Crossroads

You know -- I saw Eric Clapton 4 times in my life. For me, getting on a plane is never as much fun as Eric Clapton. Tonight I sat around with the pilot Al from Peru, and he talked repeatedly about the damage and scariness of the idea of landing during a monsoon storm. There are thunderstorms and such (rain) at the other end, wild dust storms and thunder here (without rain).

I was thinking about Ruby today and his recent post about black men who don't ride bikes. In the story Dopamine, Johnson, played by Rueben Grundy, a black man, rides a bike beside Rand, played by John Livingston. And here is the conversation (a marathon what -- anyone might ask?):

Johnson: [both ride bikes with a marathon] Hey, Sarah was looking for you last night.
Rand: She was?
Johnson: What's up with you two?
Rand: I'm not sure. It doesn't make any sense.
Johnson: What do you mean? Why do we have to make sense of everything?
Johnson: Yeah it's nice to know when some low pressure system pushes moisture laden air over a heated land mass and that we need a ... umbrella to get to work.
Johnson: Hey man, rain used to be with the gods of thunder cried.

Rain used to be when the gods of thunder cried. Again. Rain used to be when the gods of thunder cried.

What scares me is not the flying it's the landing. I don't get nervous in the plane -- I get nervous when the plane gets near the ground. This is all very logical. I help build aircraft, for God's our sake. And it scares me to fly land.

Why. Because rain is the gods of thunder crying. and there's no accounting for that. "Why, that was an act of God" the gods ... and so on.

So tomorrow I go down the road on a journey:

"I went down to the crossroads
Fell down on my knees
Down to the crossroads
Fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above for mercy
Take me if you please"

Al bought his fellow pilot a beer and reached out to shake my hand. "Goodnight my Friend."
And the new Jane said, "I don't know what I am going to do with you being gone for a week."

All of this promises to be fun.