Up, Up, and Away

Our New Year's resolution this year was to look for unusual and thrilling things to do in Memphis, things we've never done before and might never do again - a bucket list of sorts that we call Project Adrenaline. You may have read our post about the Polar Bear Plunge, the first of our Project Adrenaline activities. This month, Backbeat manager Meagan May offered us the chance to ride in an AirCam, a homemade airplane (yes, I said "homemade") that her father-in-law Tim built and pilots himself. (Tim is a biomedical engineer. I don't think that has much to do with building planes, but at least the word "engineer" is in the title.)

We thought it a wonderful way to honor our recent college graduates here in Memphis, who are now flying themselves, experiencing the "thrill" of having the whole world laid out before them.

Meagan and Tim met myself and Backbeat music guide Nancy Apple at Colonial Air Park outside Collierville to enjoy 20-minute flights in the lightweight, open cockpit AirCam. As I strap myself into the tiny plane, I see a crude instrument panel and joystick in front of me, and some pedals on the floor.  Pilot Tim tells me not to touch anything or we'll crash. "Well, except for that red handle behind you," he says. "If we start going down, just pull on that. It's a parachute." (No, not for me, for the whole plane.)

The AirCam isn't for everyone. The kit itself costs $50,000 and takes an average of 1,100 hours to build, and you need a pilot's license to fly it.  It was first designed for the National Geographic Society for aerial photography in remote areas of Africa. Powered by two engines mounted on the wings, the AirCam flies low and slow, and provides a wide, unobstructed view of the ground below, making it perfect for wildlife photography. Or, as it turns out, for buzzing over waterskiers on a beautiful Mississippi afternoon.

"Check it out," says Tim, as he banks the plane over a small lake south of Collierville. The ground and water yaw up at us and we see a family in a boat below - mom, dad, and four kids - waving excitedly at us. We're flying low, just a few hundred feet from the ground, and we can clearly see their smiling faces. I wave back at them as we soar over the lake. This is what flying in its earliest days must have been like, strumming along on the wind like a dragonfly, over houses and fields with grazing horses, with that perfect freedom that you can only get high above the earth.

We're wearing helmets with a headset inside, and up front Tim is chatting away on the intercom. "You like rollercasters?" he asks. Before I answer, whoa! we're plummeting down in a sudden maneuver that leaves my stomach up near my throat. We pull up and level out, both of us laughing, exhilarated.

Before long, our time is up and we circle around back to the landing strip. I reluctantly unfold myself out of the cockpit - it's a tight squeeze for anyone over four feet tall - and Nancy wriggles in for the next flight. As I watch Tim take off again and the orange and white plane disappears from view, I think to myself the trick is finding a way to never come down.

By Bill Patton, President of Backbeat Tours and adrenaline junkie.

Quirky Holiday Traditions We Love Anyway

George, Festivus is your heritage. It’s part of who you are.”

“That’s why I hate it.” 

Seinfeld, “The Strike,” 1997.

Oh, yes, those “honored” holiday traditions. With Thanksgiving around the corner and Christmas and Hannukah close behind, we thought we’d share some of our staff’s most crazy and lovable family traditions. We couldn’t quite match the silliness of Festivus, but we hope you’ll enjoy. 

What’s your family’s favorite holiday tradition? Tell us about it! 

Bill Patton

When I was growing up, my family would watch movies together around Christmas time. Big deal, right? Well, this was the Dark Ages -- the early 1970s -- long before Netflix and cable tv, even before video stores and VCRs. These were movies on actual reels of film, delivered to our house in metal cases, two to four reels for each feature. We’d thread them into a rented projector and show them on the living room wall. 

And I was the Christmas ham. Yes. I was 8 or 9 years old, and when Dad would change reels in the middle of a movie, I’d get up and entertain the family: draping myself in a blanket like Rudolf Valentino in “Son of the Sheik” and, since it was a silent movie, making up dialog (“Come into my tent. Please to excuse my camel”), or recreating the James Bond fight we had just seen in slow motion -- acting out all the parts myself, naturally. One year I jumped onto the back of a chair, just like Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain,” but instead of tilting it back and riding it gracefully to the floor, it broke with a loud crack, which everyone except my mom thought was funnier than in the movie. 

Rachel Koch

Everyone in my family struggles with volume control. If you have something you want to say when we are all together, you have to say it faster and louder than anyone else. Last year, during the annual Christmas gift name draw, everyone was talking at once, prompting the need for a “talking pumpkin.” Only one person could speak at once, and they had to be holding the pumpkin. So now at every holiday there’s a “talking object.” So far there is the original pumpkin, the talking candy cane, Easter egg, American flag… you get the point.

Dylan Holzemer

Every year at Thanksgiving, we get together at my uncle’s house. He’s a big foodie, and one of his favorite things to eat around the holidays is mashed rutabaga. Keep in mind, nobody else will touch the stuff, but every year he makes a giant pot of it and offers some to everybody. When everyone turns it down, he gets this giant grin on his face and just puts the pot right next to his plate and eats straight out of it along with dinner.

Shekinah Langford

Normally, family traditions are started by mom, dad, grandma or grandpa, but, in my family, our cat decided to start his own tradition. Broken ornaments! Yes, our cat likes to challenge us by hiding inside the Christmas tree and knocking off the ornaments one by one. We find broken ornaments all over our house. We always try to stop him, but he hides deep inside the tree where we can't reach him. An unorthodox way of celebrating the holidays? Yes. But he is a cat after all. 

Meagan May

My grandmother insists that we "explore the tastes of other cultures" so we never have the good ole' Christmas dinner. Instead, we have themed Christmas dinners. At Thanksgiving, we pick a different country and for the next month we experiment in the kitchen to make the popular food from that country. Sometimes it's really good (Creole, Italian, German), but other times I really miss the ham and rolls (like the year we did Ethiopian cuisine--and no, i'm not joking)! 

Nancy Apple

If every blood relative within 50 miles was not at the supper table, then any extra chair was filled with men from the Navy base or friends of my big sisters. And if all my daddy's workers had family to go to, then he and mom were sure to put the word out that anyone else with no place to go was invited. I used to be really shy around all those strangers, but, looking back now, that was one of the most thoughtful and generous things that my mom and dad did. 

These traditions, big or small, are part of what make the holidays special. So pour a drink and brace yourself, because, as we all know, the holidays bring out the best, worst, and craziest in families