-climbing high into the sun-

I climbed aboard the cramped, Cessna 150 fearing for my life, and cursing

my inability to tell the pilot: “I ain’t gettin into that death trap”.

the pilot was a flight instructor assigned to the Fall River Municipal Airport

and the knowledge of that didn’t factor into my hesitance.

so we went up, circling the one-strip airport in the extreme north-end

of town, but when he realized my fear he…purposely shut the engine down

laughing, while telling me how safe we were. "see? It's like a kite"!

after a moment, he cranked-up the engine and the prop began to sputter and spin.

in a few minutes he decided to demonstrate a “touch and go” maneuver,

after which we circled and touched down on active runway 22R.

less than a week later, this pilot crashed that same Cessna 150 into the woodland

of sleepy Freetown where he was pronounced quite dead, and the Cessna was toast,

but–– I was alive, nestled in the extreme southend of town a quarter mile

from the Rhode Island state line where "cherry-bomb" fireworks were legal, and

could be purchased without safety concerns by maniacal "cherry-bomb" enthusiasts.

In other words: "got nowhere to run to, got nowhere hide".

see: Martha and the Vandellas for quote verification.