Flying saucers and other things

 

Have you ever seen a flying saucer?  I mean an actual physically real thing that you could see just as you could an airplane?  Almost certainly not.  Have you ever seen a UFO; that is, some strange thing in the sky that you couldn't identify, probably a light of some sort, but in the daytime perhaps some bright object?  Could be, but probably not.  If you did see it, were you used to observing the sky and aware of the sorts of things that are in it -- birds, insects, including spiders drifting on gossamer filaments that sparkle in the sun, water vapor and droplets, ice crystals and other natural agents, not to mention party balloons, drifting toy parachutes and other human artifacts, and could distinguish those from the thing you could not identify.  If you were, and saw that out-of-the-ordinary object, did you immediately assume it must be some extraterrestrial space ship controlled by gray, bipedal ant-like creatures?  Or did you just think, huh, wonder what that is?

When I was a kid, maybe around 10 or so, I read Flying Saucers Have Landed by George Adamski.  I remember the book well.  It was a hardback, the dust jacket long gone, but the covers were bright yellow with red lettering.  That's what attracted me to read it.  And I believed everything in it -- the flying saucers, the vimanas, floating pyramids, Atlantis, space aliens that looked like Vikings and lived on Venus, Martian canals....  I believed it because in those days I had no doubt that people published only what was true in books.  That's why they wrote books, to pass on knowledge and wisdom.  I had yet to learn about...well, the reality of this world; among other things, that people write books to pander to audiences in order to make money: they write what sells, no matter if they believe it or not. When his wine business failed, Adamski turned to writing about men from outer space, what he himself called "this saucer crap,"  according to Curtis Peebles in his review of the flying saucer mania in his book Watch the Skies. Re-reading Have Landed today, I could only agree with Adamski's view of what he wrote -- crap.  But generations after he wrote his saucer crap, saucer crap is still popular.  Popular despite recycling three-quarter-century old incidents like Roswell over and over again.  Mulder's assertion in The X Files, "I want to believe," explains it, as it does so much of everything else.

Overheard:  "Spanish is not a white language."
At first, I thought what a lame comment, Spain is in Europe, the homeland of whites.  But then I realized that anyone these ranch workers encountered who was speaking Spanish would almost certainly not be white but someone from Mexico or Central America, and not a member of those countries' pale upper classes. So in these United States, the statement was actually entirely reasonable.

Chatting with an older customer at our local airport burger shack a while back about how things have changed since he was in high school in the early Sixties, he mentioned that he worked various after-school and weekend jobs that earned him about 80 dollars a week.  What did he do?  Forward stock in a local department store, gas station attendant, delivery boy, grocery store roustabout doing whatever his boss told him to do, hanger rat at the local airport also doing whatever  he was told to do -- wash planes, put air in the tires, refuel them, push them from one location to another.  He would go around businesses and ask if there was any work, even if just temporary, and if there was, whatever it was, he would do it  He worked on a sod farm, was a well driller's assistant, carpenter's helper, and so on.  But those jobs, he believed, are mostly not available to high schoolers anymore, being automated, eliminated or filled by illegals.

So anyway, from musing on jobs, he said that, even though he was going to high school, doing homework and participating in extracurricular activities, he earned enough money to buy his own airplane, a bright yellow Piper J3 Cub, the yellow peril as he called it -- Lord, the freedom to just make jokes about anything in those days without anybody having a hissy fit. He paid $1,200 for it in 1964.  It didn't have an electrical system beyond magnetos. You spun the prop by hand to start it.  He learned to fly in it, paying his instructor, an old guy who had learned to fly in a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny back in the teens, $2 an hour for eight hours of instruction, at which point he soloed.  By and by, he sold the yellow peril and bought a Stearman PT-13, a World War II open-cockpit biplane primary trainer.  He paid $3,000 for it. It was painted bright red so he called it the red menace.  He paid his old instructor to teach him aerobatics in it.  He and his instructor, who flew a Waco PT-14 biplane, staged World War I-style dogfights with each other, he usually getting his tail waxed. 

When he got his pilot's license, he sold the Stearman and bought the Waco from his instructor, paying $3,200 for it.  The fuselage was painted blue and the wings yellow so he called it the blue streak. Although not strictly legal, he earned money to fly by taking passengers on local trips or just sightseeing, letting them pay for gas and tipping him whatever they thought the trip was worth.  He printed up flyers on the press at the vo-ag high school advertising his services, calling himself president and chief pilot of Blue Streak International Airways.  He rode around the county on his motorcycle stuffing the flyers into RFD and Star Route mailboxes. If he got a customer, he would fly out to their house, land on the dirt road in front and pick them up.  After he graduated from high school, he decided to beat the draft and enlist.  The Army trained him to fly the CV-2 Caribou and sent him to Viet Nam where he flew with the 1-13 out of Can Tho. He was proud that he had served in the action that earned the battalion the Valorous Unit Award, which is the equivalent of the Silver Star awarded to an individual.

His story was so interesting I offered to pay for his lunch but he refused, saying the day he allowed a lady to pay was the day he handed in his man license.  Instead, he bought mine.  It didn't occur to him that in this day and age he might be offending me. He kinda sorta was, if I wanted to be offended, which I didn't. So I just gave him  a peck on the cheek and he gave me a hug when he got up to leave.  He was flying a King Air on his way to Seattle and had just dropped by for fuel and lunch.

Speaking of King Airs, around that time one of the ranch's employees had an urgent family emergency that he had to attend to in Libby and he was worried that driving he would be too late. When I heard about it, I offered to fly him and his wife and kid.  He accepted and off we went.  But before departing, since I'd never been to Libby, besides the usual familiarization and flight planning, I checked to see if there had been any crashes at the airport.  I always do this with an unfamiliar air field to see what problem situations I might encounter.  I found one incident that interested me, a King Air that crashed with two fatalities.  The pilot, flying in at night, couldn't find the airport and collided with terrain while looking for it.  Well, I wasn't going to fly in at night and I had studied the vicinity enough to be sure to find the airport even if my GPS went on the fritz.  A curious thing about this crash was that the pilot had no license, no approved medical and was color blind, yet here he was flying a King Air with apparently quite a bit of experience in it.  Even more curious was the fact that he had flown in and out of Libby many times.  So how could he miss the airport? I didn't get it. King Air crash report

Duane, the FBO, had eaten lunch with us and joined in the conversation, remarking that these days all a high schooler could afford was a cell phone.  We walked out with the visitor when he left and sat on the porch bench swing to watch him take off.  Duane had had two beers with his lunch and he drank another while we sat. 

"You know," he said, "Jeff sent me photos of you posing with your Twin Beech when you were in Germany.  They were very nice.  You looked really good."

"Thanks.  It was in Britain. When we were in Germany we visited Schwarzenau, Hesse.  That's where a branch of my family emigrated to America from in 1719.  And when we were in England we visited Ulverston in Cambria from where another branch of my family emigrated to America in 1686. Jeff could have visited where his ancestors came from but he wasn't interested.  He did say, though, that perhaps it was time for us to emigrate like they did, get out while the getting was good, rather than waiting until they wouldn't let us leave. The handwriting was on the wall and maybe we should read it."

"Yes.... Well, what I was wondering was....  Well, I was thinking -- just a possibility, a kind of why not, you know -- would you pose for some pictures we could use to make a calendar to sort of advertise the place?  We could hand it out to drop-in fliers like that guy who just left, and give it out to restaurant customers and so forth...."

"Um...."

"So...Wanda...what do you think?"

"Would you have other girls posing, too, like a different girl for each month?"

"Well, yeah, if I could find that many girls and I'd have to pay each of them....  But the thing is, Wanda, the gimmick, if you will, the reason for you being on the calendar, is that you are a pilot flying your plane out of here and doing business with us.  See?  That's the point.  So you could pose with your plane in various outfits and so on with our hanger and sign in the background."

"Outfits?"

"You know, like a flight suit and --"

"I don't wear a flight suit when I fly."

 "Yeah, sure, but just for the calendar, a flight suit, maybe jeans or a bikini."

"I don't fly in a bikini.  And I don't fly topless or nude, either.  Although I've thought about it on hot days. Get a little breeze."

"Well, I didn't expect you to pose that way -- unless you wanted to...." Duane looked at me hopefully.

"So you would want some sexy poses?"

"Well, we could have a couple, one or two, but also with you in the cockpit, holding a wrench by an engine, that kind of thing."

"I don't wrench the plane."

"I'm just blue-skying.  We could take a bunch of photos. I've seen you fly out of here wearing cut-off jeans and little tank tops with vee necks that really showed off your...you know, assets, I guess you could say."

"It gets hot in the cockpit so I dress for comfort. I didn't know it made you hot, too."

Duane grinned, then said nothing for a while, leaning forward on the bench, hands clasped, looking out over the field. Then he turned to me.

"So what do you say, Wanda?  If I have to say 'please' I will. It will be in good taste, something to be proud of. I would pay you, of course. Please?"

I was silent for a minute, thinking.  The idea to pose for a calendar, coming out of the blue like this, had surprised me, but as I thought about it while Duane pitched me, I started to like the idea. I was already thinking of what clothes I could wear and what poses would work best.  But I didn't want to appear too eager.

"You'd need to wax and polish the plane and I'd have to get Jeff's approval, but if he says okay --"

"Oh, that's great, Wanda!  That's so great!" Duane reached his arm around me as we sat together and pulled me to him, squeezing my shoulder.  "I could kiss you, you make me so happy."

"Whoa, there! Easy, big fella."

"Sorry, I guess I got a little carried away." He smiled, seemed about to say something, but didn't.

"You can pick some of the things you want me to wear if you like," I said.

"Really?  Can I? That'll be great." Duane was beaming.

"Now, don't go overboard.  No micro string bikinis or anything."

"Oh, darn, that's just what I was planning to get for you."

"And you don't have to pay me, Duane. Just buy me lunch some time. I think it will be fun.  Let me know when you want to do it."

But we never got around to doing it. Life intervened.