tell the incredible story ... of the day the sky lit up bright as can be. It was a night really, but it was as bright as day. Even the birds took to their nests. They were on the beach, in beach homes, and in homes farther inland, just as -- Good God, what was that? They heard the most horrendous whooshing noise, apparently coming from the sky, and apparently from the massive vehicle hovering overhead, along with the standard braying of a 20-mule team.

I had a friend there whose sworn testimony is what I base my own opinion on, feeling through his vivid description, related to me with words, sounds, gestures, and fearful looks, that I was actually there. It was one hell of a sight, with THORAX'S spaceship even monogrammed with an immense, ornate T. And the mules! My friend couldn't believe the mules, pullilng a spaceship and somehow defying the earth's gravity. It's almost too much...

And yet it is ... what it is ... a fact ... The Earth has been visited, according to the sworn testimony of my friend, by a being named THORAX, who came with a mission. And once his mission was accomplished, off he went, speeding back to the darkness and vastness of outer space. Leaving behind unforgettable memories ... and 20 spent mules, which scientists even now are examining for whatever evidence they can provide.

The biggest unforgettable memory, out of many, is when THORAX strode off the ship and, oblivious to the mere mortals forming a circle around him and his craft, unhitched the mules. Because what happened next, that's what my friend will never forget. THORAX himself walked over and extended the right hand of fellowship to him, and asked him a question.

THORAX inquired of my friend: "Tell me where your Grand Canyon is." Our Grand Canyon, my friend wondered, before replying, "You know about our Grand Canyon?" "Yes," said THORAX, "Every planet has a Grand Canyon." With the information gained, and a crowd of people standing around waiting for a sign of peace, THORAX reentered the ship and sped off toward Arizona.

There at the Grand Canyon, the reports go, THORAX procured fresh pack mules. To "train" them for flying in outer space, he hooked some kind of weird electrodes to their ears and gave them a jolt. Then it was simply a matter of fitting them in the exquisite other-worldly harness apparatus he had, also affixed to the craft.

THORAX turned and gave a gesture of peace and goodwill to the world, before lashing the mules, and taking off once again, headed for space -- the blackness of our star-studded sky. Space, more vast than any of us can imagine. Space, enough room for everyone. Space, room enough to grow.

Will THORAX ever return? This is an unanswerable question, unanswerable to me. THORAX himself probably knows.