Mark Twain, certainly one of the patron saints of hedonism, said that all our journeys have secret destinations of which we travelers are yet unaware. As a teller of tall tales myself, I consider that full of intriguing possibilities.
Before I report on Sarah Kay and Chuck traveling home together on separate airplanes, as well as explore Twain's core idea, we should come to agreement about the definition of what exactly an hedonist is. Isn't it as simple as one who seeks pleasure and avoids pain above all else? But somehow this lovely and charming premise has been twisted and perverted to the point where it is actually negative. Balderdash!! Twain advises that twenty years from now we'll be more disappointed by the things we didn't do than by the ones we did. "So throw off the bowlines," he says. "Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
When Sarah Kay's taxi pulls to a stop in front of the Swiss Air Terminal at Zurich Airport, it's her long bare legs swinging out of the backseat that are our first experience of Jesse's young daughter. She's headed back to California after five years away from her father. He will hardly recognize her given she's not 13-years old anymore. She's now tall, lean, remarkably voluptuous and especially gorgeous. Males of all ages turn to watch her pass as she heads inside to board her non-stop Airbus for San Francisco. We catch a quick glimpse of her A340 aircraft through the terminal window. It sports a colorful and flowery design together with striking "San Francisco" lettering as a tribute to the West Coast city's famed flower power past. Once she's cruising at 30,000 feet, if we were able to look inside at her window seat, we'd witness the young lady flirting with a man twice her age across the aisle.
Headed for the same final destination, Chuck is at the controls of his privately owned, 1956 DeHavilland Beaver - a meticulously maintained float-plane - as it rises from Lake Tahoe, his last stop before touching down on Lake Oroville and home after a decade away. He has gray, thinning hair that is in a carefully maintained Afro (yes, that's right, an Afro)and never is seen to wear anything but cut-offs along with black shirts and gold chains. Generally speaking, one's first impression of Chuck is a tragically hip, two-dimensional, rich guy struggling to retain his youth. If travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of a frivolous one, we wonder which he intends his travels to be.
Copyright 2010 G. Leo Maselli
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