Life, Love, & Laughter
Page 1
Life, Love, & Laughter
S. L. Menear
D. M. Littlefield
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Copyright © 2016 by S.L. Menear & D.M. Littlefield All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-64457-049-4
Contents
1. Silent Thrills
2. When Time Stood Still
3. Deadly Rejections
4. Surprised Delivery
5. The Golden Years
6. Sky Gods
7. Winter Wonderland
8. The Magic Button
9. My First Solo Flight
10. Secrets
11. Sleuth Hounds
12. My First Ocean Dive
13. Sleep Deprived
14. Aerobatic Lessons
15. Meadow Muffins
16. Flowers
17. Holiday Greetings
18. Stuck In An Elevator
19. Catatonic Snifferitis
20. Sibling Insanity
21. Girl Talk
22. The First Pilot
23. Eavesdropping
24. Mall Critics
25. Virtual Sex Flight Instruction
26. Chili And Hugo
27. Expensive Mistake
28. Betrayed
29. Once Upon A Time
30. Killer Scots & Hot Cubans
31. Ouch!
32. The Boys
33. Guinevere’s Lance
34. Clem’s General Store
35. Side Effects
36. Sink Or Swim
37. Unbelievable
38. What’s Going On Here?
39. Cruise Capades
40. Melanie
41. Wife Wanted
42. Semper Fi
43. The Rattled Hunter
44. Monsters
45. My Unconscious Muse
46. Stressed Out
47. The Fairies’ Godmother
48. Dumpster Diving
49. The Word Artist
50. Lunar Madness
Before You Go
Flight to Redemption
Also by S.L. Menear
About the Author
Dedicated to Dottie’s Brothers and Sharon’s Uncles,Robert and George Metz
Silent Thrills
S.L. (Sharon) Menear and D.M. (Dottie) Littlefield
Authors’ Note: Silent Thrills includes six true stories with personal insights about both authors. Although they participated in the same adventures, their individual experiences were quite different, so they included both points of view for your enjoyment.
Dottie
The predawn silence was broken by blasts of flame from the propane burner in the hot-air balloon. I never dreamed I’d be doing something like this in my fifties. As we clung to the large wicker basket attached to the glowing multi-colored balloon and waited for liftoff, I was as excited as a ten-year-old girl about to experience her first roller-coaster ride.
HOT-AIR BALLOONING
Sharon
After several fact-finding phone calls back in the olden days before the Internet, I decided on an early morning launch for our first hot-air balloon ride because the wind would pick up after sunrise and carry us on an exciting journey. An evening launch required waiting until the wind died before inflating the balloon and would’ve resulted in a dull, stagnant flight.
The center of my grass runway on Sky Classics Farm near Hershey, Pennsylvania was the ideal place to inflate and launch the seventy-foot balloon. Empty fields flanked the runway, but an enormous tree towered halfway up the hill between the runway and my home’s backyard.
I assumed the balloon would ascend vertically from the takeoff site, and we’d have restraints to tether us to the basket.
Wrong.
The sides were about three and a half feet high, and the basket was open except for the burner in the center. Passengers could walk around and peer over the sides. No belts, harnesses, netting, or parachutes.
I inherited my father’s fear of heights—actually, a fear of falling from high places. I had no problem piloting a jet airliner at 35,000 feet because it was impossible to fall out. The cabin was pressurized, and the plug doors opened inward. I was accustomed to wearing a five-point seat harness in the Boeing cockpit.
Our seven-story balloon had to be inflated with a big fan before dawn in calm wind. Once the balloon was filled on its side, the burner added hot air to lift it upright. We launched with four passengers and the pilot. I expected a slow steady ascent, but we rose a few inches, bumped back down, and continued like that as we drifted toward the sole tree.
The pilot blasted staccato shots of hot air from the burner. Nothing happened. New to ballooning, I didn’t expect such a delayed reaction. A few feet from the tree, we shot up like a rocket to two hundred feet. I grasped the corner support in a white-knuckled embrace as our basket brushed past the tree.
Dottie
What a thrill! I yelled, “Whee!” as I leaned out and grabbed a fistful of leaves on the way by. I smiled and showed them to my daughter, who had a death grip on the support arch. Although she was one of the first female airline captains in the world, standing in an open basket soaring high above the ground made her uneasy.
Heights didn’t bother me, but I wasn’t fearless. My participation in somewhat dangerous activities usually followed watching Sharon go first or having her accompany me, like today.
Sharon
I didn’t scream, but I thought, dear God, don’t let me fall out of this freaking basket! When the balloon stabilized at altitude, so did my heart rate.
Mom kept saying, “Sharon, come over and look at this! Ooh, look at that!” I was glued to a corner post, a captive of Dad’s phobia, but Mom ran from side to side like an excited child. That’s what I loved most about her.
Dottie
Occasional blasts from the burner were the only sounds as eerie fog shrouded the rural landscape below, hugging the lowlands, rivers, and streams. The early morning breeze quickened when the sun inched above the horizon. Soon, the fog dissipated in the wind, and our balloon picked up speed.
I savored my bird’s-eye view as we glided silently two hundred feet above the Earth. I leaned over the basket and saw an owl dive from a tree and catch a rodent. When a deer jumped over a fence, I spotted a pheasant nearby running through tall rows of corn. Trees dressed for autumn in bright splashes of orange, yellow, and red dotted the countryside.
Sharon
I told Mom, “I can see fine
from here.” There was no way I’d release my grip, but I still enjoyed a safe panoramic view of the Susquehanna Valley. The wildlife had no idea we were flying above them until a burner blast broke the silence. Pigs and cows looked up in terror and stampeded to the barn.
Sound traveled upward. People chatting two hundred feet below sounded as if they were in the basket with us. Although a strong wind whisked us across the vast valley in record time, we didn’t feel the wind because we were traveling inside it—a unique experience. How was that possible? Wind is a moving air mass, and our balloon was carried along as a part of it.
Dottie
As we sailed over people, we surprised them by yelling down. A school bus with curious children pulled off the road. The kids scrambled out and cheered.
A chase car followed the flight to assist with the landing and to drive us home. Our landing in front of the kids in the brisk wind was bounce ... tip ... bounce ... tip ... bounce ... tip. We hung onto the basket’s inner cables as it was dragged along for several seconds before stopping. As we climbed out, the van driver greeted us with flutes of Bollinger Champagne.
Sharon
When the pilot told us to brace for the landing, he wasn’t kidding. We were moving horizontally about 20 mph when we touched down in a plowed field and carved an extra-large furrow as the wind caught the deflating balloon and dragged the basket on its side.
The ground crew grabbed the trailing ropes and wrestled the balloon to a stop. They appeased an angry farmer with a bottle of Bollinger Champagne, a slice of quiche from their picnic basket, and a certificate assuring him a balloon landing on his land was a rare honor that would bring him good fortune. It was clear the crew had mastered how to deal with these situations. We toasted the farmer and left him smiling.
Since then, I’ve taken four more balloon rides, but I always held on to a corner post.
SUBMARINERS
Dottie
When I was sixty-five, I accompanied my daughter in a two-passenger research submarine in Grand Cayman. We sat behind the glass-bubble nose of the quiet, battery-powered sub and watched the scenery change as we silently descended eight hundred feet into the abyss.
Sharon
My mother and I share a love of animals, adventure, chocolate, and writing. My father and I share a fear of dark closed-in spaces and falling off high places. A rare chance to descend along the seven-thousand-foot Cayman Wall into the depths of the Caribbean Sea was too exciting to pass up, so I ignored the claustrophobic trash talk spewing from my subconscious.
Mom trusted me to ensure that whatever conveyance I convinced her to ride in was as safe as possible. She also assumed I could take over in an emergency and save everyone. I blamed the movie industry for her unrealistic expectations. We were on vacation, not in a Die Hard movie.
I chatted with the sub pilot about systems and fail-safes.
“What happens if the propulsion unit fails or the battery dies?” I asked. “If we sink all the way to the bottom, we’ll be too deep for a rescue.”
“The pressure at seven thousand feet would crush the sub anyway, but no worries. If we have a failure, I’ll blow the ballast tanks, we’ll return to the surface, and our support ship will find us.”
“Are you sure?” I crossed my arms. “This sub looks awfully heavy to be offset in an emergency ascent by such a small volume of interior air.”
He patted the thick steel hull on the chubby little eggplant-shaped sub. “She’s never let me down.” He chuckled. “Down ... Get it? Heh, heh!”
“Hilarious. Do we get in before or after they drop this tub in the water?”
“We’ll board before the ship winches us over the side. Wouldn’t want you pretty ladies to get wet.” He winked.
Great, our pilot thought he was a comedian and Don Juan.
Dottie
Colorful coral and plant life were abundant as a myriad of multi-colored fish swam in front of our large porthole. They disappeared as we plunged deeper into the black void. At eight hundred feet below the surface, our spotlight illuminated a large barnacle-encrusted freighter resting on a ledge. The sub pilot circled the freighter so we could observe it from every angle—such an eerie sight buried in a dark, silent world.
Sharon
All the pretty stuff was in the shallower depths where the sunlight fed the reef. A giant sea turtle glided past us as brilliant fish darted around him. Too bad the sharks steered clear. I would’ve liked observing them from our sanctuary. The varied sea creatures had banished my claustrophobia until we descended into a pitch-black Stygian death trap. I felt like the jaws of an obsidian vise were crushing our sub.
I took a deep breath and glanced over my shoulder at the pilot seated above and behind us. “Now would be a good time to turn on the external lights,” I said as my voice ascended two octaves.
“Lights? What lights?” he said, then grinned.
I unbuckled my seatbelt, stood, and turned. My five-foot-four-inch frame wasn’t intimidating, but my intense glare spoke volumes in the dim cabin. I enjoyed comedy as much as anyone, but hundreds of feet beneath the surface was no place to fool around.
“No need to get up!” He pointed. “See? The spotlight is on. Look at the big sunken freighter.”
“Uh huh. This isn’t a search-and-destroy mission. Keep the freakin’ light on!” I glared a moment longer—a hint he might have to contend with a claustrophobic crazy woman if he didn’t shape up.
The sunken ship looked ghostly, caught on a ledge jutting from the rock wall. Creepy eels slithered out through broken windows in the crew quarters. What had happened to the crew? Did they escape or were they entombed inside? I took a deep breath and glanced at my watch. How much battery power was left in our submarine?
Dottie
As we started our ascent, I was sad to leave the strange, dark world of the abyss. It wasn’t long before we were winched aboard the surface ship. That part of the trip felt like an amusement park ride.
At the end of our thrilling excursion, we were each given a video record of the deep dive and a fancy certificate confirming we had descended to eight hundred feet in the submarine, which was only two hundred feet less than the normal maximum depth for many military subs. Not many people can say they did that. For me, it was another exciting adventure with my daughter.
Sharon
The crew on the support ship greeted us with Dom Pérignon Champagne. Although I prefer still wines, especially reds, I downed two glasses before the ink was dry on our submariner certificates. My problem was that I knew too much about what could’ve gone wrong to fully enjoy the experience. The crushing depth and darkness closing in on us gave me some tense moments, but it was a thrilling experience I’ll never forget.
When I’m old and look back on my life, I’ll only regret the things I didn’t do.
SOARING
Dottie
Like my daughter, my son, Larry, was a pilot. He flew all kinds of aircraft and gave me a ride in a sailplane, also called a glider, the same year as my sub adventure. Sleek and motorless, the glider had extra-long wings, a glass canopy, and tandem seats. I sat behind him.
A single-engine airplane towed us to three thousand feet. After the towline was released, we glided in big circles and rode the air thermals like the high-flying birds I’ve always envied. Once again, silence enveloped us as we soared above the earth in a thrilling dance with our feathered friends.
Sharon
My brother was eleven months older and had always felt very competitive with me. I blamed my father for orchestrating competitions between us when we were young. In high school, I finally realized competing with boys was a bad idea. Winning killed any chance for romance, which probably had been my father’s strategy.
Although my brother started flying in his early teens and soloed when he was legally old enough at sixteen, I earned my private pilot license first at twenty-three. By then, Larry had been flying eight years. He’d been too busy (lazy) to study for the written exam he h
ad to pass before taking the flight test and earning his pilot certificate.
When Dad told him I had earned my private pilot license, he bought a four-seat Cessna Skyhawk and rushed to acquire his private pilot license, commercial pilot license, and instrument rating. Seven years later, his competitive nature kicked in again when I was hired to fly jet airliners with US Air (later renamed US Airways and now American Airlines). He earned a flight instructor certificate, airline transport pilot certificate, multi-engine rating, helicopter license, glider rating, and seaplane rating. He even explored getting a blimp license. Geez, what would he have done if I’d been an astronaut?
Larry convinced me it would be fun to get a glider rating, so I traveled to the ideal location for training: Arizona in the summer, where there was plenty of hot rising air known as thermals.