We loved the north Georgia mountains. We often took long family drives into the mountains and have many good memories from them. One of the more important things that happened while living in Dahlonega had to do with a dog. A neighbor lady couldn't keep her dog any longer so Emily brought her home. The dog was a funny looking breed I'd never seen and so fat she could barely move. She was called Pooh Bear. I didn't like Pooh Bear and I didn't want another dog as I had just bought an expensive and beautiful Rottweiler we named Lady. I would have sent Pooh Bear back to her owner but it was clear my daughter loved the dog so I couldn't do it. I'll always be glad Pooh Bear became a part of our family. Those two dogs, Pooh Bear and Lady were the two best dogs we ever owned. They both became a part of our family. In my long life I can't think of another animal I would consider either's equal.

The local flying club was home to most of Dahlonega's movers and shakers. The town was isolated, but affluent, and a ninety minute drive to Atlanta, much of that in heavy traffic. The combination made Dahlonega perfect for a pilot. Very few of the town's dozen or so pilots owned their own plane, but all belonged to the flying club. Through the club I met everyone I needed to meet: lawyer, banker, insurance agent, drug store owner, etc. I was the only computer guy in town so as a pilot and computer guy, I was immediately accepted into this tight knit group. I was invited to their weekly poker game. I'd never had friends that did a "boy's night out," so this was a new experience for me. Something I enjoyed, something that had been missing from my life. It was also something my wife supported and encouraged.

The Dahlonega airport's runway is short and sits in a bowl of mountains. It is a very difficult place to land or take off. Before I was able to operate out of Dahlonega one of the locals took me up in his plane to show me the trick to landing there. In the day light it was tricky, but not terrible. At night it was so dangerous the FAA prohibited night operations in or out of the airport. Georgia pilots, being Georgia boys at heart mostly ignored the FAA's silly safety rules. Still, because of the FAA's rules, Dahlonega lacked landing lights. All it did have were three dim threshold lights at the beginning of the runway.

Learning night landing at Dahlonega was a challenge. It went something like this: you had to approach the town of Dahlonega from the east at a prescribed altitude, something like 2,500 feet. When you were directly over the hospital (easily seen from 2,500 feet) you dropped air speed to 90 knots (I think) and took an exact westerly heading, then set a timer for 90 seconds (can't remember the times).  When the timer beeped you had to change heading and drop altitude. All you could see on the ground was a black hole, but down there were serious mountains and valleys. Suddenly you saw the lights from a small commercial chicken grower which you flew towards, at it you made a slight heading correction then dropped into the dark towards a runway you couldn't see. At the very last second you could see the three threshold lights, then the airplane's powerful landing light would pick out the runway. No matter what, you had to land. The airport was surrounded by mountains you couldn't see and they were so close that attempting a missed approach was suicide. There was no go-around at Dahlonega. It was hammered into me so hard that I believed it. There had been several pilots killed on those mountains attempting a missed approach. So if you missed the runway you had to crash land in the valley or die on the side of the mountains.

I explain this for a reason. I needed to fly to an airport customer in Orlando, but the two best club planes for this trip were unavailable on that day. There were several FBO's at the Cobb County airport north of Atlanta so I drove there to rent a plane. Insurance rules require three things before an airplane can be rented: a copy of the pilot's FAA license, a copy of the pilot's current medical certificate, and first time renters are required to take a short check-ride with an instructor to demonstrate proficiency. The plane I selected was a Grumman Tiger. It was a fast little airplane that I had never flown, which is why I chose it over the Cessna 172 I had many hours in. So after the check ride I flew the plane south. You don't have to tell the FBO where you're going, but they do like to have an idea of when you'll return so they can plan other rentals. I told them I was going to Orlando and would return the next afternoon.

The trip to Orlando was uneventful, but while there I got a call from my Key West customer, whose computer was down. No problem, I'm in Orlando with a plane so I'll fly down. After finishing up in Orlando I flew to Key West arriving there after dark. On the tarmac I spoke to a pilot doing a pre-flight inspection and warned him of a thunderstorm I'd had to skirt to the north. No problem for this pilot as he was headed for the Bahamas. That pilot was singer Jimmy Buffett's pilot, a regular at the Key West airport. It was the first time I'd run into him, but not the last.

I had intended to fix their computer then fly back to Atlanta, but by the time I unloaded my plane it was late and I was tired, so I borrowed a courtesy car from my customer (something most FBO's have for pilots) and drove into town and got a hotel room. The next day I fixed their computer, which took most of the day and all of my mental energy.

It was around six in the evening when I left Key West. The shortest route was north by north east, across the Gulf of Mexico then over the Everglades, but poor weather to the north sent me east then north, following the road from Key West to Miami. It was still daylight when I reached Miami beach, so I closed my flight plan then dropped low to get a good view of the beach. Flying a hundred feet above the water, and about the same distance away from the beach, I took advantage of one of the Tiger's more unique features. The Tiger had a fighter jet type canopy that slid back on a hinge. While stuck in my hotel room the previous night I read the Tiger's manual and noticed that the canopy could be opened in level flight at less than sixty knots. I slowed down to fifty-five knots, released the two latches and slid the canopy back. Air rushed in and filled the small cockpit. That same air pulled all my sectional charts out of the plane. My only maps had been laying in the co-pilot's seat, now they were gone.

For a second I was angry at my stupidly, then relaxed. I'd land and buy more. They weren't expensive, but it would mean landing without proper frequencies as those were all published on the maps. An incontinence as long as I was careful and picked a small airport without a control tower. I selected Cocoa Beach because I'd landed there before. That decided, I hung my left arm half out of the plane and waved to the kids on the beach like I was driving a convertible in a parade. It was novel enough to be fun. When I ran out of beach I closed the canopy, added power and a little altitude and flew north. I didn't climb too high because Ft. Lauderdale was ahead and I had to stay under their two busy airport's traffic.

It was dark by the time I saw what I thought was Cocoa Beach airport's beacon. Most uncontrolled airports, like Cocoa Beach use what is called the UNICOM frequency of 128.8, so I dialed it in on my radio and announced my position and intention to land. No one answered, which is not unusual so I continued on. As I lined up on the runway I noticed several vehicles with blue lights on the end of the runway. At the same time I heard on my radio, "Unidentified aircraft, you are lining up to land on a United States Air Force Base. You are not authorized to land unless you are declaring an emergency. Are you declaring an emergency?" Other than stupidity and incompetence, no. I explained and the Air Force controller gave me a vector to Cocoa Beach's civilian airport. There I landed, refueled and purchased new sectionals and continued my trip home.

All of this took time and added to my fatigue level. By the time I reached north Georgia I was too exhausted to drive a car much less fly an airplane. The first thing I lost was the ability to navigate. I had no idea where I was and lacked the brain power to figure it out. Then I started falling asleep. Like most small planes of this era, the Tiger lacked an auto-pilot, so going to sleep was a really bad idea. I kept nodding off and jerking back awake. I nearly opened the canopy to have the air blowing on my face but caught myself remembering what happened last time I did that. I sat on the maps and again started to open the canopy but remembered I had to drop below sixty knots to do so. Flying slow requires more attention to the plane and I was at least alert enough to realize I couldn't pull that off in this condition. So I flew the plane between nodding off. Several times I woke to the feeling of excessive speed as I pushed forward on the yoke in my sleep. Once I woke to the sound of the stall warning horn as I pulled the yoke back.

This back and forth went on for some time before I spotted the green white flash of an airport beacon. Because of the event earlier in the day I made sure the beacon was green, white repeated for a civilian runway and not the green, white, white of a military runway. Either way I was going to land, but fortunately it was a civilian airport. I had no idea where I was other than Georgia. I didn't bother with the radio, just lined up on the closest runway and started down. Impossibly I nodded off and woke while on short final, the most dangerous part of any flight. That woke me up long enough to land the airplane. I was so tired I couldn't taxi to the intersection, so I pulled into the grass, clear of the runway and shut the engine down. I got out of the plane and walked around to wake myself enough to taxi to the FBO.

It was early morning and everything was closed, but the sign on the terminal building said "Welcome to Winder, Georgia." I had a vague memory of hearing that name, but had no idea where it was. Knowing Mary would be worried I called her. After she heard my story she said she was coming to get me. I told her I could sleep in the plane and fly home in the morning. Mary knew how tricky landing in Dahlonega was and didn't trust me to wait until morning so she wasn't having it. So I slept in the airplane until she reached me ninety minutes later. We locked the airplane up and my wife took me home.

The next morning I slept late, then called the FBO I'd rented the Tiger from and told them part of the story. That I'd come in tired and landed at Winder for safety. Mary was going to drive me back to Winder in a few hours, so I'd return the plane to Cobb County before dark. The guy on the phone said if I was willing to pay the rental on a Cessna 150 he had a pair of low time pilots who would love to fly to Winder and retrieve the Tiger. They had an extra set of keys for the Tiger so it would be simple. There were always low-time pilots willing to make such a run to build time for free and for the joy of flying. I readily agreed. They'd send me a bill and that would be the end of it. Only it wasn't.