A Life Wasted

Stable Life 1985

We rented a large house in Greenville, Pennsylvania. The house was three stories with ten bedrooms. We must have been projecting the future and the large family we wanted when we chose this house because it was far too large for us now. Despite the excessive space the house provided, I wanted my own office. I didn't plan on hiring anyone and I would travel considerably so I had less need for an office now than ever before, but I wanted an office so I rented space in Greenville's small business district.

Greenville had a small airport. I'd only taken the one flying lesson in Virginia Beach but desperately wanted to get my pilot's licenses, so before we unpacked I drove out to the airport. It was a small place with about two dozen planes based there, but there was a flight instructor and a three planes for rent. Having learned my husband lesson from my previous flying lesson, I talked to my wife first and got her approval before signing up for flying lessons. Mary enthusiastically agreed so I started taking flying lessons. While taking flying lessons I am sure I thought about my software company and customer base, but I didn't put a full hour into my business until after I received my pilot's licenses. I set up my office with furniture, phone, fax machine (ancient tech, Goggle it) and multi-user UNIX based Altos computer, but the only thing important enough to force me to work was if an existing P.A.M. customer had a problem or needed a software upgrade. I pretty much took a sabbatical to learn to fly. Fortunately, we had some money put back.

I designed and wrote sophisticated multi-tasking, multi-user software, but I did none of those things myself. Unlike my software, I was a single-user, single-task kind of guy. I do not multi-task. Never have. I can do most things well, but only if I do one at a time. I forget this often because multiple projects has an appeal. Regardless of the simplicity of the project, I can't multi-task. This memoir is a perfect example. When I began this project I was in the process of writing my third fiction novel. (also up on WattPad: Starry Night). My memoir was a hobby project, meant to memorialize my life story for my children (a quadruple bypass open-heart surgery reminds a fellow time is limited). My focused project was my third novel. Rebecca (daughter who handles my writing) thought the memoir was interesting enough to share so she put it up on WattPad. As the memoir progressed she found a writing contest with an April deadline. The hobby became a task. Foolishly I tried to write novel and memoir at the same time. A combination of the memoir's April deadline and my sixtieth birthday made the decision for me. I put the novel on hold and focused on the memoir. Even with something as simple as making a record of my life, I can't spare the brain-power to write fiction.

This is why I couldn't taking flying lessons and operate my business. Unlike the simple project I am engaged in now, both software design and flying lessons require a person's full attention. Nearly every pilot in the world was able to train while holding down a job or going to college. I could not. Until I received my pilot's license everything else in my life was put on hold. For this reason I needed to complete the training as fast as possible. Unfortunately, my flight instructor was slow and methodical. A skilled pilot and instructor, but on a different speed than I. To be fair, until your body gets use to the noise, feel, and multi-axis motion of a small plane, you can't absorb more than thirty minutes worth of flight training at a time.

For the first week I was limited to two, half hour flights. I was miserable. I couldn't run my business and my wife considered me poor company, so I spent my time at the little airport. I talked to the pilots, the mechanics and other students. I watched planes take off and land. I helped refuel airplanes passing through, I shoveled snow. I read flying magazines cover to cover. I became an airport groupie. I've been called obsessive.

The second week my instructor gave me a full hour of flight training and told me to come back in three days. I'd learned not to press him so had to wait three days. After the third lesson I mentioned I had the next day free. I'd been in his way since I started taking lessons so he knew I was free every day, but he let it go and scheduled our lesson for the next day. I did well in this fourth hour of instruction so the instructor agreed to let me pick up the pace. FAA regulations require a student pilot to have a minimum of 40 hours of instructional flight, twenty with an instructor and twenty solo. A good student cold solo (fly sans instructor) after 10 hours of instruction, so my instructor decided to get me to that point so I could rent the airplane and fly alone. He knew this would be the only way to get me out of his hair.