It’s not something I usually admit in polite company, but I think I’m fairly prone to addiction. I’ve never been a raging alcoholic or desperate junkie, mind you, but when I take an interest in something, I tend to go all in. Shortly after I started motorcycling, I rode my old BMW on a 15,000-mile circumnavigation of the Lower 48 and an 8,000-mile trip to Alaska and back. My wife and I began traveling abroad in 2006 and have since visited 30 countries on five continents. After years of toying with the idea, my brother and I bought a little-used sailboat off Craigslist last year — and I just got back from racing a 50-foot Beneteau in the British Virgin Islands. All of these interests, however, pale in comparison to the two inexplicable, all-consuming passions that forever altered the course of my life.
My first encounter with addiction took place on a muggy June afternoon in central Minnesota. I was 13 years old. My mom had read about a Young Eagles rally in the local paper and subsequently bundled me and my five younger siblings into the family van and off to Princeton Airport. She did this mostly for my sake: I was already airplane mad and had been for some time. Up until this point, though, it could have simply been a passing phase of childhood, like my earlier obsession with trains. In any case, it was a phase my mom was willing to indulge with a few hours at the local airfield.
