Violins in Flight                         
 The Chapters of a Pilot's Life on Instruments

This is a story about gratitude and friendship. It's funny and sometimes a bit sad but please be forewarned that it also includes a frightening event. With that said, I hope you'll enjoy reading.....

                                         When the Rubber Meets the Road

In 1972, on the road to the end of the road, I got hired to work as a copywriter at a well known Philadelphia advertising agency, which no longer exists. All the writers I worked with have faded into oblivion except for one. He was the real thing, able to write copy that would make a certain brand of frozen bagels sound like they were the most delicious bagels you ever ate. He would come up with great tag lines, slogans and mottos for all kinds of products and appliances. He was a brilliant copywriter.

I couldn't write anything of value. On some level I took pride in this because those frozen bagels, for instance, were the worst tasting frozen bagels I ever ate, and I had a lot of trouble writing lies. I also had a lot of trouble writing slogans and mottos ever since I learned in my childhood that "work sets you free." Maybe that's why whenever I hear a motto, I listen for the lie.

Mottos aside, I did a lot of writing at the advertising agency. I would sit in my cubicle and write page after page on a personal notepad. I was writing about my life because, in the event I'd never make it past the end of the road, maybe someone would find my writings and thereby know the truth...the truth being that lying about my life was what I was best at.

Maybe that's why, unlike my colleague, I couldn't write copy that made awful tasting bagels sound delicious, as if I lived by a higher moral code, which is nothing but the b.s. of a hypocrite. I could lie better about my life than my colleague could write lies about bagels.

I got fired after three months, although I was officially told I was being laid off. I much prefer telling you I got fired because I now know that James Dickey, one of our truly great writers, poets and thinkers was also fired from his job as a copywriter at an advertising agency. Who knew that being fired from a job as a writer would actually make me feel that maybe I was a writer?

But being fired had a dire consequence. I would shortly run out of money and reach the proverbial end of the road.  I wound up getting a job at Eagleville Hospital, working with people who reminded me of me, people who'd reached the end of the road: drug addicts and alcoholics.

Somehow I was able to prevail and go on to become a pilot. If not for my friend, Rick, this might have never happened. (Rick is not his real name. If he should ever read this and want to be identified, he's certainly free to do so.)

While I dreamed of becoming a pilot, Rick was on his way to becoming a psychologist, and with good reason. He was so very intelligent, with great wisdom and empathy. And of course he was liberal, as nearly all psychologists and psychiatrists are.

I never mentioned it to Rick but without his friendship during this time of my life, I'm not sure I would have been able to climb out of the abyss. But that sounds much too profound, especially in the context of male friendships, which are usually anything but profound and ours was no exception.

Three simple things bound us together. 1. We grew up in the small town of Yeadon, Pennsylvania. 2. We loved riding our motorcycles together. And 3. Well, what good is a motorcycle without a girl on the back? Which is all I have to say about that.

One weekend we rode to the Lake Wallenpaupack area of upstate Pennsylvania and camped out. It was an exciting weekend but the two things I remember most might seem rather dull.

First, when we reached our campsite, Rick wound up with a flat front tire. No problem, not for Rick. He took out his supplies and in a matter of 20 minutes or so patched his tire, pumped it up and his bike was back to perfection.

When it came to pitching our tent, even though I helped, he could have gotten it all set up by himself. He wasn't someone who was always depending on others. He was right out of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is why I marveled at him and why I remember so well what he said to me when he was patching his tire.

"When the rubber meets the road, or when too much rubber meets the road, you gotta make a decision. Call for help or take action and start patching!"

He didn't say this in a condescending way. Actually, he had a warm smile on his face when he said it. But still, I got it. If it were me alone with a flat tire, I would have been calling for help. This is why I admired Rick so much.

The second thing I remember about that weekend probably won't be funny to the women reading this. That's because boys and men are much better at stupid than girls and women, given that boys have a stupid compartment in their brains which they hold in great esteem once they become men. Girls and women may also have a stupid compartment in their brains but it's definitely loaded differently!

Anyway, when riding a motorcycle, you're often squinting because of the sun or the wind, the rain or the bugs, and road signs fly by so quickly that reading them isn't easy. As we were riding alongside each other in a rain shower, we passed a sign which read WELCOME TO SCOTRUN and we began laughing our heads off.

You see, if you're male and you notice a road sign that says WELCOME TO SCOTRUN all the letters reassemble themselves in that stupid male brain compartment and the town of Scotrun assumes another name.

"Hey," we yelled to each other. "We're in Scrotum!"

Now, maybe you're thinking nobody but Rick and I would have thought this.  But in 1995 when I was flight training at Seattle Boeing, I started talking about riding a motorcycle in upstate Pennsylvania to my fellow pilot, Neil. Low and behold, Neil mentioned that he hailed from that part of the state. I told him how much I enjoyed riding in that area.

"Well, then," Neil replied. "I bet you rode through Scrotum."

Yes, that's a direct quote!

There are many other stories I could tell you about motorcycles, Scrotum and that weekend but I think I've said more than enough...

In 1972, I was living on the outskirts of Eagleville in a one room apartment, really more like a shack, that was tacked onto a large dilapidated house occupied by a motorcycle gang. Somehow I survived this experience, although I'm not exactly sure how.

Rick, on the other hand, was living in a three story townhouse on South Street in center city Philadelphia. South Street was a mixture of old and young, rich and poor, black and white, and was in the midst of becoming an upscale area. It was a vibrant place to live.

The weekend after we returned from upstate Pennsylvania, Rick called and asked me to meet him at our favorite diner. We met and ordered our usual stuff. As we sipped our coffee, Rick began telling me what had happened to him the previous night.

(I don't want to scare you, dear Reader, but there's no getting around it: the next few paragraphs are frightening. I'll try to keep the imagery as low as I can.)

Rick was asleep in his bed on the third floor. Around two in the morning he thought he heard rustling downstairs but disregarded the sounds and fell back to sleep.

He awoke a few minutes later when he heard footsteps. There was no doubt about it. Someone, maybe more than someone, was walking up the stairs and had reached the second floor.

Rick's phone was on the first floor. A window beside his bed was the only escape route but jumping out from the third floor would result in serious injury or worse.

The steps creaked, each one of them, as the perpetrators climbed from the second to the third floor. There were two of them.

They reached his room. Rick stayed motionless in bed, hoping they wouldn't see him. They did.

One of the perpetrators walked directly to the bed, put a gun to Rick's head, cocked it and told Rick he'd have no problem killing him if Rick didn't hand over all his money.

Rick got up with the gun still at his head and gave them his wallet and all his other valuables. The men ordered Rick to lie face down on the floor and not turn around. As they left the room, one of them warned that if they ever found out Rick called the police, he'd come back and kill him.

The perpetrators went downstairs, took some time to gather things they had earlier ransacked and left the house after five minutes. Rick got dressed, went downstairs...and called the police.

My memory is deficient as far as what became of the men who did this. I have some recollection about Rick needing to go to a police lineup but the best I can remember nobody was ever arrested.

I must tell you that when Rick recounted what happened to him that night, his voice was steady, totally devoid of fear or hatred toward the men who had nonchalantly talked about killing him. He never uttered a slur, racial or otherwise. He had an amazing equanimity. No wonder he would become a great psychologist.

I had no such equanimity. I hated those individuals and hoped they wound up dead before they really did kill somebody, although deep down I believed they already had killed. Either way, that night has never left my mind, if only because it was the night I almost lost my friend. And yet, if that night were the end of the story I wouldn't be telling you about it.

But it's not the end of the story....

The following weekend, Rick invited me over to attend a block party on South Street. When I arrived, Rick greeted me and opened the gate to his little backyard, the backyard his perpetrators didn't take note of, otherwise they would have stolen a prized possession: his motorcycle.

I pulled my bike next to his. (Our bikes had also become best friends.) Rick had a couple things he wanted to show me, the first of which was a shiny handgun. As I inspected his new pistola, I noticed gun powder and ammunition spread out on his work table.

"What's all that ammunition, Rick?"

"Oh, those are my bullets, my shells, for my shotgun on the third floor."

"You're making your own bullets?"

"Yes, I'm making my own shotgun shells."

It didn't surprise me. Remember, Rick was right out of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, whether fixing a flat or pitching a tent or making his own bullets.

We each took a handful of shells and walked up to the third floor, where Rick showed me his shotgun. As I handled it, something caught my eye by the window next to Rick's bed. It looked like a stack of curled up white rope.

"Rick, what's that?"

"It's a rope ladder."

"A rope ladder?"

"Yes, a rope ladder."

"Why do you need a rope ladder?"

"Oh, I need a rope ladder for sure now."

"But why?  I mean you've got your pistola and your shotgun and enough ammunition for an army, so you don't need...."

"Look, if it ever happens again I'll give them a warning and if they don't heed my warning I'll fire everything I've got when they reach the top of the stairs."

"I'm all for it, Rick.  You know that.  But I still don't understand the rope ladder."

"It's very simple. Do you think I want to walk over dead bodies in order to get downstairs and outside? No way. I'm not going to have that sight imbedded in my brain for the rest of my life. I don't want to be scarred by that.

"So I'm going to hang my rope ladder out the window, descend to the street, flag down the police and let the professionals deal with the bodies."

I stood there practically transfixed. I said nothing. I simply nodded my head or maybe I shook my head but either way I felt a mixture of admiration and bemusement and affection for my incredible, good hearted, redneck of a friend. Heck, each one of us is a piece of work.

It wasn't all that many months later that Rick sold his place on South Street, having never had the need to climb down his rope ladder. He headed west to complete his education and fulfill his dreams. I've no doubt he became a truly great psychologist and helped countless patients find their way beyond the end of the road. And he would do it not by virtue of his education, his training or his book knowledge. He would do it just by being the incredible person he was, just by being himself.

We got together one last time before he headed west. Actually we met at a shooting range in Northeast Philadelphia and fired guns for an entire Saturday morning. For those of you who'd like to fold this into one agenda or another, the truth is Rick and I didn't talk about politics or the Second Amendment. Not once. Moreover, we hardly ever talked about guns. And one other thing: we never again talked about that terrifying night on South Street.

And when that morning at the range ended, we shook hands, gave each other a manly hug and went our separate ways in pursuit of what we each set out to become.

Or did we?

Those of you who love movies know that James Dickey played the scariest sheriff of all time in Deliverance, the 1972 movie version of his best selling book. Yes, James was an imposing figure, a giant of a man, and a truly brilliant scholar. An intellectual.

And yet, in Deliverance as well as his other writings, he would sometimes express disdain for intellectuals; for those who wouldn't dare live where the rubber meets the road; for those who haughtily mock the dumb masses with dusty words that adumbrate their own shallowness, as I've just done. This is why I hold James Dickey so dear to me; for the humble truth expressed in a term I came up with a long time ago: the profoundness of the ordinary.

For when you think about what's important to you, what you value most now and what you'll miss most when you look back on your life, it'll be those moments of idyllic ordinariness, moments that become profound only in retrospect if at all.

Like two guys, one on his way to becoming a psychologist and the other on his way to becoming a pilot, riding their bikes in the rain, soaked to the bone and laughing their heads off as they ride side by side past a road sign that says WELCOME TO SCOTRUN.

An idyllic, ordinary moment that contains a profound truth.

What they became is who they were...is who they still are.
.....................................................

After placing this essay on Facebook several years ago, I was pleased to notice that Rick identified himself in comments beneath the essay. And so, it's with great pride I tell you that psychologist Dr. Richard Prager of Sarasota, Florida is indeed Rick and more importantly my dear Yeadon friend, Rich.