Depths and Heights

On Friday, March 31, GBA’s Florida dealer, Terry Eiland, and a passenger who was flying with him were killed in an accident in Terry’s SparrowHawk. They had been attending an air show called Benson Days and were returning from a late breakfast when the accident occurred. There were three gyroplanes flying together and the pilot who was behind Terry saw him start to descend. It was just a normal descent at first, but then it got steeper until the aircraft was in a nosedive. There was an explosion when it hit the ground and the resulting fire burned about a hundred acres. The FAA and the NTSB are investigating, as well as some of our own people, but the cause may never be known. It may have been a mechanical failure, pilot error or some health problem, like a heart attack. There wasn’t much left of the aircraft or the bodies after the fire. We were all quiet and sad last week at the office. My boss, Dan Banks, was asked to fly to Florida to offer his expertise in the investigation, so the customer support – such as it was – was left to me. In addition to filling in for Dan, I was also asked to fill in for the temporary receptionist who was sick the whole week. (She had been filling in for our permanent receptionist who was out for some surgery.) So, needless to say, I was pretty schizophrenic last week, trying to do my own and two other jobs.

I did take an evening to go with Danae to see Kurt Bestor. We had a lovely and delicious dinner to begin with and dessert was served as the “business” of the evening was conducted. I was impatiently long-suffering (is that an oxymoron?) through all the paralegal rah-rah stuff and the first few speakers. I wondered why anyone would plan to do anything else when Kurt Bestor was there to speak and perform. The other people who spoke were just wasting time in my opinion. But of course, as you all know, Kurt Bestor is my boyfriend and I was only there to see and hear him. When it was finally his turn, he used the fact that he was the “keynote speaker” to use “keys” and “notes” on the piano, which I thought was clever. Danae has already explained that he played several songs, each of which he used as an illustration of a lesson he had learned in life. It was very enjoyable and I was so glad to be there. It was a small enough group that I actually got to meet him and have my picture taken with him. That was embarrassing, because who am I to him? But he was very gracious and I am happy to have the picture as proof that he actually put his arm around me!