The Monk

The Monk

BROTHER MATTHEW FLIES AGAIN The Abbey rose among the swelling green hills of central Massachusetts, a handsome sprawling stone compound echoing medieval Europe, a beautifully mystical place of monks chanting in the dimly lit chapel their morning lauds and matins, the...
A Toe-Dance with Thunderstorms

A Toe-Dance with Thunderstorms

        Do I fly over, under, or around…???   That morning had dawned “severe clear,” right up to Flight Level God. We were happily, confidently, on our way from Alamos to Tucson. But suddenly it wasn’t so clear any more. We had drawn out the...
MVY Pre Air Force One

MVY Pre Air Force One

MVY pre AIR FORCE ONE For years and years I logged flights into the Island, first in a little two-seater as a young mother in the 1970s, our baby battened down in the netting behind us. Coming to the Vineyard was always to visit Granny and Grandfather in Chilmark, in...
Opals and Anzac

Opals and Anzac

Coober Pedy On the wide South Australian desert horizon, flat and vague, slowly appeared low undulating mounds. Nothing spectacular – but the nearer we got, some appeared strangely, smoothly, cone-shaped. Mysterious piles like giant anthills – but not.  As we...
Squall Line Flips Planes

Squall Line Flips Planes

So. I signed up for flying lessons, got an instructor (old cigarette-breath baggy-eyes), and eventually struck a neat deal with the flight school. They had a “discount club” that got you scrip to use for payments, instead of real money. All were encouraged to join....
Fiona and the Microlight

Fiona and the Microlight

The year was… well, back when. We were in England, motoring through the Cotswold, when the two-lane became a car-brushing one-cart-track of leaning-in bushes and birds. We curled around the tree-shaded green hillsides, happily running across again a two-track, and...