Hedge Fund Manager seeks jazz gig

I’ve got another design review committee assembled to evaluate my new mylar business card at the local feed zone. My reviewer is waiting for a friend to show up and drink the other half of his bottle of Merlot, and he’s more than late. Two more bar stools left, its Sunday night, still they are going fast. Another sits between us and gives his business card to my reviewer. He eats, talks about hedge funds, and leaves.
My reviewer hands me the guy’s card. It tops mine. On the front, an investment firm. On the back hand written “jazz combo for hire”. We smile, assured everyone is in this economic downturn together.
One conversation turns into another, and we end up comparing world travel notes. He’s a pilot of his own little jet and likes to fly solo.
Every pilot I know can’t resist their personal epic story of “had fun and lived to tell about it”. His was over Barrow, Alaska, and as usual, involved running out of gas. He escaped with some cool polar bear pics and his life.
I’ve got a story too, but his friend shows up and he’s gone.
It’s too late. My mind is racing thousands of feet up in the air. I don’t see polar bears, I see tiny spots of range cattle scattered around a dirt runway. We are bouncing sideways as we hit in a stunt plane.
Had fun and lived to tell about it.
My friend Sally was the daughter of a rancher in Northeast New Mexico. Middle of nowhere. We had launched a couple hot air balloons, got a view, and collected at the ranch house. Her father’s stepson is 16, and can’t let it go until we take a ride in his father’s stunt plane. Great. Loaned the keys to his stepson. I think this will be interesting, so I show some interest.
"Wow! Let's go for it! Like, now!"
The others take the bait and line up outside next to the dirt runway that doubles for the road to the ranch.
He taxies toward us in the World’s Smallest Plane. I re-evaluate my enthusiasm as he hits the brakes, stops on a dime, pelting us with gravel. My brother, a hang glider pilot and my rival sibling, is in the group. This is my chance to get even. Since even he looks a little edgy, I grab first place in line.
My pilot flings open the door and yells at me to get in over the noise of an engine that sounds like a lawn mower.
I don’t even have to jump. This thing is slightly larger than a remotely controlled hobby plane. Its made of cables and canvas with wheels about the size on a baby buggy. I look around inside and all I see is a value pack of toilet paper behind my seat.
Is this good or bad?
My pilot jumps in, and we’re off, everything shaking and squeaking as we kick up the runway dust.
This plane does not want to fly. The cables go taut like snapping rubber bands, canvas flapping in the wind. We leave the ground just in time to miss a dozen cattle that completely ignore us and are obviously familiar with this drill. The plane turns into a vertical projectile. Cattle and sagebrush turn into sky.
“Yeeeehaw!”
It is my pilot speaking.
Hey, how you doin' back there?”
“Fine!”
The plane heaves again to horizontal. I have one eye on the ground and the other on his arm bracing the window so it won’t collapse into the cockpit. Another vertical. Then a stall in mid-air. The engine cuts out to a sputter. Slipping back a little, then forward, we take a nosedive. Well, ok, this is it.
“Heeeeere we go!" he yells. Picking up speed, we are going down.
“Hand me a roll of toilet paper!”
Oh joy, he’s also about to lose his lunch. Or worse.
I had not unwrapped toilet paper that fast in my entire life. I push it into his hand outstretched in my face with all five digits spread like a baseball mitt. Sliding back the window, he throws the roll out. I watch it unfurl like a corkscrew jet stream. Its very elegant. Not a bad last visual of life.
Then, the plane stalls a little, and miraculously goes into loops, tracking the toilet paper and chopping it into artistic bits.
“Awwwwright!”
Its my pilot again. I guess he is still in control, and now on a roll.
Just when I think we’re having fun, the ground shows up. The cattle get bigger. The waiting fans and the ranch house get bigger.
“We’re gonna buzz ‘em!”
Well, ok.
I sense I am in for the Big Racking Move. Sure enough, what is feet from the dirt turns into a switch in direction that gives me an eternal appreciation for aviation technology. Wings flapping, windows sucking in and out, metal cable whining, we just miss the ranch house, loop, and come back parallel to the landing strip. All motion in reverse, we skid to a side stop, pelting the fans with more dirt and gravel. My pilot is pleased.
“How’d ya like it?”
Having an audience, I give nothing away.
“That was just, uh, awesome!”
My brother is next up and I don’t want to ruin it for him. He watched me eat dirt on hang glider landings several times with no pity, and now its his turn. One fan after another willingly goes up and comes down, now that I have broken in the trail.
That evening at the dinner table big enough to seat the next town, we all eat and calmly compare flight notes. My brother stops talking, stares at me with a mouthful, and lets out one of his signature laughs, head rolled back at the ceiling.
I have not disappointed him.