Author: Vic Socotra

Luckie Street

I walked down Peachtree to Luckie, and the building loomed above me like a white yacht, bearing down at speed. The narrowness of its white flanks conveyed a sense of speed, or all its rooted entropy. I had seen this before, not this way, somewhere else. I was dumbstruck and had to stop and look. […]

Segue

Segue I was lost in �Lanta to start. I thought it was too easy getting to the great skyline, and how hard could it be to find the Peachtree hotel on Peachtree Street? Fools and their appointment s are soon parted, and I was from mine after I left the interstate for downtown Atlanta. It […]

Number Two for Departure

Number Two for Departure The airplane was third for departure at Reagan National Airport. Fortunate, really, that the fog had not burned off sooner and the controllers were being cautious on separation for the departing jets that snake off above the Potomac River for noise abatement. Certain concessions in routing the airplanes over the capital […]

Get a Dog

President Truman was right about Washington when he said “if you need a friend, get a dog.” It was kind of a sore subject. The dog had ended his visitation with me and returned to life with the ex, whizzing away into the darkness. It was lonely in Big Pink with no one depending on […]

Last of the Line

Deceased: August 31, 2006. Glenn Ford, laconic, soft-spoken actor who played leading roles in many westerns, melodramas and romantic films from the early 1940’s through the 60’s, died yesterday at his Beverly Hills home. He was 90. A laconic, soft-spoken actor with an easy smile, he played leading roles in many westerns, melodramas and romantic […]

Six Lanes Both Ways

I’m not depressed, though the atmosphere is. I’m actually feeling pretty good, all things considered. I am not going anywhere in the rain or the rising wind. The tropical depression that is the remnants of Hurricane Ernesto will be arriving at Big Pink through the rest of the day. The good people at the National […]

Black Cloud

Black Cloud Back from the road, I was crashing through the correspondence on the computer and finally gave up. Too much information to process. Black clouds from the hurricane headed this way. Controversy over the war, and black clouds on the prognosis for peace. There was acrimony about how it was going, and why it […]

Unforgiving

The Airbus-319 and I arrived at Dulles with an authoritative thud late in the afternoon. The tires gave a squeal that was audible in the passenger compartment, and I could feel the fuselage flex around me. �Navy pilot,� I thought, used to flying the steep glideslope into the controlled crash required to land on a […]

Kilos

Kilos I am on vacation, which is to say that I do not have my media suite arrayed to properly pump the alarming news of the world direct into my cerebral cortex, of oblongata or whatever they call the place where the bad news goes for short-term retention. It doesn’t stay long, that is for […]

Oxygen

Oxygen I’m in the smoking lounge at a major airfield. I am watching the power drain on my idiotic company laptop. My company has been purchased by the French, and the people that make the laptops have been bought by the Chinese. I am a few time-zones away from where my travel cup of once […]