CRANBERRIES – NANCY – BUCKET LIST

BY DON DOUCETTE

For several days these thoughts have been swirling in my mind.

Nancy had been simmering a whole cranberry sauce on the stove – I was writing a few checks at the kitchen table and the muffled pops of the heating berries took me back in time to one day of my life.

Nancy had surprised me with a gift certificate for one glider ride at Plymouth-Carver Airfield and it was during the later portion of an autumn season when we finally made our way to the little airport in cranberry country.

A glider ride had been on my bucket list for a number of years as my pilot got me situated in the front seat of the bubble-top cockpit – he was at the controls seated behind me.

The liftoff behind our tow plane was a rush as the aerodynamic lift of our little craft was immediate. Just above the tree tops, the prevailing northwest wind bounced us around for just a short time and so, we gradually climbed to a smoother altitude hooked to a tow cable. At a certain moment, I had instructions from the pilot to pull a lever on my right waist side. This I accomplished, parted our connection to the tow plane and we were in free flight.

 A steep banking maneuver had me looking almost straight down toward the ground as I was solidly harnessed to the seat. And so, we gracefully spiraled for a bit of time. I could look out toward the South Shore along Cape Cod Bay, could see the tops of the Cape Cod Canal bridges and the forests stretching toward Buzzard’s Bay in Wareham.

I had imagined a glider ride as silent being without an engine, but not so – the sheet metal rat-tat-tats and the control cables at each waist woosh-woosh as they are engaged to maintain stability.

And stretched below were the many kettle ponds, bogs, brooks, streams and tiny river systems flowing to sea in several directions – a number of tiny watersheds all draining the land.

Free flight was magnificent with this portion of my bucket list complete as the jolt of the turf landing brought me back to ground-based reality.

Get me near anything related to cranberries and my thoughts go back to that one day during my life – soaring above southeastern Massachusetts with a full autumn oak forest spread below consisting of maroons, golds, russets interspersed with vivid greens of white pine and pitch pine and randomly spaced across that historic landscape, magnificent splotches of bright red – floating cranberries waiting turn for a Thanksgiving harvest.

Don Doucette

“Ten Mile River Rambles”