Author Archives: Jon Reed

Summer Camp

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I was administering vaccinations against cholera, black plague, and black fever as part of an annual active-duty deployment. It was a hot, July afternoon at Phelps Collins Air National Guard base west of Alpena, Michigan. Trained as an Operating Room Specialist in the United States Air Force, I was qualified to assist in major surgeries but was tired of giving shots to air-policemen, cooks, and pilots griping about worldwide deployment immunizations. Our 127th Tactical Reconnaissance Group needed world-wide disease protection and, for some reason, few guardsmen wanted major operations performed on them during a two-week summer camp.

Although our unit had never been called up, protection against cholera, black plague, and black fever might be less useful in an Alpena bar but might be a good idea in a remote mid-east desert village. After being on my feet all day, I was ready for dinner in the base chow-hall but I was the one last to leave, still awaiting my replacement.  Without any other hospital personnel there, the Phelps Collins siren began wailing in the distance, signaling an emergency on the flight line.

Months earlier, between giving shots and helping with physical examinations, I had learned to drive the big blue hospital “deuce-and-a-quarter”, a truck-based military ambulance, so I ran outside to drive or ride if someone was already in the seat. But no one was there. I jumped in the driver’s seat, started the engine, flicked the military radio on, and pointed the vehicle toward the flight-line waiting for a doctor to appear. I wasn’t supposed to arrive on the tarmac without a doctor, but an airplane was in trouble and we had to have medical personnel there within a few minutes of the siren sounding.

 

After what seemed an eternity, Doc Cooper and our Senior Master Sergeant, Joe, burst through the infirmary door, bags and hats flying. They managed to jump in and I gunned the engine, dropped the clutch, and took off. Others were running to catch us but the only one that counted was Doc Cooper and they knew it. My feet danced on the pedals, power-shifting through the gears. With our siren screaming and red light flashing, base traffic dove for the side of the road.

 

 “What’s happening?” Doc yelled, hanging onto the window sill with both hands. The engine roared as we skidded onto the last road toward the hangars and apron tarmac.

 

“I hope it’s not one of our 84’s” I yelled back. They both knew I meant our 127th TAC reconnaissance RF84F Thunderstreak single-seat airplanes. The 127th had lost one a few years before and a pilot had perished. We certainly didn’t need another incident.

 

I slammed the shift lever back and forth and the pine trees flew past, but I managed to stay on the blacktop, finally roaring toward the base tower. There were two “Mantis” fire rigs already moving at a good clip on the taxi-way. These huge, self-contained, fire-suppression machines were small houses on wheels with elevated foam-dispensers on their fronts like over-sized, pincer-wielding praying mantises. Two more huge fire engines emerged with lights blazing from a nearby hangar. The radio was mostly static until we heard an order from Phelps Collin’s tower.

 

“Ambulance, proceed north 200 yards and pull alongside the first fire engine. Await further orders.”

 

We rolled to a stop beside the first fire rig adorned with sweating, black-clad fire fighters clinging to its sides. There was nothing to see or out of the ordinary; no black clouds, roaring flames, or mounds of airplane wreckage. We took a collective deep breath and worried about what was going to happen next. A fireman near us said there might be an emergency landing about to happen. Curious onlookers drifted out of the dining hall hundreds of yards away. An Operations Officer trotted over.

 

“All of our jets have returned for the day, including the C47 Gooney Bird. But there’s a Cessna 310 about ten minutes out that’s in trouble. Someone flying from Ann Arbor to Mackinaw Island says the nose landing gear light won’t indicate whether it’s up or down. We’re the closest airstrip with equipment to handle something like this, so he’s thinking of setting it down on the grass beside the concrete runway gear up. If he changes his mind and tries to land on the concrete, he’ll be a sliding fire-ball in no time. Stick around. If he doesn’t get it right, you’ll have to pick up what’s left.”

 

Joe worried for us. “You know, landing a prop airplane gear up on grass or concrete is a last resort for any pilot. He can’t eject, and it’s doubtful he has a parachute or could bail out anyway. The grass is bumpy on both sides of the runway. He’ll have to cut power on both engines in the last seconds before the belly hits the grass and hope the propellers stop level with the wings. If either one isn’t, it’ll catch on the ground and spin him into a flaming, 100-mile-an hour funeral pyre.”

 

We stared at a cloudless blue sky, the air-base siren dying away, only increasing the tension. Everyone craned skyward searching for a 310 Cessna. Doc Cooper suddenly sat upright, concerned. “Forget propellers. Assuming he’ll try gear up, if one of the three wheels only partially deploys, it’ll snag and the plane will cart-wheel the length of the runway. Did anyone say whether there are passengers? You know, I don’t think he can dump excessive fuel in flight.” He paused. “We may not be set up to handle this from a medical stand point.”

 

Everyone was wishing they were somewhere else and not in a catastrophe in the making. The moment the Cessna touched grass, gear up without power, it would be an out-of-control, 2-1/2 ton aluminum beer can, filled with high-octane aviation fuel. At that point, pilot and passengers would be in a thrill ride and in even greater trouble if a fuel line ripped off or a gas tank split because fire rigs need time to arrive at the scene.

 

A tiny dot appeared in the distance and an airplane came into view to begin circling the field a mile out. Base tower and pilot discussed alternatives until the sleek twin-engine Cessna suddenly altered its path, lining up with the main concrete runway. Joe squinted, commenting, “Look, he’s coming in low and slow for a trial pass, testing the wind and low air speed handling.”

 

The pilot flew the plane slowly, much closer to ground than normal, landing gear up, checking grass conditions and undulations on our side of the main runway. We were all quiet, fascinated by the inevitable. Doc Cooper fingered his medical kit. I wondered whether we would need tourniquets, compresses, and splints. But we didn’t have oxygen, back braces, or even body-bags. How would we handle internal bleeding, closed head-wounds, open arteries, much less horrible burns on site? Alpena’s hospital and Oscoda’s Wurtsmith Air Base were a long way off.

 

The Cessna circled a last time before lining up with the grass next to the concrete runway, main landing gear and nose gear retracted. So it would be grass. With minimum power, skimming grass-height at 100 mph, the pilot shut off both engines and the propellers stopped safely horizontally with the plane sinking to earth. Out of its element, the 310 was no longer a flying machine but an uncontrollable sliding machine ill-suited for its new job. Rudder and tail surfaces no longer effective, it slid past us into the distance in a haze of dust and grass.

 

Before it came to a graceful stop a quarter-mile away, I gunned the ambulance engine, following the fire rigs at a safe distance. Nothing seemed to have flown off the airplane or broken apart and no fire balls erupted from split fuel lines or tanks. In the distance, the tiny figure of a pilot opened the hatch, clambered out, and sat on the wing waiting for our emergency vehicles. There didn’t seem to be any passengers.

 

It all ended quickly. The praying mantises arrived and crouched, ready to unleash their enormous foam cannons at the first sign of fire, but nothing happened except the plane sat smoking and tinkling from cooling metal. Doc Cooper clambered out and performed a brief examination of the pilot, whose only injury seemed to be hurt feelings. The Cessna sat in the grass at the end of runway like a discarded child’s toy.

 

I needed a drink, but the Phelps Collins enlisted men’s bar didn’t open for hours.

 

 

Hiking Isle Royale

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 My father, brother, and I climbed Isle Royale’s 1,394-foot Mount Desor in June of 1959 in the process of hiking the island’s length. That first night, we were half-sleep in a three-sided lean-to with distant flashes of lightning reflecting off a dark, wind-rippled lake. A sudden storm was sweeping in and the loon calls were eerily sorrowful. An eight-foot moose waded offshore, almost invisible in deepening dusk. Quiet campfire flames had died to glowing embers as I drifted off thinking about the day. 

Earlier that afternoon, atop the island’s highest mountain, I could see Canada fifteen miles away in the distance across Lake Superior. We were exhausted and soaked to the skin, having hiked and climbed five hours through rain from Windigo Bay on the island’s western tip. I had never gazed across such a great distance. This was my first mountain hike into primitive wilderness on hallowed ground only Native Americans and fur-traders once traversed. There were no humans for miles. We had been told to avoid a pack of fifty wolves and several-hundred moose roaming about, but how one does this was never clear. 

My father was rummaging in a backpack, my brother and I crouching with aching limbs, out of breath, facing opposite directions. I had never heard Dave so deeply tired exclaim, “Hey, you won’t believe this, but there’s a coyote or fox, or maybe a wolf-pup, staring at us only twenty yards away. Take a look.” I was too worn out to turn around. Wolves had crossed from Canada on an ice sheet years earlier. We weren’t in a hurry to come upon wolves, or moose, armed with only jack knives. But a wolf pup might belong to a wolf pack. I finally turned around to see what it looked like, but it was gone. 

Unclipping a canteen of water purified with Halizone, I took a gulp, forgetting I had also added a fizzy grape-flavored Kool-Aid tablet to kill its taste. The result was something between grape juice and battery acid. I poured a bit into a cupped hand, discovering flakes of metal. Either the Kool-Aid tablet or the Halizone was corroding the inside of the metal canteen, but I needed water and didn’t care right then. 

After Boy Scout camping, hiking the length of Isle Royale was a real challenge. We planned to traverse its 55 mile length on the Greenstone Ridge Trail in five days, the same distance south to the Keweenaw Peninsula across Lake Superior. Two days before, we had departed Copper Harbor crossing the world’s third-largest fresh water lake that would later sink the ore-freighter Edmund Fitzgerald. But we were on a 40-foot under-powered launch unimaginatively named the Isle Royale. A five-hour rolling ride had us sea-sick long before the island’s eastern end at Rock Harbor. 

After setting up base camp and boarding a daily launch to the island’s west end, we headed up the trail planning to descend each night to a shelter at a remote lake. We left Windigo Bay with full canteens, but they were empty by mid-morning. Personal water-filtration systems had yet to be invented, so we planned to boil our water each night. By that first mid-morning, we gave up and simply filtered stream water through a handkerchief before adding more tablets of Halizone. Although Giardia Lambia intestinal parasites must have been in the water, they were unknown at the time. So, fortunately, none of us became ill. To carry less food and reduce pack weight, we planned to fish for dinner so our packs were heaviest before we began using canned food. Climbing Mount Desor with 65-pound loads on our backs didn’t begin well, plagued as we were by a fine drizzle and swarms of blood-sucking black flies. We hadn’t planned on a muddy trail and poor footing, trying to ascend a mountain before mid-day. We thought we had conditioned ourselves, weeks before, by carrying fifty pounds of boulders in backpacks around the neighborhood but, no, we were woefully out of shape. 

Two hours before Desor’s summit, still carrying our heaviest loads, my father came upon a moose antler on the ground, a perfect hiking memento. To our astonishment, he decided to carry the extra weight and hang it on his office wall. The black flies were driving us mad, circling just out of reach before alighting and drawing quick bites. Blood was running down our faces despite spraying ourselves with ineffectual Citronella bug spray. That was before we donned last-resort beekeeper’s hats and tried to protect our hands with gloves. 

Skidding on a slippery trail for hours in rain and growing darkness, a twisted ankle or broken leg would have been disastrous. We were days from help if we mishandled a knife or hatchet, much less burned ourselves in a campfire. We might apply a tourniquet or bind a cut before dragging someone out, but no one was coming to help. Cell phones hadn’t been invented and there was no way of sending messages. Boy Scout training never included Indian smoke signals, and there was no one around to read them anyway. The nearest a seaplane could land was Windigo Bay, weather permitting, and that wasn’t going to happen unless my father had a heart attack, in which case it would be too late. 

We were on our own now, in the first bug-infested three-sided lean-to by Lake Chicken Bone. It wasn’t all that inviting with a leaky roof and muddy dirt floor. Too dog-tired to care, we needed food and warmth, but had outsmarted ourselves with only a few cans of food to eat. We couldn’t fish for dinner because the shoreline was overhung with underbrush. By minimizing pack loads and bringing only canned food, we couldn’t start a fire anyway with wet firewood to cook nonexistent fish. Without a campfire, our father lit a tiny camp stove with heat pellets, and boiled life-restoring, dried-package chicken noodle soup. That was before everyone realized, all too quickly, soup made with Halizone-laced water leaves something to be desired. 

1930’s Civilian Conservation Corp’s boys hadn’t put much effort into Isle Royale’s three-sided lean-to construction. We spread our sleeping bags on dirt, thankful it wasn’t muddier. In the 30’s, there were only a few depression-era hikers to stay in such a jerry-built construction. Besides, there wouldn’t be anybody to complain to three decades later. Our father apportioned out our chicken-Halizone water soup and we were ready to slide into sleeping bags when a Tarantula-like spider appeared atop mine. It was hairy brown with shiny black eyes and totally unafraid. I was readying a knife attack when my father simply shooed it away. I immediately fell asleep despite knowing it might well climb inside sometime in the night. 

We awoke the following morning to more loons calling across the water and no sign of moose or hairy spiders. Scrambling into bright sunlight, we breakfasted on dry cereal and canned orange juice without bothering with a morning fire. Wanting to hit the trail for a long day ahead, we shouldered backpacks and left to ascend Mount Desor once more and gain the Greenstone Ridge. 

The path runs the length of the heavily-forested island and, from Desor’s summit, appears to be the spine of a long green animal basking in a cold blue expanse of Lake Superior.

We had been looking for semi-precious greenstones, found in only two places on the globe, Isle Royale and 180 degrees away on the globe in South Africa, but found, instead, a field of wild strawberries and feasted on them for lunch. 

Our day ended at a second lake-side lean-to and another fight with wolf spiders. This second batch were more determined to stay comfortably dry inside the lean-to, apparently thinking it belonged to them and not itinerant hikers. However, we weren’t putting up with any spider-nonsense and attacked them with sticks and knives while they scurried about. Too late to fish, we used more precious canned goods; Spam, peaches, and baked beans. 

At the end of the third day, more than 30 miles northeast of Windigo Bay, we finally caught three pickerel for dinner. Slipping them on a stringer to stay fresh, we lit a campfire to fry them. No sooner had we turned our backs than seagulls swooped down for their share. We chased them off with more sticks, before dining on a great dinner of fresh pickerel. That night, there was another moose wading offshore in purple twilight. Although we had been taking pains to hang our backpacks on overhead branches so they wouldn’t attract animals, my brother somehow left his atop a picnic table this time instead of overhead on a tree branch. When we were fast asleep, campfire long dead, a fox tore into his pack and ate everything foxes like. Dave’s candy bars must have attracted it but, with all of Dave’s food gone, the next few days meant a reduced diet for everyone. 

We finally finished the fifty-mile, five-day adventure trek to Rock Harbor, having learned how little we knew about wilderness hiking. Anything more challenging would need better planning.

 

 

 

Mount Adams

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Crouched in a blinding sleet storm on Mount Adam’s summit, I was alone and numb all over. Stranded in howling mist and 50 mph winds, it was early afternoon on what was supposed to have been a normal tranquil June day in 1989. Any thoughts of a view south 3,000 feet above the Great Gulf to Mount Washington four miles away were gone. I could barely make out a weather-battered wooden sign a few feet away in a greenish-black maelstrom. Huddled back to the storm on a tiny summit, there were only a few boulders for shelter. I was elated to have climbed to the top and worried that no one else was there. Did every other hiker in the White Mountains know something I didn’t? Was this a serious miscalculation? 

Worse, I had lost sight of a four-foot-high rock cairn a little below the summit. It was the only marker showing my way back down, since there was no trail of boot-prints in the rocks at this altitude. I needed to quell a growing sense of unease. If the rock cairn didn’t reappear soon, I was in deep trouble. Having climbed the White Mountains and the Appalachians many years, I was experienced and in good condition, but beginning to realize I might be in over my head. 

Already tired from climbing all morning, the storm was sapping my energy. Even though the wind was blowing ice pellets, I badly needed water, food, and rest to make it back down safely. A sandwich and almost-empty canteen of water was of little help. Yes, I had gained the top, but the rock cairn was the first of many I would have to find while crawling down a massive boulder field in blinding weather. Wandering around Mount Adam’s summit in this storm was inviting death from exposure or a serious fall off a precipice. 

Far below at the trail head, four hours before, the day had been promising with only clouds and spotty afternoon rain. Just an hour ago, I had decided to continue into the growing storm, to be able to say I had climbed Mount Adams rather than simply on it, a now seemingly small distinction. Caught up here, I was barely hanging on, trying to think clearly. How long should I wait for the rock cairn to reappear? I finished the soggy sandwich and took another gulp of water, my hands now too cold to hold the apple in my backpack. Prospects of finding shelter were bleak, but I couldn’t stay where I was. 

A sheltering line of weather-beaten, stunted junipers lay a thousand feet below past the exposed Knife Edge on the Durand Ridge over a mile away. The junipers were gnarled and twisted from a lifetime of constant wind and weather; the last living things at this altitude beside lichen moss. I looked around and couldn’t see any lichen growing on the summit, a sobering thought. I had no way to call or signal for help. Even finding the ridge below would be an iffy proposition if hypothermia set in. The nearest Appalachian Mountain Club shelter was far below and east in a mountain Col of Mount Madison, and there would be little chance of finding it. Without Madison Hut as an alternative, I was left descending in a blinding storm along the Knife Edge. 

With winds increasing, it was difficult seeing anything through my rain-fogged eyeglasses, so I couldn’t make out a compass reading even if I wanted. There was a distinct possibility of never finding my way down, instead laying down in exhaustion to die somewhere under a boulder. Thinking was fuzzier by the minute, disoriented as I was by Adam’s deceiving wind gusts, but an outline of a rock pile appeared a moment in the swirling mist. I scrambled toward it before it disappeared. The next quarter-mile descent would involve crossing a field of slippery boulders, trying to locate more cairns in growing black sleet. Never having been in a mountain storm before, I hadn’t realized rock cairns are silhouetted against lighter sky while climbing but otherwise disappear into a bare stormy mountainside. 

How had I gotten myself into this and would I learn anything if I survived? My wife, Joan, found a Tee-shirt on a Maine vacation that said, “Hiking is Life! The Rest is Just Detail.” I was wearing the now-soaked shirt, but a detail like not risking my life had been forgotten. I was soaked from head to foot despite two supposedly waterproof wind-breakers, one over the other. Special hiking socks were squishy-wet, no longer insulating or protecting against abrasion. Waterproof hiking boots were soggy and chafing; special hiking trousers and underclothes sodden.  

After what seemed like an hour of carefully feeling my way down through the  summit’s boulder field, often losing sight of trail marker rock cairns, I finally found a path below approaching the Knife Edge. The welcoming field of stunted junipers finally appeared, meaning a little more shelter from the driving rain and slashing wind. I crouched out of the maelstrom to take stock, no longer lost but wet, shivering, and beginning to have difficulty walking. 

I still had another three miles and a few thousand feet to descend, almost three hours to the trail head. There was no way to avoid losing my footing on occasion in the rain-swollen stream-bed that had been the rocky Airline trail that morning. Each step became slower, legs and feet afire; a beating they would feel for days. It took more than what I thought would be three hours, and I was dizzy, almost delirious, by the time I reached the trail head parking lot in late afternoon’s drizzling rain. 

I sagged against the car, glancing up a last time. Mount Adam’s summit was now shrouded in a frightening storm, no longer visible. I began unzipping soaked clothes with fumbling fingers before setting the car’s heater to maximum, luxuriating in its warmth. 

The adventure had been both rewarding and dangerous. But, where had I gone over the line; that it was too hazardous to continue? Perhaps it was time to stop solo-climbing, because it wasn’t clear when I should have turned back. I still don’t know how other climbers balance the risk and reward of summiting mountains, but many have died working it out. The question is, will I turn back next time?

A Pratt & Whitney Engine

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Our Michigan Air National Guard 127th Tactical Air Command Reconnaissance Group stood in ranks at Detroit Metropolitan Airport’s tarmac. Two Douglas C-124 Globemaster transports loomed above us. It was early morning and we were to fly to Gulfport, Mississippi for two weeks active duty. The Alabama Air National Guard’s airplanes had flown in the day before. Each of us carried a duffel bag over a shoulder, while huge, clam-shell doors on the front of each plane gaped open with ramps leading into cavernous interiors. None of us had been inside anything this huge. Wafts of stale oil and aircraft fuel swirled about. 

What appeared to be a twelve-year-old pilot strutted about inspecting the airplane, while a co-pilot, who must have had a rough night, made notes on a tightly-clutched clipboard. What they expected to find that trained expert mechanics hadn’t already taken care of was beyond us. Senior Master Sergeant called us to attention as the pilot approached. The latter turned to us, squeaking, “Ya’ll doan smoke on ma plane,” he announced, “‘cause this one leaks awl a little. Ok, Ya’ll get aboard now.” I supposed the “awl” currently leaking was engine oil and not aviation fuel that shimmied in little pools on the tarmac. 

We began shuffling single-file up steel-grate ramps designed for military trucks, eyes adjusting to a dim interior lit by naked light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Two levels of wall-mounted multi-tiered seats were arranged like the inside of an ancient Roman slave-galley. Roman galleys had wooden oars. This one came with U.S. Air Force webbed belts, neither conducive to peace of mind. Instead of friendly attendants’ greetings, we were handed vomit bags and told to hurry up, find canvas slings, and strap in on canvas-webbed seats lining the walls. 

The ride had to be somewhat safe, didn’t it? After all, the government couldn’t afford to lose a couple hundred troops every day shuffling around the country in these things. Our Senior Master Sergeant had told us a previous reconnoitering flight to Gulfport had lowered its landing gear too early, almost splashing into the Gulf of Mexico. So, only hours before, I purchased a fortune’s-worth of optional flight insurance before reporting to the flight line. My parents would be millionaires beyond their wildest dreams if this leaky, overweight behemoth went down somewhere. 

One by one, all four engines coughed and fired, finally settling into a steady, ungodly loud roar. We couldn’t see out except for tiny portholes every few yards. Our plane was packed with khaki-clad airmen, and a few took their vomit bags out as we lurched and banged our way along the tarmac, both pilots apparently unfamiliar with Detroit’s airport and which runway to use. If we continued much longer, we could be over the state line and into Ohio with only 970 miles to go. 

Finally positioned for take-off, we sat for ages while the Alabama pilot apparently re-learned where the controls were. Everything seemed to check out and the turbo-props began howling. As tension grew, the brakes were released and we rumbled down 22L for much longer than necessary before finally lifting off. Unlike most airplanes once airborne and attaining cruising altitude, takeoff noise didn’t lessen, and we began laboring southwest over Michigan while more vomit bags were brought out. The C-124 yawed side to side in sickening arcs as if over-correcting neophytes were controlling the thing with rubber bands. Somebody forgot to set the temperature or open air vents and it became unbearably hot. We hadn’t been on course more than a few minutes before people were throwing up morning breakfasts. The smell was overpowering and dribbles from seats above slid down aluminum bulkheads. I closed my eyes, breathing through my mouth, thinking of other things. 

The rear of our cavernous cargo-hold held a single, exposed toilet. Several men struggling to avoid vomiting stood around waiting to use it. We hit a rough patch of air and the uncovered contents cascaded over those waiting, a scene straight out of Dante. My forehead was hot, not unexpected in these circumstances. “Motion-sickness is all in the mind” I told myself. “It’s all a mental game. Don’t throw up like others.” A guy to my right suddenly pulled out his bag and vomited, a final straw.  I could feel I was about to lose it and hastily retrieved my own bag. 

All of a sudden, there was a tremendous bang outside followed by louder engine roaring. “Hey guys,” someone near a porthole shouted, “The left engine blew up! The prop is frozen. We’re going down!” he added, unnecessarily. An inboard port engine, one of the four Pratt and Whitney R4360 3,800 horsepower turbo-fans, had seized without warning. The plane began drifting to the left as two right engines pulled 30 tons of fully-laden aircraft sideways. No one had time to think about the pilot reacting; we were momentarily out of control, my parents now multi-millionaires. A quick glance out the nearest porthole revealed the engine streaming a thin line of smoke, propeller frozen in place, blades flat against the wind causing a tremendous amount of drag, a combination most twelve-year-olds don’t train for. 

For agonizing seconds, there was no change in engine note from the other turbo-props but, if another ceased functioning, there was nothing to prevent spiraling to our deaths at cruising power. Not a happy thought at the moment. At 12,000 feet, we had about 120 seconds to say our prayers. Both pilots fought the controls, increasing power to the remaining port engine, throttling back the starboard engines, adjusting trim tabs, stabilizer, and rudder, frantically changing remaining propellers. Old Shaky shook all the more as the pilots kicked the tail rudder hard right, offsetting a left yaw. At least, this is what they should have been doing. What did we know? We weren’t pilots; they were. 

The C-124 seemed to stabilize, before sinking ever so slowly toward the flowering spring-time Michigan countryside, thankfully under control. At least we weren’t upside down in a screaming death-dive. Everything had happened in less time than it takes to read about. I no longer had the slightest inclination to vomit because, apparently, it’s a human condition that people about to die have no time for throwing up. My inner self-concluded I was going to fall 12,000 feet straight down in a ball of fire inside 30 tons of airplane with 150 others, so why bother. I stared at a now useless vomit bag and rolled it up. 

Word finally passed that we would make an emergency landing at the Indianapolis Airport. We began descending and eventually slid to a smooth stop before the clam-shell doors were thrown open, allowing everyone to climb out as fast as possible. Fortunately, there were no further histrionics from the C-124 but, sitting a hundred yards away on the runway grass, I no longer worried, because our transport was clearly done for the day. Perhaps it would still self-immolate, but at least we wouldn’t be on it to suffer the consequences. 

I felt sorry for the twelve-year-old staring up at his blown engine, a dozen emergency fire trucks ranged around the smoking hulk. He had done a good job getting us down in one piece. After several hours, we boarded another C-124, this time from the Tennessee Air Guard. I never understood whether my flight insurance policy applied to the second C-124 flight or not, but I didn’t want to find out.

MRI Exam

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My MRI technician seemed competent enough and left the room as I slowly unbuttoned shirt and trousers. I wanted to be the first person in the morning while everyone in the MRI facility was still fresh. I arrived before an 8:00 am appointment, spending ten minutes glancing through a waiting room pamphlet entitled “Magnetic Resonance Imaging – An Inside Look.” It was supposed to inform and calm the fears of MRI first-timers during check-in, but had someone actually included an idiotic pun as part of its title? An “inside look” indeed. The booklet was helpfully illustrated in a cartoon-style for morons. 

The first page asked “What is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)?” before answering itself, “It’s a way to look inside the body without using X-rays.” I hoped the rest would prove more enlightening. Further explanation wasn’t all that reassuring, to wit, “Your body is composed of tiny particles called atoms. Under normal conditions, the protons inside these atoms spin randomly.” 

I paused a moment. Was this why I occasionally feel disoriented listening to local newscasts? And what happened to all the molecules I learned about in high school? I continued reading. “A magnet creates a magnetic field which causes the protons to line up together and spin in the same direction, like an army of tiny tops,” the prose intoned. 

Who in heck wrote this? Five-year-olds are mesmerized by armies of tiny tops all spinning in the same direction, but I wasn’t captivated quite yet. Magnets don’t normally generate anything other than magnetic fields. Was I, in my seventh decade of life, anticipating my protons lining up together like tiny tops? I assumed my protons have figured out how best to align themselves without outside assistance after all these years. 

The pamphlet continued, “A radio frequency (RF) signal is beamed into the magnetic field, making the protons move out of alignment – similar to what happens to a spinning top when someone hits it.” I suddenly remembered a childhood wooden top bouncing off my grandmother’s kitchen walls accompanied by shrieks of alarm. Would my body’s protons begin bouncing off walls when they were moved out of alignment by a radio frequency signal? I read on, more disconcerted. 

“When the signal stops, the protons move back to the aligned position and release energy. A receiver coil measures the energy released by the disturbed protons and the time it takes, and a computer constructs an image on a TV screen.” I pondered the words, “the protons move back to the aligned position.” Why did the writer use the singular word “position” instead of plural “positions?”  Would all my spinning protons gather into a single golf-ball-size cluster-position instead of their previously normal happy positions? Where would this new golf-ball-size cluster reside? How would I greet my wife later in the day? “Hi, Honey, I won’t be eating dinner tonight because I feel really heavy on one side. All my protons have moved back to one aligned position.” 

Besides, how much energy is released during a typical “proton alignment” process? Would I become a walking grenade? How “disturbed” were all of my protons going to be after realignment? Would I feel a little buzzed while they were quieting themselves, like a Friday night martini? How do they know to resume their original positions? Would I have the same outward appearance or look like an alien in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers?” I guessed I shouldn’t bother asking the MRI technician. 

But what was I to make of the next section called, “Understanding the Risks and Benefits?” Why was it necessary to bring up the subject of risk at all? “At the scanning site, due to the strength of the magnetic field, you must remove all metallic objects before scanning. For example, jewelry, glasses, zippered clothing, nonpermanent dentures and credit cards must be removed.” What happened to people who don’t have “nonpermanent dentures” but permanent dentures? Would their permanent dentures turn into six-inch balls of exploding debris? 

I took the pamphlet into the changing room and snuck a last glance at it, discovering a perturbing statement, “In general, an MRI scan cannot be done if a person’s body contains a metal object that contains iron – the object may be moved out of place by the magnetic force.” Yes, I could foresee a problem with long-forgotten surgical staples suddenly exploding like shrapnel from internal recesses, flying through the air and sticking to huge surrounding magnets. I left the changing room to discover a second business-like technician, clipboard in hand. 

“I know you’ve been asked this already,” she said, “but do you wear a pacemaker, or have defibrillator wires, surgical implants, plates, screws, or prostheses in your body? Have you ever had surgery, a gun-shot wound, or imbedded metal in you that you’re aware of?” She inspected me closely as if I were hiding something under my flimsy hospital gown. “Come with me,” she commanded, leading me into the next room with a ceiling-high, ten-ton, evil-looking machine with a hole in its side into which I would soon be inserted, but could hardly accommodate my shoulders. 

Handing me a pair of ear plugs, she said, “Take your shoes off and lie down. There’s a lot of noise when the machine operates so put these in.” I had been wondering if I should insert the plugs into other orifices than ears. “After you’re settled in, you cannot move until the scan is complete. Here’s a panic button to push in case you need it or something goes wrong. This should only take 25 minutes. Don’t worry.” She seemed unconcerned that “something might go wrong.” How was I supposed to know how something was “going wrong?” If “something went wrong”, I might be slightly too dead to push a panic button. 

BZZZZZ … the noise was incredibly loud and went on for more than a half-hour. Suddenly there was silence, followed by bangs and clanks, and I felt myself sliding into light. Maybe this is what being born was like. 

I donned my clothes and returned to the waiting room to read the last page of the pamphlet while the receptionist finished paperwork. There was a final comment I had missed, “Though the use of magnetic fields is not thought to be harmful, short and long-term side effects are unknown.”  

Whoa! I didn’t especially mind long-term side effects, years in the future, like after I’m buried would be good, but what sort of assurance was a statement “short-term side effects are unknown?” Did this mean I might, through no fault of my own, begin dropping favorite activities like reading, writing, alcohol, and long walks in the fall, not necessarily in that order? 

Walking back to the car, thankful it was over, I was dismayed to find I still couldn’t predict where the Dow Jones Stock Index was headed the next day.