September 19, 2012
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Thank you Wilbur and Orville
WHEN GETTING HIGH WAS IMPORTANT!
Last night, I was out back sitting by our pool. We have a pool because I gave up auguring against anything in 1997.…anyway, I’m sitting in my chase lounge drinking a prune smoothie to help gyrate my plumbing when I looked up in the night sky and saw the nav-lights on an airliner go over at about 20,000 feet. I stared at this common event and then slowly digressed into awestruckness. It was a man-made object the size of a small building zipping through the air at approximately 550 miles an hour, (that’s 2,035 Chinese li an hour). It was carrying over 400 humans plus a dozen or so sedated dogs and cats below in the crowded baggage hold along with a few stashed immigrants.
Incredible to comprehend, and yet we take it all for granted. I can only imagine the epiphany Wilbur and Orville must of felt the first time their powered glider, made of spruce and ash, and covered with muslin, didn’t crash for a change and soared through the troposphere at 7 miles an hour for nearly twelve seconds. The ten foot altitude must have been regurgitating! Anyway, mankind has booked a lot of Frequent Flyer Miles since that eventful day in 1903. As of 2010, the world’s airlines now fly over a billion people a year…..that’s a lot of cavity searches.
Well, whatever celestial cloud the Wright brothers are hang gliding from today, they can be proud of that simple glider that flew at Kitty Hawk. But, like all marvelous creations which mankind comes up with….sooner or later, man will also find a way to use it for destruction. The once famous supercarrier, the USS Kitty Hawk with it’s contingency of military aircraft, had the destructive might to destroy a small country. Ironic.
So I sit by my pool in the evening and ponder these fleeting facts and conundrums. When you drink as much prune juice as I do, you tend to have a substantial library in your bathroom with oodles of useless facts.
Comments (4)
Don’t think any of those facts were useless, Unc. I had the pleasure of visiting the USS Kitty Hawk years ago and it was amazing, to say the least. As for flying? It’s never been my favorite thing unless I’m drunk as a skunk (scares me to death) and I’m sure my first flight in over 12 years will prove to be interesting considering the ‘new’ hands on procedures in place. OY…
you and my hubby
@jillcarmel - Yep….what we have been through
The Military from Fort Lewis, WA has been practicing something out at Moon Island on the other side of us and the choppers fly over every hour from 3 am til 6 am four mornings a week and will continue to do so through out October.
Hubby thinks it is funny and I am beginning to think he is dealing with more than aphasia and that his mental noodles are a little to loose. He also thinks that is funny when I say that.