My Bagger Vance Transition: A Pilot Turns Writer

I can't help matching movie quotes to my own personal life philosophies. My latest selection comes from the Will Smith/Matt Damon movie The Legend of Bagger Vance. Ironic, to some degree, because it's a golf movie, and I know virtually nothing about the game of golf.

The basic story is that of one Rannulph Junuh, a demoralized WWI vet racked with survivor's guilt, alcoholism, and whatever they used to call PTSD back then--maybe battle fatigue or shell shock?--finding his way back to a fully functional and fulfilled life with the help of golf and a remarkable caddy, Bagger Vance, who appears out of nowhere.

As a young man before the war, Junuh was a most promising golfer--a true "natural," winning amateur matches with ridiculous ease. After he went off to the Great War, which provided a ringside seat to the massacre of every man in his unit but himself, golf didn't seem so important anymore--nor did much of anything else. Enter Bagger Vance to help him escape the downward spiral of his post-war existence.

As Bagger coaches Junuh on recovering his "one true, authentic swing," Junuh's old girlfriend, Adele Invergordon, organizes an exhibition match in which Savannah native son Junuh faces the towering mastery of legendary golfers Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. Greatly frustrated by Junuh's embarrassingly poor performance in the opening round of the match, Adele asks Bagger why he isn't helping Junuh find his swing:


(Adele) Mr. Vance, what the judge is trying to determine is your strategy for helping poor Mr. Junuh find his game, because you seem to know as much about caddying as I do about driving a locomotive.

(Bagger) You all want to know my strategy? Right now my player is a little confused. See, he still think he Rannulph Junuh.

(The Judge) He is Rannulph Junuh, you damn twit!

(Bagger) Well, he is and he ain't.                                               

                                                           --from The Legend of Bagger Vance


Some life transitions are tougher than others. The big ones often leave us mightily confused about the new person we've become--until we make the necessary adjustment. Leaving the flying life was like that for me. I just could not stop thinking I was the old Rannulph Junuh (er, Amy Gardiner). I could not move forward because I had no idea how to peacefully integrate the pilot into the writer, how to effect such a grand merger.

It seemed to work just fine for Richard Bach when he left the Air Force. Oh, he was still actively flying--which I currently am not--but his career persona had definitely shifted from pilot to writer. His short stories did mention some lifestyle turbulence, though. Hard to believe that he went through a starving writer phase, too, but that's what he said.

Even though I'd wanted to write a book during all those years I was flying for a living, it was still a shock when the day actually came to hang up my headset and pick up a pen--and sit down at the computer. The most difficult time while morphing into a writer arrived when I was editing the manuscript for the eighth time, wondering if I'd ever get it published to Amazon Kindle as an e-book. I kept trying to run back to aviation, convulsed by terror and stage fright. Back to the familiar, back to flying, back to the old Amy. Like Rannulph Junuh, I was--and I wasn't--the old me.

Eventually, it got better. Someone suggested that I didn't have to completely dump my pilot persona, just find a way to accept it as a permanent part of me, albeit in psyche autopilot standby mode, if you will. Oddly enough, it quickly found its way into my writing. Suddenly it seemed completely natural that my main character, Jude Hayes, would go back to flying in my second book in the series, They Pull Me Back In. 

More of Bagger's sage advice regarded the aforementioned "one true, authentic swing" belonging to each of us sojourning on this planet:

Yep, inside every one of us is one true, authentic swing. Somethin’ we was born with. Somethin’ that’s ours and ours alone. Somethin’ that can’t be taught to ya or learned. Somethin’ that got to be remembered.

Over time, the world can rob us of that swing. It get buried inside us under all our wouldas and couldas and shouldas. Some folk even forget what their swing was like.

                                            --from The Legend of Bagger Vance


It seems that my "one true, authentic swing" is found in my writing. I've probably always known this. While I was making my bones as a pilot, I sort of forgot about my writing. Well, never really forgot about it, just allowed it to slip pathetically far down my priority list. I'd get reminded of it every once in a while when I stopped in at a bookstore while on the ground in some strange city and wondered when I'd have a hardcover on that table up front. Or when I read an especially good piece of writing in an aviation trade magazine.

But my writing was always in the background patiently waiting. And I was actually always writing something. My boss observed that I could write him an entire story on a Blackberry--about a merely routine flight--before there even existed word processing apps for that. I copy edited flight manuals and sent short-story-length emails to everyone while "on the road," that is, hanging around the airport or the hotel. Personal journal entries. All those cover letters seeking a better flying job. . .. Writing was indeed always with me. And always fun. Effortless, too. Like Junuh's "one true, authentic swing." Which he eventually found. Guess that makes two of us.

Corporate Pilots and Holiday Flying

I should never have posted about snow, about it being "appropriate" for it to snow after Thanksgiving. Just to let me know with whom I was dealing (to paraphrase Wesley Snipes in Blade), Mother Nature let it snow, let it snow, let it snow before Thanksgiving, after Thanksgiving, then a really big storm just a couple days ago. Not to mention record cold I haven't seen since the last time I went mucking around the stratosphere in a jet. Winter is here and it doesn't even officially arrive until Saturday.

The approach of the holidays has gotten me thinking about how much fun flying jobs are this time of year. It's always weird. My readers will remember that I am a business jet pilot, which means that I am--or have been--since I'm at least temporarily retired--a chauffeur with wings. Read, "on-call, all the time." Scheduled time off? Always gets infringed-upon by the flight schedule. Holidays? Usually not observed on their calendar dates.

You get used to being away from home and celebrating the holidays when you can. I'm not suggesting for a second that corporate pilots are the only people who live with this constraint, and I especially apologize in advance to anyone in the military deployed away from home. I know you folks have it much, much worse, and I thank you for your service. I guess I just want to throw out some memories to you pilots out there.

I used to to go to a small airport on the other side of the river from St. Louis where my company had a large plant. I got to know the Holiday Inn so well, I knew the reservation desk staff by their first names. I knew what the Christmas tree in the lobby looked like as well as the one in my house. When they gave me my room number, I knew where it was located in the hotel without having to ask.

Christmas shopping was done in strange malls all over the country when I had full days "off" (standby would be a more accurate descriptor) on the ground. I found some unusual gifts that way. Before the advent (no pun intended) of the internet and cell phones, I also shopped with a few Christmas catalogs and a phone credit card.

There was usually a "command performance" at the big company Christmas party. But it was kind of fun to walk up to the the CEO whom I'd been flying around all year, wish him Merry Christmas, and not have him recognize me right away because I was wearing a dress instead of a pilot's uniform.

There was wrestling the airplane onto the ground in Buffalo just before the big blizzard blew in and trapped us (which happens a lot in Buffalo). Trying to get the engine covers on as the wind really began to howl. Landing in Palwaukee with the snow going sideways across the runway, and making what Hawker pilots call "a safe landing, but not a fancy one"--as in, plant it firmly on the ground and don't fool around about it.

I thought of all the trips to refresher training at FlightSafety and CAE Simuflite where Christmas snows could be recreated in the simulators, better than the best video games you've ever played. One simulator session is always designated as the "cold" day and ground school contains a few hours devoted to "ice and rain." You sit down in your "sim" seat--which is exactly like the one in the real airplane--and the visual shows just enough light in the darkness to see a snow-covered runway and fat snowflakes slanting across the "windshield." You know immediately that the game is afoot, lots of things are about to go wrong, and it's going to be a very long afternoon.

But on another, more recent afternoon, when the Red Dog and I left my warm writing room (well, kind-of warm, about 59 degrees, post-flying budget not allowing for large expenditures of fuel oil) to walk out into the cold yard where an ominous breeze was stirring, I glanced up at the gunmetal gray, pre-storm sky, and felt like the old fire horse gazing at a house fire down the block from his comfy retirement stall. I wanted to be taxiing out in a Challenger jet with all the ice protection equipment turned on, ready to do battle with the approaching snowstorm. You see, I love to fly, even at Christmas time. But whatever you love to do has its trade-offs.

Once in a while, it's a good idea to take inventory of those sacrifices, though, and still if it's still worth it.

I would love to hear some comments about how you've managed your own life trade-offs, faithful readers.

While you're thinking, here are a few words from the in-progress Book Two of the Jude Hayes Mysteries, They Pull Me Back In:

Jonathon opened the limo door for A.J. who stepped out into the chill air catching nary a single snowflake on her shiny leather coat. I slid out after her in time to hear the roar of an old Gulfstream jet launching into the gathering storm. I shivered involuntarily thinking, better you than me, buddy, taking off into this nasty weather. Then I remembered that I was actually contemplating once again assuming just such responsibilities and sighed deeply. I must be nuts.

Jacoby Ellsbury and the Fast Food Strike for a $15 an Hour Minimum Wage

I saw two disturbing stories on the TV news yesterday which together graphically displayed the ever-widening chasm in our economic classes--you know, the monetary abyss into which our middle class has fallen?

It seems that Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston Red Sox star center fielder, has defected to the New York Yankees. Now, I'm not much of a Major League Baseball fan, but I do like grass roots baseball, I was raised in a Red Sox family, and I have a sister who's a pretty rabid Boston fan. While we haven't discussed it, I can well imagine what my sister thinks of Mr. Ellsbury's decision. DNA notwithstanding, I have nothing against the Yankees and I used to fly for one of their biggest fans. Besides, I live in New York. They lynch Red Sox fans in my neighborhood.

What does bother me about the Ellsbury signing, is the one hundred fifty-three million dollars he will be paid over a sever-year contract. Yikes! as Jude Hayes would say. But wait, I'm not actually living in la-la land. I understand that professional athletes have been making bags of money since before I arrived on the planet. I have nothing personally against Mr. Ellsbury and I try to think kindly of him since my sister so enjoyed watching him as an up-and-comer playing for the Portland Sea Dogs.

It's just that the story about his new job was immediately followed by one about fast food workers in New York demonstrating and attempting to organize for an increase in the minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $15.00/hour. That seems only a very modest increase. I mean, you can't make rent in New York State--much less New York City--working as many hours as they'll give you with two fast-food jobs! What is wrong with this picture?!

A restaurant association executive declared that if wages are raised, it will impact the employers' ability to create new restaurant jobs. Skewed logic alert! What does it matter if they create a zillion more jobs if no one can afford to live on what they pay? Perhaps they would prefer to contribute to public assistance programs instead of paying their employees a living wage. Oh wait--I forgot--giant corporate restaurants don't pay taxes, anyway. To paraphrase the modern saying about apps, "There's a loophole for that."

Isn't it ironic that once upon a time in a stadium far, far away, big league baseball was a wonderful pastime that almost anyone could come up with a few pennies to watch, and now it costs a few hundred dollars to take your family out to the ballgame. But hey, at least the Yankees are paying Jacoby Ellsbury a living wage--although I'm pretty sure those people at the concession stand selling you a dog and a beer are making somewhat less.

Ah, if we could all have an employer like A.J. Pierpont . . .. Here's my quote from Remover of Obstacles, Book One of the Jude Hayes Mysteries:

“I think we have common ground here, Jude. Elizabeth needs help separating her business from this debacle. And I do not expect you to do this out of the goodness of your heart—I am prepared to offer you an appropriate retainer.”

She named a figure that nearly caused me to swallow my tongue. “That is very generous of you, A.J., but my conscience would feel better if I charged you the discounted hourly fee I was charging DBC.”

A.J. leaned forward, winked, and said, “Humor an old lady, Jude.”

I hesitated only a moment before I laughed and said, “Okay, you twisted my arm, A.J. We have a deal.”

She smiled, satisfied, as she drew a silver business card holder from her designer handbag. “Here is my contact information, Jude. Please feel free to call at any time.” I had the definite feeling that Amanda Josephine Pierpont was used to getting her way.