Monday, July 28, 2025
HUMOR - FEAR OF FLYING AND TINKER TOY PLANES
BY DONOVAN BALDWIN
No, I DON'T know where I'm going with this random memory.
Years ago, I did not fly well. KNEW I was going to die each time a plane took off. Reconciled myself to my fate.
Of course, once the U.S. Army strapped me into a helicopter, with the doors open, tilted it all sorts of funny ways, stopped a few feet above the ground and ordered me to jump out, I got over it.
My kids could never understand why carnival rides bored the hell out of me.
Anyway, random memory.
I forget where it was, but I had to take a short hop in a plane that looked like it was made out of the stuff they use to make corrugated tin roofs. We strapped into seats about the size of half a person each, and a dirty rag, masquerading as a curtain, separated us from the guy in front... I presume, the pilot.
As the tinker toy plane took off, with lots of noise and vibration, and we gained altitude I began to feel a cold spot on my arm by the fuselage.
Took me a few minutes, but, finally I spotted the hole in the fuselage where the air was streaming in and freezing my arm.
Which, in turn, reminded me of a trip on a rather rickety seeming 747 from London's Heathrow airport, to Frankfurt Rhein-Main. One of the doors whistled all the way... air leak through the seal.
Not sure which inured me to flight... Army helicopters, tin can airplanes, waiting for the door to explode...
Oh, wait, it was my 7 year old daughter, who had once singlehandedly entertained an entire theater attempting to watch Annie, bothering everybody for 8 hours on a trans-Atlantic flight.
Yeah, that's it.
Years ago, I did not fly well. KNEW I was going to die each time a plane took off. Reconciled myself to my fate.
Of course, once the U.S. Army strapped me into a helicopter, with the doors open, tilted it all sorts of funny ways, stopped a few feet above the ground and ordered me to jump out, I got over it.
My kids could never understand why carnival rides bored the hell out of me.
Anyway, random memory.
I forget where it was, but I had to take a short hop in a plane that looked like it was made out of the stuff they use to make corrugated tin roofs. We strapped into seats about the size of half a person each, and a dirty rag, masquerading as a curtain, separated us from the guy in front... I presume, the pilot.
As the tinker toy plane took off, with lots of noise and vibration, and we gained altitude I began to feel a cold spot on my arm by the fuselage.
Took me a few minutes, but, finally I spotted the hole in the fuselage where the air was streaming in and freezing my arm.
Which, in turn, reminded me of a trip on a rather rickety seeming 747 from London's Heathrow airport, to Frankfurt Rhein-Main. One of the doors whistled all the way... air leak through the seal.
Not sure which inured me to flight... Army helicopters, tin can airplanes, waiting for the door to explode...
Oh, wait, it was my 7 year old daughter, who had once singlehandedly entertained an entire theater attempting to watch Annie, bothering everybody for 8 hours on a trans-Atlantic flight.
Yeah, that's it.
------
Labels: donovan baldwin, fear of flying, flying, humor
Thursday, October 05, 2017
A Fear Of Flying..And Other Things...
By: Donovan Baldwin
Many years ago, I had a terrible fear of flying.
Not sure what got rid of it...maybe my first marriage. That was enough to make me think I could handle anything.
Anyway, on one flight, my boss, a PhD psychologist, tried to talk me out of it in a clinical way. He told me just to shut my eyes, and imagine myself riding horses with him on his little patch of land, which we had done a few days earlier.
After a minute of this, I burst out, "Shut up, Richard! We're in a metal coffin in the air and we're all gonna die!"
Said it rather loudly, so I wasn't too popular for the remainder of that flight. Kind of miffed my boss too.
He gave up, and I white-knuckled it to the destination.
Even I laugh at the story now, as I doze off while the plane's taking off, landing, or at any part of the flight.
The point is, that when we believe something, believe it to our very core, just throwing some words at us isn't going to make us change our minds.
Richard even tried to quote statistics about the safety of flying. I had heard them all. They didn't do anything to ease my irrational fear of flying.
I guess that's also the point.
If we believe, often even the facts won't be enough to change our fear of failure or expectation of defeat.
We don't want to let go of belief, even when we know we are wrong.
Still, the plane did land safely, and you and I have done a lot of things we thought we couldn't. Guess that's the real story here.
Not sure what got rid of it...maybe my first marriage. That was enough to make me think I could handle anything.
Anyway, on one flight, my boss, a PhD psychologist, tried to talk me out of it in a clinical way. He told me just to shut my eyes, and imagine myself riding horses with him on his little patch of land, which we had done a few days earlier.
After a minute of this, I burst out, "Shut up, Richard! We're in a metal coffin in the air and we're all gonna die!"
Said it rather loudly, so I wasn't too popular for the remainder of that flight. Kind of miffed my boss too.
He gave up, and I white-knuckled it to the destination.
Even I laugh at the story now, as I doze off while the plane's taking off, landing, or at any part of the flight.
The point is, that when we believe something, believe it to our very core, just throwing some words at us isn't going to make us change our minds.
Richard even tried to quote statistics about the safety of flying. I had heard them all. They didn't do anything to ease my irrational fear of flying.
I guess that's also the point.
If we believe, often even the facts won't be enough to change our fear of failure or expectation of defeat.
We don't want to let go of belief, even when we know we are wrong.
Still, the plane did land safely, and you and I have done a lot of things we thought we couldn't. Guess that's the real story here.
Labels: donovan baldwin, failure, fear of failure, fear of flying, life lesson
