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the next land boon. California City was
laid out with streets, cul-de-sacs, a lake, and 52,000 lots in its
master plan. It didn't boom. Some bought lots and then sold them to
other suckers. Many lots are now in estates of the departed, with
the beneficiaries having no idea what to do with them. Today fewer
than 15,000 people live there, mostly employed by the declining
Edwards Air Force Base, or at the nearby privately–operated prison,
which is having trouble making ends meet. California City should be
considered a tourist spot, a modern wonder, a ruin of gigantic
proportions, not of crumbling buildings, but a ruin of lost dreams,
gullibility, and greed.
    These lost–dream developments are sometimes a
glider pilot's salvation as a landing spot in an otherwise
vegetation–covered landscape. One time, I landed in a one-mile long
street, bulldozed out of the raw desert, fifty yards wide. A 747
could land there, but none ever have.
    I had no dream for the day. Soaring wouldn't be
any good today; my recent love interest sounded as if she was
dumping me because of my 'superior logic,' my legal career was on
hold. I felt like a California City lot.
    Back from my walk, I had breakfast, read the
New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times on my iPad.
The news didn't lift my spirits. I thought I would walk over to the
office at the airport, find someone to talk to, and do some 'hangar
flying,' reminiscing about past flights.
    Nobody was flying yet on this quiet day. I left
my trailer and began walking down the edge of the empty unpaved
section of the runway; the part used only in emergencies when
pilots decided to abort takeoffs. Desert sand was mixed with
limestone rocks, and along the edge of the runway, opportunistic
yellow flowers, the size of a thumbnail, were taking advantage of
the recent rain to flower, bloom, and seed while they had a chance.
Mesquite bushes lined the edge of the runway, separated by a few
paces from each other, taking advantage of all the space available
in the desert.
    An open–air sun shelter, next to the airport
office, had several wood tables and benches. It offered a shady
place to sit while waiting for the thermals to begin.
    At one of the tables the tow pilot, Dan, who
had rescued me from Rosamond Dry lake a few days ago, sat,
apparently deep in thought staring into the open desert. He was
wearing hiking boots, khaki shorts, a wrinkled long sleeve shirt,
and his cowboy hat.
    I said, "Hi Dan."
    He looked toward me and nodded,
"Hi."
    "Doesn't look like much of a day," I
observed.
    Dan said, "Every day in the desert is good.
Some are better for soaring than others. We are supposed to have a
student pilot coming out this morning. He will need about four tows
to practice landings."
    I had often talked to Dan before. I knew he had
a degree in something like English literature or philosophy and had
decided the best way to put it to use was flying a tow plane and
flying a water bomber when offered the chance. When there was a
forest fire, the government contracted with independent companies
to fly tanker aircraft, mostly obsolete military surplus carrier
aircraft, many poorly maintained, to drop red flame retardant in
the fire area. It was dangerous, high paying work, flying a few
feet above the trees, through smoke, in unpredictable winds, and
requiring exact flying skills. When I was on tow behind Dan in his
Pawnee, I knew I was in good hands.
    "Going to fly today?" he asked.
    "No, it looks too weak to bother getting my
bird out," I replied.
    Dan smiled, emphasizing the wrinkles around his
mouth, in his sun-dried face. "I think it was before your time, but
we used to have a pilot come out here who would go up on days like
this and fly cross-country for hundreds of miles. His name was
Charlie Krill, and he worked at the Lockheed skunk works, designing
high–flying spy planes like the U-2. We used to say he made his own
thermals. One time, I asked him how he could read the weather so
well and he