 
 SmokeUp, Up, and Awayby Michael Hahn
 

          From somewhere high above Washington, D.C.:  I don't mind
    flying, really I don't.  The thought of trusting my one and only
    body to a few thousand pounds of steel and glass and aluminum,
    driven by highly-combustible liquids, fills me with not a moment's
    dread. After all, flying is statistically safer than driving, and I
    drive to work every day on that deathtrap known as the Capital
    Beltway.
          "Statistically safer than driving"--uh, now that I think
    about it, I'm not so sure about this.  When I was just a lad, I
    spent my summers trying in vain to become the next Ron Santo.  Well,
    Jim Hickman, actually--my position was right field.  Hot summer day
    after hot summer day I'd stand in the lonely corner of a baseball
    field, waiting for a play to come my way.  Ah, there it is!  A slow
    roller through the infield, skidding into the grass behind first
    base.  I'd charge up to the ball, dropping to one knee in the
    preferred fielding position I'd been taught.  Here comes the ball,
    barely rolling now . . . and there goes the ball, bounding over my
    shoulder, flipped into the air by the only rock (or gopher hole, or
    cow pattie) in the entire outfield.
          What were the chances? You know all those things that people
    assign to the category, "Oh, that *never* happens"?  It probably
    happened to me.  Sometimes it's been a good thing, sometimes a bad
    thing.  I got the good Fiero, the one they built on a day when no
    one's wife was upset, all the parts were in perfect order, and the
    assembly line people were all feeling particular pride in their
    work.  Unlike most eight-year-old Fieros with 123,000 miles on the
    odometer, mine *doesn't* spend every other week in the repair shop.
          On the other hand, I held off buying my last television set
    for just one more day, waiting for a sale.  The price went up--yes,
    up--thirty dollars.  I went in for a dental checkup last year, and
    he discovered a cavity in one of my teeth; it was a newly-exposed
    wisdom tooth, so extraction wasn't a real problem.  As pulling teeth
    goes, it was a lot less trouble than I thought it would be.
    Unfortunately, I woke up the next day with a pinched nerve in my
    back that required six weeks of physical therapy.
          Sigh. So here I am in a 737, high above the east coast,
    winging my way to Boston. Clear blue sky, great visibility, smooth
    flight--uh, well, it was smooth 'til just a minute ago.  Ulp.

                                   -end-
                       Copyright (c) 1993 by Michael Hahn
