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DOG IS OUR CO-PILOT

They call them Mutt Muffs. They are noise-canceling earphones for dogs with a yen to fly. I wouldn’t say our Yorkie has much of a yen but she has been gamely climbing onboard since her third month.

Mutt Muffs, were, as the www.safeandsoundpets.com site recounts, conceived in a Cessna. Apparently a black lab named Cooper loved to join his master as a furry co-pilot but she had qualms about the decibel level in the cockpit and the effect it would have on the animal’s hearing. After several unsuccessful prototypes, mutt muffs were finally “cleared for takeoff” and Jon invested in a pair for Chloe.

On her maiden voyage Jon insisted that the “dog be secured” during take-off and landing but when I checked to see if she was still sporting her earphones, she tried to dig her claws into my chest and her eyes were peeled wide with terror throughout the flight. Yet when we landed she seemed to find her old, happy-to-be-here personality.

One thing we had to do was to experiment with ways of covering her ear- flaps and making sure they stayed down under the earphones. Yorkies can move each of their ears 180 degrees. It is no small feat to keep these auditory appendages immobile. We searched the marketplace for bonnets or even doll hats but nothing was small enough. Finally we tried tying a handkerchief around her head as an old Russian grandmother might wear it—folded into a triangle with the long ends tied together in the back. It worked! The mutt muffs stayed on the entire flight. BTW, Chloe’s picture is now ensconced for all posterity in the Safe And Sound Pets Customer Gallery.

Chloe, who is now nine months old, has four flights under her Velcro walking vest and seems to enjoy flying as long as she gets to occupy the pink pet carrier strapped into the back seat. I don’t think she moves a muscle during the entire flight, but, just as the Mutt Muffs people predicted (See FAQ answer to the question “My dog would never wear these”), she is careful to keep her earphones on and her hearing unimpaired.

While Chloe is not apt to come when you call her—the stars and planets have to be in perfect alignment--actually I can’t blame her for balking at the command to “come.” It doesn’t take a pet psychic to interpret her reluctant behavior. I understand completely why hearing her name being called with sugary sweetness has put such an incredibly bad taste into her mouth. Every time she has bounded over with tail-wagging enthusiasm in the past, horrible things have happened. Jon or Beverly has attempted to drown her in the sink, insisted on squeezing her into some ridiculous outfit, or forced her to swallow vile-tasting medicine. Still she may wish to ditch her leash as she grows more mature.

At any rate, Chloe has really grasped the notion that when she is in either her pink or black purse-cum-pet carrier, she is not to make a sound. As a result, she has been able to accompany her two favorite humans into elegant hotels, sumptuous restaurants (where delicious tidbits are dropped into her lap), grocery stores, department stores, movie theatres and of course, planes, trains and automobiles. She has even sailed and motor-boated but she will be quick to tell you that she is much more fond of transportation in which there is no danger of getting wet.

SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAINBOW

I should have been praying to St. Therese when we got caught in that unexpected rainstorm. She, after all, is the patron saint of aviators. In fact, a multitude of miracles have been attributed to her, but perhaps the greatest is that a 24-year old nun from an obscure convent in France, remarkable only for her goodness, would have become known to the world at all. Her holiness so impressed her superiors, however, the unsophisticated young woman was asked to pen an account of her spiritual life.

Upon her death, her Carmelite sisters received permission to distribute “The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieus,” in which she encapsulated her deceptively simple religious philosophy: “Jesus set the book of nature before me and I saw that all the flowers he has created are lovely. The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. I realized that if every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness and there would be no wildflowers to make the meadows gay. It is just the same in the world of souls.”

In the ensuing years, her book underwent reprinting on numerous occasions and was translated into dozens of languages. As people around the globe read her words and sought her intercession, reports of favors received through her assistance started pouring in. By the time she was beatified on April 29, 1923, the convent was receiving between 800 to1,000 such letters a day.

The French Carmelite nun, also known as “The Little Flower of Jesus,” remains one of the most widely revered figures of the Roman Catholic Church, and is often represented with an armful of roses to represent her vow to “let fall a shower of roses" on earth from heaven. She told her readers, “My mission—to make God loved—will begin after my death. I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.” The sudden appearance of roses is usually interpreted by the believer as a sign that a petition asked in Therese’s name coincides with the will of God and will be granted.

While I have nothing again St. Therese (in fact, in my adolescence I changed my name to Therese for about five minutes) I think that prayers should go directly to the top. To that end, I address most of mine to the Father, just as Jesus did, but unlike Jesus, I also look for “signs” that my desires have been approved. Although these have appeared in several physical forms, the most memorable, to me, was the rainbow.

After praying faithfully for five years, I was convinced that God would miraculously compel my estranged husband to give up alcohol, undergo a personality transplant, and return to his rightful place as the head of our family. Somehow, in my grief at the separation, I had lost sight of my ex’s right to free will. The day the divorce become final, I was devastated—there had been no Divine intervention. My lawyer hadn’t even been able to finagle a financial settlement adequate to support the children—I would be forced to work two, sometimes, three, jobs to keep the wolf from the door.As I trudged from the courthouse, however, I caught a glimpse of a stunningly beautiful rainbow. It would take seven years for another rainbow to wrap up the tough days ahead of me. I discovered the second rainbow over the Fern Grotto on Kauai on the afternoon of my wedding to the love of my life.

Well, back to the sudden storm I mentioned earlier. Jon and I were already pretty anxious after having to wait out the fog over Camarillo airport. We knew a serious downpour would be dogging our heels and we wanted to be sipping tropical drinks at the Mirage long before that nasty storm arrived.

A few miles southwest of Daggett, I spied a striking, albeit, totally unexpected rainbow. “I wonder what that’s all about,” I thought to myself. About ten minutes later, we found ourselves flying blind—there was so much precipitation in the atmosphere that although we could see the ground 9,500 feet below, we couldn’t distinguish anything in the inky blackness in front of us. We didn’t know if a mountain or another plane could be lurking dead ahead.

I kept praying we would emerge from the darkness momentarily but it seemed that this maverick rain cell was traveling at exactly the same rate of speed as our Cessna. Finally, I just blurted out, “steer toward the rainbow.” Jon didn’t argue—he must have known that the directive was coming from the Man Upstairs. Within seconds, we were in the clear, and all was right with the world.

The only thing that could make this story even sweeter would be to report that we caught a faint whiff of roses in the cockpit. Of course that didn’t happen. With all those pilots trying to navigate through bad weather that day, St. Therese simply didn’t have any blossoms left.

BETWEEN HUBRIS AND "TO HELL WITH IT"

God has been hearing a great deal from me lately. My husband, you see, has taken up flying. Not only has he taken up flying, but he expects me, who has read all the accident statistics, to go up there with him.

Now, I want you to know that I have nobody to blame for this turn of events but myself. A couple of years ago, Jonathan and I were having the conversation I imagine most middle-aged couples have—especially when they decide to draw up a will.

“So, Sweetheart,” I said, “is there anything on your “things-I-want-to-do-before-I-die” list that you haven’t gotten around to doing as yet?”

There was. My husband wanted to pilot a plane. Okay. Next Christmas, he dug a gift certificate for three flying lessons out of his stocking. He was tickled silly.

Three lessons, however, were not enough. Jonathan revealed that he had a new goal: he wanted to earn his wings. I have to tell you, I wasn’t prepared for that announcement.

Just ten months ago, with the ink still wet on his pilot’s license, we joined 26 other pilots flying to the southern end of the Baja Peninsula to whale-watch. Since then, we’ve eaten fish tacos in San Felipe, buffalo burgers on Catalina, and the best darn garlic fries I’ve ever tasted in San Francisco. If you are catching on to a theme here, namely, the appeal of culinary delights—make no mistake—my husband knows exactly how to entice me on these trips.

But after the first few months, these flying sojourns simply took too much out of me. You see, the problem was I actually believed it was my responsibility to keep our little plane in the air, all by myself, through sheer willpower alone.

So, totally exhausted by now—I turned to prayer. After a few conversations with the Man Upstairs, slowly but surely, I started to relax those clenched white knuckles. In fact, I got so stress-free and peaceful that I was eventually able to peer out of the window--instead of staring at the confusion of dials I couldn’t interpret anyway.

And there it was—the might and majesty of creation--in all its breathtaking diversity—thousands of feet below the wing of our Cessna.

“So this is what God sees,” I thought to myself.

My husband, who I also suspect prays more these days, was smart enough to put me to work. That decision really helped. My overactive imagination stopped conjuring up all sorts of paralyzing sudden death scenarios, and at the present, I’m learning to read charts, to program the navigation system, and to handle the preflight checklist.

At some point, I’ll also be taking a special course for those who occupy “the right seat.” The class is supposed to prepare the passenger to take over, should anything untoward happen to the pilot.

A couple of weeks ago, Jon and I found ourselves in an astonishingly beautiful place called Lake Powell. While waiting for a boat to whisk us west to enjoy a spectacular Arizona sunset, Jon wandered over to the corner where the guys in his flying club were talking technical. I joined the wives who had managed to ensconce themselves on the most comfortable of the hotel lobby furniture.

Since I was the new girl in town, the first thing they wanted to know was how long my husband had been flying. “Well,” I paused, “he got his license in December.” They all looked at each other, rolled their eyes, and made sympathetic murmuring sounds.

“So what did you think of that turbulence on the way in from Sedona?” piped up the oldest. She didn’t actually wink but she might as well have. Since signing up for this particular excursion was a last minute decision on our part, Jonathan and I got stuck with the smallest, slowest, and most turbulence-prone aircraft in the entire rental fleet.

You have to understand that pilots have this macho thing going on when it comes to being bucked around by the wind. They get around the loss of control by employing a convoluted grading scale. If the shaking loosens the fillings in your teeth but no rivets pop out of the plane, the turbulence is considered “light.” If you have been lifted out of your seat or objects fly through the cabin—the turbulence is “moderate.” As to “severe” turbulence, you don’t even want to know about that.

On the way in over the mountains, we were hit by wind gusts so powerful that I actually conked my head on the ceiling—despite being buckled into a highly restrictive seat belt-harness contraption. And then as if that weren’t terrifying enough, the window thermometer lost its moorings, careened around the cockpit, and crashed at my feet.

So the correct answer to the woman’s question, if I didn’t want my husband to lose face, was “Turbulence? It was only “moderate.”

Look, honey,” she told me, “don’t be afraid to admit you were scared. We ALL are.” In fact, she pointed out, some pilots’ wives are so petrified that they just plain refuse to ever go on in a plane.

Who can blame them? Remember, they have lived with these guys for decades. They know no matter how many hours Hubby has racked up in an airplane, at home, he still can’t keep track of his car keys, can’t hit the hamper with his dirty underwear, and is totally incapable of replacing the roll on the toilet paper dispenser.

So how do these women cope as they accompany their husbands into the wild blue yonder?

Several made no bones about pounding down tranquilizers—in fact, there was an animated discussion about the effectiveness of various anxiety-reducing pharmaceuticals. One swore by Niquil—she took a healthy dose before buckling up—that way, she was able to sleep peacefully through most of the flight. Still another made a clean breast of the fact that it took a couple of belts under her belt to get her into the cockpit with her husband—even though he had been flying for 31 years.

But that still leaves one unanswered question. Just WHAT was this group of smart, affluent, and well-traveled ladies so afraid of?

Although his name was never spoken, there was no doubt about the identity of the elephant in this living room.

We watched him grow from a winsome toddler in short pants, pulling his starfish fingers into an adorable salute at his father’s funeral, to the super-confident publisher of a trendy political magazine.

We nursed the hope that he might, one day, actually step into his charismatic father’s shoes. But John F. Kennedy, Jr. was heir to the family legacy as well as its so-called curse.

The tabloids were constantly brimming with titillating exposes of his drug use, his fiery temper, and his weakness for superstar companions. How do you respond when “People” magazine dubs you “the sexiest man alive?”

For many Americans, however, the last vestiges of Camelot came crashing down on July 16, 1999.

On that date, Kennedy’s single-engine Piper Saratoga, bound for a family wedding, took off at dusk from a quiet New Jersey airport. Two passengers—his wife, who was 33, and her sister, 34, were also on board.

He, suffering from the sniffles and with his ankle in a cast, was edgy and short-tempered. His high-strung spouse, who demanded that her manicurist keep reapplying nail polish until it matched the exact color of her new outfit, didn’t arrive at the airport until daylight had faded and the sky was thick with haze.

Despite the self-assurance that comes with the Kennedy name, John’s lack of flying experience put him at a distinct disadvantage. In addition, although he lacked the five miles visibility that visual flight rules require at night, he took off anyway.

Investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board now believe he became critically disoriented in the inky gloom. Without knowing it, his plane slipped into a downward spiral, and he eventually crashed into the waters off Martha’s Vineyard.

Instead of believing what his instruments had been telling him, his ego convinced him to trust senses muddled by cold pills.

With respect to five separate decisions, Kennedy turned out to be dead wrong. And he took his wife and sister-in-law with him.

“Hubris” is defined as “the excessive pride or arrogance that leads to one’s downfall.” John, Jr. should have realized that at no time should any pilot expect to sleepwalk through the task of flying an airplane, and, more importantly, a change in the weather can transform blue skies into a life and death-testing nightmare. In a New York minute. Even if you are an American icon.

So in response to previous question, “what was this group of smart, affluent, and well-traveled ladies so afraid of?”—they were afraid of having to share a cockpit with hubris.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis suffered countless sleepless nights. A recurring premonition convinced her that her only son would perish in a plane crash. To that end, she pleaded with her longtime companion, to do whatever it took to keep John Jr from getting his pilot’s license. Obviously, John Jr. won that contest.

But I suspect Jackie was no different than most women who find themselves the mothers of pilots.

Take my mother-in-law, Lillian. If she had had her way—her son, now 56 years old, would never have been allowed to cross the street—much less pilot a Cessna.

But I understand her—in fact, I understand her very well. She and my own mother, who passed away in 1993, were so similar, they could have been twins. Both were bright, beautiful, and maternal to the max. Both were offspring of immigrants from Lithuania. Both were daughters of men who eventually succumbed to alcoholism. Both abandoned their plans for college, without a word of protest, to provide for their families during the Great Depression. And both struggled with fear.

Whenever Jon’s mother is faced with a situation that is anxiety-provoking in any way, she will invariably respond with four little words--“to hell with it.” In fact, now in her Golden years, those words have become her life’s mantra.

“Did you go out for your walk today?” “Naaaaaa, too windy—I just said “to hell with it.”

“Did you ask your doctor about that new medication?” “He was in such a rush—you know doctors, I just thought “to hell with it.”

“How would you like to go out to dinner with us tonight? “Such money they want in restaurants “to hell with it--“nehmo gerousa” (Lithuanian for “home is best.”).

Sure, home is best when your daughter-in-law does the cooking. These days, big meals are no longer prepared at Lillian’s house, her son picks out and picks up his own clothes, and after an accident at K-Mart, where the 81- year old was employed until 2002, Lillian’s universe keeps getting smaller and smaller. In fact, life has become pretty much “nehmo gerousa” these days.

Perhaps hearing “to hell with it” every day prodded Jonathan is the opposite direction. He seems eager to try everything—no matter how unlikely the outcome or how costly the process. It might interest you to know that my husband, just like 90% of all pilots, suffers from a debilitating fear of heights. Now that’s something to think about.

What really worries me, however, is that Jon has started to chafe under the burden of becoming his mother’s entire world. Although, he tries to be the good little boy she fondly remembers—the kid who seemed perfectly content to play quietly at her side—sometimes her “to hell with it” credo gets to be too much.

Sometimes, Jonathan just has to fly away.

Wouldn’t it be something if she would agree to go up in a plane with him—just once—to experience that special world that he loves so much?

You know, maybe that’s something else I should just pray about.

PLANT AND POT

I’ve stumbled upon a unique way to bridge the generation gap. It all became crystal clear to me on July 23, 2005 at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Plant and pot.

I’m not just crazy about Led Zeppelin—I’m a fanatic-to-the-max Zephead. Still for all my devotion, I’ve never had the opportunity to experience my favorite band at a live concert. For no reason at all except to please me, my everlovin’ surprised me with tickets to a Robert Plant concert. In anticipation, I listened to every album any member of Zeppelin ever made. I pointed my browser to robertplant.com and sampled “Mighty Rearranger.” I counted the days.

Dazed, I was--and confused as well, when I made the knee-punishing, lung-challenging climb to our seats at the top of the Santa Barbara Bowl. I kid you not, my nose actually bled. In addition, it appeared that I still wouldn’t be “seeing” my favorite singer. The only way I could make out the identities of the tiny figures two miles away was to assume that Plant was the only guy without an instrument—if you don’t count the tambourine.

Unmistakably, it was time for an attitude adjustment. I couldn’t stand to see my hubby sagged down with my disappointment yet I was obsessed with catching a glimpse of Mr. Plant’s puss. I had to hit upon a silver lining—that is, when I wasn’t trying to stifle the urge to grab a pair of binoculars away from anybody sitting close by who had not only viewed a seating chart in advance but planned ahead in the ocular enhancement department.

I finally figured out the blessing in disguise. Sitting so far away allowed me to visualize the 56-year old Plant as a 20-years old. From my lofty vantage point, there were no lines on that angelic face. There were no silver threads (much less male-pattern baldness) among the gold. His eyes were filled with lust, if not love, as he warbled his desire to me. More importantly, if Robert Plant was a twenty-something, that made me a twenty-something, too.

I started to feel better. Besides, from this elevation, I could look beyond the stage to the streetlights of Santa Barbara, now seemingly out-twinkling the stars. I could also see the luxury tour bus parked beside the stage and speculate about what Mr. Plant might up to as his roadies prepared the stage with oriental carpets and knock-out laser effects. I suspect he eschews vodka these days—the U.S. tour looked pretty brutal. Just think—the formerly hedonistic heartthrob, now more than half a century old, was probably indulging in a couple of Ibuprophen for his creaky joints and some caffeine-free black raspberry herbal tea (sans sugar) before the show. That an old rock star had come to this!

But I digress—let’s return to my unique way to bridge the generation gap. That was the point of this piece, was it not? The audience—demographically—tilted in the direction of aging baby boomers. Well, think about it. Who else could afford hundred dollar tickets?

Bob, a 53-year old who must hold the Guinness Book of Records citation for most rock concerts attended (he claims nearly 1,500) revealed that he actually got to meet Jimmy Paige. “What was he like,” I asked. “He was embarrassingly drunk,” he clucked.

He did actually cluck. Just two minutes earlier, he had confided that he had been a hearty partying, single swinger, who escaped the altar until well past his 40th birthday. When did he become such a sanctimonious senior citizen, I wondered. He had already given me the answer—seven years ago when he held his bouncing baby boy. Birth—that’s when this generation gap business first starts to go bad.

Plant interspersed selections from his “Mighty Rearranger” albums with Zeppelin standards—all except the wildly popular “Stairway to Heaven” (much to the audience’s chagrin). As far as I’m concerned, “Stairway to Heaven” is okay if you are into Tolkien but I much prefer the raw sexual grit of “Whole Lotta Love” which didn’t get played until the last encore. I noticed that Plant’s new arrangement of "Whole Lotta Love” didn’t have the audience frantically gyrating as I've seen on concert videos. In fact, the Santa Barbara Bowl bunch just swayed back and forth, politely waiting for the band to tease out various subtleties with their African instruments. The gratifying climax everybody had been anticipating, especially those flicking their Bics, never arrived.

Bottom line: whenever Plant sang a recent composition (with the exception of “Shine it all Around”) the audience shifted around in their seats or decided it was a good time to go for another beer. We all know that artists need to venture out in a new direction in order to grow but we didn’t seem all that eager to grant that freedom to Robert Plant.

While it was understandable, given Plant’s advanced years, that he wouldn’t be prancing around the stage with the same wild abandon or howling his signature falsetto yowls as frequently as in the old days, nobody, old or young, seemed very happy with the new, improved Plant. What did we care if his recently released "Mighty Rearranger" album "seemed to be invisible” as far as record sales were concerned? We wanted our golden sex symbol to shake his luxurious locks and bodacious booty. We were not interested in listening to the politically correct musings of a middle-aged musician.

A great deal has happened to Plant since he first crowed, “I am a Golden God” to some American journalist in the early 70s. His hubris has evolved into humility. First, a 1975 car accident in Rhodes taught him (and wife Maureen) that the success gods give with one hand and take away with the other. Second, his son Karac succumbing to a respiratory virus taught him to take nobody and nothing for granted. Third, his oldest and dearest friend, “Bonzo” Bonham falling victim to alcohol poisoning, taught him that the end is always near.

The kids in the audience, who seemed as passionate about the music as the geezers, knew all the lyrics to both the new and the old Zeppelin. In fact, Plant was so sure that they would—he periodically paused and thrust his microphone at them. Sure enough, they supplied the next few lines. With feeling.

The youngsters also brought marijuana. The big surprise was that they weren’t afraid to share. Apparently they couldn’t cold-shoulder the ancient hippies eyeing the familiar cloud of cannabis smoke rising from smoldering joints. Now mind you, I’m not condoning the use of an illegal substance for any reason but medical, of course. This is California. I’m not even contending that those purposefully puffing away would have been able to produce a bona fide medical prescription. But one thing became crystal clear to me at that precise moment—pot and Plant effectively ended the generation gap. How? By supplying a whole lotta love, or, at least, a stairway to heaven.

CESSNA CHRONICLES: NAPA

I don’t know if this trip to Napa counts as an official “Cessna Chronicle” since we ended up driving, or as Jon puts it “taxiing” down Highway 5. At any rate, Jon is a smart man who realizes he won’t get much repeat business from this particular airplane passenger if he subjects her to thunderstorms over mountains. In fact, I shudder now at the idea of writing “airplane,” “thunderstorm” and “mountain” in the same sentence.Napa is wall-to-wall vineyards and there are presently more than 250 wineries bottling thousands of varieties of excellent California wines. Old-timers lament the fact that the days when you could taste wine for free from one end of the valley to the other are definitely over. Capitalism has kicked in. Even the smallest family vineyard charges at least five bucks to sample their wares—freeloading winos need not apply. In fact, Napa has reinvented itself into a mecca for oenophiles and even former coffee shops and diners now serve several courses of upscale nouveau cuisine (in Karen Carpenter-sized portions) to be accompanied by the appropriate vintage.

Jon had planned to attend a work-related conference while I resigned myself, as usual, to hiding out in the room to get some writing done. Our collective protestant work ethic was quickly abandoned, however, after we were invited to a Niebaum-Coppola Winery side trip. Since I had just finished "The Godfather" chapter in my latest book—I jumped at the chance to see Francis Ford Coppola’s digs. Jon didn’t even have to be persuaded to play hooky from his waste water seminars—he thinks he’s developed quite a palate after seeing "Sideways." At least it didn’t take him long to pick up on phrases such as “a little pretentious,” “a great finish” “I can taste the oak.” and my all-time favorite “it’s got great legs.” We can only afford the pinot noir you get for three bucks at Trader Joe’s but we eschew merlot right along with Miles.

Francis Ford Coppola, who was looking for a summer place where he could make a little wine in the basement like his immigrant grandparents, purchased what remained of the Gustave Niebaum estate in 1975 for $2.2 million. We learned that when the retired sea captain founded Inglenook in 1880, there were only 45 wineries in all of California. It was Niebaum’s intent to create fine wines that could compete with French exports. His slogan, “pride over profits,” proved to be pretty ironic these days since Inglenook is the ill-respected jug wine usually located on the bottom shelf of the grocery stores. It took Coppola twenty years and another $11 million to acquire all of Niebaum’s acreage, which he replanted with original rootstock. He also renovated the Inglenook Chateau where he now displays props and costumes from his various films as well as a wonderful collection of zoetropes—the forerunner of the motion picture projector.

Two years before "The Godfather," Coppola’s career was up in the air. After "Finian’s Rainbow," the 31-year old director started fancying himself a New Wave auteur with a self-diagnosed allergy to “formula pictures”--even though making horror films for Roger Corman served as his training ground. American Zoetrope was his grandiose effort to create a viable alternative to Hollywood but the San Francisco studio, combining creative talent and cutting-edge technology to produce “the films of tomorrow” was picked clean, what with hippie interns swapping $40,000 of Coppola’s gear for drugs. With respect to Zoetrope’s cinematic output, "The Rain People" bombed at the box office and "THX-1138" couldn’t get a distributor. The sheriff was ready to put a chain across the door to American Zoetrope.

Coppola was pretty conservative for the Swinging Sixties—his politics may have been knee-jerk liberal but personally he was all about family values. When he was invited to direct "The Godfather," he declined, dismissing Mario Puzo’s bestseller as a tasteless potboiler. After only reading 50 pages, he had been offended by the sleazy sex Puzo included to boost book sales. Nevertheless, the writer-director, in debt to the tune of $300,000, had no other prospects. He turned to his assistant (who would become the most successful filmmaker in Hollywood) for guidance. George Lucas uttered three little words: ‘Take it, Francis.” So Coppola read the rest of the novel and uncovered an immigrant saga around which he could wrap his exceedingly Italian American mind. The Godfather is the only movie I’ve ever seen that includes a fantastic yet simple recipe for Bolognese sauce.

Coppola dream was to make at least a million on "The Godfather," so that he could invest it, live off the earnings, and then make “artistic” films without having to deal with studios such a Paramount who threatened to fire him almost every week. In fact, Coppola, who ended up making about $20 million on "The Godfather" alone, added to his considerable wealth with the rest of the trilogy so was free to do "Apocalypse Now," "The Conversation," "Rumblefish," "The Cotton Club," "Tucker," "Peggy Sue Got Married," "Bram Stoker’s Dracula," and "John Grishom’s The Rainmaker." “He’s willing to gamble on an artistic decision rather than play it safe financially,” admitted George Lucas. “If we were struck in a blazing building, I’d sneak down the back stairs and Francis would leap off the top at the front.”Coppola named a sparkling wine and a blush after his daughter Sofia—she was the infant being baptized in "The Godfather" while all of Michael Corleone’s enemies were being eliminated with gratuitous graphic violence. She won Best Original Screenplay Oscar for "Lost In Translation" in 2003. We enjoyed tasting four Director’s Selection wines including a Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Zinfindel, and Cabernet Sauvignon. The gift shop also featured pastas and sauces as well as flavored olive oils, which we were encouraged to purchase. Of course, we succumbed. I can’t speak for all of the Coppola gourmet foods but the Neapolitan dipping oil makes you start humming the love theme from "The Godfather."

CESSNA CHRONICLES: I'M SO DIZZY

What do Alfred Hitchcock and aerobatics have in common? Give up? Surely you remember the 1958 flick starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak? Why some sky jockey would deliberately want to give himself or herself vertigo, is beyond me.

Once, when I was a kid, I leaned as far back as I could in a swing, allowing the earth beneath me to rush past the upper portion of my field of vision. I did it once. On the next pass, I blew lunch.

My husband has enrolled in the world famous Rich Stowell’s aerobatics class. For the next few weeks, he will be intentionally placing a rented airplane in stalls, spins, and other death-defying stunts. His face turned the most interesting shade of chartreuse after his first lesson.

Actually, my husband, like 90 per cent of pilots, according to a USC aviation study, is afraid of heights. That’s a startling statistic when you consider that only six out of every100 folks in the general population are card-carrying “acrophobics”—that’s the fifty-cent word for those poor souls who step as far back as they can (or secretly close their eyes) when they find themselves in a glass elevator. It is not, as you may have guessed, someone who is terrified of acrobats.

Jon and I try to stay away from high places. We couldn’t even ride up to the top of the pint-sized Paris Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas without Jon feeling green-gilled woozy. I just don’t get it. He’s already 6 foot 4 inches tall—what’s a few hundred feet more?

The paradox is, he has no height issues in the cockpit of a Cessna. I’ve always wondered why pilots feel perfectly at ease in a plane but get the weirds whenever they survey the scenery from, say, the top of the Empire State Building. Jon claims, for him, there’s absolutely no problem as long as he’s in an enclosed space. Okay, back to the womb and all that, but you would think that flying thousands of feet above the earth might elicit a little angst. It does for me.

As a nonprofessional observer of human nature--you’ve got to do something to amuse yourself when your hubby takes ALL DAY to get through a pre-flight checklist--I’ve noticed all pilots have one characterisitic in common.

Now my sample isn’t quite comprehensive enough to satisfy a statistician, but every single flyer I’ve met seems to be an inveterate, dyed in the wool, control freak.

Okay, perfection is good when you are dealing with an activity that carries a tenfold risk of fatality, that is, compared to the automobile, but it’s not always that easy to comply, chop, chop, when el capitan shouts orders in some sort of foreign language. I proud of the fact that I’ve finally mastered the art of refolding a map and I’m working on getting the heck out of the way when Jon tests the fuel. Reading all those dials are his responsibility, thank you very much.

But acrophobia is not why Jon’s taking this class. He figures that mastering aerobatics will boost his self confidence and make him a better general aviation pilot. I guess it’s sort of like a baseball player who swings 2-3 bats simultaneously before he steps up to the plate.

Note to reader: Jon will really be so jazzed that I used a baseball metaphor. He’s a rabid-to-the-max Red Sox fan who still can’t believe that his team finally won the World Series.

When Jon goes up with Rich once again, I will be on the ground, preferably at home, but if compelled, I’ll remain, feet firmly planted on terra firma, manning the video camera. While I used to believe that my love for my husband knew no bounds, now that he’s taken up aerobatics, there are limits I never intend to transgress.

Moral of the story: If God had meant man to fly upside down, he would have given him eyes instead of kneecaps.

Here’s looking at you, kid.

CESSNA CHRONICLES: WATCHING THE CLOUDS GO BY

“Homespun philosopher,” Kin Hubbard, warns, “Don't knock the weather; nine tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.” For the VFR pilot, there is nothing more important than weather. It seems that Jon and I have NOT taken off more than we’ve actually made it into the air. The one and only reason: lousy weather.

Whenever we are scheduled for a flight, the Weather Channel is going full blast on at least one television—usually every boob tube in the house. Jon also hogs the computer, checking out conditions, minute by minute, on the Aviation Weather Service website. He also carries around a secret phone number that allows him to inquire what the weather is likely to be both in Camarillo and at our destination. He claims it’s much better when you can converse with a real live person about such life and death variables as convection, turbulence, winds, and precipitation. I never paid attention in class when we were studying clouds. In the Golden State, especially the lower half, it’s a rare day when you don’t have clear blue skies. Sure, there are two to three weeks of street-flooding rain in January, but for the most part, clouds and the classification thereof have proven to be no big deal—at least in my life up to the point at which Jon earned his wings. In fact, pre-December, I found myself in the exact opposite situation as the Eskimos, who have apparently conjured up some 33 different words to describe snow. So okay, what should Miss Co-pilot know about weather and clouds?

Well, nobody cares if you can identify bunny rabbits or the Virgin Mary in the upper atmosphere, which heretofore constituted my major area of expertise--cloudwise. If pressed, I could cough up superficial distinctions among cumulus, stratus, nimbus but if presented with hybrids, which, I suspect, most clouds actually are, the whole I.D. thing becomes a crapshoot.

What I can tell you is cumulus are those billowy heaps that resemble fat cosmetic puffs. Stratus, on the other hand, are layered—this is an advantage when you are looking for a hole through which to ascend or descend. Nimbus clouds are easy, They are usually dark with rain and they can be either fluffy or layered. I’m not big on flying when it’s pouring buckets but drizzle is not an automatic “no go” situation. I can’t figure out why not since there doesn’t seem to be any windshield wipers on the airplane.

So you should stay home and cuddle up in front of a roaring fire when it’s showery--right? The short answer, with a pilot hubby, is “it depends.” Here in SoCal thunderstorms are such a rarity that the height of the clouds or “ceiling” ends up the big determining weather factor. “Can’t go right now, ceiling’s too low—better wait for better weather.” Where have I heard that before?

That’s why whenever I tell somebody we are going to fly down to see him or her; I have to add the qualifier—if Mother Nature cooperates. When we were in Quito, Ecuador, the weather did change every 15 minutes but here, especially at the Camarillo airport, we’ve found that if it doesn’t get better by noon, we better plan to fly another day. There’s no point in Jon and I contributing to the already scary accident statistics re: small planes. You know when Jon was going through his midlife thing; I was so grateful that he didn’t insist on buying a motorcycle. Little did I know that he was really holding out for a Cessna.

CESSNA CHRONICLES: SAN FELIPE

February 13, 2005
San Felipe. The name brings back warm and fuzzy images rather than really strong memories. After all it’s been over three decades since my last visit. That was in 1970, when I was a wild and crazy college kid on Spring break.

Twin peaks. The dark craggy mountains to the left of the bay. If it wasn’t for this San Felipe landmark, Jon and I would have never located the landing strip. We do have a difficult time finding airports. Fortunately, we had a photo of this one.

Fish tacos. Mexican beer. Barbequed shrimp. The fish was always so fresh because it was still swimming in the ocean only hours before we ate it. Back in the 70s, you could get a torta for 1 peso (8 cents). The meat they used, however, was always a mystery. In fact, you see very few dogs trotting down Avenida Mar de Cortez, come to think of it. The shockingly blue Sea of Cortez. Back in the 70s, you could rent a cabana (on a cement slab) right in the middle of the bay—the best view in San Felipe for $1.25 a night. And each cabana had a cute thatched roof and its own water faucet. The public potty was just a stroll away. Since the cement was too hard to sleep on, most of us threw our sleeping bags on the sand and just snuggled in for the night. The tide, however, was tricky. The sea can advance almost a half a mile during high tide, so it’s best to place the old sleeping back on high ground. We would wait for those folks who camped out near the tideline to start screaming when they water started lapping up around their toes. I was delighted, on this trip, to find the cabanas still there. Didn’t check the prices but I suspect you can still get away with less than five bucks a night. Of course, at our age, Jon and I have grown fond of fine hotels and room service. Still there’s nothing like falling asleep under the stars.

The main drag. Still called Avenida Mar de Cortez. As we walked down the malecon, I got this vivid image of the movie theatre that reeked of urine. It was no longer there. They used to show American movies, subtitled in Spanish—usually shoot-em-up westerns. The city has recently undergone a beautification program (shades of Lady Bird Johnson) which, loosely translated, means dozens of palm trees, planted along the malecon. San Felipe could clean up its sidewalks, however. We were looking for a bar (meeting place for the evening’s activities) and I missed spotting a hole in the cement. The next thing I knew, I was kissing the sidewalk and then gazing (dumbfoundedly) up at the sky. A little handy wipe and some Neosporin, however, and it was all better. Besides, the hole in my jeans made me look really cool.

Lots of trinkets, ponchos, and jewelry. And you are encouraged to haggle. You don’t have to tell me twice. I remember getting a big kick out of purchasing a pack of horseshit cigarettes back in the 70s. Just for the amusement value. Didn’t think it would be a good idea to smoke them.

Friendly people. I can’t remember who came with me but I recall borrowing Ralph Coffee’s car for the trip down from San Diego. It was a pitiful old Chevie and he said he wouldn’t shed a tear if anything happened to it. Traffic accidents, as you might have heard, are a way of life in Mexico. Since Ralphie had broken the key off in the lock, you had to start the car with a screwdriver. At any rate, the transmission gave out about 5 miles before we got into town. I didn’t have a clue. Fortunately we got a tow in to the only service station in San Felipe. There we met Maria, who told us her brother would fix the car. I almost cried when he said, “is ten dollars too much?”

The horseshoe bay. The wide, sandy beach. In the old days you could walk nearly five miles along the shore. Now, with all the competition for hotel guests, the beach is divided up by riprap that goes all the way down to the waterline. I’m not a big fan of the Coastal Commission but I think that walking down the beach is an inalienable right. Mexico has got to get with the program.

Biggest change—so many people. The population of San Felipe is now estimated at 20,000 but the number can increase by up to 5,000, depending on the season. There were so few in San Felipe three decades ago and they were so poor, that they welcomed the student migration every year for two weeks around Easter. Now it's a different story.

Origin of San Felipe. The fishing village dates back to 1746, when a Jesuit named Fernando Consag landed four canoes, filled with settlers, in the bay. A mission and port were established in 1797 but both failed. Most settlers departed in 1806. San Felipe remained virtually disconnected from the outside world until a road to the radar station was built. But San Felipe was really discovered in 1970. By the boys and girls attending San Diego State University. And I was one of them.

THE CESSNA CHRONICLES: GUERRERO NEGRO

I wore a blue tee shirt today. I don’t ordinarily wear any color except black but this one is special. It’s the official souvenir of the Channel Islands Aviation 7th Annual Mexico Whale Watching Fly-in. Jon and I took off yesterday with 16 other airplanes after sweating out the cloudy weather all morning. I had taken a couple of short hops with Jon (up the coast and down to Catalina) but had no idea just how complicated the pilot’s job really was. I made up my mind to learn as much as possible. In the “Voyage of the Beagle” Charles Darwin wrote something about the more you know (botany, geology, biology, etc) when you travel, the more you are going to enjoy the trip. Not only did I want to know about the places we were going to but I also wanted to know everything I could about how we were getting there.

I have to admit that the thought of only Jon in the cockpit initially terrified me. John F. Kennedy, Jr., and all that. It’s not that I don’t trust my husband but more often than not he would come home from the airport, bitching about lousy landings. What was I supposed to think? There’s an old aviator’s bromide that says, “take-offs are optional but landings are mandatory.”

Well, the more time I spend with Jon in the air, the more I’m impressed with his precision, attention to detail, and thoughtful decisions. Flying a plane seems like such an immense, complicated, and stress-inducing job—I’d like to do whatever I can to make it easier for him. Besides, I’ve never been one to just sit around, trying to look pretty. I don’t even think I could even lay my hands on lip gloss--much less preoccupying myself with applying it every hour, on the hour.

We topped off our gas tank in Calexico--that is after we finally managed to find the runway. Actually it wasn’t hard to locate once a departing plane shot by us on the right. Although he was a couple of miles away—his presence did elicit an “oh shit” from my ever lovin’. The next leg was to San Felipe. The name brought back so many memories of Spring breaks gone bad that I just had to tell Jon but he was much too busy to listen. When we landed (I located the San Felipe runway by zooming in on it via my video camera) we had to go through customs, file flight plans, cough up a passel of pesos, and plow through all sorts of bureaucratic bazanga. Finally we were bound for Guerrero Negro. Wish I had packed a lunch--keeping the plane up in the air through sheer willpower alone is hungry-making labor.

San Felipe is on the east of the Baja peninsula while Guerrero Negro (450 miles south of the border) is on the west coast. The only problem is finding an altitude that takes you OVER the mountains but UNDER the clouds. VFR pilots can’t go THROUGH the clouds—they become very adept at looking for holes. Jon started monitoring the Channel Islands frequency, where we found that all the young CIA instructors, who love to give each other a bad time, were not only extemely entertaining but highly instructive.

To say our Cessna 172 is slow is an understatement. Even with a tail wind, we never made more than 113 nm. Still we weren’t the last ones to arrive at Guerrero Negro—just the last one to make it to the La Pinta Hotel. Other folks, who got in hours before us. bragged about spotting hundreds of whales from 3,000 feet. We, however, were too preoccupied with locating the landing strip. You know how, when you are in an airplane, all the people look like ants? Well, runways don’t look like anything--except maybe a dark smudge on the windshield.

The name Guerrero Negro comes from a whaling ship named Black Warrior that wrecked on a sand bar at the entrance to Laguna Ojo de Liebre (December 10, 1958). The whaleboat was built in 1824 in Duxbury, Massachusetts—a shipbuilding town we drove through on our New England trip last summer.

When we finally got through paying all the fees, Jon decided we’d better not risk waiting until Sunday to get gas (guess he thought all the aviation fuel guys would be in church). An hour later we finally shared a taxi (described by the other couple as “smelling like a basket full of butt-holes”) and arrived just in time to nab the last two margaritas left on the bar. After those and some chips and salsa, we were prepared for anything. Serving 50 people put quite a strain on the La Pinta master chef. Not only was there no choice of entrée (you ate what you got) but four of us (lucky me) got our plates an hour after everybody else. Was the squid, white fish, and shrimp worth waiting for? I’m still thinking about it. We slept like the dead until 2:00A when I became convinced I was having a heart attack, It was actually heartburn from overindulging in too many carbs after months of a strict Atkins regimen.

Wakeup call was something like 5A (our time) and after a quick spam and eggs breakfast we took a bus to Laguna Tours where we were instructed in the art of whale watching. Typical behaviors we were to watch for were--blow hole exhalation, fluke showing, breaching, fin waving, mating, and keeping an eye (or two) at anything moving above the waterline. We were told that, later in the season, when the babies were bigger, gray whales would actually approach the pangas, allowing tourists to pet the friendly cetaceans.

The lagoon is part of the Vizcaino biosphere, a Natural Reserve (since 1988) covering 2.5 million hectares. On the way to the lagoon we also got a peek at the industry that really keeps the dollars flowing into Guerrero Negro—salt. Exportadora de Sal was started by an enterprising American named Daniel Ludwig (Acapulco Princess Hotel) in 1957 and would become the largest salt works in the world, with a production of 7 million tons of salt a year. The process is simple. Huge ponds are filled with brine that eventually evaporates, leaving salt, gypsum and other dissolved minerals. The salt is shipped on barges to the Port of Cedros Island, where its loaded on 150,000 ton ships to be transported to Japan, Korea, the United States, Canada, Taiwan and New Zealand.

Conservation has become the byword in Guerrero Negro since the gray whales were nearly hunted into extinction. Thanks to protective measures, the gray whale has completely recovered, with over two thousand whales turning up in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon (Scammon’s Lagoon) after migrating down from the Arctic from January to March. We also saw the construction of wooden bases on top of telephone poles for osprey nests to keep them safe from coyotes. As a result, the number of ospreys in the Guerrero region has quadrupled over the past twenty years. The estuaries and salt marshes also provide habitat for pelicans, hawks, heron, curlew jacks, and eagles.

The Laguna tour was all that was advertised. We saw every single one of the whale behaviors with one cetacean breaching eight times in a row. You have to be ready for anything as a whale watcher. Sometimes activity would be going on in every direction simultaneously and it just wasn’t possible to get the camera out in time to catch the action. The best bet was to just sit back and enjoy the spectacle without being distracted by any obligation to document the experience.