Well! THIS turned out to be a surprising day to say the least! Mom had been hinting SOMETHING was going down today, but to her credit, she kept it a secret all week! Not an easy task for a woman who can't keep from spilling the beans on your Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve! (Don't even get me started on what she's like about guessing her OWN gifts!)
I was game for anything, but figured it would be a trip to the Ringling Museum, or the Aquarium or something, all of which would have been fine with me. Instead, we made a right at the Sarasota airport, and drove in from behind the hangars. I panicked slightly, "What have I done? Are they sending me back early? In steerage?!? I'm only in shorts and a t-shirt! I'll freeze to death!"
Nope.
I was blithely informed that THAT (the helicopter above) was what I'd be going up to my death in. But only for half an hour, and then I could come back.
Oh. O.K. I managed to look a little excited, but the truth was, I never liked flying. Oh, I can do it, but it's not one of my favourite past-times. (Even with Pixie dust.) When I'm in the air, I'm fine, but I don't like takeoffs and I don't like landings. Still, a surprise was a surprise and Mom was bouncing up and down, she was so excited. In fact, she was so excited, she tripped over a parking block and took a tumble, bruised her side, and whacked her head on the pavement! We helped her to her feet, and her head hurt, and she scraped her elbow, but otherwise she was fine. We kept an eye on her for the rest of the day, but luckily, she was fine, just would feel bruised and slightly sore for a few days afterwards.
We got inside the hangar, which was full of other planes and helicopters, including a bi-plane. (Not a word, Ron.) We all got weighed in, (I won't tell you what I weighed in at, but it was ten pounds heavier than I was a week ago. This southern food thing is DEADLY if you're trying to keep thin, not that I am, but if somebody WAS, well, sorry Chuckles, you're outta luck...) so that the weight distribution could be calculated for the flight. After awhile, we went out, and got in, and my God, but this thing was made of papier mache! Actually, it was fibreglass, but a very THIN fibreglass, the doors felt as if they really were made of paper! Still everything locked up, and we were secure inside, but when you opened or closed the doors, you always had a shock of realization at how THIN the doors were. My nervousness wasn't helped any by our pilot Jay saying that in the summer, because of the heat, they took the doors OFF while flying. Ack. But Jay's an ex-Navy Seal, so I guess to him, it's all "familiarity breeds contempt" and all of that. For me, it just bred an iron grip on my seat handle.
The flight itself was very smooth, it didn't feel like flying at all, (except when we made a U turn to take a closer look at the Ringling Museum on the bay, and THEN you felt as though you were flying, at least, your stomach did) it was more like the feeling you get on a Ferris Wheel, the feeling that you're just being picked up and deposited somewhere. I liked it MUCH better than flying in a plane. For one thing, it's a lot smoother, and for some reason, being able to SEE much more made it a lot more comfortable. You had a clear sense of where you were. In planes, all you have is a small window (if you're lucky) and turbulence to let you know that the terra ain't so firma anymore under your feet. And with the headphones in a helicopter, it drowns out the noise of the engines. On a plane, I was always conscious of the jet roar. But it was a clear day, and fascinating to watch Jay, zip us around over downtown Sarasota and the bay, steering with something that resembled a steering mechanism on a lawn mower. Really, it was just a kind of a bar, that stuck out like a gear shift out of nowhere. I still don't know how he steered with it, but then, there wasn't time to watch EVERYTHING. We saw, among other things, someone's $40,000,000.00 bayside home in Bird Key, (yes, that's right, a HOUSE worth forty million, really, it just looked like a really tacky Mexican hotel, but there you are) a freshly sunken sailboat, schooner really, it was quite large. Jay looked down with surprise and said, "Hey! That wasn't there, two hours ago."
The water was mostly green, with all sorts of shades and shadows to it, but clean. Earlier, Jay said there was a school of dolphins frolicking about. By the time we got there, at a little after one o'clock, they were gone. Probably on their lunch break, I thought.
At any rate, we flew back, had our pictures taken, and took off for St. Armand's Circle and lunch at the Columbia, which was a family owned Cuban restaurant which had been operating since the mid 1930's. We sat on the edge of sidewalk, and watched all manner of rich persons walking by. The REALLY rich you could tell, were the most plain looking, and unadorned. One couple walked by, and they could have been anywhere from their fifties to eighties, it was impossible to tell. Both in track suits and running shoes, her hair was straight as a string, in a Carrington bob, skin like parchment, bone thin, and he had a tennis visor on, white hair and sunglasses, much larger build, and she leaned quite heavily on his arm. I thought, "Now THEY are rich." Don't ask me how I knew, I could just tell. Unassuming, and almost ostentatiously plain looking, you knew only the really rich could get away with that. The mega-rich are beyond fashion and bling, as they don't need it. It's something in their manner, like they're completely unaware of it existing. Fascinating. The mid-level crowd, with the jewelry and the little dogs and paraphernalia, well, you knew THEY hadn't had their money long, and still weren't that secure with it. They still felt they had to flaunt it. The older, more established crowd, they knew better. One was tempted to ask them about it, but you knew they'd be horrified by the impertinence of such a question. But still, they must be aware that MOST people on the planet simply don't live like that. It's not a question of having that kind of material wealth that I find interesting, (all the toys they have), but rather how having that much wealth influences the behaviour of people when they literally never have had ANYTHING materially to worry about. Most of us mere mortals are always worried about "saving for that rainy day", and how will I pay for this, and how will I pay for the kids' braces, or schooling, or the mortgage or what have you. These people never do and for the most part, never have. I remember reading about Truman Capote's friendships with the very rich, the Paleys, the Guinnesses, and the Agnellis, and I remember seeing pictures of Babe Paley in the fifties in her comfortable shoes, and shapeless coats, and thinking, "She dresses like an off duty nurse." But she was another one of these constitutionally rich people, who set fashions and never, ever advertised it.
So there I was, watching all of this far richer breed of humanity than I, pass me by and thinking about this, and wondering, "Do they all have small dogs as a rule as well?" Seriously, if I saw one, I saw fifty dogs wander by me by the time I had finished my second Coke. Including (and I am NOT making this up) a Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus drive by in a Christmas decorated Harley Davidson with a sidecar full of SEVEN snow-white Maltese dogs, festooned in bows and ribbons and yapping quite happily away. They then parked on one of the islands in the middle of the roadway and people came out to have their pictures taken with them (little kids went apeshit crazy over the dogs and completely forgot their antipathy to Santa) and the money (evidently) went to charity, the name of which I DID read, but have since forgotten. I just wish I'd gotten the camera out faster, as it WAS a sight to see....
Well after that, there wasn't much more that could claim my attention, so, we came home, had a lovely supper, I finished my book on Cukor and then I fell fast asleep quite early....
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