Love Story: In The Web of Life Ken Renshaw (the best novels to read TXT) 📖

am going to haveto get used to it. How do you change an ingrained beliefsystem?"

"Exposure, and dialogue are what I use. Thesehigh school students I teach have some weird belief systems. Thefirst step seems to be getting them off their certainty in whatthey believe. That is a vulnerability thing."

We were silent for a while as Tina looked atthe scenery. The trip from LA to the desert starts with industrialbuildings lining the freeway. That scene gives way to older housingtracts with an abundance of trees. Then, as one moves to thedesert, the newer housing tracts have fewer trees. After that, thecountryside turns to dry chaparral covered hills and occasionalmobile homes. It always amazes me that people in these wide-openspaces seem to accumulate clutter around their houses: derelictcars, rusty horse trailers, oceangoing boats on cradles,miscellaneous building materials, and storage sheds. In places,there are the isolated tracts of homes, sitting like islands in thedesert, surrounded by high beige cinder block walls, where the openspace has been covered with cookie-cutter homes crowded together afew feet apart. People buy them because the homes are cheaper, andthen spend enormous amounts of money and time commuting an hour ormore to work.

"I really don't know much about you," saidTina, "Where were you born, raised, and what was it like where yougrew up, what were your friends like?"

We told each other stories until we reached theairport. I noticed that I felt closer to her. She was right, ittook a little trust in her for me to openly tell her about myself.I did start to understand about trust and vulnerability.

As we turned on the road leading to CrystalAireAirport, Tina said, "It's overcast, you can't even see the tops ofthe mountains. It doesn't look like a soaring day."

I said, "It looks really good for a wave todevelop. See how the clouds are moving fast from the direction ofthe mountains. If the wind shifts a little bit it will be justright for a wave. We had better be ready to fly when the conditionappears."

We drove to the operations building, a slightlyweather-worn mobile home with a swamp cooler on top, not runningtoday because it was not hot. The door was open and inside I metDave, the tow pilot. I arranged to rent the high performancetwo-place sailplane. Dave said he would send the office girl,Celia, to tow it to the takeoff line with the ATV.

Dave said, "The other day there was a strangenerdy guy out here who asked which sailplane trailer belonged toyou. He looked it over for a while, but didn't get into it oranything, as far as I could tell."

"Thanks, I'll check it out after we are allready to go in the two-place. Don't want to miss the waveopportunity. Was he a white, male Caucasian, five-five, stockybuild, grey crew cut, gold rimmed glasses?"

Dave looked puzzled and said, "Yea, a friend ofyours?"

"No, but please call me at home if you ever seehim again."

As we walked over to our two-place, Tinaobserved, "Wow, the wings are really big and shiny, and they havethese little ears going up at the ends."

"The wingspread is eighteen meters, nearlysixty feet. This one is a lot harder to put together than mine,which is only fifteen meters. These things at the end make it flyfarther."

"Do I get to sit in front or back?"

"Front. I can fly from the back seat and seeover your shoulders."

I completed my preflight check, inspecting thewings, tail, controls, and cockpit. Celia came over with the ATVand I hooked the rope to the big glider. Tina and walked holdingthe wingtips off the ground while Celia towed us to the stagingarea.

"Let's see how you fit in the frontseat,"

Tina got in and I showed her how to adjust theseat belt and shoulder harness.

Tina joked, "Maybe I should have worn a sportsbra. These shoulder straps don't do much for a girl's figure. Theyare more flattering if I spread them outside my bust line likethis."

I replied, "They are not a fashion statement.You might not like the way they are squeezed by the harness when wehit a downdraft. Nobody is going to be looking at your figure. I'llbe behind you, you know."

Tina, bent over and looked at the instrumentpanel. “Where are all the gauges? I have seen the cockpits of otherairplanes and they have lots of gauges."

"In a glider all you need is a compass to tellyou which direction you are going, an airspeed indicator for howfast you are going there, an altimeter, and a rate-of-climb gaugeto tell you how fast you are going up or down. Gliders are allabout flying, not gauges."

I asked her if she was warm enough and she saidyes. We sat down next to the glider, leaned our backs against thehull, opened our thermos of coffee, and cupped our hands around thecups as we drank.

"What is there about soaring that attracts youto it so much?" asked Tina as she patted the sailplane. "It's kindof a guy thing, isn't it?"

"I had never thought of it as such, but I guessyou are right. There are few female pilots. I recently read DavidBrooks' book, The Social Animal,and he made the case that much of our behavior is derivedfrom subconscious thinking. We have mental processes going on thatwe do not know about, exhibiting behavior that is often instinctualin nature, and displaying patterns of behavior we learn fromparents, siblings or other role models. Maybe soaring is aprimitive need for conquest, overcoming or harnessing nature, ormaybe it is about freedom, as in free-as-a bird. All I know is thatI need, no, must do it.

"Some guys own sailplanes, keep them intrailers tied down out here, but hardly ever fly them, like thepeople who have yachts that never leave the marina. To them, itmight be an ownership-identity kind of thing.

"For me, I have to fly, and it is good to getaway from the office and LA. It allows me to get away from whatevercase I am working on and to think of something else. One time, Itook off at 10:00, later felt hungry, looked at my watch and foundit was 2:00. I had been too busy concentrating