My part-time reporter job many years ago added spice to my rather routine life, sometimes scary spice. My full-time engineering job was interesting, sometimes challenging, but never spicy. It was a nice mix.
Editor Gordon Glover, a former World War II bomber pilot and a reporter who’d covered President John Kennedy for the Associated Press, for some reason always chose me for what I considered hazardous assignments.
“It’ll be a lot of fun,” he’d say and send me off trembling for my very first lessons at a riding academys, ski resort or flying school, believing, if I survived, it would make interesting copy.
He was a veteran four-engine pilot, but when he became interested in zero-engine flying, he sent me to check that out. So off I went for my first (and last) glider flight, soaring five thousand feet above Sussex County, helping my instructor spot circling hawks to find the necessary updrafts to keep us from plummeting into the forest or the Delaware River.
I was more comfortable during my single engine flying lesson assignment until the instructor said, “Okay, start climbing and get her into a stall.” A stall?! I thought. I’ve had cars stall on me, but then you just got out and walked home. “What do I do when it stalls?” I shouted.
“No problem, just put her into a dive.”……”A dive?!”
Another aeronautical assignment had me up in a Piper Cub with a very recently licensed young pilot who made several failed attempts at a safe landing and finally acheived one that was successful, but cost the lives of several ducks splattered across our windshield.
Gordon, from Maine, was a veteran skier and sent me to check out a new resort. I wanted to bring my Flexible Flyer, but he insisted I take my first ski lesson. After several scary falls, Olaf, the kindly instructor said, “You’re learning fast. Let’s go to the T-bar. ”I’d prefer coffee,” I said.
I got half way down the beginners hill before I wiped out . “You were doing very well until you hit the mogul,” Olaf said as he helped me find my left ski. ”I hit a rich guy?” I said. ” Is he okay?”
My instructor at the new riding academy, a former Polish cavalry officer, insisted he could quickly turn me into a saddle bum. And in just a few minutes I was trotting in a wide circle on gentle Ginger with my arms extended and hoping Ginger wasn’t going to suddenly throw me like that nasty pony did in 1935.
At the Pocono Mountains lodge for my trail-riding assignment, the group was already trotting off when I arrived. There was only one empty horse left and I was happy to hear her name was Violet.
“You heared that wrong, Mister,” the wrangler said. ”This here horse’s name is ’Violent’. Now don’t get her riled!” Violent and I quickly caught up and passed the others. In about five minutes, with Violent trying to brush me off using the lower tree branches, she decided to get back to the barn as soon as possible, empty-saddled if necessary.
When I told Gordon I was going to Bermuda, he said, “That’s great! I’ll give you two assignments that’ll help pay for your trip.”
As I was clinging to the stubborn steed who insisted on tiptoeing on the very edges of the dune overlooking the Atlantic 200 feet below us, I thought “If I survive this ride, I’ll have to get back on that perilous motor skooter again and drive five miles in the left lane back to the motel and then write about it later as if it was all a lot of fun.
“I’m glad to see you had a good time in Bermuda, ” Gordon said when I turned in the two stories. ”And I like the way you pretended they were dangerous experiences..”
“Pretended?”
Imagine That 