Chapter 14

Haley’s turn:

It was going to happen in the Cessna 185. My choice. Yes, I could’ve gone to take the flight exam for my instrument rating in the old 152, but the 185’s got better radios and is a more stable platform. Last thing I needed was to be bouncing around in the 152 while I’m trying to meet standards for that rating.

In retrospect, it was almost anti-climactic. Matt, in between working his shift at the petrochemical plant and taking care of his soon-to-be wife, Sandy, drilled me hard in the flying parts, tossing ‘what if’ after ‘you lost your altimeter’ and any of several other scenarios.

Book work comes easy to me, even the hieroglyphics of IFR charts, and in my mind, I can visualize where my airplane’s supposed to be at any time. I’d eschewed happy hours in the Stearman for practice hours in the 185 until she was MY girl.

Flying – easy. IFR navigation ... I passed.

Bring on the Pilatus.

Phone calls on the way home. Yeah ... me and Bill and Deena. Turned the test day into an overnighter, so they already knew.

Had to take a call from the taskmaster. That’d be Cindy.

“How’d you do?”

“What do you think?”

She chuckled. “No call or tearful text message.”

“Passed.”

“Knew you would.”

We talked about Camila, since she asked.

Camila’s fitting in, her English getting better every day, a little bundle of energy now, self-assured, a member of her family first and our community second.

She’s mated. Brindy’s word.

Conversation with Brindy: “Part of us. Flesh and mind and spirit.”

“Seriously?” I squeaked. “The FOUR of you?”

Brindy smiled.

“Go, Dave,” I snickered.

Brindy flashed her eyes. “Don’t be catty. You know that there are all kinds of permutations in the mix.”

“Oh, I know,” I laughed. “But tell me y’all haven’t all three hit poor Dave at once...”

“Poor, poor Dave,” she smiled.

“Yeah, I bet...”

A foursome for a ‘marriage’? If they’re happy, I’m happy, and watching from my vantage point, that’s a happy group of people.

Speaking of ‘happy’, Saturday’s the marriage of two of our friends, Sandy and Matt. Oh, yeah ... In essence, they’ve married already. Practically moved in together, kind of odd since he works shift-work, so when he’s working the night shift, she’s often home with her dad and Nina, but yes, ‘married’.

Saturday it becomes official.

It’s a big deal, you know. More attendees than we can cover with our company pavilion, so it’s at Dan 3.0 and Nina’s home church, and the Munchkins have been coding and we’ve been trying to bring Luggage up to speed to act as ring-bearer.

“I’ve seen Bot-bot in the videos,” Sandy said. “Robots are who we are and people need to get a little exposure.”

So it’s a few mods to Luggage’s workaday configuration. Retractable ‘head’ on a stalk, and one of his two hands is a bit more delicate since the burden is a tuffet with two wedding bands on it instead of a hundred pounds of test equipment.

The robot gets more ‘rehearsal’ than the bride and groom, who’ve, apparently, been ‘rehearsing’ the daylights out of each other for a few weeks now.

“We’ve been as married as we need to be,” Sandy says. “This is a function for friends and family to be apprised of an existent fact.”

Nobody here’s gonna complain.

There’s another marriage on the horizon, though, delayed so as to NOT cast a shadow on Sandy and Matt.

That’s Camila and Brindy.

Yeah, they’re both female. So what? It’s legal now, AND it puts Camila on MUCH better footing towards gaining her American citizenship. There are other legalities that improve with her married status, as well.

“No things will change,” Camila said when they announced the plan to the group. “We are one big family. We will remain one big family. Dave has been told that he is NOT to rescue more little Guatemalan girls.”

Her English improves daily and her sense of humor shines through. She’s got the run of the place, as befits her status. We all do. She’s one of us. She’s cute and bright and funny, especially when she gets excited about something and her thoughts outrun her growing English vocabulary.

Today, though, is a beautiful spring day and the sky is blue with a few puffy clouds – cumulus, if you must know, and it’s made for...

Well, Mila’s in the office.

“Mila, wanna go disturb some air?”

“The Stearman?”

“Uh-huh. Hasn’t been out of the hangar yet this week.”

“I will go,” she smiled.

Okay, the old plane’s a little much for the two of us to tug out of the hangar without the help of the little tractor we keep there, but soon she’s in the sunlight, a proud old yellow thing doing what she’s been doing since 1943, giving wings to dreams.

We both get some stick time out south of town a few miles. We have a regular practice area, well away from the paths normally flown by arriving aircraft at the two regular airfields, and with a few thousand feet under us, the Stearman gives us some happiness in basic aerobatics.

No, I don’t worry about scaring Mila. Matter of fact – “Now let me do that...” after a roll or a loop is more likely.

Alas, an hour in the Stearman is an indulgence. What I need to be doing is building hours and the hours I need to build are under instrument flight rules. So...

“This weekend,” I propose to Bill and Deena, “Fredericksburg, Texas.”

“Known tourist trap,” Bill says.

“Your point?” I snarked.

“Food. Little bit of poking into expensive shops. Couple of museums,” Deena said.

We’d done it before.

“And a night in a hotel far away...” I sighed. “Whatever shall we do for entertainment?”

My Bill smiled. Yeah, the boy’s spoiled rotten. Deena and I make a point of NEVER letting him do a day without some particularly joyous coupling and his enthusiasm has yet to flag.

“Plus,” I continued, “Two hours IFR time each way.”

“I can’t believe Cindy’s posting a Pilatus here,” Bill said.

“We talked about it,” I replied. “Dunno how it’s gonna work, but two at Auburn, one at Birmingham, one here.”

“Would make more sense to base one in the Houston area,” Bill said.

“And where would that put us? We’re a half-hour from Houston in a Pilatus, prospective loads can show up at any of a dozen satellite fields, and WE get to live here in our own little corner of paradise.”

“Yeah, Dad ... Remember what they say – anywhere in Houston’s an hour and a half from Houston anyway,” Deena chirped.

“True,” Bill sighed. “Less I have to go there, the better off I am.”

My Bill hates driving in Houston traffic. We’ve made several trips, goals for museums, restaurants, the occasional client or vendor.

Oh, but college ... I decided, along with Doctor Hanks of the history department, that I’m going to get a second major, this one in history.

Doctor Hanks has had several flights around the area in the Stearman.

“You’re serious, Haley. You’re touching history.”

“Charming, Isn’t it?” I said over the intercom. “Wait’ll next time somebody slides in here with one of the company’s Pilatuses. It’s an interesting contrast.”

I used my college credentials and some phone calls from Doctor Hanks to get my foot in the door with the local industries. Research. Result of research is a paper. Doctor Hanks reviewed my outline.

“I’m not accepting this for your baccalaureate, Haley.”

“No?”

“No. Emphatically NO. I don’t need to see this for your bachelor’s. Sad thing is that we don’t offer a master’s degree in history here. This is master’s work.”

I guess I squealed a little. I mean, I LOVE engineering, and I’m getting along in two areas of electrical engineering – both robotics and power systems. History, though, well, I’ve always had an interest, and here I am with a REAL history professor recognizing and encouraging ... How much do historians make now?

“I’m an engineer,” I said. “Well, you know...”

“I see that, Haley. I know your progress. But you and I, we’ve been in and out of your history courses. You already accept a minor. You’re getting a major. And dammit, this place doesn’t have graduate courses for your master’s. You mind if I call your guardian angels at Auburn?”

“I don’t mind at all, sir...”

A week passed between that conversation and the expected phone call from Cindy about it.

“A history master’s?” she giggled.

“Well, you know,” I said. “Start with an interest, find a good professor who’s dying for a real student...”

“Boy, don’t I know,” she said. “Next thing you know, you’re lecturing at Los Alamos.”

“See?!?” I squeaked. “That’s just it. I have NO idea what I do with that degree.”

“Haley, try selling that elsewhere. You already stirred the pot by hitting up the local industries.”

I’d told her that my research forays had the local industrial alliance talking about me doing presentations to their group, with an eye towards using it as a way to interface with local communities. Simply dumping millions of dollars in salaries into the place while producing the things that make civilization possible is never enough. A brown-haired girl with a multi-media presentation might help.