Recently there was enthusiastic talk about the recent Army and Navy game, and I confessed that I am not much of a team sports person. I was seriously discouraged from team sports in my teens, when a hockey stick hit me across the eyebrow and chipped off a bit of bone (no doubt that blow to the head explains a lot!) But basically, I am a klutz. Couple of weeks ago I found a new word for it – I have dyspraxia.

Back to my story title. Why I decided to learn to fly was because many years ago, I became Chief Planner, for the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission. In case you’re wondering, every state set up these commissions when aviation started to be popularized in the 1900s by the barnstormers. Eventually the big airports such as Sea-Tac and Logan broke away and are managed by elected port or airport districts. Meanwhile the aeronautics commissions, now often folded into a state department of transportation, take care of the smaller, general aviation airports.

Well, so here I was with the Chief Engineer and the Chief Pilot, listening to them have ding-dong argument in a staff meeting about “ponding”. What the heck is ponding? I quickly learned that it means a dip at the mid-point of a runway, where a small pond can gather after rain. “The Chatham airport has ponding; I skidded on ice there last time I landed”, said the Chief Pilot. “There’s no ponding; I measured it myself,” said the Chief Engineer, who’d sworn never to become a pilot himself. “Hmm,” I thought, “There’s some things you just can’t learn from the ground.” So, I started flying lessons.

I aced the ground school, and had about four actual lessons in the air. Now my instructor’s telling me that next time, I should solo. Oops. I just couldn’t see this. What I could see, was me plowing the nose of the Cessna into the tarmac. Although I didn’t know the word at the time, I knew my dyspraxia could kill me. Airplane controls are sort of reversed from an automobile’s, as all you pilots know, and unless I were to fly every day, I don’t think the right muscle memory would have kicked in for me.

Examples began to come to mind supporting my decision not to solo; well spread out over the years…. In my first basketball lesson, I caught the ball on a fingertip and dislocated it backwards. As a young adult I went backpacking in Maine with my new husband. It was a muddy trail with lots of tree roots, twigs across the path, and bugs. After a week, he was completely unscathed, and I was head to toe bruises, scratches and bites. We’d been on the same trail for the same length of time, and he had even held the twigs aside for me as I passed (as an attentive new husband should!); the only real difference was his hairy legs gave him an early warning system for the mosquitoes. I still have no idea how I accomplished all those injuries.

I’d already proven my dyspraxic nature when I foolishly went cross-country skiing in New England. I fell on my butt about every 30 seconds, and at least eight of those falls were on the same wretched patch of ice. Result? I broke my coccyx (tailbone) and for the rest of that winter I carried around a doughnut cushion. It still hurts sometimes to sit, or to fly too long on an airline.

I didn’t give up the great outdoors; I broke my left leg in three places by falling off a bike when the tire caught between the asphalt trail and the sand at the side. Later, I broke the other ankle out hiking. I broke my big toe by falling through about a foot of crusty but melting snow and hitting the pavement, in a parking lot! After that I stayed indoors for a while; then I broke another toe by walking past a bookcase in my bedroom. One toe went caught on its corner while the rest of me kept walking in some other direction.

One day before work, I was rushing with a full basket of nicely folded laundry around the island in my kitchen. I couldn’t see, of course. Too bad that the dishwasher, which was part of the island, had its door open. Laundry and I went splat, and the edges of the door cut both my legs.

I must have a thing for sharp doors, because recently the new sweep under my door completely took off one of my toenails. Don’t ask me what I did this time, and don’t do what I did!

What takes the cake though, in my dyspraxic life, is the time I hurt myself with a shampoo bottle. It was the kind with the lid that swivels up and down, and had gotten gummed up. So, I’m in the shower, holding the bottle with one hand and peering at it closely. A bit too closely, and a bit too tightly held! It shot upwards and bingo! An incredible and embarrassing black eye. And I managed to make it look worse by going swimming next day. My goggles pressed on the damage and made it spread to more of my face. Yikes!

So, I conclude -- I’m kinesthetically impaired; I’m dyspraxic; I’m a klutz! So, I’m still not a pilot. There’s a saying “There are old pilots, bold pilots but no old, bold pilots”. Well, I’m old and I’m bold, and I’ll never be a pilot!