We’re not far from the airport. When I see the plane has passed over the house on the app, I start out - if the person I am picking up has no checked bag. If there is a checked bag involved, I take the leisurely route. It passes through the backroads and service roads, passes Terminal 2, and deposits me at the cellphone lot. Then it’s just two minutes to get there once I get the signal that the bag has been delivered. This spoils me for every other airport in the world.

Wife’s coming back! The app says the plane is early. I track it, and put on my coat as the plane tires screech. Off we go.

The airport has a drop-off area and a pick-up area. They’re on different levels. The drop-off area is usually unclogged, since people arrive in drastically staggered intervals. The pick-up area, as with most airports, is a nightmare, because planes delivery them in big cohorts, one after the other, trickling out at a steady pace.

Why, you might ask, don’t people pick up on the drop-off level?

Is it a realization, never expressed but somehow intuited, that everything would be a little worse if everyone did it?

You want drop-off to be quick, because you have a plane to catch. (Note: this is the idiom but it is incorrect; you are not attempting to board a plane that is zigging and zagging around the apron, or sprinting off like an unchained hound.) If you are late and the drop-off area is clogged with picker-uppers, you will complain about them, even as you know you have the same yourself, and will do it again, because the pick-up area is always chaotic, and fraught: you stop, pop the trunk, and expect a cop to show up and move you along. No parking! But - but how we can load bags and people if we do not stop?

So I thought as I looped around the airport for the fourth time, waiting for Wife to text that she had her bag. As I approach, I text: drop off or pick up. Wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . THE CUTOFF LOOMS, DECISIONS MUST BE MADE

Ding: drop off

With no time or space to spare, I swing to the proper lane, and there she is! Happy reunion. Hurrah! Home to the dog, who is ecstatic. Cannot believe it. Also, give me food. So now everything is normal, right down to needing my help to log into the Tennis Channel. No one around here has needed my help for four weeks, so it’s nice. She has not noticed that I reconnected the ceiling speakers to the amplifier, though. Room-filling sound with rich, resonant bass and clear trebles, every squeak of a shoe on the court bright and clear!

Or is it a clay court? Would tennis shoes squeak on clay? Googling . . . no, it’s “cushion acrylic hard courts prepared by Greenset Worldwide. Until 2008, the surface used was Rebound Ace.”

Oh no, that must have been traumatic for Rebound, losing a client like that. I’ll bet the manager got everyone in the meeting room and told them that the rumors were true, but they were still okay as a company, had new prospects, everyone should just keep doing to the great work they were doing, and so on. No one really believed it.

"It's because that player said it got sticky when it was hot, isn't it?"

"No, no, we disproved that. It's not that. Let's just keep our minds on moving forward."

Well:

In 2013, Rebound Ace was acquired by California Products Corporation of Andover, Massachusetts, which also produces DecoTurf (used at the US Open) and Plexicushion (which replaced Rebound Ace at the Australian Open), and incorporated into its Sports Surfaces line of athletic surfacing products.

One big happy family now, I guess.

The trademarks of a 100 years ago is our theme this year.

"Sweet" is not the word that instantly leaps to mind.

Annis? Odd. WebMD:

Sweet Annie (Artemisia annua) is a plant used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The parts that grow above the ground are used to make medicine.

Sweet Annie contains a chemical called artemisinin, which seems to act against the parasites that cause malaria. People use Sweet Annie for hay fever, malaria, osteoarthritis, and many other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence to support these uses.

Nothing on the web about Dame House.

I regret this; I really do. But if I had to suffer, so shall ye, and we'll get some amusement out of it.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s - hold on, it’s a plane

Get to know this refinery, and get to love it. You're going to be seeing a lot of it.

Aww, you think, a serial about a bunch of aviators? it’s gonna be just a lot of flying around. No jet packs, no invisible rulers, no moon people.

Hey, wait -

Okay then!

We’re told right away that the planes look conventional, but actually have super-charged engines. The Blackhawe pilots use their skill to guard the peace. We are also informed that they do not use guns, just their brains.

Enter the Chinese Cook. We’re getting off to a grand start.

What did he call him?

Anyway, someone’s in trouble, so they go get Blackhawk, who is the head Blackhawk of the Blackhawks. You can tell because he has a special uniform.

Oh, brother.

Well, there’s a civilian aviator - suit and tie natch - who’s out of gas, so they have to rescue him. This involves going down to the other plane on a rope ladder and helping the guy climb up after he’s taken his hands off the controls . . . . and you’re thinking dude, just land, it’s all desert down there.

Turns out the guy they rescued has business with Stan, one of the Blackhawks. What are the chances.

He’s brought a message from the Old Country. That means Reds! So sure, take one of our secret planes and be on your way, Blackhawk says. But you know this just looks fishy. So they follow him - IN A PLANE, very discrete - and when he lands at a remote location to meet some people, , Blackhawk “hits the silk” to observe them on the ground. I will spare you the twists and turns, but it's basically this: The people in the desert, le by an evil cold Commie woman, kidnap one of Blackhawk's men, the aforementioned Stan, and send back their own agent, who looks just like Stan, an absolute double.

I should also note that this is absolute crap.

Fourteen minutes in, no message from space.

ANYWAY everyone runs off because there’s a report of a sabotage at a gas-storage facility, and of course the first thing the civil authorities would do is say “send in some pilots who can chase them around on the ground and have fistfights." The plan fails, and the Red Chick has to report their failure to . . .

THE LEADER. They have to have a leader.

Well, the Blackhawks have found the Red’s base in a cabin, and they liberate Real Stan, who can explain everything:

Boris, meanwhile has managed to escape and set up a dastardly trap:

You know, I think we’re better off if I just leave it at that, and go no further.

Perhaps that's our cliffhanger. Will I annoy you with this next month?

Hey, I've forgot to embed - here we are again.

Substack up around 11.