Frenchy's Rant

I was sound asleep, until the announcement woke me up. I glanced out the window, and noticed we were on the ground. I wasn’t sure if we were still here, or if we’d left here and already gotten there. I must’ve been nearly unconscious. A big bear of a man was standing in the front of the plane, using the flight attendant’s handset to talk to the passengers.

“Hi. I’m Gary, your pilot. Enjoying the flight so far? Great. Pretty smooth, isn’t it? Right. Well, you’re probably wondering why we stopped here instead of taking off. Dispatch just radioed to tell us there was a security breach in San Diego. The airport is locked down, they are emptying the terminal right now, no flights are being allowed in or out, which means the bad news is we ain’t going anywhere for a while. If we go back to the gate, we’ll never leave this airport, because that’s just how these things work. So… we’ll just sit here for a while and see if they’re able to catch the poor confused granny that caused this security breach. The good news is, if you’ve ever wanted to see the cockpit of a jet, now’s your chance. Come on up and say hi if you want. I’m not going anywhere either.”

I told Brian, the coworker I happened to be seated next to that I was going to take Captain Gary up on his offer. I jumped up, and beat two little kids into the doorway of the cockpit. When he saw me standing there, he motioned to the vacant copilot’s seat said, “Welcome to the cockpit. Pull up a stump.”

Incredible! For the first time in over fifteen years of commercial flying, I was actually sitting in the only seat in the plane better than first class. I marveled at the vast assortment of switches, knobs and buttons, as well as the multi-display computer screens. I was also surprised to see there was no control yoke in front of the pilots. A single joystick attached to the wall controls this whole plane? I asked Captain Gary about it.

“Yeah, that’s it. Try it out. Go ahead. It’s not even connected to anything except four little springs.” Then, as I fooled around with the joystick, “Woah! If you did that while flying, we’d all be dead. Look,” he said, gently easing back on the stick, “that’s all I do to rotate for takeoff. In flight, it’s little inputs only. In fact, the computer flies the plane about 90% of the time.” He sighed. “Pilots are just redundant safety features anymore. See that red button right there? That’s the one thing we still control. That button fires the missiles!”

He continued, “This plane can even land itself. In fact, if I try to correct it with the joystick during automated landing, the plane will actually fight with me to land in the dead center of the runway. Pretty soon they’ll be flying these things from the ground, and we’ll all be out of work.” Then he leaned over and whispered, “Personally, I hope it happens soon. I’m ready to go back to Alaska and be a bush pilot again, this security shit is so stupid.”

Then he brightened up. “You want to see something really cool? Check this out!” Captain Gary was nothing if not exuberant. He reached up and threw a switch. Immediately an alarm and a mechanical voice filled the cockpit. “Engine Fire! Engine Fire! Engine Fire!” I looked at him in horror and amazement, wondering if he set a jet engine on fire just for my entertainment.

“Cool, isn’t it! It used to be that we had to remember checklists for everything. So, once I turn this annoying alarm off, I’d have to go through a mental checklist of engine fire procedures. But, look at this screen. The whole checklist is right there.”

I looked. Step One was Shut Down Engine. Alert Crew was down around Step Six.

With a smile he said, “I don’t have to remember much of anything anymore. This screen tells me everything.”

Then he paused, and looked at another small screen in the center console. A text message had appeared. It read, ‘Will update ETO as necessary.’

This made the pilot laugh. “ETO?!? ETO?!?!? What the fuck is ETO?!? European Theater of Operations? ARRRGH!! I have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about!”

He calmed down, laughed again, then continued my cockpit tour. “Anyway, this screen tells me everything I need to know.” Switching readouts on the screen, he said, “For example, right now our main engines are off. If they were on, these readings would tell me fuel burn rate, engine temperature and efficiency, and anything else I might need to know. We burn about 1200 gallons an hour, more or less, on takeoff, and about 600 gallons an hour at level flight at high altitude. The higher the altitude, the more efficient we are.” He added, “Honestly, I can fly this plane better than the computer can, but the one thing I can’t do is fly with the fuel efficiency of the computer.”

I looked up, and saw that Brian had made his way to the cockpit. I switched places with him and took this picture after he sat down.

Another message came through, informing Captain Gary the crisis in San Diego had passed, and we were cleared to takeoff. We thanked the good captain for making the delay entertaining, then returned to being ordinary passengers once again.

Rain Cloud Follows, my trusty Yamaha FJR 1300 motorcycle, needed new tires for the upcoming Great Unsponsored Nova Scotia Expedition. The closest shop I could find with both the tires and the time to change them was in Taftville, CT, a nice fifty mile ride from my house. By riding small back roads to get to the shop, I easily increased that fifty mile ride by another thirty or so.

Andy, the service manager for Center Sports quickly slipped new sneakers on Rain Cloud Follows and sent me on my way with a smile. Now, with that final expedition preparation out of the way, I found myself in my favorite of predicaments. The rest of my day was free, giving me ample time to explore, and I had brand new tires in need of a good breaking in. The clear blue skies were inviting, and the warm day begged to be fully exploited. With no destination in mind, I let the bike take me on a lazy back road tour of Western Connecticut, winding past farms, fields and forests. A few happy hours later, I found myself meandering along Route One, on the southeast coast of the Kingdom of Rhode Island, not too far from the tiny seaside town of Matunuck, Carpenter’s Beach Meadow and the beach house where I spent many a care-free childhood summers roasting on the beach, goin’ crabbin’ on the rock jetty and racing my bicycle through the dirt roads of our tiny community. I decided to stop by to see what had changed.

Long forgotten memories instantly flooded back, mostly of the ‘old gang’, including Gary Nadeau, the big kid that taught me to wheelie my Huffy, my best friend and fellow mischief-maker Kenny Vottalato, who always used to try and sneak into the Friday Night movies at the Seaview, more often than not getting caught and sent home, Margarita, the ancient lady next door that spent all day every day reading romance novels, always tearing the page out of the book immediately after she read it, portly Chipper LeClerc, who constantly complained that when we played Superfriends, my brother and I took the ‘good’ superheroes (I was always Batman, my brother Eric usually chose to be Spiderman) In protest, Chipper would choose to be Wonder Woman. And of course, unforgettable Kerri Bianca, the girl that dominated all my nine year old dreams, the goddess who, in my mind was so radiant, so incredibly beautiful, so absolutely perfect that just to look at her made my head, my heart, and other various body parts ache. Whenever Kerri was around, no matter the circumstance, I never failed to make a complete fool of myself.

As I slowly rode up and down the side streets, I found myself at the old playground, and another memory, another ghost of the past came back to me. Bill was the friendly old man that shared a trailer bordering the playground with his sister Mary. One morning, I rode my then pride and joy – my Huffy, the bicycle that came adorned with a huge Number 56 racing plate on the handlebars, the bike I won in a Cub Scouts raffle, the bike that, in an unknown act of foreshadowing, I immediately decked out with playing cards in the spokes to sound like a motorcycle, my ticket to freedom – I rode my Huffy to the playground. Bill was sitting on his porch eating breakfast, when he saw me he offered me what would turn out to be my first real job. Bill said he’d pay me a dollar to ride my bike up to Maroney’s to get him his morning paper. A dollar! Back in those days, that was a lot of money for a kid. Think of all the candy I could score! Even though I wasn’t technically allowed to ride my bike to Maroney’s all by myself, I reasoned that the payoff Bill promised was worth the risk.

It wasn’t. When my parent’s found out, they were furious, and stormed down to Bill and Mary’s trailer to give him a piece of their mind. When they met, however, a Beach Meadow friendship developed, as they often would, for, as idyllic as it may sound, there really were no strangers in Carpenter’s Beach Meadow, just friends you hadn’t met yet. Back then, the worst thing a ‘stranger’ would do is slip you an extra dollar so you could sneak up to Maroney’s and gorge on Charleston Chews and Pop Rocks until you felt sick. From then on, if I was missing, my parents knew I could most likely be found near Bill and Mary’s, running an errand or eating ‘flobby’ bacon – Mary’s specialty and Bill’s favorite meal.

The walls of our tiny cottage on Seventh Street West were nothing more than thick cardboard. Every wall was warped and buckled from the damp ocean air, the windows didn’t close all the way, and hot water was always a premium. My brother and I slept in the only room in bunk beds, my parents ‘room’ also served as the kitchen, dining room and living room. They slept on a pull-out sofa bed. We didn’t have much, but we didn’t need much. It was the best way a kid could possibly grow up, safe and secure with plenty of room, a trusty bicycle for exploring, and an entire ocean only a block away.

Days ‘down the beach’ had a soothing regularity. Wake up, tune the black-and-white TV to one of only three channels we could get in Matunuck, watch ‘The Price is Right’, eat flobby bacon with Bill and Mary, then go to the beach for a full day of swimming and sun. With our daily fill of sun and sand castles, the gang would ride our bicycles around the neighborhood until five, when MASH was on. Freshly picked ears of corn from Carpenter’s Farm always went perfectly with dinner, and most days would finally end as we fell asleep to the sound of the Point Judith foghorn wailing through the night. If it rained, we’d go into Wakefield and watch a movie and get ice cream. I remembered that in those days, my all time favorite thing to do was ride my Huffy to look at the ocean right before a big storm blew in. The anger and violence of that ocean, that same ocean I swam in almost every day, never failed to impress me.

The lazy, hazy crazy days of summer seemed to stretch on forever back then. Every day followed the same rhythm, and we had no idea how good we had it. No cell phones, no internet, no pointless interruptions, nothing but sun and fun, it was a time and place where you didn’t grow up any faster than you needed to. You could leave your door unlocked without worrying. Kids could roam free without a problem. Nothing bad ever happened, at least not that I knew about. The West Side kids would innocently taunt the other kids with our chant – ‘The West Side is the Best Side! The East Side is the Least Side!’ (Honestly, we really were better than them. Still are.) Those were the days, indeed.

Inevitably, as they always do, things started changing. Margarita passed away. The Vottalatos put their cottage up for sale. Liability issues forced the cancellation of everybody’s favorite weekend, BeerFest. One summer, my brother and I decided we’d rather stay at home with our friends, that we were ‘too old’ for the beach house. That season, somebody punched holes in our cardboard walls, broke in and stole the only valuable thing in the place, a wall clock. It became evident that times really were changing. My parents sold the tiny beach house in the beginning of the next season, which, in a stroke of excellent timing, was the season a hurricane destroyed the beach. We’d still drive to Matunuck to visit Bill and Mary from time to time, though those visits dwindled as time marched on.

Even more has changed there now, seemingly for the worse. There is a huge cement wall where our beach used to be. I stood on it and watched as that ocean I used to swim in crashed up and over it. I saw that the only ‘real’ beach remaining is a tiny patch of sand without a lifeguard. The Seaview is boarded up, the era of twenty-five cent Friday movies replaced by Blockbuster and HBO. Maroney’s is now a surf shop. The baseball field that used to host Beerfest now hosts about fifty campers, all renting their summer slice of my former stomping grounds. I rode over to Seventh Street West and was a bit saddened to see our cottage now has real wooden walls and windows that close tight. Even worse, it sports a satellite dish on the roof. The owners probably have high speed internet in there too. So sad to see.

And worst of all, Kerri Bianca was nowhere to be found.

I stopped for one last look at the old place that held so many of my great childhood memories. As I sat there enjoying those memories washing over me, a little kid came tearing down Seventh Street West on his bicycle, heading for the playground where Bill and Mary’s trailer used to be. I gave him a friendly wave as he passed, shifted my Huffy into first, slowly let out the clutch, and headed for home.

The lesson: Reply to Spammers and you get more Spam. Shocking, I know. Well, thanks to my reply to Mr. Nunu and others, now I’m getting more and more of these silly messages every day. That’s OK. I find it a fun creative writing exercise to respond to these dumbasses. Here is the latest scam email I received, this time from – I am not making this up – someone named ‘The Honorable James Brown’:

“Frenchy, wanna go on an adventure?”

Even though Sunday was supposed to just be a quick visit to meet my friend Mike’s newborn son Lucas, whenever the possibility of an adventure pops up, I don’t need to be asked twice. To look at him, you’d think Mike just a mild mannered guy, but I know better. Mike, an accomplished ultralight pilot, motorcyclist and 4×4 offroad enthusiast, has wrecked, crashed and otherwise destroyed all three types of vehicles, and hasn’t always been able to walk away. He has a big insane streak. I’ve learned in the past, any adventure with Mike will most likely involve beer, mayhem, damage, and carnage of some sort. And, of course, his adventures always include a lot of laughs. How could I turn an offer like that down?

“Sure Mike, whattta ya got planned?”

Mike already had the whole day planned, with not one, but two great adventures. “First, I thought we’d take my Jeep and go four wheeling up in Left Hand Canyon, and if we make it out in one piece, I’ve rented us a sport plane for a nice sunset flight over the mountains.”

“I’m in. Let’s go!”

The Jeep, a 1957 Willy’s body with a mish mash of other parts Mike’s installed over the years started after a little TLC and some coaxing. As always, this wouldn’t be a proper Mike adventure without an ever-present element of danger, even for just the drive to Left Hand Canyon. This sign on Willy’s dashboard proved we were on a proper adventure as soon as we pulled out of the driveway:

Soon Mike and I were on our way to adventure number one – Rock Crawling!

Being Memorial Day weekend, there were a lot of other 4×4 enthusiasts on the trail.

We ended up in a traffic jam in the middle of the woods, but it was OK, because 4×4 guys love to drink beer, bullshit, and watch other 4×4 guys destroy their vehicles. Of course a lot of that bullshitting went like this; ‘Nice rig! What kind of lockers you running?” and “Is that the 33 or the 40 on there?” You know, real manly stuff.

My one contribution to the Man Show bullshit fest was, “Err… I’m from Rhode Island, and we don’t have any of this stuff at all. You guys ever want to go for a sailboat ride or see some lighthouses, let me know.” Other than that, I mostly took pictures, keeping my ignorance to myself.

I met Ben and TJ, two guys that had taken Toyota pickup trucks, stripped them down, then highly modified them in to serious rock crawling rides that looked something straight out of a Mad Max movie.

These things were serious. They went up and over huge rocks, some the size of Volkswagen beetles and bigger.

During one traffic jam, I asked Ben if he’d let me ride with him over a particularly big rock. He happily agreed.

As I strapped in, the reason for his apparent happiness became clear. Before we moved, Ben turned to me and said, “Just so you know, I am drunk as hell right now, so whatever happens, it’s your own responsibility, man.”

I did what any sane person would do in that situation. With a shrug, I told him to shut up, step on it and get us up and over that rock.

He did.

What a laugh! Seriously, cheating death has never been so much fun.

Mike got caught up in one tricky section, and while trying to get over a rock, poor Willy let out a loud ‘CLUNK!’ Me and the rest of my new rock crawling buddies all let out a collective, “Uh oh.” That sound just couldn’t be good. And it wasn’t. Seems Willy came down a little too hard on one of the rocks, and a snapped axle was the result. Mike checked it out, then shrugged and kept going. We were in the middle of the woods anyway, and had already cleared the most difficult section, so what was the worst that could happen?

Fortunately, nothing. Willy the Jeep held it together and returned me and Mike safely to his house.

But just because we cheated death once didn’t mean we were done. Not by a long shot. It was time to go flying.

The plane, a Evektor Sportstar was even smaller than it looked. There was a yoke attached to the front wheel, which I expected to be attached to a tractor which would tow the plane out of the hanger. Instead, Mike grabbed the yoke and dragged the plane out by himself.

The tiny plane weighs a little over 750 pounds, or about as much as Rain Cloud Follows does fully loaded. But my motorcycle doesn’t fly, at least not intentionally. I was starting to wonder if this little plane would, and if so, for how long.

As far as I can tell, Mike, the guy that drove a Jeep with a broken axle up a rock strewn trail then home, only takes one thing seriously, and that is flying. I saw a different side of my friend as he went through his pre-flight check of the craft.

He was actually serious. Satisfied that everything was airworthy, we climbed in, and taxied out to the runway.

As I said before, it wouldn’t be a proper Mike adventure without a warning of danger. This sign was fastened to the passenger side of the cockpit. I think the last warning should have been on Mike’s side.

With a few cryptic radio calls, we rolled down the runway and were soon airborne over beautiful Colorado.

Our hour long flight took us to about 2500 feet, and we lazily banked around the sky, all the while watching for other aircraft. Thought the clouds looked intimidating, the ride was smooth, the scenery was stunning, and the entire plane ride was honestly a great time.

Mike even offered to let me fly the plane for a while, but flight is something I prefer to leave to the professionals, or at least trained pilots.

After sightseeing for an hour, we banked left, came around, and without dying, crashing, breaking or even damaging anything, we simply landed, a slightly disappointing ending to an otherwise fantastic day.

It’s unbelievable! First, my friend Mr. Nunu contacts me out of the blue to have me stand in for a recently deceased bank customer in Ghanna, and now, I’ve evidently won a secret internet-only lottery! If this incredible lucky streak keeps up, I’m gonna buy a lottery ticket!

Here’s the e mail I received (and the funniest thing of all was, it was sent to this blog’s e mail address… something that nobody EVER uses! Seriously, I think it’s the third e mail I’ve ever gotten for this blog. Awesome!)

–:ATTN–WINNER:–

YOU ARE THE-WINNER OF EASYDRAW,POSTCODELOTTERY-HELD ON THE 20TH MAY,2008,THROUGH AN EMAIL BALLOT SYSTEM ORGANIZED FOR ALL EMAIL USERS, WITH TICKET NUMBER: 6331/LK2,BATCH NUMBER: 32442, AND PRIZE NUMBER: H63/008.

CONGRATULATIONS,YOU HAVE WON THE SUM OF EURO 1,000,000.00!! (ONE MILLION EURO).

NO TICKETS WERE SOLD.THIS PROMOTION IS ORGANIZED BY POSTCODELOTERIJ-NL THE NETHERLANDS,TO ENCOURAGE INTERNET USERS.THE SELECTED E-MAIL ADDRESSES WERE ATTACHED TO TICKETS NUMBERS WHICH WERE SPANNED BY OUR BALLOT MACHINE,AFTER WHICH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IS ATTACHED TO THE ABOVE NUMBERS. PLEASE, KEEP YOUR WINNIG INFORMATIONS CONFIDENTIAL,SO AS TO AVOID DOUBLE CLAIMS.

CONTACT BELOW MENTIONED OFFICE BY E-MAIL OR TELEPHONE,FOR CLAIMS,WITH YOUR NAME,TELEPHONE/FAX AND YOUR WINNING NUMBERS TO:

……………..

CONTACT PERSON: Dr.DAVID MATOYA.

Contact Email: remitvsnsbnk@aim.com

TELEPHONE: +31-659-002-044.

Dear Doctor David Juan Julio Jesus Montoya de la Mañana!

What’s up, Doc??

Wow! I won!

I never win anything, at least not until now! Usually I get about fifteen scratch tickets at the liquor store while buying my Camels and Thunderbird, but ever since gas prices have gotten so ridiculous, I’ve had to stop with the lottery ticket purchasing. We all have to do our part to save the environment you know! Plus, most of those damn tickets were losers anyway.

So, wow! I won One Million Yuros in a contest I didn’t even enter! Awesome!! How much is that in real money? Is it enough to buy a new trailer? My old one was destroyed in a recent earthquake/monsoon/tornado Weather Channel disaster-o-tainment ratings buster. I don’t mean to bring you down, but I lost everything, including my daughter Dorothy and her dog Toto. On the bright side, I got to be on TV! It was horrible – not the being on TV part, I mean the whole losing everything I owned and loved part.

But now all that is in my sorry past. This email has changed my life from the worst ever to the best!

I went to your website (http://www.postcodeloterij.nl/) and it looks kinda gay. All the words are all funny, I cant read one of them, and the guy standing next to that tree, you know, the tree that keeps shooting out scooters and iPhones? That guy looks like a real homo. I’ve never been to Nether-netherland. Isn’t that Michael Jackson’s famous amusement park/little boy sleepover party place? I think Michael Jackson is probably a homo too. Are all homos rich? I thought that bastard was bankrupt, but I guess not, if he can afford to pay out lottery winnings! Now that’s what I call a Thriller!

So, how do I get my hands on the cash? Don’t worry, I’ll keep my winnig, and my WINNING information confidential. I’ll do whatever you want, just send me the Yugos! Let me know ASAP, OK Doc?!?

Sincerely,

Snickerdoodle F. Rumplemintz

PS: By the way, even though I am now rich too, it in no way means I am a flamer, so don’t get any weird ideas.