New York City, New York,
November 06, 2014
According to the monitor on the back of the seat in front of me, here in Seat 31c of your Boeing 757, here on United flight 758 San Francisco to New York JFK, I am now 39009 feet above Marshall, the small Michigan town in which, as a boy I used to watch jets fly overhead and wonder.
We’re hauling ass at 586 mph, aided by a tail wind of 88mph. It’s cold outside, -68F. (just like Michigan. . . ) The flight attendant’s voice is receding down the aisle, growing fainter and fainter, repeating “Trash, cups, cans and glasses.. . Trash, cups, cans and glasses. . .trash, cups, cans and glasses.”
My monitor tells me our Mach speed is 0.78 and I am reminded of those occasions as a boy, in that town now 39005 feet below….we must have dropped 4’…when the whole earth would shake with the sound of a sonic boom. My kids have never heard a sonic boom. It was at the time an aeronautic wonder for an eight year old boy . . the stuff of astronauts, test pilots and X15 rocket ships.
According to this screen, we are scheduled to arrive in New York at 3:16 p.m., 23 minutes ahead of schedule. So like time, I guess. We hope time might slow down so we not arrive at our destination sooner than planned or expected , but we pine for the heady days of sonic booms.
Must be the tailwind.
"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost" 