By JANET HART LEONARD
From the Heart
Seriously, I cannot make up the stories I write.
Remember the stories about the harrowing road trips we have recently taken to Tampa? Well, I couldn’t wait to fly the friendly skies again after we had our COVID vaccines. I mean, what could happen that would compete with my fears of traveling by car?
And yet …
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will be returning to our gate as we cannot get the second engine to fire up.” So said the pilot of the airplane in which we had just boarded for a girl’s trip to Tampa. He sounded so calm.
My friend, Patrice, and I had noticed the smoke coming from the right underside of the wing. Was that normal? We hoped it was. Maybe we had never before paid attention. Maybe it was from the heat of the engine hitting the cold air.
Funny, the things you think of to convince yourself that things are OK or normal. You try to push away any thoughts that you might actually have a chance to die.
Our friends, Joan and Linda, were seated a few rows in front of us and did not have our “bird’s eye view” of the situation. They hadn’t seen the smoke. Their worrying feathers weren’t quite as ruffled as ours.
The pilot announced that a mechanic was on his way to “check out” the problem. We saw a man looking under the wing and checking out the area from which the smoke had come. We saw neither a hammer or a wrench, not even a tool belt.
It was just a few minutes before the mechanic guy walked away and the pilot announced that we would be safe to fly. He used his best “reassuring” voice. He compared the engine not firing up to that of a gas grill that does not fire up the first time.
He stated that he was not allowed to try a second time until a mechanic checked it out. After he was given the OK to do so, it did fire up, he then had to finish some paperwork which would take about 10 minutes and we would be on our merry way.
The poor little gal behind Patrice and I had never flown before this time. Everyone was trying to reassure her that she would be fine. We all would be fine … so said the pilot.
We figured the pilot would not be taking any chances with his life or ours. We could only hope that was so.
So off we went to fly the friendly and safe skies to Tampa.
We did hit a few bumps of turbulence, or as my driver’s ed teacher and pilot friend Larry Jacobi told me, the bumpy roads in the sky. He understood my fear of flying and had successfully helped me conquer my fear. Too bad I couldn’t phone my friend that day.
Our landing was more of a hard hit and bounce up but at the end of the flight we could say “we made it” and obviously, we did not die.
Like I said, I cannot make up or even exaggerate when writing about my adventures. They sure make it easy to write a column, but these columns are a bit rough on my nerves.