CHAPTER 10
“Terry and the Pirates”
Patong Beach, Island of Phuket, Thailand
Wednesday, 8th July 1992
So I finally bit the bullet, and after five years with Singapore Airlines, I bailed out. Dragging my weary aviator’s butt around the globe, in a perpetual state of jet lag, had at last caught up with me. Whenever I woke up, I had to ask myself: What country is this? What city? What hotel? Where’s the fucking toilet?
Honestly, dear reader, it had
gotten that bad.
As
for my general health, particularly my immune system, I was totally run-down; every
other month I was coming down with the flu.
Because of drastically changing time zones so often, my poor body
hadn’t a clue as to when I should eat or sleep; long-haul flying was
devastating my health. Since I was in
the right age bracket, I was a walking, flying zombie, looking for a heart attack
or stroke, and this went on for five years!
Therefore I cashed in my chips, packed up and shipped back to
Phuket. Discovering things had changed.
Most of the jungle along the Patong Beach front had been chopped down
making way for lots of new hotels and other businesses, and nearly all of the
previous dirt tracks had been paved. Resembling
Dodge City or Tombstone, the boomtown of Patong Beach was growing up by leaps
and bounds (including Old West brawls and gunfights).
Eating fresh vegetables and fruit, eliminating the booze, keeping
regular hours in one time zone, plus jogging and swimming; my health quickly
returned. I never felt better or
stronger. I was back in “paradise,”
baby!
Approaching my fiftieth birthday in October, I was forced to recognize I
had been dropped into the “old fart” category and had only ten more years of
airline flying left. Mandatory
retirement in the airline industry at this period being sixty; required a
decision regarding the decade of flying time I had left.
When I was a kid about to enter my teens, my favorite Sunday-funnies
comic strip was “Terry and the Pirates.”
As you shall see, dear reader, be
careful what you allow your kids to read.
God forbid, they may turn out like me.
It was a comic strip that ran from 22nd October 1934 to 25th February
1973; started by Milton Caniff and later taken over by George Wunder in
1946. When I began enjoying it in the early
to late 1950’s, the storyline had evolved into the adventures of a pair of
wartime-retread pilots (Terry Lee and Hotshot Charlie) who elected to remain in
Southeast Asia and fly passengers and cargo in a war surplus DC-3. Cathay Air was their fly-by-night employer,
operated by the cunning-Asian “Chopstick Joe.”
Between my parents’ exotic tales of Burma and India, plus my mom cooking
up Indian and Burmese curry dishes, while following the incredible exploits of
“Terry and the Pirates,” my young heart didn’t stand a chance. I was thoroughly hooked; I knew if ever the
opportunity dropped in my lap to free-wheel in an aircraft throughout Southeast
Asia, I’d jump in with both feet!
And so, dear reader, we now embark
on that period of my jaded flying career, which I have labeled the “Terry and
the Pirates” phase.
So what the hell, dear reader, why
not follow the example of my new President and perform a “Slick Willy.” I’ll merely slip quietly into Vietnam and see
if anyone in the U.S. Government even notices.
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