"Spin" in aviation training: a "stall" or loss of lift, a subsequent nose-down spin, the specific actions required for recovery, and the feeling, after recovery, that you could tackle absolutely anything!

Wednesday 11 July 2018


Klaus




News of the success of the Thai-soccer team rescue this morning, buoyed my spirits. Buoyed them enough that I figured I could handle a day tending to the field that we still owned, that rectangular chunk hanging on the north end of the whole farm; like an odd piece of chocolate separated from the rest of the bar. I got in the van and began the drive, listening to the music of Rosemary Clooney on the way. I listened to her a great deal when I was driving around on Vancouver Island, to the point where, when I hear her voice now, it takes me right back to the Cowichan Valley, or Tofino; nowhere near Southern Ontario. So, there was Rosemary, and of course, Klaus! 



Klaus was my German-made, plastic, bobble-headed pal. He and I nodded at each other, glad for the company, and the illusion that we keep time to the music for each other. I’m SURE that he believes that I’m real! Isn’t that a scream? 


We drove through the urban sprawl around Newmarket, the ground heaved up and tossed aside like piles of teenager laundry. “Ah, it was only prime agricultural land, Klaus. Don’t get your bananas in a knot;” my sarcastic lob meant to cheer him up. He was clearly pissed. We tried to move on but got stuck in a clot of construction traffic for longer than we should have.  I tried to convince Klaus that the reason we were moving so very slowly was because the orange and yellow men were excavating with spoons. Klaus nodded. 



We arrived at the field towards the sensible beginning of evening shade. We parked the–hang on. “I” parked the van in the shade of the great spruce trees on the western edge of the field. I suited up, with my hunting knife on my belt, in case the forest folk wanted to put on a rendition of West Side Story. I certainly couldn’t defend myself with it, should a bear, or a cougar show up, but if some problem decided to drive in and see who the dame was in the old Laitin field, I could take the knife out and pick my teeth with it, denying any knowledge of who owned the field, and even, what planet this was.






I had my secateurs, for cutting vines. (Secateur: It sounds like it could be referring to some ancient beast from Greek Mythology. The story; Lorna, now mother of Eavestrough, the child, the result of a night spent with Posto, the Great God of Mailboxes. Wife of Costco, the Prince of Bulk, and daughter of King Pleather and Queen Velour, who are not who they seem. Lorna’s brother, Bustamove, jealous of all of the attention that his little sister was getting, cursed her with toenails that grew like vines. Queen Velour held up her orange juice and vodka, and pleaded with the Zeus to help her with Lorna’s feet. Zeus never did like Velour and Pleather, but saw that the child, Lorna, showed promise as an urban planner, so he crossed a flock of scissors with a flock of seagulls, and, voila! The resulting flying beasts, the secateurs, flew daily to Lorna’s crib and nibbled on her terrible toenails with their, ridiculous, pruning beaks.) 



I also had a hatchet, but no bow-saw or chain saw, so I was relegated to dealing with small-girthed woodland problems. What I ended up needing was my bow-saw and my chain saw because while checking the stream, I found this damn-of-nonsense. 




I cursed. The dandy man who bought the lions’ share of our farm, was not pulling his fair share of work down in this forest, so I laid into him in absentia, with his gentleman farmer airs. He was letting this lovely wood, that I used to play in as a child, become overgrown and rotten. His job was to take care of everything south of the stream, but was he? Vines everywhere on his side, plus this. I have never once, arrived to the forest and been delighted at evidence of him helping to manage things.



I walked into the water and began tearing this hemorrhoid-of-neglect apart. I had been in such a great mood earlier. Now it all began crumbling. Sweat was dripping in my eyes. I was standing mid-thigh deep in water, and I was sure that some giant tick was burrowing directly into my spine in a place where I could not reach. I maneuvered one waterlogged piece of maple up the left bank, and then another up the opposing bank. I chopped down sucker trees to clear room, then wrestled with the biggest bastard of them all. I propped it up out of the stream on one end with rocks. I talked to it. I reasoned with it. Then I set my feet there in the water and, using all of the frustration of the-rest-of-the-world-sucking-and-something-had-to-be-done-about-it, pitched the end of it up and out of the way. 




I stood there in the stream, soaked, covered in mud and sweat, trying to recover my breath. “And another thing. Why am I not meeting people?”


 I headed back to the van, back to Klaus. Klaus would know. 














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