I wonder if I’m getting old.

This week, I shelved a long-held plan—a bucket list item—because I did not feel confident I could pull it off.

I planned to travel across Ireland, from Dublin to little Foynes on the southwest coast, to visit the Foynes Flying Boat Museum. Uncle Ed was a rookie airline pilot, employed by Pan American Airways, in the golden age of flying boats—the late 1930s and early 1940s. 

In those days, airlines like Pan Am were pioneering the concept of transoceanic passenger service, in competition with the big steamship lines. It could take a couple of weeks to cross the Pacific on the proverbial “slow boat to China,” but in one of Pan Am’s magnificent Clippers you could make the trip in three or four days. You had to be willing and able to pay a couple of thousand dollars—an astronomical sum in those days—but you would travel in unrivalled luxury and comfort on a big seaplane called a “flying boat.”

These planes—large, boat-shaped hulls with wings and engines attached—were invented to fly from one seaport to another, over water all the way. In a flying boat you could take off and land on any fair-sized body of water—ocean, bay, lake, or wide river. Further, the ability to land on water gave an extra margin of safety in case of engine trouble.

Uncle Ed flew, in quick succession, the Sikorsky S-40 and S-42, the Martin 130, and the mighty Boeing 314—the ultimate flying boat, only twelve copies ever made. 

After the Second World War, when civil aviation resumed its march of progress, flying boats had become obsolete. Land aircraft were now more reliable, most cities now had decent airfields, and boat/plane hybrids were no longer required.

Because I am a sucker for the romance of the flying boats, because a flying boat pilot figures in the novel I am writing, and most of all because Uncle Ed used to fly the beasts, I really craved to visit the flying boat museum in Foynes, Ireland. 

Uncle Ed flew B-314 Clippers across the Pacific, but Foynes, Ireland, was the jumping-off point for B-314s flying the Atlantic from the British Isles to New York. 

Because of that local history, people in Foynes built a museum dedicated to the great flying boats of yesteryear. All twelve Boeing 314s had been reduced to scrap metal before the 1950s were out. So they built a full-sized replica of the great plane. The flying boat in Foynes can’t fly—doesn’t even have complete wings—but a full-sized fuselage sits in Foynes harbor, rigged in detail with seats, a deluxe dining lounge, and the plane’s elaborate flight deck. 

Stepping into that mockup, I thought, would give a real sense of what it was like to fly in a B-314. But I had to go on my own. My wife and granddaughter would be off exploring Blarney Castle, while my daughter and grandson biked all over Dublin’s Phoenix Park. 

All I had to do was catch a train to Limerick, change to another train across Limerick to the bus station, and make a seven-minute connection with a bus that wanders through the countryside and eventually reaches Foynes. And then, after visiting the museum, retrace my steps and get back to Dublin in time for a late dinner. 

In planning, this had seemed feasible. My wife, Jo—the travel planner among us—had given me a printed itinerary for my excursion a week or so before our departure. Somehow, I forgot where I had placed the printout for safekeeping and also forgot, while packing, to hunt it up and include it in my luggage. So there I was in Dublin without the paperwork to guide me on my complicated trip. 

That was not my only lapse. I had also left behind all the standard European plug adapters we needed for our stopover in Iceland. I had set them aside in my suitcase, but when adding the British Isles plug adapters, I removed the ones for Iceland. “What do we need these for?” I asked myself. So we struggled through Iceland with minimal recharging capability.

Do you see a pattern here, Dear Reader? 

In the first days of our big trip, I discovered several embarrassing memory lapses or confused thought-sequences. Discovering this pile-up of mental aberrations smacked me right in the face. 

The night before my trip to Foynes, I chickened out. I would skip the trip to Foynes and stay back in Dublin while everybody else had their own kinds of fun. By the light of day, things didn’t look so bad, and I went with Katie and Tristan to Phoenix Park, which is very nice. 

But the Foynes decision took the wind out of my sails. I was unnerved. 

What a revoltin’ development!

I don’t have Alzheimer’s disease, Fair Reader. I probably don’t have any form of specific, diagnosable dementia. But there are times my brain seems to crumble before my eyes.  

This concerns me. Life has been treating me so well that I look forward to reaching age 100, active and creative all the way. Going vegetative could interfere with that.

So this post is written in a haze of postmature anxiety. 

I can’t resist thinking my discomfiture is a passing thing. I have been so narrowly focused on marketing plans for my forthcoming book—Izzy Strikes Gold!—that other regions of my brain have become temporarily disconnected. That’s all. 

So I’m not panicking. I may still go on to a glorious future as Madison’s Old Man of Letters.

But do not fear, Gentle Reader. If I become seriously incoherent, you’ll be the first to know.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer