(Originally posted on MySpace 8/31/2006)
In most ways, I love where I live. The house isn’t huge, but it’s big enough that four adults can live in it without killing each other. Yet. The neighbors aren’t insane–which I appreciate after 12 years in apartments–unless they’re awfully quiet about it. Okay, so the guy next door mows the lawn at 9:00 in the evening, but I don’t think that pushes him past odd, maybe weird at the worst. Location-wise, we’re a reasonable distance from everything we need; it’s 20 minutes to downtown when I need a culture fix. I’ve lived with a lot worse, believe me.
Ah, but the downside. Roughly a mile north of where I sit is a very busy general aviation airport. I can’t even begin to guess how many private planes of all sizes have buzzed my house in the last eight years. Props, jets, ultra-lights, all vintages; thousands of pilots (also of all vintages). For the most part, the air traffic becomes background noise, like sirens and passing cars anywhere else in the city. Once a week or so, though, when an engine sounds like it’s stalling or a plane goes over so low that the pilot smiles at me, I realize: one of these things is gonna crash some day. Monday was that day.
A local oral surgeon picked up his new plane over the weekend, and he and his family took off for Hilton Head on Monday morning, just a mile from my house. Almost immediately afterward, according to his wife, he apparently suffered a stroke/heart attack/whatever and the plane went down. It went down, by some act of Providence, luck, or gravity, in a retention pond at a housing addition. A mile south of my house. The aftermath:
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So, basically, our little homestead is just about the midpoint between this hopeful takeoff and horrible landing. It’s entirely possible that the poor pilot was stricken right above my head. The rescue squads drove by the house, and the television helicopters hovered overhead for hours. By the time the 5:00 news came on, I’d had hours to contemplate all the connections I had to these unnamed victims and the everyday heroes who saved their lives. Once names and addresses started being released, I realized the connections were even closer. I know two people who live in the housing addition where the crash occurred. The doctor, who is the only victim who died, removed a wisdom tooth for me a few years ago. I liked him, and that’s quite a recommendation, as I’m mildly dentist-phobic.
Is there a point to this post? I suppose there might be a lesson in the vein of ’small world, isn’t it?’ or ‘live every moment.’ My sarcastic side would suggest ‘maybe it’s better if your pilot isn’t 66 years old with a history of heart trouble.’ At any rate, it had an effect on me.
