SLAVE TO HIS TOOLS

After breakfast one Memorial Day, I sat on the porch pulling winter fur from a cat’s coat. To my astonishment the wads of dander were drifting up from my open palm as if weightless and disappearing overhead. Wind? Nope, this bright morning was perfectly calm. Clearly, something special was in store.It would become the single best soaring day any old-timer could remember in that region, and according to reports one never yet surpassed. Before I got to the airport robust cumulus were already widespread and far higher than usual. In a landscape where thermals seldom rise above five thousand feet, these beauties were roaring to ten! A thrill just to be there.So why was I heartsick? I was booked for a full slate of rides and lessons in a 2-33, from first tow to last call. In five hours of flight time I probably wouldn't get that many miles from the field. Buddies with their own ships were hyperventilating as they prepared for the day, but all I could do was gaze up and drool. I told myself that dragging chain in the sweetest of weathers has to be better than doing so in... anything else.That same day, coincidentally, an assistant professor from MIT had trailered his Libelle up from the city, planning a silver distance badge flight back in that direction. In a run of ten thousand consecutive calendar days, he could not have chosen a more ideal occasion – but was scrubbing the day because his electric vario was on the fritz. (He had a pneumatic one!)I’d already been up, and confirmed the most powerful and consistent thermals... ever. I assured him he could begin directly over the runway after a short tow and immediately climb high enough to glide silver distance without any more lift. He could as easily stay high and keep going, past Boston and on down to his home field at Plymouth (not silver distance, gold!) – and good luck getting down when he arrived. But not this guy.At that point in my own flying career, I had never even sat in a sailplane as nice as his, and refusing to soar even locally in such special weather was for me frankly insulting. Despite the ‘technical problem’, his equipment was superior to anything else at our field that day. The prize was his to take, silver and gold, but he chose instead to be despondent. He was a new guest at our field and I tried to remain polite, hoisting every appeal I could think of, warning he might not live to see a day this grand again. When he began peeling the speed tape from a wing root, my teapot whistled.“Mighta been smart to preflight the cockpit before puttin’ the wings on,” I said.  When he gave me the stinkeye, I gave him back my most derisive passive-aggressive smile. And after that did my best to make his experience of that Memorial Day, if not gratifying at least memorable, and hopefully enlightening.Rather than help him stow his ship, I stood close by and suggested with the absolute minimum of courtesy that he the assistant professor seemed abysmally ignorant and displayed apparently none of the curiosity and imagination required for success in soaring. Or boldness before a challenge for that matter. In denying the obvious and refusing to be part of a rare (and for me, sacred) event, he made himself unworthy of the miracle. He should unhand that fine craft and let someone who really knew how to use it have a go."Oh not me," I added, "I have several more students waiting."But there’s no point in letting someone else’s narrowness limit your own vision. Minutes later I was soaring again in Paradise with the assistant professor’s socio-cultural opposite: a bulldozer operator. And on his first time up that fine gentleman flew like a gleeful angel. (I've since learned that heavy equipment jockeys often seem naturally suited for glider guiding. Standard paradox.)So which would you rather be, a self-defeated technodude grumbling down the road under that sea of perfect energy, or a bear-pawed cat skinner floating in the fairest air of a lifetime?Viva la siège du pantalon.