It's really not about the airplane

 “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
― Ray Bradbury

 "Johnny May, a Canadian bush pilot with 42,000 hours on many different types, was the first Inuit pilot  and the initiator of the Christmas candy drop tradition in Kuujjuaq.
During his career, Johnny has flown many planes but his all-time favorite is the Twin Beach. He has flown it on floats, wheels and wheel-skis around the tundra. While on a medevac mission he almost arrived late to his own wedding because the mission took longer than expected and he pushed his Twin Beech hard to make it on time!
He has mentioned to me many times that he would love to fly again in one to remember the thousands of hours he spent in his Beech 18."
― Felix Lussier

"The Beech 18 is not an airplane for a low timer who is young and eager. It most certainly can severely bite an inexperienced pilot, no matter how eager he is."
― Dudley Henriques

 "You cannot let your guard down in the Twin Beech even for a millisecond, for if you do, she will get your attention back in a hurry. She requires constant attention and respect to keep her and your passengers safe. If you are not careful she can, and will, do things that you don't want her to do. On the other hand, the Twin Beech is an awesome aircraft that can do things that other aircraft couldn't dream of.  Walter Beech and Ted Wells should be proud of their fantastic design."
 ― Taigh Ramey

"The Beech 18 is a pilot's airplane.  That's all you need to know about it."
 ― My Dad

I talked to dad about the upgrades Duane had suggested making to our Beech but he nixed all but the cockpit upgrades, which he had already mentioned he wants to do. 

"The bird flies just fine as she is," he said.  "Like they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it."

"Well, what about those winglet things he was talking about?"

"I like her the way she is, every part of her.  Besides, have you found the old girl unstable in rough air or difficult to handle at low speeds, lack of aileron authority, tendency to stall and drop a wing tightening a turn from base to final?"

"Not really, no, and I don't overshoot my turns from base to final, even with a tail wind, and crank it in; I know how to judge that. Geez, dad.  But I do think a wingtip change would be really worth it. Anyway, the plane is already upgraded and modified." Counting the mods off on my fingers, I mentioned no nose fuel tank, six tanks in the wings, propeller circuit breakers, Aerospace spar strap, all the wiring and hoses replaced, corrosion control, reinforced landing gear struts, channel-type rear tire, Cleveland main wheels and brakes with inner tubes and O rings for the tires, high speed gear doors, ram air scoops for the carburetor intakes, jet stack exhausts, newer radios, S-TEC 60-2 autopilot, custom interior....

"Well, we are going to upgrade the cockpit.  As for the rest, I think the fuel tank arrangement was in place when dad -- your granddad -- bought the plane. Some others as well. The radios were a routine upgrade, and the brakes were a must because the Goodyears were not very good and --"

"Okay then, but why not do the engine upgrades Duane suggests?"

"I don't want them." 

And that ended that discussion, but the mention of spare parts led to a discussion of their future availability and dad leading me to a rear section of our hanger to some dusty storage cabinets.  Inside were stacks of spare parts for the Beech and around behind the cabinets were two brand new Pratt & Whitney R-985 engines in crates.  

"Your grandfather got those and the spares when he bought the plane.  I don't know if they were part of the sale, but they probably were, as the owners would have had no use for them once they sold the Beech.  And I've been buying commonly needed spares and stock-piling them for some time, so we have multiple spares for most things we might need."

"But you don't use them, you buy from Duane when the plane is serviced or has its annual."

"Right.  These are just for the time when spares may be hard to get. I want to give Duane the business.  He needs it and we need him. So we are obliged to support him."

"You want to give Duane the business, huh?"

"Don't get smart, missy."

"Couldn't help it."

"Anyway, Wanda, when you own the airplane you can do what you want with it. If you want --"

"When I own it?" That took me by surprise.  "Has that been determined?  When was I consulted about this?  What if I don't want the thing?"

"Of course you want it. I've seen how you fly it. You talk to it. It's alive to you. Anyway, it's a practical necessity for ranch life. You've learned that. As far as you getting the plane, your brothers and I talked about it."  

My naval officer brother intended to stay in the Navy as long as they would have him so he had no desire to own an airplane.  He flew for his job and also had access to Navy flying clubs.  Dad mentioned that he was partial to the T-34B at Monterey when he had been studying at the Naval post-graduate school there.

"I thought that club was closed now," I said.

"I don't know.  That's not the point."

"Which is?"

"That your brother is not interested in owning a small airliner.  He would prefer something more sporty."  

I asked about my brother the forest ranger.

"He doesn't want it either, but he does want the Aviat Husky.  He'd love to have it.  I told him it was all his.  I figured you wouldn't want it.  You've shown no interest in it.  If he doesn't come back to the ranch he's planning to settle down in Alaska and the Husky would be perfect for him there. Something he could really get good use out of."

"Fine with me.  So I get the Beech, huh?"

"If you want it. I thought you did but you acted there for a minute as if you didn't. Do you or not?"

I looked away from dad's gaze and thought about it.  There'd be a lot of expense involved in keeping it flying.  Some could be written off as part of ranch use, I assumed, maybe most. But, still, it was an old airplane, designed 90 years ago and manufactured 70 years ago. However you looked at it, it couldn't have much service life left in it.  What it had going for it was that it was built in an era when things were engineered to last indefinitely and to be repairable. And the air frame didn't have a lot of hours on it, being flown sparingly as an executive transport and air ambulance for most of its life before being acquired by my grandfather in the 1960s. But nothing lasts forever and the day would come sooner rather than later when the Twin Beech would make its last flight.

I honestly didn't know if we were going to stay at the ranch.  I didn't know if I really wanted to.  Some parts of me said yes, other parts were not so sure.  And Jeff was talking about emigrating, which I did not want to do but whither he goeth, thither I follow, so I would accept his decision.

But beyond that I was wondering why this subject had suddenly come up. "Is there some reason I have to decide this now?"

"Wanda, to be truthful, I haven't been feeling right since I fell ill last fall."

I started to say something but dad, anticipating me, cut me off.

"I'm okay, just not back to my old self, I can tell --"

 "I thought you were all better, dad.  You've been pretty active, snowmobiling and snow-shoeing and --"

"Yes, I've done those things but they really wore me out.  I should have begged off but I guess my pride wouldn't let me do that."

"You just need more time to recover.  You shouldn't rush things. You had it pretty bad there for a while."

 "You don't have to tell me.  Anyway, what I want to say is -- and it's something my illness and the days since have made me realize -- I know now that I am an old man.  I never thought about that before.  I was just me, same as ever I was.  But now I know I am old.  I don't have much time left."

"Dad! What are you saying?"

"Oh, I'm all right.  As far as I know.  Now. But the reality has hit me that the time I have left is limited, so I need to plan for that and take care of things now. I don't want anything to be a burden on your mother, or cause dissension among my children. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I do, dad.  I don't like it. But I understand."  I wanted to hug him, but I knew he was uncomfortable with that sort of display of affection.

"Well, enough of that," he said.  "It's a nice day today.  Do you feel up to taking a walk?"

I wasn't but I said I was and we had a pleasant walk.

Just for fun

These days

 With a due date next month, I have been getting ready for the blessed event and haven't had much time for writing, and doubtless will have even less after, but I will continue to post from time to time as stray thoughts insist on being committed to the page.

I can't risk having my child way out in the boonies, so we've rented a house (and car, too) almost next door to the hospital and I am settled in there with el jefe, my kids and my mother. I'm kind of nervous, of course, there are so many things to worry about, but I've gone through this before and like all difficult things once it's over you forget about it.  I'll be glad to be finished with the pregnancy and have another mini-me to enjoy.  So I'm looking past today and tomorrow towards the days afterward, so to speak.

We flew out from the ranch with dad piloting and Jeff co-piloting, picking up some familiarization with the Beech.  I sat in the back with my mother and the kids. It was nice to be a passenger and have no responsibilities.   I didn't even have to worry about supervising the house apes as mom did that, though they were quite well behaved.

I'm glad my parents are here to enjoy their grandchildren.  It's always a pleasure to see how they interact with them. They are much freer, if that's the right word, with them than they were with me or my brothers.  I think that's because the responsibility of training and disciplining them, civilizing them, is my and my husband's responsibility, not theirs.  So they can just have fun with them.

Noodling around in some old boxes I found more stuff from my mother's trip to the Soviet Union back in the early 1970s.  This is an unopened package of Russian cigarettes more than a half-century old. I asked my mother where she got it and how much it cost. She said she thought she had bought it in Moscow but she couldn't be sure and she had no idea how much she had paid for it, but she thought just a few kopecks.

She did remember that she was surprised by the number of churches she saw in the Soviet Union. She had been under the impression that religion was suppressed under the communists, but her eyes seemed to tell her it was not so.  For all she knew, however, the churches had been repurposed as they say nowadays and were used for something other than religious services.  But then they still had crosses. I asked her why she didn't take a peek inside and she said that she was too timid.  She was afraid of getting into trouble if she was too nosy about things. After all, the Cold War was still going strong even if she was there during the brief Nixon détente.

One day my mom and I talked about the music we liked as teens and she remembered the sensation the Beatles made and how much she liked their early songs that seemed full of energy and sincerity.  She always wanted to see them in concert but never had the chance.  She was mentioning her favorite songs of theirs when she suddenly stopped and grew quiet, looked out the window.

"Mom?"

"Oh, I was just thinking that it's been sixty years since I first heard the Beatles. Sixty years.  How can that be?  How can that possibly be?  I can remember those days just as if they were yesterday, my friends, the things we did, all the days that would never end, we'd always be that young but, you know, we didn't think we were young. We just were."

She looked at her hands.  "And now....  I look at my hands and they are the hands of an old woman.  How can that be?  What happened?  Where did I go -- the real me that's a teenager?  When did I get old?  I didn't notice the time passing.  And now I'm old."

"Mom...."

"Oh, it's all right, child.  I'm just having a moment.  Don't pay attention to me.  But you pay attention to you.  Don't let your time go by without noticing it."

I started to get up to give her a hug, but she said, "No, no.  You sit.  I'm fine.  Really.  I'm just...well, it doesn't matter."

"So," she said after a moment, "I think I remember the music you liked, but tell me what was your favorite song in those days?"

I thought for a moment, drifting back, sorting through my mental music albums. "Well, I think the song that most impacted me at so many levels, and, thinking on it, one that sort of foretold a big part of my life and the direction it took was Faith Hill's 'There You'll Be.'"

"I remember you liked Faith Hill a lot. You liked a lot of what I guess they called new country or something like that."

"And also the big band revival, neo-swing, Brian Setzer and so on. I got into it just as it was dying out. I think it reminded me of the music of grandma's day."

"Yes, I remember when you found all those old records, 78s in albums, I think when you were eight or nine.  Eight, yes, eight. I remember you were crazy about 'Skater's Waltz.' and danced around the room to it. Do you remember that?"

"Oh, yes!  I'd forgotten.  But you remembered."

"I remember a lot, Wanda.  You were my baby girl.  Everything you thought or did was important to me. It still is.  I was in labor for four hours with you.  I was afraid I was going to lose you."

She fell silent, looking out the window.  I was silent, too, thinking about my baby in my womb now.  

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 tied-off blouses  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.

 

 

Chitchat

When I was running around in the Beech last fall, one day I got to chatting with Duane, the FBO at our local airport.  I'd said something about how it was possible to carry out IFR flying in difficult conditions using just the Beech's ancient basic instruments -- an old style attitude indicator that had to be caged (locked) if pitch and roll became extreme, altimeter, vertical speed indicator, airspeed indicator, turn and bank indicator, heading indicator and whiskey (magnetic) compass, but that I wished that we had an updated panel with modern instruments, including Strike Finder or StormScope and all sorts of other goodies, including for fuel and engine management.

I mentioned my father had talked about upgrading the cockpit gizmos, including installing weather radar, something like the Garmin GWX-8000 with Doppler, wind sheer and turbulence detection and ground clutter suppression.  I surely would love to have that.  We were flying the bug smasher with instruments Jimmy Doolittle would have conducted the first blind flight with back in 1929. That seemed dumb to me, considering all that was available today.

"You tell your dad we can install all of that and whatever else he wants right here.  And I'll make sure he gets a special price, too," Duane said.

"Gonna overcharge us, huh?"

"Oh, Wanda! I wouldn't do that to an old friend and a long-time customer."

"Kidding."

"Seriously, your dad can trust us to do a good job in a timely fashion at a fair price.  If you go somewhere else you don't even know if they can work on that plane and if they can it might be a year -- and that's no exaggeration -- before you get it back.  We'll just order what you want and install it.  Also tell your dad that if he is upgrading the panel he should seriously consider upgrading the engines -- I mean, you've still got generators and carburetors on that old-timer.  Think what fuel injection and electronic ignition would do for  reliability and performance, and alternators... -- oh, right I was thinking of mentioning to your dad that he ought to install Hoerner wing tips.  They really would improve performance and handing.  You just can't spin a plane with Hoerner wing tips."

"I wasn't planning to spin it.  I don't think that's on dad's 'to do' list, either."

"Well, you know what I mean.  The tips make the plane more stable.  Think about that in IFR turbulence."

"Okay, you sold it to me.  Now sell it to dad. And you know what else I'd like?  One of those laser landing height systems, one coupled to a gear-up warning -- not that I would ever land with the gear up or not be able to judge my landings" -- cough -- "but, you know, just in case."  I was thinking, but didn't say, that I'd like a gear-up warning that didn't just sound a horn but one that would bellow in the voice of Ron Lee Ermey, "Hey, numbnuts, lower the fucking landing gear!"  Being in the Navy and serving alongside Marines endears that sort of exhortation to you.

"Whatever you guys want, we can order and install."

I sensed a bit of eager urgency in Duane's pitch and, looking around the rather bleak airport with no aircraft in the pattern, only one employee besides Duane, Randy, the A&P guy and all-around service provider and some occasional part-timers and hanger monkeys I'd seen around -- of course, there was Butch, who ran the diner, but he wasn't involved with airport operations -- I realized that this was an airport on the edge of extinction.  I'd never thought about it before.  The airport had always been here.  Duane had always run it as far back as I could remember, but recalling visits here in years past, it seemed that it had once been much  busier.  I asked Duane about it.

"Oh, yeah.  We were doing gangbusters before Covid."

Duane explained that there were tourists flying in in summer as well as the ag business and in the fall came the hunters and fishermen in season.  In addition, there were plenty of locals, especially the ranchers  with their own planes who serviced them with him. Aircraft from government agencies like the Forest Service, Department of Agriculture, occasionally ICE or other law enforcement, contract firefighters, even some National Guard flights also stopped by for fuel, sometimes maintenance or to have a bite to eat and take a bathroom break. 

"I had three full-time A&P guys doing maintenance, repairs, annuals, plus a couple of helpers for them and a dedicated fuel service man, line service technicians, customer service lady and two or three ramp apes. Let me think who else we had....  Well, some others. I had two or three CFIs that kept busy.  When they weren't instructing they offered scenic flights.  They did pretty well.  We talked about setting up a skydiving operation but never got around to it."

Duane said the restaurant was also doing a great business before the lockdowns.  He had a cook, cook's helper, two waitresses, a busboy and dishwasher and a cashier.  The two rooms that are now crash pads for rare overnighters used to be one big dining room. It had a little stage for local musicians or whatever else.  A poetry reading group used to meet there. Duane recalled a young woman reciting in dramatic fashion a poem about Bonnie Parker.  She was so good all the diners stopped eating to listen to her, then gave her an ovation. There was a local drama group that acted out plays. It all brought people in. 

"But then with the Covid lockdown everything came to a stop.  Airport business dropped off a cliff and it's just never really come back."

The restaurant suddenly had no customers. No locals, no tourists, no fly-ins.  Duane had to let everyone go and closed it.  He converted the dining room to sleepovers just for something to do, really, and to maybe get some income when the motel down the road also had to close.  

"You remember -- that one at Cool Springs that Tom H___ had with the kids' playground, curiosities museum, souvenir store and cafe?  He got pretty near wiped out by the Covid thing." Tom converted the motel to monthly rentals, which is all that saved him, Duane said, since they filled up pretty quickly.  There's not much in the way of cheap rental units out here.  

"That's where Jim lives, you know.  He does when he's here in the summer, anyway. Tom's dad started that place with a bait shop after he got out of the service in the Sixties."  He got drafted but lucked out, Duane said, getting stationed in Germany rather than being sent to Vietnam.  His brother joined the Marines, wanting to see some action, but he was trained as an air traffic controller and spent his enlistment at Yuma and never left the States.  "He worked here when he first got out and came home, but after a while he left, I think it was in..., huh, I can't remember.

"What was I saying?  Well, anyway, Tom closed the bait shop, the souvenir shop, general store and everything. You know the place I'm talking about, right?  A few miles down the road."

"Oh, yeah," I said, "My aunt Viola was the manager of the cafe and store for a long time.  She started working there after her husband died. Her daughter worked as a waitress summers when she was in high school."

"I remember Viola! Sure.  And was that her daughter Hester or ... oh, what was her name?  Roxanne!  Oh, course, Roxanne. She was the pretty one.  She could have been a movie star."

"It was Hester."

"I should have remembered that.  Well, anyway, Tom has a Navion that he hangers here.  He inherited it from his dad when the old man passed away.  But he hasn't flown it since the lock down. I imagine he can't afford to anymore. He put it up for sale but so far there haven't been any offers."

"That's like my dad inherited our Beech from his father," I said.  Granddad bought it after he retired from the Navy and returned to the ranch."

"Most of the planes and the folks who fly them out of here have been doing it down through the generations, passing on their planes to their kids. I guess you will be getting the Beech one day." 

"I hope it's a long way off, and, anyway, one of my brothers may want it.  I'm not going to get into a fight with them over a dumb airplane.  So, what are your plans for the airport?  Are any of your kids interested in operating it?"

"I don't know, Wanda.  They all have established careers.  None of them flies.  None has ever expressed any interest in the airport and I don't think any of them would want it.  I suppose when I pass on they will just sell it.  If they can find a buyer.  If not, they'll probably sell off the equipment and land for whatever they can get, or just abandon it."

I didn't like the sound of that.  This airport was a big convenience for us.  Where would we go for fuel and maintenance, annuals?  Not to mention the comradery.  Destination City was a long haul away and we really didn't know anybody there so we'd just be dollar signs to their FBO.

"I hope you stick around for a long, long time.  You and this airport."

"Thanks, Wanda, so do I.  But, to be honest, I don't know about keeping the airport going. Randy has hinted that he may have to move on if things don't pick up.  A good, experienced A&P man like he is could make a lot more money someplace busier.  I think the only thing keeping him around is he has family here, owns his house and his wife and kids aren't eager to move."

I thought about Butch, the fry cook, it would be pretty tough on him if the airport closed.  I said as much to Duane.

"He's done pretty good for himself here," Duane said.  "You know, I was just thinking about re-opening the restaurant when he showed up, pushing his motorcycle."  He'd run out of gas in sight of the airport.  He was dead broke and asked if there was some kind of work he could do to earn enough money to buy a meal and a tank of gas.  Duane asked him what he could do and he explained he was a short-order cook.  

"I hired him on the spot.  But I told him I couldn't afford to pay him much by way of salary, at least at the start."  Instead, Duane offered him a percentage of the sales plus let him live in the apartment above the restaurant rent-free -- it was empty anyway.  

"Butch brought the place to life and he works like a dog.  Never takes a day off, is up in the wee hours getting everything ready for the breakfast trade, cooks, serves, buses, washes, sweeps and mops.  Whatever needs to be done he does it." Duane explained that Butch managed the inventory, worked with vendors, handled the books.  He even made the roadside sign advertising the place, designed it, built it, installed it.  "He's a wonder, Wanda, he truly is."

"I had no idea, but I'm surprised he has no help."

"He could hire whatever he needs, but he says until the place is solidly profitable he won't take on any expenses not absolutely required."

"He's going to burn himself out."

"I've told him that but he laughs it off.  He says he's got nothing else to do anyway.  Better to be taking care of the diner in the evenings than sitting alone in his room watching TV.  I guess he's right about that."

"So what will he do if you decide to shut down?"

"I talked to him about the possibility and he just said that he was looking for work when he came here and he'd be looking for work when he left." Duane scratched his head.  "I guess that means something."

"Maybe it means he doesn't expect much from life anymore."

"I suppose no one should."

An idling mind

 

It hasn't been a bad winter so far, all things considered.  We did have some very, very cold days a while back, minus 40 degrees one morning, which is a mite chilly. We had snow flurries today, the high around 30 or so I think and there's long been snow on the ground, six or eight inches or thereabouts.  Last year I would have thought we were having a terrible winter, but this year, eh, just the dreary season.  Or for me it is, not being able to do much, even go outside for very long or very far.  No sidewalks here. When I do go for a mosey, I take along a stout oak walking stick. I have to be careful not to slip and fall.  But whereas last year I was very agitated in my forced immobility, this year, other than being prone to mopiness, I am okay to sit by the fireplace, look out the window at winter and read or knit.  Lord, I'm turning into my mother -- not that there's anything wrong with that!

I wrote a while ago about a relative back around 1900 or so getting in a gun fight with horse thieves while she was pregnant and getting shot before doing for the bad guys.  I was thinking about that today and wondering if I could do it and the answer was no way, are you out of your mind?  Forget it.  They could have the stupid horses.  No question people back in those days were made of the very sternest stuff. Genuine pioneer stock was too tough to kill they used to say. They had to be to create a civilization out of a primeval wilderness.  I'm proud of my pioneer ancestors although nowadays I'm supposed to be ashamed of them.  Fie, I say.  Fie!

Dad is so much better now that he and el jefe went snowmobiling cross-country, staying a couple of nights at one of the remoter line shacks while they snow-shoed around the neighborhood.  Have you ever tried to walk with snowshoes? -- not just for a few yards but for miles?  Include me out on that.

In 1982, my father visited the Triumph factory in Meriden to pick up a new Bonneville he had ordered, an Imperial Edition made to commemorate the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Dianna Spencer.  For some reason, I remembered it as a special edition commemorating the Pearl Anniversary of Elizabeth becoming queen, but when I asked my dad about it, he set me straight. Now that I think about it, it could also have been the Oak anniversary edition, too, as Triumph had been making motorcycles since 1902.
Anyway, while there, he was given a tour of the factory and he spotted some sort of machine tool, I forget what it was, that had been clearly broken badly and then welded back together. He asked what happened to it, and his guide casually explained that it had been damaged when the Germans bombed Coventry in 1940. At that time, Triumph had a factory on Priory Street where it had been building motorcycles since 1907. The plant was destroyed by the Luftwaffe.
But the Triumph workers dragged the machine tools out of the ruins, repaired those that had been damaged and installed them in the relocated plant some miles away in Meriden.
Whenever the subject of the value of the strategic bombing campaigns during World War II has come up, my father always mentions this little story to illustrate how futile much of the effort was. It’s really hard to damage machine tools, process machinery and the like, by bombing so thoroughly that they can’t be put back in working order.
In any case, there was that piece of equipment still doing its job more than four decades after the Blitz had ended.
While my father was at the factory, he met Lord Hesketh, who was contemplating buying or investing in Triumph. He invited my father to visit his estate at Easton Neston to do some pheasant hunting. There he met his friend, Bubbles, and some race car driver (the Lord financed a Formula racing team) who gave him a jacket with the racing team patch on it, the slogan of which was, “Sex: Breakfast of Champions.”
Lord Hesketh was also into creating his own motorcycle (I assume he wanted Triumph to manufacture it), the Hesketh 1000, an example of which he gave or maybe sold at cost, I don’t know, to my father, to evaluate. It was supposed to be the modern-day reincarnation of the fabled Vincent Black Shadow with state-of-the-art engineering.
We still have both motorcycles. The Bonneville runs just fine, but the Hesketh long ago lunched its transmission.
My mother took one look at the Hesketh jacket my father proudly wore home from his trip to the Sceptered Isle and informed him that he could keep the motorbikes but that jacket had to go.

Erté ideal woman

Gibson girl

The image of the ideal women of 1947 depicted in the diagram to the left persists today.  It was firmly established in the public mind by the artist George Petty and his Petty girl, which began appearing in the 1930s, published by various men's magazines and adorning calendars advertising the Ridgid tool company (there's a joke lurking in that name and association but I won't stretch for it).  Prior to the Petty girl, the ideal female shape was the 1920s boyish flapper, depicted famously in the art deco women of the artist Erté, who once remarked that the perfect female breast fitted inside a coupe cocktail glass.  And before that was the narrow-waisted, buxom Gibson girl, evolved from the bustled beauty of the previous generation.  It seems to me part of and evidence for the ossification of popular culture that the female shape deemed most ideal, which once changed from generation to generation, has now remained unaltered for a good 90 years.

 

O
f course, males still think association with females will give them cooties. 

"I went out to buy an envelope.
"'Oh,' my wife says,  'Well, you're not a poor man, you know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?'
"I pretend not to hear her and go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people, and see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by and I give them the thumbs up. And I ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know.
"The moral of the story is we're here on Earth to fart around.
"And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore."
~ Kurt Vonnegut

The Pilgrim Soul

 The Fury of Aerial Bombardment
You would think the fury of aerial bombardment
Would rouse God to relent; the infinite spaces
Are still silent. He looks on shock-pried faces.
History, even, does not know what is meant.

You would feel that after so many centuries               
God would give man to repent; yet he can kill
As Cain could, but with multitudinous will,
No farther advanced than in his ancient furies,

Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?                 
Is the eternal truth man's fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?

~ Richard Eberhart

 

 "The dictionary defines a pilgrim as one who travels in alien lands.  In a sense, we are all pilgrims, for all of life is a search -- for security, for success, for love. For some of us, the journey is a longer one than for others, and for the few it can seem all but impossible: a confusion of desires exists within -- the desire for recognition verses the desire for anonymity, and trust verses suspicion.  If the confusion reaches too great an intensity, we run the risk of losing our bearings altogether.

"It is said that there is at least one extraordinary event in the life of each of us, a moment so outstanding, so inexplicable that it stays with us forever, timeless, always present, and if this event is properly understood our lives can change radically.  But if the meaning of the moment is lost on us we are doomed to wander, Cain like, forever."

The Pilgrim Soul, first broadcast over CBS radio on November 13, 1978.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmured, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

~ William Butler Yeats 

 

 

Bits and pieces

White women of reproductive age constitute 2 percent of the world's population.  White children under the age of 18 constitute 3 percent of the world's population.  If whites were a species of bird or amphibian, they would be considered endangered and their habitat would be protected and invasive species removed.

 Aircraft pilots have the second most dangerous occupation in the United States. First is loggers.  Police officer is twenty-second.  The most common causes of aircraft crashes are pilot error and maintenance error, in no order.  The loss of an engine I experienced recently was a maintenance error, and a very minor one -- a bit of one-sided pressure when gapping a spark plug cracked an insulator that later broke off, causing pre-ignition. I was fortunate that the incident happened in fair weather during daytime near the airport in an empty airplane with plenty of altitude under me. But if I had had to deal with an engine shutdown at night or while in heavy icing conditions or a severe turbulance, especially if I were near maximum gross weight with cargo or passengers and far from a landing strip, despite my best efforts, I very easily could  have lost control of the airplane and crashed, the cause being put down to pilot error or perhaps listed as unknown.

The family owns ranchland from California to Colorado and with this recent series of discoveries of vast lodes of rare earth ores, some  are thinking that our lands, too, may contained huge deposits. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if environmentalists sue to keep the stuff in the ground.  I would kind of be on their side because the way the ores would be extracted would be through enormous open-pit mines.  I'd rather we establish and maintain good relations with China and get the rare earth metals we need from them and let that country destroy its landscape, since they seem indifferent to it, while we preserve ours.  We shouldn't leave our descendants a barren desolation but pass on to them intact the glory we inherited.

I found some more of the buttons my mother used to collect when she was young.  She remembers that she got the "British Troops Out of Ireland" button from some guy who was giving a speech at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, London, in 1973.  She still remembers the pure hatred in his face as he talked.  She'd never seen the like before.  She couldn't tell the difference between English people and Irish people.  They looked the same to her.

I showed the buttons to my dad and he remarked that the green one was typical of shoddy British quality, noting how the American buttons were still like new.  I pointed out the ribbon of the flag button had seen some rough times and dad said that showed just how much the button had been worn yet it was still in near pristine condition.  Pop is hard on the poor Brits and their miserable manufactured products, but still he is a fan of classic British motorcycles -- Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons and others -- and at one time seems to have had a thing for MG sports cars.  I think the last one he had was an MGB GT that he bought used in England and had shipped to Japan as part of his personal effects under SOFA.  Since it was right-hand drive, it fit in well with Japanese traffic. 

 El jefe likes my hands.  He says they are one of my most feminine features. I do try to take care of them, which is not always easy, but wearing gloves helps, as does  religiously using assorted creams and lotions.  My mother still has very nice hands so I think there is some genetic component to having and being able to keep good hands.  Anyway, both el jefe and my dad abhor what they call "sausage fingers" on a woman.  I've pointed out that such fingers may be the result of damaging manual labor -- washing pots and pans, scrubbing floors and that sort of thing.  They shrug.  It doesn't change what they like.

 

Reading Plato's Republic, in Book VI I came across this: 

"Those who...have...seen enough of the madness of the multitude know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight. They may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts -- he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the state or to his friends, and reflecting that he would throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content if only he can live his own life."

I agree with that sentiment and hope to convey it to my children so that they do not throw their lives away on some political crusade or trumped up war, revolution or riot.  Stay out of the way of the thundering herd and keep your own council.  Think what you will but express little of what you think or, better yet, nothing at all.

Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, the 18th century French poet, was of a similar mind.  He is most remembered today for averring that, as it is usually phrased in English, "to live well, live hidden"; that is, out of the way of events.  Alas, it did him no good, for he was deemed an enemy of the Revolution and imprisoned, only spared from the guillotine by Robespierre's death, instead, still imprisoned, dying of tuberculosis in 1794.

The fable in which the famous line is the moral:

 LE GRILLON

Un pauvre petit grillon
Caché dans l’herbe fleurie
Regardoit un papillon
Voltigeant dans la prairie
L’insecte ailé brilloit des plus vives couleurs
L’azur, le pourpre & l’or éclatoient sur ses ailes.
Jeune, beau, petit-maître, il court de fleur en fleur,
Prenant & quittant les plus belles.
Ah ! disoit le grillon, que son sort & le mien
Sont différents ! dame Nature
Pour lui fit tout, & pour moi rien.
Je n’ai point de talent, encor moins de figure ;
Nul ne prend garde à moi, l’on m’ignore ici bas !
Autant voudroit n’exister pas.
Comme il parloit, dans la prairie
Arrive une troupe d’enfants.
Aussitôt les voilà courans
Après le papillon dont ils ont tous envie :
Chapeau, mouchoirs bonnets, servent à l’attraper.
L’insecte cherche vainement à leur échapper,
Il devient bientôt leur conquête.
L’un le saisit par l’aile, un autre par le corps ;
Un troisième survient, & le prend par la tête :
Il ne falloit pas tant d’efforts
Pour déchirer la pauvre bête.
Oh ! oh ! dit le grillon, je ne suis pas fâché ;
Il en coûte trop cher pour briller dans le monde.
Combien je vais aimer ma retraite profonde !
Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés.

 

These days

 These days I have trouble breaking out of melancholy and self-doubt.  Unable to engage in much physical activity, I stare out the window at the gray sky and snow flurries.  A raven caws.  He flaps up from a tree branch and rows across the sky. At night the wind, moaning and whistling around the eaves, seems to be talking to me, but what it says I can't make out. It's all vowels and no consonants.

 If I sit down at the piano to while away the time, I find myself playing Ravel's Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte or Elgar's Sospiri.  I worry and wonder about things I need not and I know that I need not, but I do.  I also know that all this will pass and brighter days and brighter thoughts will come.  But still....  At this moment, this eternal now, that seems like a comforting lie.

Letting my hair down and other things

When I got back from Europe, one of the  first things I did was go down and see our horses, breathe in their scent, along with the smell of sunshine on straw, and all the aromas of the out of doors carried on a gentle breeze.  I've lived a lot of places in my life but this has become the only one I truly feel is home.

The first meal I made for el jefe when he came home was good old-fashion cheese runzas, at his request.  I hadn't made any in a long time, but they were a big hit with everybody.  I made two dozen, figuring that I would freeze most of them, but they all got gobbled down in double time, with requests I make more.  Well, maybe next week.  I served them with homemade French fries and a French bistro salad. Dessert was nutmeg apple pie with vanilla ice cream, both homemade, of course, the ice cream made with cream from our own cows.  All the greens as well as the potatoes, cabbage and apples came from our own garden, garden greenhouse and root cellar, the cheese from a nearby cheese factory that is supplied by a local creamery.

The two most requested desserts I make are applesauce cake and banana bread.  My mother and I, with my mini-me helping, make lots of applesauce from our apple trees, preserving it in mason jars, but the bananas come from the grocery store.  They make the best banana bread when the skins are turning black.  The next in popularity are pies of all varieties, then donuts.  Donuts take a lot of work and are hard to fry just right.  Cookies are only popular, it seems, around Christmastime. I don't know why.  But in that season I also make plum pudding and my own fruitcake, which actually tastes good, as well as fudge. People seem to prefer peanut butter fudge to chocolate fudge.  Throughout the year, I always make sure to have some variety of cake available, usually carrot or spice cake.  When the spirit moves me, I make angel food cake or Japanese castella sponge cake. Chocolate cake seems just for birthdays, one of my boys likes it with chocolate icing decorated with walnuts and the other likes it with gooey coconut icing decorated with maraschino cherries. My mini-me likes it with butterscotch icing decorated with pecans. Last year she said she wanted an oatmeal cake. I think it's because oatmeal is her favorite breakfast.  I didn't know how to make that but found a recipe in my grandmother's 1942 cookbook for such a cake with coconut-almond frosting.  It was really good.

I'm always baking bread and rolls.  That's something we never buy.  I make all varieties, from good old standard white bread to whole wheat, sourdough, English muffins, potato bread, baguettes, Italian, French and rye, to pumpernickel. Hot rolls and assorted muffins, as well.

A typical hearty dinner I serve is a garden salad, soup -- something like French onion -- roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed peas and corn topped with butter or green beans mixed with bits of fried bacon, steamed carrots and broccoli topped with mayonnaise, or maybe honey-baked carrots, yellow squash fried crispy in butter, and plenty of  fresh-baked hot rolls.  If the spirit moves me, I may make Yorkshire pudding, too. Dessert could be anything from flan to pecan pie.  The drink during the meal is usually lemon water.  Nobody really cares for wine and those who like beer don't enjoy it as a dinner drink.  But if a guest wanted wine, for this meal I think I'd serve a syrah; if he preferred applejack, I'd serve him that. After dinner is coffee.  I've saved a chair for you, come sit down and dig in -- and you'll enjoy the conversation as much as the meal!

 One of the things I've done since leaving the Navy is let my hair grow. I intend to just let it grow and grow. Before I joined up I had long hair.  I was very proud of it and it pained me to have it cut. Now, with pregnancy, my hair is thick and shiny and seems to grow longer by the hour.  My mother brushes it for me, one-hundred strokes every day. Looking at me, she says my face is more relaxed than it has been in a long time.  She noticed me becoming less rigid in bearing and less emotionally self-contained in the days after I left the Navy and came to live on the ranch.  Now she says I am getting back to the way I used to be, a girly-girl. I hope so. I always thought I was a girly-girl, but I guess to others I was not.  El Jefe said much the same thing when we got together last summer. He noticed a distinctly more feminine me than I was before and he very much approved. He called me his golden-haired beauty.  That was sweet of him. I hope I can always be that for him.

I'm still subject to bouts of melancholy.  I guess it's just part of my nature. And the emotional ups and downs of pregnancy, to say nothing of the physical disorders, hasn't helped. Lately, I worry about losing el jefe. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night from a dream in which he was gone from me.  It's strange, but now that he's here beside me I imagine it more than I did when he was overseas and at risk every day.  I sleep with my head resting against him and don't ever again want to only feel a cold pillow and sheets on the other side of the bed.

 I lost my high school sweetheart, as I've written, and I don't think I could take losing my husband. I want to grow old with him just as my parents have grown old together and my grandparents did. Should I lose him, I would never re-marry or enter into any kind of relationship with a new man.   I like to banter, flirt with and tease guys, but that's as far as it goes. I don't even do that as much as I used to. It seems kind of silly at this point in my life, especially since it furthers nothing I want to happen.

When I say to friends that I would never remarry, one thing they often ask is what about my boys, don't they need a male role model and don't you need help raising them?  Well, there is that. I don't know. But the thought of turning my face to the man in my bed and it's not el jefe but some stranger I cannot countenance. I have and always will have only one husband.  I used to think that my father could be a role model for and an aid in raising my boys should something happen to el jefe, but now I realize that he won't always be with us, and the same is true of my uncles. My brothers are not available, both far away except for occasional visits, one being a career naval officer and the other a forest ranger. Besides, they have their own families.  So there would be no men to help me raise my boys.  I guess I would have to rely on God for help.  Is that a vain hope?

 Now I've gone and depressed myself.  Why do I think these thoughts?  I usually break out of my gloomy moods by dancing. My brain shuts down then and I'm just an animal living in the moment.  But now I don't dare do that.  Maybe I could shuffle a few steps, but that's about it.  So I will just think back in my mind's eye to when I could and did dance.

 And this sweet old love song (from 1873) is how I wish that my days and my husband's play out:

  Darling, I am growing old,
    Silver threads among the gold
    Shine upon my brow today;
    Life is fading fast away.
    But, my darling, you will be
    Always young and fair to me.
       
    When your hair is silver white
    And your cheeks no longer bright
    With the roses of the May,
    I will kiss your lips and say,
    Oh! My darling, mine alone,
    You have never older grown!
          
    Love can never more grow old,
    Locks may lose their brown and gold;
    Cheeks may fade and hollow grow,
    But the hearts that love will know
    Never, never winter’s frost and chill;
    Summer warmth is in them still.  

Do you think there is a disconnect between the two videos?  Perhaps, but each is part of life and the stages we travel through it to the inevitable end.