OUT OF THE BLUE

ARBORETUM DWELLER SEES PLANE FALL

The Woods family tree is not such an elegant structure. The chips who have come from it are ordinary folk with no claim to any great inherited or earned wealth (so far, anyhow). Pawley's Island, South Carolina, is a chic escape area for persons who, by contrast to myself, have actually been successful in life through hard work, inheritance, or fraud or theft. It's not the sort of place you will often find me, dammit, except as an intruder.

But, sometimes it pays to know someone who knows someone.

By this route, a friend named Marsha Cole, who knows people, I came to be standing with Mrs. Old Chip on the oceanside porch of a million dollar 7-bedroom "cottage," this past weekend, looking at the swelling Carolina surf and watching an osprey while he fished. A thing of true, natural beauty is an osprey. As he made his way in dips and soars up the shore, I noticed a small plane approaching from the North, also following the shore. I was concerned that plane and hawk would intermingle, disastrously. Not to worry, the bird made a detour up over the land and passed the plane. But then, the pilot of the ultra-light did a wing dip to the right, then to the left and then to the right again and commenced a long arc, bottom toward me, and then up and over, so elegant and inspiring; and then, by golly, straight down by the nose into the surf. Ker-splush!

And so, amazed, I shouted what any sensible person would under the circumstances, "Hey! He crashed!" And I stumbled down the stairs and started running toward the scene. It didn't take long to realize that if I were to run a half mile, barefoot in the sand, me being in the despicable shape and condition I am, I would arrive in time to simply die of heart failure. So, I had to slow up.

When I got there, several bystanders had already waded out to the ultra-light and rescued the pilot. They were just stretching him out on the beach. He was alive and bloody but able to talk, shakily, uncertainly. I stood ready to help with CPR, but none was needed.

Damn it! Finally in my life, I might have done something to redeem myself and preserve my soul, maybe even justify the space I take up, but oh, no! As always, I was too late. So, as a last gesture, I organized a few people and we waded out to the plane which was in about 5 feet of water and fifty feet offshore. But we could not drag it. Once again ... a flop!

The pilot, the newspaper later reported, had a broken leg and numerous cuts. He was flown to University Hospital in Columbia for treatment and observation. He was listed as "satisfactory."



(The plane after the surf had moved it inshore a bit.)
The ultra-light was Maize and blue, and I shuddered, thinking perhaps this was an omen for the Minnesota game. But it wasn't. This year, it is clear, the Wolverines are more like the elegant osprey than the hapless machinery.

And more compellingly, I have often thought since, what if he had gone down another 50 feet offshore. (Posted by Bud Woods)