A Good Time or a Good Story

The upside of unpredictability

Baby Wood Stork's First Flight

There's a great deal of discipline required in becoming a pilot. Pilots go through classroom and instructor led training, and then have to pass written, oral, and flight tests before they earn their wings. There are checklists for everything from pre-flight and take-off to landing. They plot their course, review aeronautical charts for flight safety, check their weight and balance, estimate fuel consumption - not just to their destination, but to an alternate airstrip as well. In fact, pilots do everything possible to take the mystery and risk out of any given trip.

But what happens when the mysterious creeps in? What happens when things don't go as planned?

There's an old saying that almost everything that happens is either a good time or a good story. This is a story about one of those times when things went wrong for me as a novice pilot, somewhere between Wichita, KS and the Mississippi River.

My friend, Dave Reid, hired me to fly commercial to Wichita to pick up a new Cessna 152 and fly it back to Fort Lauderdale, FL. I was a teenager with the ink still wet on my pilot's license. I couldn't have been happier: my first long distance, cross country flight.

Upon sitting in the fresh, new two-seater cockpit, I did all the stuff I was trained to do. It was late October, a chill in the air, and off I went through the clouds above with my leather sheepskin helmet and flight jacket - had to look the part.

A few hours into my flight, after the thrill of the commercial flight to Wichita, the visit to Cessna's HQs, and the quick ascent into the heavens above wore off, I got bored. Worse, I got tired. Below were endless cornfields. There were no more clouds to dance with. And I started hallucinating, just like you do when you've driven too long.

The distance from Wichita to Ft. Lauderdale is about 1300 miles. At a speed of around 120 mph, that would take 11 hours without stops. I looked for a runway to drop in on, something I hadn't planned. I just needed a little rest. And as I was nodding in and out, a runway appeared in the horizon.

I landed under a full moon, opened my side window, and taxied to a small fixed base operation (FBO). My plan was to park by the FBO, sleep in the plane for the night, gas up in the morning, and continue my trip to FLL. As I approached the FBO, however, I encountered something freakishly Stephen King-like.

What appeared to be a creepy looking person in a black cape waved me in. Was I still hallucinating? As I looked into the windows of the FBO, I saw other people in costumes as well. What the hell was going on?

As I mentioned, it was late October. In fact, it was October 31st, Halloween night. They were having a Halloween party under the full moon at this FBO in the middle of nowhere. When they learned I was just passing through... in my fighter pilot costume, I was invited to stay, enjoy some food, and pass out on a massive leather couch in a back room. I accepted their generosity.

Barrie A.F. Clark's Spitfire

Above the couch was a famous painting of a Spitfire by Barrie A. F. Clark. I fell asleep looking at that legendary British fighter aircraft, mesmerized.

The next morning I woke to a hot cup of coffee, eggs and bacon. Incredible folks at this family-run FBO. I fueled up, topped-off and said my goodbyes. As I taxied for take-off I noticed a cardboard tube behind my seat. In it was a print of the Spitfire, the same one I slept under. The same one in the image above.

Either things go right, or they go wrong. And surprisingly often when they do go wrong life gets better as a result.

I was well outside my comfort zone before landing at that quiet airfield on Halloween night. But then something wonderful happened, a consequence I could never have imagined. The feelings of warmth and connection from that experience remain with me today as a treasured memory.

Ultimately, I followed the Mississippi River's every twist and turn at an altitude of about 100 feet, (what ridiculous fun!) all the way down to New Orleans. Then flew back up to a few thousand feet across the Florida Panhandle to the east coast, arriving safely at the Fort Lauderdale airport on November 1st.

As for the painting? It hangs in a copper frame on my son's wall in Dallas, TX - a testament and reminder of life's serendipity: finding something good without actively looking for it.

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I’m Michael Kennedy, a resident of Olympic Valley, CA (in photo above). I’m a visual storyteller, I love flying and I love exploring nature. I know we live in a world that demands our attention. I just want to say thank you for your attention. If you enjoyed this post, please share with a friend. For more photos and stories visit www.BlueWolfGallery.com.