Loud Planes

The planes are really loud here. One might think that with jet engines roaring mere meters from where I live that I’d have trouble sleeping. That’s not the case. Having grown up five to ten minutes drive from Godman Airfield at Fort Knox, Kentucky, I became used to the loud, fiery afterburners of F4 Phantoms doing periodic touch-and-goes there throughout my adolescence. I was more than used to them really. I loved watching them dart across the sky wagging their wings at me, arrogantly showing off their agility.

The F4s were something exotic. They spurred daydreams of a life I’d live somewhere else--ANYWHERE else. I was a kid with pent-up energy, angst, and the confidence that I was pretty much smarter than, well, just about everybody. I wanted to feed all my captured adrenaline to adventures in faraway places. That meant getting away from my nagging parents and getting out of my small hometown. I wanted to do what I wanted to do and not what I was supposed to do.

Those F4s represented something. They were big, loud, and daring. They beckoned me to go be somebody, do something interesting with my life. I was going to date beautiful, interesting women who looked like the good looking cheerleader chick from “Goonies” and “Lucas”. I’d bring them back to my loft apartment with the exposed brick walls. A Soloflex would sit in the corner and maybe a bike or two would hang from the ceiling. We’d hang out on the fire escape or maybe the roof where I’d play my guitar…or maybe saxophone (80's fantasies are nothing without a saxophone). I’d do all this after getting home from my job as a photographer, an astronaut, or a Wall Street bigwig. But all that daydreaming happened back when I was young and more than a little stupid.

Now, I hear those loud planes taking off and it just makes me miss my youth; so much so that I wouldn’t mind a little angry Korean woman smacking my mouth when I curse. I wouldn’t roll my eyes when my dad explained why getting good grades is important. Back when my future was a blank canvas and my only care was painting all over it.