The Magicians
By Lane Wallace
August 2007
 The week was not going well. My landlord had accidentally cut down my flowering plum tree. Huge roadblocks had sprung up in three separate work projects. I'd had to shell out $550 to get my car fixed. And I'd been inundated by a swarm of termites coming through my bathroom walls. So it was with a sense of weariness, edged with a touch of dread, that I got my morning coffee and sat down at my computer to see what new disasters or character-building challenges had arrived in my inbox overnight.
But shockingly enough, no disasters awaited me. There was only a short message from one of the pilots I'd met at the Ranchaero, California, airport, almost exactly a year ago. "Remember the Stearman Gary was building last year? Well, he flew it on its maiden flight yesterday!" the message announced gleefully. "AWESOME!"
I opened the photo attached to the message, and suddenly, my computer screen was filled with a glorious splash of bright red fuselage and vanilla-colored wings behind shiny silver cylinders and whirring propeller blades. And in the cockpit, large as life, was a very proud-looking Gary Thompson, with a baseball cap on backwards and a broad, mustache-topped smile stretching across his face.
It was a brilliant and joyful image, so vividly close that I could almost hear the distinctive staccato of the engine cylinders firing. Clearly, whoever had taken the photo either had a very good telephoto lens or a seriously questionable regard for his or her personal safety. But gazing at all that color, life and joy, thoughts of roadblocks, termites and life frustrations suddenly vanished from my mind. I found myself smiling. Happy. And remembering all over again how wonderful and fun this thing called life really is.
Even Gary might be surprised to know he'd had such an effect on my day from such a distance. But he wouldn't be surprised at all by the idea of a biplane having a profound effect on a person. For Gary — who once spent several years barnstorming around the country in an old N3N — isn't just a builder or pilot of old airplanes. He's one of those rare and gentle souls who not only understand the particular magic that resides in an open-cockpit airplane, but who also get their greatest joy out of sharing all that artistry and mystery with people who've never heard the wind or touched the sky.
Like all the other barnstormers and biplane ride-givers I know, Gary is a very capable and practical mechanic. You have to be, to maintain and care for a biplane. And he's also a well-trained and disciplined pilot. But mixed in with all those practical characteristics is the heart of a romantic, the eye of an artist and an intuitive understanding of magic — not illusion, mind you, but true magic. For Gary, like other biplane barnstormer pilots, possesses the ability to transport his passengers not only through space, but through time, as well ... to a place they've almost forgotten, or perhaps never even knew; where all things known give way to things remembered, imagined and dreamed, and where science gives way, once again, to wonder.
It's a process that involves a very special kind of magic. And to pull it off — especially time after time after time — requires a very special kind of magician.
 My old friend and Cessna 120 partner Jim used to spend almost every summer weekend, sometimes 10 or 12 hours a day, giving rides in two Stearman biplanes owned and operated by the museum he worked for in Minnesota. I used to watch him, his smile and talk with each new customer undimmed by the passing of the hours, and wonder what gave him the stamina to keep going, hour after hour, day after day. Surely even the world as seen from a biplane — the same, close-to-the-airport stretch of world, mind you — must get old by the 25th or 200th passenger and circuit. But if it did, you couldn't tell from looking at him.
Jim rarely shared his thoughts or feelings about flying. But one day, he finally attempted to explain why he gave all those rides.
"These planes are like time machine transporters," he told me. "Like, take this old man I flew this afternoon. I thought I'd better take it easy on him — you know, like 2 Gs might give him a heart attack. But I took him down low along the river, where the leaves are changing. It was gorgeous. I circled down there, and then did one steep bank turn. As soon as that wing went up, I could see in the mirror this huge grin come across his face, and he gave me a big 'thumbs-up' sign. So I went over the lake and did a couple of wingovers, and another big grin. The steeper the bank, the bigger the grin."
Jim had given a dozen rides that afternoon and, as if floodgates somewhere inside had opened after far too long, the stories of the others started to tumble out, one on top of the other. Every passenger, it seemed, had a story of one kind or another — and Jim had learned them all.
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