Memories of Holidays Aloft
Dec 1, 2011, 8:24 pm
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Boston
Posts: 467
Memories of Holidays Aloft
Now up in my ASK THE PILOT column:
MEMORIES OF HOLIDAYS ALOFT
PLUS, THE WORST CHRISTMAS SONG OF ALL TIME
http://life.riche.salon.com/2011/11/...oft/singleton/
Here are some excerpts:
...That's how it works at an airline: every month you put in your preferences: where you'd like to fly, which days you'd like to be off, which insufferable captains you hope to avoid, and so on. The award process then begins with the most senior pilot in your category and works its way down. When it finally gets to the dregs, lower-rung pilots have their pick of the scraps…
…On New Year's Eve, 2010, I was flying over the city of Bamako, Mali, in West Africa. Fireworks explode only a few hundred feet from the ground, but enough of them together provide a unique spectacle to looking down from a jetliner. At the stroke of midnight, the city erupted in a storm of tiny explosions. The sky was lit by literally tens of thousands of small incendiaries -- white flashes everywhere, like the sea of flashbulbs you sometimes see at sporting events. From high above, this huge celebration made Bamako look like a war zone….
…Not that I work every holiday. I've spent a number of them traveling on my own time. And with that in mind, here's some advice: Do not, ever, make the mistake that I once made and attempt to enjoy Christmas at small hotel in Ghana called the Hans Cottage "Botel," located on a lagoon just outside the city of Cape Coast. They love their Christmas music at the Hans Botel, and the compound is rigged end-to-end with speakers that blare it around the clock.
...Although you can count among those people able to tolerate Christmas music -- in moderation, of course, and in context -- there is one blood-curdling exception. That exception is the song, "Little Drummer Boy," which is without argument the most painful piece of music ever written. It was that way * before * Joan Jett or David Bowie got hold of it. It's a traumatic enough song in any rendition. And at the Hans Cottage Botel they have chosen to make it the only -- only! -- song on their Christmastime tape loop. Over and over it plays, ceaselessly, day and night. I'm not sure who the artist is, but it's an especially treacly version with lots of high notes to set one's skull ringing…
...."Ba-ruppa-pum-pum;ruppa-pum-pum..." as I hear it today and forever, that stammering chorus is like the thump-thump of chopper blades in the wounded mind of a Vietnam vet who Can't Forget What He Saw. There I am, pinned down at the Botel bar, jittery and covered in sweat, my nails clattering against a bottle of Star lager while the infernal Drummer Boy warbles another ruppa-pum-pum through the buggy air...
The full article is here:
http://life.riche.salon.com/2011/11/...oft/singleton/
Hopefully this installment gives you a laugh or two.
-- Patrick Smith
ENTRY TO SALON.COM AND ASK THE PILOT IS ALWAYS FREE
MEMORIES OF HOLIDAYS ALOFT
PLUS, THE WORST CHRISTMAS SONG OF ALL TIME
http://life.riche.salon.com/2011/11/...oft/singleton/
Here are some excerpts:
...That's how it works at an airline: every month you put in your preferences: where you'd like to fly, which days you'd like to be off, which insufferable captains you hope to avoid, and so on. The award process then begins with the most senior pilot in your category and works its way down. When it finally gets to the dregs, lower-rung pilots have their pick of the scraps…
…On New Year's Eve, 2010, I was flying over the city of Bamako, Mali, in West Africa. Fireworks explode only a few hundred feet from the ground, but enough of them together provide a unique spectacle to looking down from a jetliner. At the stroke of midnight, the city erupted in a storm of tiny explosions. The sky was lit by literally tens of thousands of small incendiaries -- white flashes everywhere, like the sea of flashbulbs you sometimes see at sporting events. From high above, this huge celebration made Bamako look like a war zone….
…Not that I work every holiday. I've spent a number of them traveling on my own time. And with that in mind, here's some advice: Do not, ever, make the mistake that I once made and attempt to enjoy Christmas at small hotel in Ghana called the Hans Cottage "Botel," located on a lagoon just outside the city of Cape Coast. They love their Christmas music at the Hans Botel, and the compound is rigged end-to-end with speakers that blare it around the clock.
...Although you can count among those people able to tolerate Christmas music -- in moderation, of course, and in context -- there is one blood-curdling exception. That exception is the song, "Little Drummer Boy," which is without argument the most painful piece of music ever written. It was that way * before * Joan Jett or David Bowie got hold of it. It's a traumatic enough song in any rendition. And at the Hans Cottage Botel they have chosen to make it the only -- only! -- song on their Christmastime tape loop. Over and over it plays, ceaselessly, day and night. I'm not sure who the artist is, but it's an especially treacly version with lots of high notes to set one's skull ringing…
...."Ba-ruppa-pum-pum;ruppa-pum-pum..." as I hear it today and forever, that stammering chorus is like the thump-thump of chopper blades in the wounded mind of a Vietnam vet who Can't Forget What He Saw. There I am, pinned down at the Botel bar, jittery and covered in sweat, my nails clattering against a bottle of Star lager while the infernal Drummer Boy warbles another ruppa-pum-pum through the buggy air...
The full article is here:
http://life.riche.salon.com/2011/11/...oft/singleton/
Hopefully this installment gives you a laugh or two.
-- Patrick Smith
ENTRY TO SALON.COM AND ASK THE PILOT IS ALWAYS FREE
