According to the Society For Technical Communication, technical writing is defined as ‘…the discipline of transforming complex information into usable content for products, processes and service.’

I remember when that definition was accurate. Those were the days when transforming meant something different than it does today. Back when media was a tool and not the message.

My first tech writing job was working for a savings and loan. It was 1977 and I got the job because my prospective employer liked an article of mine that had been published in a local literary journal. The article had nothing to do with banking or technical writing for that matter, but it was a published article with passing grammar and sentence construction and positive reviews by a few obscure specialists in the article’s field.

I knew nothing about the savings and loan business, but in my boss’ mind I could write, and that’s what mattered. Her logic was that good writing was the hard part, understanding savings and loans came second. She had a point, but its days were numbered.

I didn’t know it at the time, but 1978 marked the beginning of the end of transformative technical writing. The glory days of Haynes and Chilton auto shop books, intricate electrical diagramming by Radio Shack and IBM, and typewriter and stereo equipment repair manuals ended when the process of transforming information changed to hiding information.

The end began in Japan and Germany while I was tech writing for a hydraulic machine tool manufacturing company. The company made hydraulic presses and shears the size of a house, and sold them to international markets. They were arguably the biggest and the best in the business. ‘Spare no expense’ was a popular catch phrase when it came to product development, marketing and sales. The engineers were patient and honest with me and we worked together to explain every maintenance step, illustrate every part and identify every hazard. I was in tech pubs heaven. So what if the engineers used slide rules and I typed on an IBM Selectric typewriter. The electrical schematics might have been drawn by hand, along with the assembly drawings, but they were beautiful. Clueless to its significance at the time, I fiddled with a digital, hand-held calculator a friend gave me as a curiosity from Japan. The calculator’s manufacturer had a funny name. Casio.

Japan and Germany popped our comfortable analog bubble with computer aided design and automated manufacturing technology. Within two years they captured the hydraulic machine tool market with cheaper, more efficient products, sending me out on the street and my company to an unexpected grave. It was 1980 and all of us held our pink slips with dazed looks on our faces, wondering what the hell just happened.

Five years and a steep learning curve later, I resumed my tech writing career with another manufacturing company, this one made integrated circuit manufacturing equipment. Tech writing is tech writing, I told myself. So what if they used word processors instead of IBM Selectrics? What difference did it make if product design was done using a software platform called computer numeric control? I knew all about computers. I had a word processor at home. “Bring it on,” I said.

What I didn’t know when I took my seat in a sterile room full of technical writers was the engineers were no longer just down the hall, they didn’t know my name and they had no interest in documentation. Many of them barely knew enough English to qualify for a green card.

Innumerable corporate training classes repeated the mantra that computer-assisted anything was a vast improvement over what came before. The opportunities for increased output and efficiency were endless and management expected employee performance to increase proportionally. Timelines for product design, implementation and delivery squeezed tighter.

Technical publications may have advanced to word processors, but the end product was the same, ponderous books that took vast amounts of time to be printed, managed and maintained in warehouses. Production schedules for documentation were expected to stay in line with the new, product development schedules even though product engineering and documentation followed very different paths.

Engineers had the very latest productivity tools at their fingertips, but nobody had time. Everyone was supposed to share their work, but nobody shared their passwords.

Electronic schematics, essential for troubleshooting, where phased out of common-source databases so that nobody, except engineering, held the key to accessing their research. Then, in the name of efficiency, engineering implemented a new design process, ‘modules.’ Interchangeable modular components that were quick to design, quick to implement and quick to modify. Suddenly, all a machine’s parts became moving targets. Changes to a machine’s design were instantly dropped into the hands of manufacturing. Forward Thinking! we were told. Increased Customer Satisfaction! became the buzzword.

The ECO (engineering change order) program is a slow-moving, administrative function whereby all changes to a machine, no matter how small, are incorporated into a high-level plan that requires a formal review, an implementation schedule and sufficient notice to everyone affected by the change. In the name of customer satisfaction, modular engineering side-stepped the ECO, leaving everyone outside the engineering department in the dark.

The ECO program was essential for documentation. We needed the time it took to implement an engineering change to research and update the ponderous technical manuals. With allowable production time now set at near zero, the manuals sitting in warehouses became an anachronism and the customers, both internal and external, that depended on the manuals cried foul and blamed me.

I decided if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em and developed an HTML-based documentation process that resided within a machine’s software. Since there wasn’t any time to update whole books, we’d keep up with modular-based engineering by focusing on the module alone; a paragraph here, a drawing there, maybe a new chapter. The virtual documents would update in a matter of days instead of months. It wouldn’t be pretty at first, but the process had the potential to grow an interactive function whereby the machine’s software would bring up the appropriate maintenance or repair procedures on the operator’s control monitor. Failed parts would show up on a map, blinking red, or whatever. Sidebar documentation would identify the part, explain how to replace it and provide ordering information.

Virtual documents also solved the cleanroom issue.* Pollutants of 0.3 microns or larger, such as dust, airborne microbes and aerosol particles, adversely affects the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing process. To protect the IC manufacturing environment, elaborate precautions are taken to ensure low pollutant levels, including, to name just a few, air intake filters, air-showers, gowning and training. Taking fibrous paper products, splashed with ink, into a cleanroom would be a serious breach of cleanroom protocol. Also, speaking from personal experience, consulting a paper manual while gowned is beyond impracticable, involving exiting the cleanroom, removing one’s gown, reading the manual and jotting notes on a cleanroom-certified tablet, re-gowning and showering before returning to the cleanroom. An alternative was essential. The answer was to get out of the Gutenberg mindset and eliminate paper entirely.

What could be better?

Turned out, a lot.

Besides customers, training was the biggest user of technical manuals and their biggest critic. The manuals were their textbooks, their lesson plans and the basis for their curriculum. Many thousands of dollars and man-hours went into developing their training classes and nobody was going to scrap it all and build a new curriculum that dovetailed with some hair-brained tech docs process. Trainers were engineers. Technical writers were glorified secretaries. Training didn’t deploy cleanrooms in their labs, and considered cleanroom protocol a customer issue. When I explained my project to recalcitrant training administrators, they responded; “Just do the manuals right!” I walked away disappointed but undeterred. “Don’t say I didn’t tell you so,” I said.

But my process also meant cutting corners. To keep within the production time restraints, down-slope research, such as adherence to OSHA and ISO guidelines, safety contingencies and compliance with local, state and federal regulations of all sorts, got short shrift. In the name of efficiency, I compromised professional standards and put the customer in harm’s way. I was no longer transforming information.

I had my back against the wall. Either continue publishing paper books and sink into semiconductor oblivion or convert to a digital process, thereby compromising industry standards and alienating training.

So I resorted to a typical management rationale. While presenting my plan to a committee of disinterested administrators, I argued that industry standards and training issues would be cleaned up in future revisions. They stared at their laptops while I made noises in front of PowerPoint slides and Excel spreadsheets. My strategy depended on upper management’s indifference to both training and documentation. In their minds, we were insignificant blips on the company’s balance sheet. An obligatory cost of doing business, nothing more.

As I expected, after the usual platitudes, nobody said no, so I hired a C+ programmer and we went to work transforming complex information into bits and bites that moved fast, but hid the truth.

I succeeded in launching a documentation website and a suite of lean, module-based informational packets that took the place of manuals. The company’s forward thinking customers gave me satisfied reviews and engineering even bought in to installing the info packets in the machines’ operating program. I called the project a success.

Training, meanwhile, howled in protest. They claimed they were blind-sided and, while their out-dated lesson plans and textbooks became useless, they demanded my digital boondoggle be suspended.

A year of hostility and stonewalling later, Training convinced my manager to hire an outside consultant for me to groom as my replacement.

I was relieved. With the ghost of transformative manuals skulking over my shoulder, and the specter of legal action for missing and misleading information staring me in the face, it was high time I bid adieu to my tech writing career. I left at the apex of a booming economy, when a middle manager could still leave Silicon Valley with some money in his/her pocket. The lean recession years started the next day.

* * *
*Unique to the semiconductor manufacturing and similar industries. Not associated with ‘cleanroom design,’ defined as the process of copying a design by reverse-engineering and recreating it as a new product without infringing on any of the copyrights associated with the original product.

INSTRUCTIONS: Read each question carefully. Answer all questions. Time limit: 4 hours. Begin immediately.

HISTORY: Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious and philosophical impact on Europe, Asia, America and Africa. Be brief, concise and specific.

MEDICINE: You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have fifteen minutes.

PUBLIC SPEAKING: 2500 riot-crazed aborigines are storming the classroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.

BIOLOGY: Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 500 million years earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. Prove your thesis.

MUSIC: Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat.

PSYCHOLOGY: Based on your knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment and repressed frustrations of each of the following: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Rameses II, Gregory of Nicia and Hammurabi. Support your evaluation with quotations from each man’s work, making appropriate references. It is not necessary to translate.

SOCIOLOGY: Estimate the sociological problems which might accompany the end of the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory.

ENGINEERING: The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed on your desk. You will also find an instruction manual, printed in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel appropriate. Be prepared to justify your decision.

ECONOMICS: Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan in the following areas: cubism, the Donatist controversy and the wave theory of light. Outline a method for preventing these effects. Criticize this method from all possible points of view. Point out the deficiencies in your plan, as demonstrated in your answer to the last question.

POLITICAL SCIENCE: There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Report at length on its social-political effects if any.

EPISTEMOLOGY: Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of your stand.

PHYSICS: Explain the nature of matter. Include in your answer an evaluation of the impact of the development of mathematics on science.

PHILOSOPHY: Sketch the development of human thought, estimate its significance. Compare with the development of any other kind of thought.

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.

At this moment all we know is all we have. And in the next moment we know a little more.

  *   *   *

Ducks fly upstream in the morning and downstream in the evening

…from The Secret Life of Ducks, Quacken Press

*   *   *

Believing in yourself doesn’t guarantee you anything, but it promises you happiness.

*   *   *

The Six Stages of a Project

1. Wild Enthusiasm
2. Total Confusion
3. Disillusionment
4. Search for the Guilty
5. Punishment of the Innocent
6. Promotion of the Non-Participants

*   *   *

• Bad News Is Good News
• Good News Is No News
• No News Is Bad News

… corporate customer service incentive slogan, 1992

*   *   *

Don’t let perfection get in the way of good writing

*   *   *

Poetry is the naked truth

Fiction wears socks

…with permission from author/poet/artist Nicky R.

“Take the control, will ya?” Bert’s command resonated over the sound of twin engines when his Cessna 310 reached five thousand feet and leveled off over Milpitas. We were heading north on the return leg of our daily commute, having departed from San Jose’s Mineta airport, and heading toward Oakland International.

“Can’t I sit this one out?” I joked.

Outside, it was a beautiful Friday afternoon, visibility unlimited, no traffic in sight, a clear shot to Oakland’s runway 28R, ten minutes away.

“No way, Padre.” Bert let go of his control wheel and pointed at mine. “You need to feel confident flying Bertie,” he said. What if I had a heart attack?”

“That’s what autopilots are for,” I grinned back, pointing at the instrument panel.

Bert smiled and dismissed my lame humor while he kept his eyes peeled on the sky around us, looking for tiny specks that turn into airplanes in the wink of an eye. “Maybe someday,” he said.

The radio squawked intermittently, talking to bigger fish. We listened and made sure we were out of their way.

* * *
A year ago, I was burned out from my commute that inched down clogged highway 880 from Oakland to Santa Clara. In desperation, I called Rideshare, looking for relief. An ad offered quick rides to the South Bay, for little money and no driving required. The ad was short on details, but the money sounded right and it was the best pitch Rideshare offered. Was it a bus? Train? I had no idea, but the cheap fare and fast commute time captured my interest.

It was only after I got Bert Inch on the phone that I discovered he wrote the ad in vague terms in order to lure unsuspecting riders. “When I include ‘airplane’ in my ad I would never get an answer,” he said.

I wondered why, but threw caution to the wind, so to speak, and agreed to an introductory round trip, free of charge. The idea of getting an extra half-hour sleep and still getting to work on time was a compelling incentive.

I met Bert the next morning at the Oakland airport’s private aircraft hanger area, a desolate place, far from the bright lights of the terminal. It was cold and foggy, not amenable to flying, in my mind. Driving to the airport with my fog lights on, I had planned out my regrets. Too bad about the weather, I was going to say.

Bert stepped out of the gloom and grabbed my hand. Behind him, parts of an airplane appeared in between billowing gusts of fog. “Great day for flying, huh?” he said.

I shook my head in disbelief. The man was either delusional or a maniac. I let go of Bert’s hand and took a step back. “Maybe for the Red Baron.” I took another step back.

Bert smiled. “You worried about this stuff?” He sneered at the gray blanket surrounding us. “We’ll be out of it at five hundred feet. Nothing to worry about. It’s clear at San Jose.” He walked toward the aircraft. “Now, let’s do the preflight together and I’ll introduce you to Bertie.”

“Preflight? What’s that?”

“We walk around Bertie and make sure everything is attached,” Bert replied. “We don’t want stuff falling off while we’re airborne.”

I looked at my watch. “How long is that going to take?” Bert’s promise of a quick ride was changing in the wrong direction.

Bert ignored me and headed toward the end of one wing. “Follow me.”

I’ve flown enough to feel comfortable inside airplanes. I’d glance into the pilot’s cabin while boarding, but I’ve never felt compelled to know anything more about flying. All I know is the pilot and copilot control the immense power of a plane’s engines and somehow manage to guide and steer all that power into flight. The airplane’s exterior was none of my business.

Following Bert as he tinkered with pieces of his airplane, I wondered why I needed to know about stabilizers, ailerons and landing gear? I glanced at my watch again. I just wanted to get to work.

“It’s always good to have a second pair of eyes,” Bert said. “You see anything loose or missing let me know.”

“Right,” I replied. “Whatever you say.”

Inside the cockpit it was cold and dark. I sat next to Bert in a spartan, but comfortable leather seat while behind me, four additional seats looked cramped with little room for briefcases, purses or whatever. The whole space was much smaller than the business class cabin on a Boeing 737. I could see why Bert was having trouble getting passengers.

With a whine, then a throaty roar, Bertie’s two engines came to life, charging the plane with energy that pulsed through every bone in my body. The dark instrument panel turned into a Christmas tree of dancing dials and meters. Indicators bounced from left to right. Some stood straight up while others clung to opposite sides. “Sounds like we’re in business,” I said.

Bert nodded from under his headphones and gestured for me to put mine on.

Me? The headphones reduced the cockpit noise and added a new sensation, conversation with nameless authorities who gave permission and instructions to pilots on the ground and in the air.

Bert’s voice boomed over the radio’s chatter. “Oakland ground, this is Cessna 535, ready to taxi VFR, over.”

“VFR?” I thought for a minute. “Oh yeah, I get it. Very foggy runway. Makes sense.”

Bert laughed. “Good one,” he replied. “I’ll remember that. VFR also stands for visual flight rules. It means we can fly without the tower telling us where to go. In bad weather we have to fly using IFR, instrument flight rules. Not nearly as much fun and it takes longer.”

“But… what about the fog?”

Bert shook his head. “Like I said, it’s clear once we’re airborne and it’s clear in San Jose.”

Permission from the tower ended our conversation and Bert advanced a set of levers between us that increased the plane’s noise, vibration and commotion.

I waited for progress, but despite what seemed like an unstoppable fusillade of energy, Bertie stood stock still. I glanced at Bert in quiet concern while the plane strained against something even more powerful than its mighty engines.

“Something the matter?” I ventured.

“Shit,” Bert muttered. He dropped the engine noise and jumped out of the cabin.

I fiddled with my seatbelt. “This is it,” I said. “I’m leaving while I can.”

Before I could unfasten myself, Bert climbed back into his seat, a sheepish grin on his face. “Forgot the chocks,” he admitted.

“The chocks? Those wooden wedges under the wheels? You forgot ̶ ?”

“Buckle up,” Bert commanded. He revved the engines again and we moved forward into an impenetrable wall of fog. The landing lights were useless. As we advanced into the black abyss, Bert looked at me and smiled. “Never mind,” he said. “Happens all the time.”

* * *

And he was mostly right. Shit happens all the time. Why I decided to take my chances in the air with Captain Bert Inch, I don’t know. Maybe it was his swash-buckling attitude. Compared to my staid, conservative workday colleagues, Bert was an interesting contrast, an air pirate who knew serious, hands-on stuff, like flying an airplane very well and wasn’t ruffled when shit did happen.

Like the time we wound up in the backwash of a 737 that unexpectedly climbed into our flight path out of San Jose. We never found out how that happened, but I quickly learned there’s a lot of turbulence behind a 737 when it’s going full blast, clambering for altitude, and poor Bertie took a tumble while Captain Bert scrambled to keep her from rolling and pitching out of control.

Or the near miss over Fremont. During commute hours, the skies above Fremont are almost as crowded as highway 880. Between one and eight thousand feet, civil aviation is busy in two directions, east/west between Livermore and Palo Alto and north/south between San Jose and Oakland, and everyone is flying VFR. Above eight thousand feet, commercial jets coming from the east are making their final descent to San Francisco and Oakland airports.

Bert never takes his eyes off the windshield until we’re all wheels down and he expects everyone on board to do the same. One evening over Fremont a dot in the windshield went unnoticed until Bert caught sight of the dot about a second before impact. There are two unofficial rules regarding imminent collision protocol, when your nose goes down the tail goes up and everybody is right-handed. Bert chose to veer right and so did our dot, now turned into a menacing airplane. The result was no news about mid-air collisions over Fremont that day.

In between excitements I learned the fundamentals of takeoffs and landings, maneuvering in flight, and talking to the tower, but I didn’t have any ambition to pilot an airplane. Whenever Bert’s friend Roger, aka MacGyver, joined us, I was only too happy to give up my copilot seat, sit in a back seat and play lookout.

* * *

One of my turns to play copilot occurred under partly cloudy skies with a threat of rain north of us. The good news was we were cleared for VFR flight. Takeoffs are easy, and I got us airborne heading west, then veering north without incident. When we levelled off at five thousand feet, the full moon appeared majestically, climbing from behind Mount Hamilton. After we lost sight of the moon, while gradually descending toward Oakland, Bert mentioned the moon would catch up with us and we’d see a second moon rise from behind the Berkeley hills during our final approach to Oakland. I made a mental note to look for it over the East Bay hills.

MacGyver chatted away from the back seat, I concentrated on the repeated pattern of observing the compass, altimeter, and the sky around us. As we passed over Union City I also worried about landing in the dark and wondered what was for dinner.

Over Hayward airport, I noticed the airport’s runway lights were on and I waited for our instrument panel to light up. It was the pilot’s job to engage the panel lights. Annoyed with Bert’s dereliction of duty, I took a quick glance at the pilot seat to see Bert toggling the switch with a grimace on his face. All conversation stopped when the radio died, and the instruments deactivated.

MacGyver stuck his head between us, reached out and rapped on the instrument panel. “What the fuck?” he whispered when the panel remained black and unresponsive.

We were on our final approach to runway 28R when Bert took the controls. “Try the landing gear,” he told me, pointing at the gear selection handle in the dark cabin. “Go ahead,” he said, his eyes glued to the runway, throttling down Bertie’s engines. I moved the handle to the gear down position and we all held our breath.

When nothing happened, Bert, advanced the throttle, pulled up and passed over the runway. “Get the flashlight,” he told MacGyver, “I’m going to buzz the tower. Keep your eyes peeled!”

Three minutes later, after maneuvering full circle around the airport, Bert passed low, at tower height, and MacGyver flashed at the tower’s windows. “Watch the tower,” Bert said as we rolled to the right for another circle. A green flashing light coming from the tower answered Bert’s signal. Bert sighed. “We’re cleared.”

‘We’re cleared’ meant Oakland airport shut down all traffic until we either made up our minds what to do next or ran out of gas. We had lost all electrical power. No lights, no radio and no electrically powered landing gear. Fortunately, Bertie’s two engines ran on an alternate, self-contained power source, called a magneto ignition system, which I knew nothing about other than being glad it still worked.

“Get out the manual and pull up the crank,” Bert ordered. MacGyver found the manual and checklist in a rear storage compartment and with me holding the flashlight we read instructions for manually extending the landing gear. I found the gear crank nested and hidden under some insulation between the pilot and copilot seats. The instructions called for engaging the crank with a locking pin and turning the crank until the landing gear was fully extended. Easier said than done.

The Cessna model 310 is a low wing configuration, meaning the wings are below the cabin. There are advantages and disadvantages for both configurations, but right now our main disadvantage was we couldn’t see the main landing gear from the cabin. After a few anxious false starts we got the crank to turn. But after many revolutions there was no indication the crank had lowered the landing gear; no detent, no lock, it just went round and round, like it wasn’t doing anything.

Bert, now making lazy circles around the airport, looked at a small mirror near the nose of the plane. Illuminated by the city lights, he squinted at the mirror and smiled. “The nose gear is down,” he said. MacGyver and I let out a sigh of relief. “Now what?” I asked.

“We still don’t know if the nose gear is locked and we know nothing about the main gear,” he answered. “We’ll have to check it out.”

MacGyver and I exchanged a nervous look.

“Maybe all three are down and locked, maybe not. We’ll have to find out.”

In our situation another disadvantage of a low wing configuration is the clearance between the propellers and the ground. There’s not much more than one foot of clearance, depending on the gear design. That means without landing gear to hold up the plane, the prop will strike the pavement immediately upon landing, sending the plane to oblivion. There is no belly flop option.

It was now raining and, without wipers, the city lights below us streaked across the windshield in a blurry haze. Bert brought Bertie around and lined up with the runway. “This may take a couple tries,” he said.

I looked below us at the airport’s terminal lights and thought about the hundreds of passengers who had missed flights and connections and all the commercial jets scrambling above us to realign their flight plans while we did touch and goes in a crippled plane that might wind up a pile of wreckage before the night was over. Would be make the ten-o’clock news I wondered?

Up to now, none of us expressed any panic, but as runway 28R’s lights rushed up to meet us I gripped my seat handles in quiet apprehension.

Just above ground level Bert dipped Bertie’s nose and we felt contact, enough to assure us the gear was functioning before we ran out of runway. With a roar, Bert blasted up and away. “One out of three,” he said.

On the second pass Bert dropped the nose, then gently dipped the left wing. The reassuring thump of solid contact with the tarmac made us all exhale as Bert lifted us up again.

“Cross your fingers,” he said as he lined up for pass number three. As before, Bertie settled on her nose, then on the left landing gear, but when Bert dropped the right wing there was no contact. The emotional letdown and uncertainty almost caused us to run into the runway’s end lighting structure before Bert blasted us back up. He had done a fantastic bit of piloting with absolutely no room for error, three times, but after all that we were still helpless.

“Since the left is down the right is also probably down but not locked,” Bert said. He gained altitude and MacGyver and I scratched our heads. I imagined the landing gear hanging loose under us, flapping in the wind. “Flip her over?” I suggested, thinking the wind resistance and centrifugal force might force the gear into position.

Bert shook his head. “I don’t like it. Too dangerous.”

Too dangerous? I thought. There’s an understatement. Even MacGyver smirked.

“No. Really,” Bert went on. “Flipping could apply too much force on the gear. We don’t know what condition it’s in. I’d hate to have it fall off.”

MacGyver and I nodded in agreement. Another understatement.

We didn’t know our altitude, but we were high and to the east, the full moon appeared behind Mount Diablo. Just like Bert said it would. Don’t be silly, I thought, watching the moon and regarding it as an omen. The second coming. I’ll take it as a good sign.

“I’m going to drop the plane,” Bert announced. “Hang on.”

That was the first time I heard Bert refer to Bertie as a plane. It was a small issue, but I sensed his concern by saying it.

With a whoosh, Bert forced Bertie to rapidly lose altitude, hopefully spreading the two main gear apart and into their extended positions.

There was no reassuring sound of movement or sensation of the landing gear locking into position.

“Here we go!” Bert said and began another approach.

I peered into the darkness, looking for a haystack. If this didn’t work, it was clear we were running out of options. The last time I looked before the instrument panel went dead, we had gas for another half hour of flying time, but to where? Ditch in the Bay? With no radio, no instruments, and no navigation lights we were blind and invisible. We didn’t dare leave the vicinity of the airport for fear of hitting another aircraft or a mountain.

MacGyver and I waited quietly for our pirate pilot to bring us in for a safe landing.

This time Bert touched the nose gear down as close to the start of the runway as possible. We would need room to test all three gears. After the nose and left gear touched down, Bert quickly dropped the right wing.

I watched the runway lights rushing toward us in horror, thinking how easily they could rip off all three gears if we were a second too slow in our liftoff.

A quick touch, some resistance and we were back up, the lights screaming under us by inches.

“I think we got it,” Bert said.

We were too drained to cheer.

“Hi home, I’m honey!” It was a joke my wife and I enjoyed sharing whenever we came through the front door. A spoof on an old cliché, perhaps, but still a gesture of endearment and relief returning to a welcoming home. That night I opened the front door to the sounds and smells of just another weekday evening knowing I was lucky not to be on the ten o’clock news.

Captain Bert, MacGyver and I had parted company on the tarmac with little fanfare. After handshakes and goodbyes, Bert told me I was excused to go home. “We’ll handle the aftermath,” Bert said, with a sly smile. “We probably ruffled a few feathers.” MacGyver laughed. “That’s putting it mildly,” he added.

I took one last look at Bertie and saluted our captain. “Don’t forget the chocks,” I said as I turned to leave.

I’m between boats at the moment, pets as well. All in the name of efficiency, I said, while we packed and discarded and hauled what was left into a new home. We moved off a mountain and down, down to a river. Ironically, now we have a water view, but no boat with which to tread over our new neighbor.

My boating experiences were separate from the pets we spoiled in our homes. Dogs. Always dogs. Big and small. Always affectionate, each in their own way, but land-lubbers all, except one.

I don’t think Chester knew he was a sailor until I shanghaied him aboard when there was no other alternative. A middle-aged rescue Springer Spaniel, he displayed the typical Springer personality; boundless energy and curiosity and an unflagging love for his home and his people that earned him the nickname Velcro dog. He tolerated water sports and joined us splashing in lake and sea, but I could tell he did it for our sake, not his.

Then, when no dog-sitter option left us unwitting partners, I seized a moment to hoist a sail and took Chester with me because he had nowhere else to go. I expected trouble. A Springer wants to run and there’s little room on a twenty-seven foot sailboat for running. After a walk to empty his bilge we stood on the finger and stared at the strange arrangement below us. Ropes, blocks and tackle, rigging, mast and boom, portholes. The sight was not dog friendly.

“Come on, Chester,” I said, lifting and depositing him in the cockpit. “It’s not that bad.”

He resisted. The smells foreign. The sounds strange and unfriendly. The feel under his paws unsteady. The sun beat down with no relief. He sniffed the strange doggy Personal Flotation Device I strapped around him with disgust and tried to shake it off with no success.

Chester surveyed his new circumstances from stem to stern and pronounced the place unacceptable. Seagulls laughed at him. He whined back and looked at me, eyes wide, panting and drooling in the heat. “Get me off this thing,” he said.

I dropped him in the cabin with water and dog treats. “Get used to it, boy,” I replied.

The sound of my ancient Volvo Penta diesel motor calmed him down. While I rigged the sails, I would sneak a look in the cabin and found Chester, eyes shut, curled on a bunk in a tight corner, tail tucked under him, waiting for his fate.

When I pushed away from the slip he lifted his head. A puff of a breeze crossed the boat as we made our way out of the marina catching his attention. He sniffed and stirred.

“Wanna come topside?” I asked. A light swell rocked us as we approached the end of the harbor and I raised the mainsail.

Chester jumped off the bunk and looked at me from the bottom of the passageway in his bright yellow PFD. “Yes,” he said.

The breeze picked up as we came about at the breakwater and Chester’s ears flapped with approval, his eyes glued straight ahead, tongue out, ass down on the seat across from me, happy as a clam.

That’s how I like to remember Chester as I look at sails dancing in the river below our new house.