RFSM: Checkrides

(Random Flight School Memories, since it's been awhile).

There's a guy (not at our school) who is ready for his checkride, but refuses to go yet, and he reminded me of my checkride and how that went.

See, I was one of the last people in my class to go for my checkride. It wasn't because I wasn't ready. My instructor had been pushing me to go for quite awhile, but I kept refusing, saying I wasn't ready. And then one day I got The Talk. The examiner at the school, whom I still email today by the way, called me into his office and told me that I had two choices: take my checkride, or drop out of the flight program. I know how melodramatic this all sounds now, but at the time it was quite serious to me, as young as I was. I came closer to Option B than anybody knows. All I could hear in my head was the voices of people around me. I didn't belong. I was going to fail. I couldn't do it. I was a joke. I shouldn't even be there. I'd never make it. People were betting how many times it would take me to pass my checkride, if I could at all. So when he told me I had to take the checkride or go home, I actually had to think about it. I thought about how maybe it would be better to just go home having never actually failed. I didn't want to prove people right, but at the same time, I was afraid that if I took the test and failed, I'd be proving them right in even more spectacular fashion. People were watching, and I never had done well in those conditions. I finally agreed to take the checkride, and set the date, and I didn't sleep from then on. The night before my checkride I got no sleep, and I was sick to my stomach. That morning I literally threw up before walking into the checkride, and I went in there like a person headed for an execution. I walked in with no sleep, white, shaking, and serving myself up to be knocked off, basically.

The oral was the hardest part for me. I hated being asked questions and having to think and answer, and even though he was trying to put me at ease, I was just terrified. Finally it was over and I'd passed that part. Not smoothly by any stretch, but passed. There was more, but the only thing I remember not knowing was that the emergency frequency is 121.5, but I know that now. ;) Once I got past the oral hurdle, from then on out I was actually a lot more relaxed. We went up in the airplane, and I knew that part. The only thing I missed there was on VOR tracking-I tuned in the radial with a "From" indication instead of a "To" indication and headed away from the airport instead of to it. But I figured it out, turned around, and took us home, figuring I'd blown it and failed. My examiner hadn't said anything up to this point, but then he turned to me and said "Why the heck did it take you so long to take your checkride?" I didn't know what to say, and he continued with "You should have taken this a long time ago-that's one of the best checkrides I've given." Now I'll grant that he probably says that to most of them, but it sure sounded good to me then. :)

I landed, we went inside, and he got out the old typewriter and made up my temporary airman's certificate, shook my hand, and said "Congratulations, pilot." I didn't really react much, didn't say anything except wave it past my instructor on my way out to the car, and I was halfway home before my heart started pounding extra hard and this silly grin started spreading on my face. I spent the last half of my drive home whooping and hollering in my car like the crazy kid I was. I kept trying the words "I'm a pilot." in my head and they just wouldn't sink in. The funny thing is, I don't remember calling or telling anyone. The last thing I remember from that time frame is driving home and laughing like a loon.

That was a turning point of sorts. It's funny to look at now. Failing a checkride is not a very big deal. If you fail some part of it, you get more training and you take that part again. People don't permanently fail. If they are so bad that they'll never pass a checkride, they never get far enough to be signed off for a checkride. If they get signed off for a checkride, then even if it takes a time or two extra, they will get it. It is quite simply not that big of a deal. But it felt like life and death to me at the time, and I'm not sure I'd ever been that flat-out scared. And sick. But when I got that pilot's license in my hand, it was a turning point for my confidence. I'd always been stubborn, er, persistent, but then I felt like maybe I really could pull this off after all. Instrument was next, and my Commercial certificate wasn't too far behind it. I don't remember anything about that one except he told me if I got him safely back to the ramp, I was a new Commercial Pilot. When I pulled the mixture to shut off the engine on the ramp, the mixture came off in my hand-the cable broke. I stared at it dangling in my hand, and he said "Now what are you going to do?" I taxied it over to the maintenance hangar. After we finally got it killed, I turned to him and said "Does that still count as safely to the ramp?" It did. Because of my delay in taking my Private checkride, I was two weeks behind to start my Instrument Rating if I was going to do it over the summer course, and the administrator/examiner said he didn't think I could pull it off; that it's hard to do it in a summer course anyway, let alone starting off two weeks behind. I looked him in the eye and said "I can do it." I remember him staring at me for a few minutes with a little amused look on his face, and then he said "Okay, I'll let you try, but you'd better do it." I did. I flew like crazy, getting in a ton of flight time in during those weeks, flying so much that sometimes on my drive home I would find myself straddling the line in the middle of the road like a taxiway instead of staying on the right side of the road like I was supposed to. After I passed that checkride, on my way out of the office, I turned around and threw him a grin and said "I TOLD you I could do it in time." He laughed and said "Yes, you did. I'm not actually surprised."

On a side note, after I became an instructor, the very first person I sent for a private pilot checkride, I sent to my former examiner. My student had only one leg, and walked into the school where I was teaching on crutches, and said "As you can see, I only have one leg, but I got my medical and my special issuance...are you willing to teach me? The other place wasn't." I thought we made a good pair. A student other teachers were wary of teaching and an instructor that other students were wary of learning from. He did great, and passed on his first try. :) Actually, he did better crosswind landings than a lot of people I know with two feet!

That same examiner is how I ended up in Kokomo. He let me know he'd heard there was an instructor's position available in Kokomo, and I drove up from Carmel to apply for it. Steve's chief instructor at the time, Mike, hired me to help on weekends, and that is the beginning of the story of how I ended up marrying Steve and living in Kokomo happily ever after. The End. ;)

But back to checkrides. It was after my multi-engine checkride, when I only had one more to go anyway, that it all finally clicked in. Something that people like Steve always knew but took me awhile. So you blow one thing and have to do it again...So What?? Does the world end? Is all your training for naught? Is there no hope of redemption? Is there some secret record of how many times it took you? Nooope. Big Hairy Deal. Work hard, study, practice, do your best, and you too can pass any checkride out there.

Now, ask me why I don't feel like taking my ATP checkride here where people know me. ;)

RFSM: Graduation!

When it came time for graduation, it wasn't mandatory to attend the ceremony. In fact, many people from the flight school decided that it wasn't "cool" to go, and decided not to. Me? I never was cool to begin with. ;) I decided that I'd worked very hard, and that I deserved to walk down the aisle, hear my name, and get my diploma first hand. So that's exactly what I did.

I don't know if you can see in this small version, but by George I had a huge tooth-bearing gum-showing grin on my face when I shook the president's hand. I had come a long way in a short time in many ways, and I was going to enjoy this moment that a lot of people didn't think I'd ever see. In fact, I wondered myself a couple of times. But...here I am, all graduated, with a Private and Commercial Pilot Certificate, an Instrument Rating, a CFI (Flight Instructor) and CFII (Instrument Flight Instructor), a taildragger endorsement, aerobatics instruction behind my belt, and all ready to go forth and fly. All 350 hours of me and 20 or 21 years old. Watch out world. Literally! ;)

RFSM: The Second Year

My second year was vastly different from my first. I was in a safe apartment environment, I had only one roommate, and I lost one boyfriend and gained quite a few friends. I was working on my "advanced" pilot certificates/ratings, I was better equipped to handle the situation there, and I had something I'd not had before: just a little bit of confidence. I'd made it through one very rough year, nobody had run me off, I hadn't failed, and nothing was going to stop me now. :)

I got to take aerobatics, which I just got the biggest kick out of. My instructor even said "I can see your smile stretching out past your head from back here." (He was in the back seat of a Super Decathlon.) I found out that I loved it, that I never felt ill with it but that in fact I'd end up bouncing off the walls the rest of the day afterwards. It woke up something in me I didn't even know was asleep in there. :)

Every day a group of us would get together in a friends' apartment just one door down from mine. We'd sit and talk, watch movies from Disney on up (it was terrible seeing Bambi for the first time in a room full of guys and trying not to let my eyes water!), eat junk food, play practical jokes, whatever a group of college kids get together to do when they hang out. We had a great time even when we were bored. There was a HUGE fish tank in there, and sometimes we'd just sit and stare at fish and nap on cushions. I worked on my homework in there, I remember making up flight instructor lesson plans in there while watching a movie. Once we held a birthday party at McDonalds for a 25 year old, with party favors and all. For quite awhile we even played midnight sand volleyball. There was an area that held about 4 sand v-ball courts, and we'd go out late at night and play for hours, then stop at White Castle or Taco Bell at o-dark-thirty before going home and crashing. In the winter we tied large inner tubes by a rope to the bumper of Dewayne's Ford pick-up, and he'd drive down the snowy back roads, slinging the tube into the fields. He got going *really* fast. By the way, I'm not recommending this practice. But boy it was fun. I never did fall off--I was blessed with a grip of iron. ;) In the summer we'd go out to this hidden local rock quarry. It was DEEP in the middle, and we tied a huge rope off a tree on top of a "cliff" nearby. The first time I went off that rope, my iron grip was a bad thing--I could not let go, so I ended up swinging out, and back. I had to drop too close to shore, but luckily I didn't get hurt. There was also no way to reach the rope without swimming across the entire quarry. You could FEEL when you hit the deep area because the water turned sapphire blue and got very cold. It used to creep me out, imagining what was down there. Luckily for us, nobody that I know of ever drowned there, but looking back, I'm kind of surprised. Also luckily for me, I used to be a good swimmer!

The group of us were almost all guys, except for me, and a girl named Jenny. I still wonder where she is today; we stayed friends up until I got married, and then she vanished on me. It was the first time I'd ever had guy friends, and I found out I had a lot more in common with guys than I did with girls. (So did Jenny).

You know the interesting thing about one girl having a group of guy friends? She becomes the best protected female on campus. Never lacking for someone to take to a function, and if there was a problem, there was a wall of gentlemen ready to take care of the problem. They were also hard on my dates. I brought one guy around named Jim. The guys dubbed him "Lump", saying he was just a lump on a log, and not "worthy". I mentioned that it might be fear being surrounded by 10 guys all staring at him malevolently. Unfortunately, they were right, "lump" rather fit, and they were relieved when Jim was no longer invited over. When fiance #1 decided a curly-headed blond was a better prospect than me, I spent a day (or four) in bed with the covers up over my head. My roommate wisely avoided speaking to me. But one person wouldn't leave me alone. A Guy Friend. He kept calling, he kept coming over, I wouldn't answer the phone or door. Finally one day he got my roommate to let him in, and he sat on the edge of my bed, and he said "Get up and take a shower. You're going out." I told him to go away, and he said "No, get up. Now. I'll wait out here. Don't make me drag you out." So after he did start to haul me out, I shooed him out, got up, took a shower, and he took me to see a movie. A chick flick of all things. "A League of Their Own". Not a very manly thing for him to sit though, but he did it for me. ;) He-and the others-were very protective of me; I was like the group little sister, which at the time I found to be both highly annoying, and rather sweet. At the same time, I had a nickname I'm keeping to myself and the reputation that I took care of myself too, and they respected that and usually let me.

Last story. One Christmas I was feeling all blue and depressed. I didn't even go home for Christmas, I was just going to sit in my apartment by myself while everybody else left, and be depressed. Nobody had any money, but these guys pooled their money, went out and bought a real tiny tree, and they decorated it with little jingle bells, bows, and bits of colored paper on which they each wrote a personal note to me. They surprised me with the tree before they left for the holiday, and for some reason, that pathetic little tree (Did anyone ever see the little tree on the Charlie Brown Christmas Special on TV? That was my tree!) made my holiday, and I've never forgotten it.

I would guess that some people would have been worried about a girl amongst all those guys, but really, I couldn't have been in a safer place, I stayed friends with many of them for years and years, and they made my second year there memorable for a GOOD reason.

RFSM: Yikes!

Most of my Random Flight School Memories so far have been from my first year there, as is this less pleasant one. There's violence included, so skip if needed. (So much for behaving, sorry, Heather Mike.)

When we first moved into our apartment, I was pretty excited. It was a nice little place, and it was all an adventure. And we had electricity to start with. ;) But we hadn't been there very long, when one evening I heard a banging on our door. I open the door with a big ole smile and say "hi!" in an annoyingly chipper 'girl' voice, considering what a good mood I was in. On the other side of the door was a very tall, very large, very angry-looking young man. He didn't say a word, he just glared at me. I thought it was a joke. Finally I said in a concerned voice "What's wrong?" He said "YOU know what's wrong." I, at a loss, looked around and then said "Our music isn't up very loud or anything." He didn't say a word, he just glared at me with big ole freaky looking eyeballs. At this point I'm a tad disconcerted, so I go to shut the door. He steps in my doorway, and SLAMS my door up against the wall, denting it, and pushes his way into the apartment, ranting. "You red-haired, white ..., Irish *(*&(* think you RULE this school" yadda yadda yadda. I'm standing there backed against a wall with him inches in front of me, yelling, with my mouth hanging open, because being accosted wasn't exactly something I was used to. He continues to threaten and yell, and looking in his eyes I was genuinely scared. In retrospect, I believe he had a little chemical help, because he was not making a lot of sense and his eyes had "nobody home", just...rage. At this point he has one hand on my arm/shoulder, and his other hand is in a fist and cocked back, and I don't know how tall he was, but he literally towered over me, and I'm not short. For some reason I just kept staring in his eyes, trying not to flinch, trying to reason with him, but he wouldn't let me talk, he just kept yelling.

At this time, my roommate Nicki was asleep in the room I shared with her, and my other two roommates were home, as was a guy named Greg. The guy and my large roommate huddled in the kitchen around the corner. My tiny roommate Kimber, however, marched up to that guy, pulled his arm, and said "HEY! You leave her alone! She didn't do anything!" He backed away from me, so I slipped out from in front of him, but then he turned on her, and he had her pinned to the wall, fist back. Unlike me, she was yelling back at him. I turn around, looking for help, waving at Greg and Melissa, and they are still hiding around the corner, staring, and I decided that I couldn't just stand there and let him hurt her. I can't quite believe I'm admitting this in public, but here goes. We didn't have a phone, nobody had cell phones back then, I couldn't get past him to get out the door, and the commotion wasn't bringing any help from the hallway, so I looked around and I found the large wooden board that we used to lock our sliding glass doors from being opened from the outside, and I picked it up, and I pretended that I wasn't afraid, and I said "Hey!" Neither of them heard me, so I stepped close, hefted the board up on my shoulder like a baseball bat, and shouted "HEY!!!!" They stop, and I say "Let go of her; get out of our apartment!!" (I didn't figure trying logic like 'we don't know you and we didn't do anything to you' would help right then.) He spun around towards me, saw me with the board, and just eyeballed me. We had a standoff there for several long moments. Whether or not this story would have ended with me in the hospital getting stitches for having a board taken away from me and pounded back on my own head or not we'll never know, because right then, my roommate Nicki woke up and came charging out of our bedroom, hollering "WHAT is going ON here??" He saw her, a fellow black student, and he was confused for a minute. He didn't expect to see her there. He mumbled and stumbled, and I grabbed the opportunity and backed him towards the door with my board. I got him out past the threshold, and when I swung the door shut, he snapped out of it, and started throwing himself against the door to try to get back in, roaring at us. I quickly started losing the door, so I screamed "HELP ME HOLD THIS DOOR!" Kimber came running, and finally the rest of them woke up and came running, and it took all of us crammed in a doorway to get the door shut against his weight. He put a few dents in our door prior to leaving. We sank down to the floor and just stared at each other. We had no idea who he was, what the problem was, why he was angry at us, if he would be coming back, if he would be coming back with friends, or what to do. I dreamed about his eyes for several nights in a row.

Things like that most certainly did not happen at Cedarville University, or at Lincoln Christian School. It was really very shocking to me; shocking enough that I can still picture what he looks like and hear the exact words he was shouting at me. I was a fish out of water in the situation, I didn't know what to do, and I was certainly scared. I also made a choice that day, and I don't know if it's a choice everybody would agree with or not, but it was the only choice I could live with. I could either run into the kitchen with the other two, and hide, and hope for the best, or I could try to protect someone who was only in trouble because they came to MY rescue in the first place. I have a hard time picturing the myself I was back then picking up a board to shoo out a likely drug-crazed, not listening, very enraged, very big person. Worse, I was planning on really hitting him with it if he tried to follow through on the punch to Kimber's face. His fist was bigger than her head, he'd have caused a lot of damage. I didn't WANT to hurt him, I didn't want to get 'revenge' for scaring us, I just wanted him to leave and not hurt any of us. I think if Nicki hadn't been there, things might have gotten even worse very quickly. I'm glad she was there, and I'm glad Kimber stood up to him when he had me pinned to the wall, and I learned several things. The only two I'll take the time to say though are these: I learned that even a peace-loving, non-confrontational, very shy, sheltered Baptist girl can pick up a board and prepare to use it in the 'right' circumstances. And I learned I'm not the type to huddle in the kitchen and hope for the best.

RFSM (Random Flight School Memories): First Flight Photo

This is the first picture I ever took out of the window of an airplane that I was piloting. I was in the school's trainer, an AG-5B Tiger, and I had rented it to fly myself and three friends to Bloomington, IN. I can't remember why we were going there right now, and I can't even remember the trip, except for a couple of things.

1. This was in the Fall, and you can see some of the beautiful colors of the trees below.

2. The friends I took with me had never been in a small plane before. They weren't even a little bit nervous. They probably should have been.

3. There were four of us in the plane. Myself, Tim, Mark and Matt. One girl, three guys. The "majors" or potential careers of the four people on board? Pilot, Nurse, Social Worker, and Police Officer. How many people would get THAT mix right? (The girl is the pilot, the guy is the nurse/social worker.)

4. It's the first time I remember landing at an unfamiliar FBO and getting out with passengers, and having the people inside and the line folks absolutely incapable of talking to me. The guys I was with were big and older, and to be fair, I was 19 or 20 years old and looked about 16 and as far as the airport folks were concerned, there was just no way that one of the guys wasn't the pilot. I'd tell the guy I needed fuel, and he'd look at Tim (the oldest). I'd kind of wave and say "topped off please" and he'd answer...Tim. He asked Tim how long we'd be here, and when I tried to get a courtesy car, you can guess whose info they kept trying to get. It became so funny to all four of us that we were laughing right there in the FBO, which I'm sure did not improve my apparent maturity level. But sometimes, you just have to laugh. :)

5. It was the first time I'd taken a group of people anywhere since I got my license. And as we were flying above the beautiful countryside, joking and laughing and relaxing, all I could think was "Ah, this is the life!"

It still is. ;)

RFSM: The Jacket

Ah, will you look at this? I have very few photos from flight school, which is funny considering my photo obsession. I think I was too busy to take pictures most of the time. But here I was at least smart enough to ask somebody to take my picture in my newly-awarded first-ever Flight Jacket. Alpha Eta Rho, the Flight Fraternity. Yes, I said "Fraternity". Ask me about that sometime. ;) My name is on the jacket and everything. I'll admit something here, just to the four people who read this blog. I felt kind of cool walking around campus in a flight jacket. Even though most people thought I must be borrowing it from a boyfriend (until they saw my name on the front). Even though I was rather uncomfortable at the AER 'meetings' I attended. The jacket had an airplane on the back of it, and said "Flight Team", and my name, all at the same time. How could I not feel just a little bit thrilled about that?? I was learning how to fly AIRPLANES and now I had something physical to prove it! :)

RFSM: My Greatest Humiliation

Random Flight School Memory: My Greatest Humiliation

I've told this story before, and now it can be written down for posterity. I'm sure some people, if they knew my blog existed and were to read this story, would get a kick out of it. It sure wasn't funny to me though! Thank heavens, I don't have any photos of this one. ;)

For awhile I was working on two licenses at the same time. I was finishing up one, while taking lessons on the next. So one day I was out burning up some flight time, and when I got back I was supposed to go do a "Phase Check" towards the other. It was a pretty day, and a little windy (well, for me at that time it was). I flew around, enjoyed the day, and finally came in to land. When I listened to the weather, I realized the winds had picked up a little more, and they were a crosswind. I was a little nervous, because I wasn't that good at crosswinds yet, but I felt like it would still be okay. I'd never really had too much trouble yet, so I figured I could handle it. I was coming down final, doing just fine, and I look at the end of the runway and see this weird black square/blob off the end and side of the runway. So I stare at it and try to figure out what on earth it is. I get closer and closer, and my concentration is more on what that black thing is than on my landing. Finally I'm on short final, and I realize that what I am seeing is a very large crowd of people standing off the side of the runway. I am looking out my side window in dismay at the crowd as I come over the numbers to land. And I made one of the top three worst landings of my flying 'career', to this day. I bounced, I porpoised, I skidded, I aimed for a runway light, I finally came to a halt on the edge of the runway. I taxied back to my parking space without doing or saying a thing, tied down the plane, walked upstairs to put the plane's keys back, and my instructor who was supposed to go up with me for a Phase Check asked what I was doing. I said "I'm going home." He said "No, we have a flight." I said "No, I'm going home." He said "No, you need to take this Phase Check and keep moving." I turned around, I looked him in the eye, and I said "NO. I. Am. Going. Home. Right. Now." and I turned around and walked off, leaving him with his mouth hanging open. Getting back out there and taking a mini checkride right then was just not going to be a good plan. I got in my car, and I did something I had never yet done and can't remember doing again in flight school-I bawled all the way home. I was so embarrassed and horrified.

You see, it was "Parents and Grandparents Day" at the university. They were doing spot landing contests, bomb drop contests, etc. I wasn't participating, and the crowd hadn't been there when I took off. My humiliation increased the next class I had with fellow student pilots. They were pleased to do two things: One, let me know that the radio frequency was up on loudspeakers, so everybody heard me calling in to land, knew who I was (since I was the only girl there at the time), and one guy (the nice guy, Ken) even said "Hey, this is Laurie, she usually does a nice job." And then of course I pronged it on in a most spectacular and public fashion. But Number Two, they were thrilled to let me know that one of the guys had been taping all the action for the day. So they brought the tape into class, and played that landing for everyone who may have missed it the first time. All I could do was laugh "with" them (and the instructor of that class, who disliked me quite a bit), and take it.

So, for all you student pilots who are not reading this blog--FLY THE AIRPLANE no matter what. Concentrate on what you're doing and worry about the rest later. Or reap the consequences.

If I'd ever had therapy, I would have needed it for that one. I never had done well being 'watched' doing anything anyway. Ever. Ask my poor mom, who used to half hide at my volleyball games, because as soon as I'd see she made it there, I'd start catching balls instead of hitting them, or doing other doofus things. Being watched made me rather nervous. And then when I went down in flames in front of a group of teachers, students, and everybody's mother (literally), that was just really bad.

I still dislike being observed or watched, and since I've been that way since I was a little kid, I don't see it changing anytime soon. The difference is, now I can usually just ignore how I'm feeling and get whatever I need to get done done no matter who is watching. Usually. The BBQ Bash was a challenge for me for awhile. Let's see...a large group of pilots and their family all standing by a runway watching the landings, what about that could make a person with my history nervous?! ;)

RFSM: Hulman

My first year at flight school, my Primary flight instructor also became my fiance, to the chagrin of the flight department there. He was also in the Guard, and worked his weekends at the Terre Haute military base. Sometimes I was able to go too, and I got to hang out in the "Weapons and Loading" area. Once in awhile the pilots of the F-16s on base would come in and chat and mingle, and I admit, I was a little star struck. I even got to climb up on the bird and look around now and then. Those were some crazy guys, but they really didn't seem to mind a chick hanging out. :) I had some fun times there on base. I could just drive up, without any proof that I belonged there, and as long as I said authoritatively to the gate person, "I'm headed back to Weapons and Loading", they'd let me in. Something tells me it wouldn't work these days. I'd watch the fighters take off and land and just daydream and smile. It was especially gorgeous at night, when you could see the flames shooting out the back. Mmmmm.

However, if I Ever wear high-water white pants with brown loafers and a blue sweatshirt again, somebody has permission to smack me.

RFSM: Hardees

This was how I earned money during flight school. Welcome to the inside of Hardees; Behind The Scenes. I have no idea who took the photo or why, but I have proof that for awhile, I was indeed the Drive Through Queen. I mean Drive-Thru Queen. Sorry. I was actually very good at the job. In fact, they always put me on drive-thru because I could move customers better than anybody but the managers. Speaking of managers, the blond without the hat is Lori. She was one rough lady. Everybody was scared of her. The hot pink tye-dye shirt and hat? That's my roommate Melissa, who worked with me very briefly. The tiny bright orange hat in the background? That's my head, at the Drive-Thru.
I'll even blow up the photo for you, so you can see the serious look on my face as I do my work.

I saw a lot of interesting things in that drive-thru. I saw a man wearing a camouflage hat with a gun in his lap. I leaned out to hand him his food, froze, looked at the gun, looked at his face, and then in a perfectly normal voice, I said "9mm? Nice piece." He looked back, nodded, smiled, and drove off. Okay. Gulp. I saw a man so inebriated that I called a manager over who called the police. We told this guy his chicken needed to cook, and he sat out there for 20 minutes waiting for his chicken (duh) until the police arrived. He didn't get a ticket because they didn't see him actually driving, but they did provide a ride home for him. I watched 4th of July fireworks out the drive-through window, feeling rather lonely. I saw people fighting, people...not fighting..., people in their pajamas (okay so that's a lot more common these days than it was back then), lots of interesting things. Mostly I liked drive-through because I'd get a breath of fresh air every time I opened the window, I had a view outside of the florescent lights of the restaurant, and it was fast-paced which kept me from getting bored. Plus I got to wear that cool little headset thing, which was almost like a flight headset.

It was Hardees where I worked a large number of hours each week, plus took a full load of classes, to help pay for silly stuff like food. I walked to work, and had one pair of black work shoes. They had a half-dollar sized hole in each heel, and a smaller hole under each toe. So I'd get gravel in my shoes on the walk to work, or wet feet from snow or rain. Plus twice a day they'd mop the floors, so about the time my feet would dry out, they'd mop the floors and my feet would get wet all over again. But since I often ate crackers for dinner, or left-over food from Hardees if a manager made extra on "accident", and told me to go ahead and finish it off rather than wasting it, a new pair of shoes wasn't high up on the priority list. As weird as it sounds, I actually enjoyed the job. I wouldn't care to do it again today, but at the time, I did enjoy it, and it certainly served its purpose. (I even got a (serious) marriage proposal from a fellow co-worker from there, after three dates. Whew, I may like fast things, but, um, no.)

Ah, Hardees...I still like their biscuits best. ;)

RFSM (Random Flight School Memories): The Plane

This is the airplane in which I learned to fly. The AG-5B (American General) Tiger. If you click on this picture, it will blow up bigger. It was a nice little airplane, and it did a great job. It was brand new the year I got there, right off the line, so even the instructors weren't highly familiar with it, though we peon students didn't know that at the time. ;) You can see my head and legs as I preflight and somebody else took my photo. The 172RG I did my Commercial and CFI training in is behind that, the red and white. The panel in the Tiger was nice too, brand new for the times as well. I think maybe Stephanie took these the time she went up with me out there. So here you go...the poor plane that survived my flight training. The plane I soloed in for the first time. You know, where you say to yourself "Full power, keep it straight, rotate, okay good...crosswind, perfect, downwind, okay, looking fine...HOLY COW I'M ALL ALONE UP HERE AND NOW I HAVE TO LAND THIS THING BY MYSELF!!!!!!!!! WHAT WAS HE THINKING SENDING ME UP HERE???" :) The plane I took my checkride(s) in, the plane I flew around for no good reason to console myself after a relationship went 'south', and the plane I humiliated myself in on a crosswind landing in front of a very large crowd. Also the plane where crosswind landings finally "clicked" so I'd never do that humiliation thing again. Hopefully. ;) My very first flight in the plane, my instructor said he was going to have me do the take off, and I looked at him in shock and said "ME?? But I don't know how!" He started laughing, and said "Well, that's why I'M here, to tell you how." He laughed about that for the rest of the year.
Thank you, Tiger. I always did like you, even if I did flare too high and thud you on for the first 20 hours of my flight time. ;)

Random Flight School Memories (RFSM): Roommates

I'm going to do these now and then while I still remember them. Considering how fast my memory is fading, I'd better hurry.

Roommates:

I think it was my mom who gave me the advise to not put any utilities in my name. I was in an off-campus apartment shared by three other girls. I remember thinking at the time "Oh, surely these nice girls wouldn't rip me off!" But I followed the advice, and had no utilities in my name. Thank you, Mom. By the end of my first year at flight school, in the days before cellphones were common, we had no phone in our apartment, and much of the year was spent with no electricity. This meant no hot showers too by the way. I usually did homework by candle light. No computers either, but then again nobody had a laptop back then anyway either. I remember it was December, and we (again) had the electricity shut off, and it was freezing in there, and we had candles all over the place, no phone, no TV or radio or anything. Taking an ice cold shower in the dark or with a candle (because I MUST lock the bathroom door no matter what, thank you Anthony Perkins) was loads of fun. I'm glad the candles never caught anything on fire, since we didn't have a phone with which to call for help. ;)

The bottom line is that the other two girls ripped off the third girl on the phone bill for the short time we had a phone. I did not. And the girl who had the electricity in her name, well, she was a crook of the highest order. I'll tell the story of her boyfriend next. But she would take our money to pay the electric bill, and then keep the money and not pay the bill. We would be none the wiser until the electricity was shut off a few months later, and she no longer had the money to pay it. So we'd stay without electricity until she'd pay up a little. Of course she had a boyfriend, so she'd stay with him for awhile, leaving the rest of us in the dark and cold.

We never did get our deposit back on the apartment, thanks to all the melted candle wax that got onto carpets, furniture, etc.

Back to my lovely crook of a roommate. She was nice to start with. Her name was Nicki, and the first semester we all got along great, including her. And then she found this boyfriend of hers, and joined a group of kids who were all "into" Malcolm X. Over the next few months, she became angry, distant, and slowly criminal. One day I got a call from my bank, who wanted me to come to their office right away, where they wanted to know why I'd written bad checks, and informed me of the serious consequences of bad check-writing. I most certainly had not written bad checks, and was in fact stunned. Fortunately, they still had copies of these checks, and I could prove that the writing was not mine-nor was the name used on them. They believed me. Someone had cleaned out my account and over-written it by $500.00 using the blank starter checks I had hidden in my underwear drawer. I went to the police, who told me it would take too much effort to find who did it and that they weren't really going to pursue it, but if I found out anything to let them know. *Ack* Well, I was a little angry at being ripped off. I remembered that one of the checks was to a local pizza place, and I happened to know that this pizza place required a student ID to accept checks. I remembered the name used on the starter check, and I went to the school and asked if they would look up the name on the student ID, which came with a photo of the person. They said no, that it was too much work, that they'd have to look through all the IDs by hand (they made two copies, one for the student, one for them). So I asked them for permission to look through all the IDs myself. They said yes. (Can you imagine this happening today?? For one thing, surely it's computerized by now, and for another, I hear the privacy violations piling up!) I took one friend I had there with me, and we went through every ID by hand, looking for that name. A few hours later, my friend found it--I looked at the photo, and it was my roommate's Boyfriend, using a fake name. I got permission to take the ID (again, :O), and I took it right to the police station, told them who he was, his real name, and the proof of what he'd done. I told them I wanted to press charges and I wanted him arrested. Last I knew, not a thing ever happened to him. Gotta love small town college justice. You do the work for them and they still won't do anything about it.

I confronted Nicki about it, and didn't really see her or him again for the rest of the year. But worst of all was the realization later on that in order to get to my checks, James was rifling through my underwear drawer. Ick. :(

So, my first year of flight school was memorable for many reasons. My first 'serious' boyfriend, my first time flying airplanes, my first experience outside of the Christian world, my first almost full-time job, my first time at feeling really truly disliked by a fairly group of people all at once, my first off-campus college experience period, and of course my first roommates. Before I go, let me describe them to you. There was Nicki, who was a pretty black young lady, who went bad, hung up Malcolm X posters, insisted that the "black race" didn't just want equality, they wanted to rule over the rest of us, who brought over her Malcolm X crew to the apartment, leaving the rest of us huddling out of the way in our rooms, who stole our electricity money, and whose boyfriend ripped me off and got away with it. Then there was Kimber. Kimber was a tiny, freckled, braided, tye-died hippy. She smoked clove cigarettes and pot constantly, and had an $80 a month allowance which she spent on those habits among others. She frequently had 'gentlemen' visitors that we'd wake up in the morning and find all over the living room asleep. She dug all the candles, man. *cough* Third, there was Melissa. She was a 6' something" tall very heavy bright red-headed girl who wanted to be a social worker. She opened and read my mail sometimes. At least she did until I took care of that problem too. But that's a story for another day. She wanted to be in a sorority very badly, and the one time I felt very sorry for her was the day they walked past our door at midnight, accepting all the little cute popular girls in the sorority, and not her. *sigh* And last but not least, there was me. Laurie Shaffer. Mid-sized brunette/redhead with freckles who wanted to do nothing but fly airplanes. No sororities. No clove cigarettes and "deep" conversations about the meaning of life. No angry mobs and dastardly plots against humanity. Just airplanes. And somebody put the four of us together in one apartment. Is that a sitcom in the works or what?? They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here you go, taken while we all still spoke to each other.

Miscellanious Flying Ramblings & Food

Sometimes I'll come out with a sentence or topic of conversation and Steve will say "What on earth made you think of that??" I'll tell him, and it's usually so circuitous and confusing that he blinks and says "oookay". In fact, I think he's quit asking me these days. ;) Anyway, this morning was one of those.

I was reading a story online about a kid riding his bike to flight lessons, and his bike was stolen. He'd sold his car to pay for flying lessons, so he didn't have transportation other than his now stolen bike. The people online chipped in and PayPal'd him some money so he could get another bike. He didn't ask for money, a few people just did it because they were being kind and generous. Some other people complained, claimed it was "not aviation related", and the whole story was shut down. So while I was getting ready this morning I was thinking about why anybody would complain about it. I thought about how there are probably lots of people with "it was tough learning to fly for me because..." stories, and maybe some of those people are bummed/jealous because nobody came along and helped Them out. That made me think about part of my own "it was tough learning to fly because" thing, which led me to walking with holes in my shoes and taking the little taxi van out to the airport since I couldn't drive/walk it, which led me to a guy who shared the van with me occasionally for awhile. This guy was a piece of work-he kept hitting on me (for awhile), and getting turned down didn't improve his mood towards me. He was a jerk named Cole who claimed that he was related to an air show pilot, and delighted in making loud, public comments about me. This guy was a Neanderthal, seriously. Big and beefy and rude and obnoxious and loud and, well, dumb. He was repeating his primary training for another semester because he couldn't pass his checkride, and this was his second go-around at all of it. So one of my more pleasant memories of flight school was one day after he'd been ramping up his efforts to bother me-in every way. I was walking out to the airplane with my instructor, and Cole made some typical loud comment in front of a bunch of people along the lines of "oooh, there goes that girl. She shouldn't even be here! Go home! I'll bet she can't..." whatever. I'm doing my usual ignoring him, though now my face is all red and I'm feeling weird again. Suddenly, my instructor pipes up, and says loudly enough for everyone to hear; "Oh Shut Up, Cole. This 'girl' can fly circles around you." Cole didn't have a response to that, and just left. I didn't say anything for a few minutes, mostly out of shock I think, then after we got ready to go, I just said "thanks" and my instructor just nodded. I'd never had anybody there stick up for me before. I always have appreciated that. And like a typical bully/Neanderthal, Cole didn't really bother me much after that. (In fact, he washed out of the program.) A memory from those days that leaves me warm and fuzzy and smiling. Thank you, Mr. G. :)

One more memory from those days that leaves me smiling. His name was Ken. He was married, he was older than the rest of us, and he was commuting from over an hour away every day to be there. Our Private Pilot ground school class, the first class I was ever in, there weren't individual seats, there were just tables and chairs. So you sat 2-3 people per table. I got there early (as I am apt to do), and the tables around me filled up, until pretty soon every table was full-except mine. They were even squeezing chairs in to other tables to fit more people per table, but nobody sat at the two empty chairs at my table. I just kept my eyes on my book, and I remember thinking to myself "What on earth am I doing here?? I don't fit in here, I don't belong here, What Am I Doing Here??" I was painfully shy at the time, had never really been around guys at all anyway, I was super uncomfortable with the looks and stares and whispers and laughs, and I just was way out of my comfort zone to say the least. Class was about to start, and suddenly a guy gets up from his table, picks up his books, and comes and sits next to me at my table. I looked over at him, and he gave me this warm smile, and said "Hi, my name is Ken." He chatted with me about his wife, about how hard it was to be married, work a job, and commute two hours round trip every day to college (which I would later find out for myself). He didn't stay in the program for long either, but as someone else who didn't fit into the 18-year-old testosterone festival, for a while there was someone else there who, while not exactly a friend, was...kind. I will always remember how I felt in that moment when he picked up his stuff and sat down next to me, making a quiet statement of his own. So thank you, Ken R. Your kindness is remembered even 16 years later. :)

THAT is how my circuitous thinking works, and how I go from a story about a kid with a bicycle stolen to Ken and Mr. G showing a very fish-out-of-water girl an instant of compassion that left a lifetime impression. Okay, enough memory lane. :)

Today, Kaylee in the car said "I know how to spell 'squeeze' Mommy. It's S Q U E E Z." I said "You're close, it's actually S Q U E E Z E." She said "But this tube has "Squeez" on it. See?" I told her that sometimes people misspell words on purpose to be cute or clever. She responded with "That's not cute, that's dumb! They ought to spell it right. Plus, some people might not know what they mean to say if they don't spell it right!" I couldn't agree more, Kaylee! :D

Kaylee didn't have swim lessons today, so we worked around the house, went to the post office, hit the grocery store, and then headed out to Glenndale for Friday Lunch. It was busy today. One person thought there was over 40 people there, another thought it was in the 30's. Either way, it was a busy week. Our airport addition has concrete now, and they are starting to work on the framework.

Nathan blew by in the Mustang today; its first flight in over half a year! Ahhhhhh, that always gets my heart pumping.

This evening, Chuck & Judy and Steve, Kaylee and myself went to a local place called "Meal Thyme Solutions". It's a small local business where you call (or in my case use the internet) to let them know what meals you would like to make. They prep all the food for you, have all the ingredients there, etc. You walk in, put it all together, take it home and freeze it. Wa-la. Instant good, home-made meals ready when you want them. No shopping for groceries, no mess to clean up afterwards, no nightly prep work. But it's real food made with real ingredients. They have a monthly menu of what's available. For example, this month they had among other things Honey Grilled Salmon, Lemon Chicken Pasta, Peach & Mustard Pork Loin, Sausage/Egg/Cheese breakfast casserole, all sorts of stuff. This month they had a special, if you buy 6 meals, you get one meal free. So I emailed them the 7 meals I wanted. We show up, and there are 14 meal "stations" set up. 7 for us, 7 for Chuck & Judy. All your ingredients, measuring cups, utensils, everything you need for each meal is at each station. The directions are right there on the top of the work station. For example I mixed up a sauce for BBQ Beef Roast. Put it into a ziploc baggie, put the baggie in with a frozen pot roast. There's a label under the table that has the meal description and cooking instructions on it-you stick the label on the bag, and you're done. You can go home and fix it, or you can freeze it for later. When you're done putting the food together, you put the dirty utensils in a plastic bin under the table and you go to the next station and fix the next meal. With Steve, Chuck, Judy and myself all working, it took us one hour to create 14 meals. Really it's 28 meals, because we divided each meal in half, making each menu item two meals for two people. (Each meal feeds 4-6 people). So for $109, my family got 14 two-person meals, ready in an hour. Side dishes come with each meal. Brown rice, vegetables, etc. When you're done, you pick up all your prepared food, and a bag full of all the side dishes already put together for you, along with a list of which side items go best with which meals. Like I said, no grocery shopping, no lists, no clean-up afterwards, but home-cooked meals, basically, and the price is Very reasonable, especially compared to eating out. They also have an option where you can call or email them and they will fix it for you too, and you can come pick it up. Or they'll fix it AND deliver it to your home, but that's an additional $50 charge on top of the meals. The food looks good...we haven't had it yet, but tomorrow night we'll try one of them out.

We had fun making the meals. Everyone wore a plastic apron, and I got photos of everyone fixing their food. It's more fun to do it with a group than to go by yourself. Besides, there's some high entertainment value in watching Steve and Chuck in their hats working on meals. There just is. :) Here's one Chuck took of Steve and I. Proof that I mixed something up. ;) You can see on the table all the measuring bowls and spoons and ingredients. It's all right there, you just have to put it together. You can see the photos from Meal Thyme, and I also took some photos at Glenndale today too that maybe you may enjoy...