Last Flight Out

Ah flight! Realm of dreams and fantasies and romance.

They call it the Key West International Airport which is a rather grandiose title for a piddly little regional airport with flights to Miami and Orlando but wait! The Feds have said they may soon fly some actual international flights to Cuba, no less. They will of course be restricted so we ordinary folk aren't polluted by contact with the Godless Communists but they will be international flights from an airport that will finally be international in scope, be it ever so limited.

One finds oneself sitting on the ground watching the more fortunate take off for parts unknown and thus left today dream of Macchu Picchu or Paris in the Spring. However finding myself walking my dog and observing the posturing on the runway I felt glad I was staying behind as another boatload of visitors got whisked off to someplace remote leaving me where I was content to be.

When I was a child my parents were a rarity in that they got divorced and split my vacations between two countries flying to and from Rome six times a year. My mother made friends with the immigration agents and ushered me through the formalities like a little diplomat in shorts. My friends asked me what it was like to fly and my answer that it was noisy and boring never seemed to satisfy them. I preferred riding my moped and liked to forget the tribulations of propeller driven flight through the skies.

I never did get over the abrupt transition airplanes force upon the traveler. We leave Miami on a warm summer evening in the tropics, all palms and dark thunderstorms and breathless humidity and by breakfast time you step out into a crisp spring morning half a world away. How is that possible?

A big fat slow old seaplane seems a much better proposition, a more humane way to lumber across the skies and yet, when compared to the ferry out to the Dry Tortugas this amphibian is a positive space rocket of speed and efficiency cutting the journey from three hours to forty minutes. And imagine the views across the shallow turquoise waters!

There are those who live to fly, whose sole ambition is to be in the skies, turning and swirling like a leaf on an updraft. Not me, I like the convenience of instant travel when I have no choice.

I dream of an old age filled with time when I could cross an ocean as a passenger on a cargo ship with the luxury of taking days, not hours to arrive where I was going. In that same ideal future which may never arrive I'd carry my Bonneville as deck cargo ready for adventures upon docking in some distant place.

Flying is for the birds, and humans in a hurry. Not for pleasure, and I'll let others disagree.

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