Every once in a while life intrudes on this love affair I have with airplanes, and I feel like that bewildered soldier at Little Big Horn: "Mr. Custer, what are we doing here?" How often did I gaze out the window of some FAA office (when they were still on airports), angry, frustrated or scared because I was in trouble again. "But all I ever wanted to do was fly airplanes." Life and I have been cruising in pretty smooth air, lately, but there are always occasional patches of chop.
Saturday, I headed downtown to get my card punched at the fastest Mass in town and with a stop at the jail first to visit the son of an old airport friend. Yeah, he acted like such a jerk his family and friends have mostly bailed. Now he's stuck in this awful limbo between lawyers and jurisdictions. I'm not too sure why I go -- it's pretty grim -- but I think it's about, "There, but for the grace ... ." Parking is a challenge in this neighborhood unless you do alleys and risk losing your car, if not your life. I skidded to a halt when I saw I'd just passed the perfect spot, threw the Beemer in reverse and backed up ... into a police car occupied by one irate cop. Surely he just pulled out of the Justice Center garage ... probably without looking. Some time later, clutching my $104 ticket for a moving violation (no, I didn't even try "but you pulled out without look- ..."), I got to the jail, still, thankfully, as a visitor.
A few nights later I was snug at home in my Captain Hook jammies with a new thriller and a jar of peanut butter when my Cub partner called. "I can't get out of Piqua to the lake tonight because of the weather ... a bunch of bad-looking lines. There's nothing to do and I'm bored. Meet me in Dayton and I'll buy dinner."
Soulfully eyeing my jar of crunchy-style Peter Pan and Smales pretzels, I managed a "sure." That's what friends are for, right? If I begged off he might decide to fly and get caught in the weather or, worse, end up in Youngstown or Erie. I couldn't live with the guilt, the sorrow, not to mention the SNJ. Would his widow let me fly it anymore? Especially when she noticed her name was no longer painted under the rear cockpit? Well, I got tired of people asking me if I was "Connie Co-Pilot." It only took 10 minutes and a little Stoddard solvent.
Okay, another aviation-related mercy mission and at least a chance to wear my new swishy linen pants. The traffic in heavy rain on I-75 was brutal but finally accelerated to warp speed around Middletown. What's that rumble? Probably a truck or maybe the audiobook in the CD player? Well, it wasn't a semi and it wasn't Moses parting the Red Sea in The Book of (and more than you ever wanted to know about) Genesis, by Gary Rendsburg. It was me hydroplaning on three tires. The right rear had self-destructed.
Who would think you need new tires at only 65,000 miles? My old VW Bugs (Mary's cast-offs) rolled along well over 100,000 and weren't Beemers German cars, too? I warned you I can fly but I'm not very mechanical. I got to the side and before I could call AAA, a nice guy stopped and offered to change the tire. Then a state highway patrol trooper arrived with a heftier jack and the welcome protection of his flashing lights in the heavy rain and low visibility. I was trying to keep my umbrella over the guy on the ground and keep the 7-foot cop away from the car. See, we'd unloaded everything out of the trunk onto the back seat including Bernie Einspanier's air rifle. He's my 88-year-old neighbor who loves to shoot the squirrels in his backyard but the air rifle jammed. I took it to get it fixed or buy another.
As I chattered away the cop kept peering over me and the umbrella and a strange look came over his face when he spied the stock peeking out from under a bunch of charts and books on the back seat. I'd solemnly promised myself after visiting jail that they'd never take me alive. But, okay, I'd start out being calm and reasonable. It's my neighbor's ... only an air rifle ... and I have a concealed carry permit (which, interestingly, he already knew). He was cool and I was hugely relieved that I didn't have to shoot my way out with the air rifle. Anyway, it would have been a miserable night to fly the 180 to Mexico. My full linen pants were sodden, and I didn't have a cent in my purse so I threw my arms around the Good Samaritan and planted a kiss on his cheek.
I think hurting myself in an airplane is highly unlikely unless I strangle in the tangle of headset and handheld cords or I ignore that basic rule about staying in the middle of the air, away from the edges. But playing angel of mercy to your airplane friends is downright dangerous.
I'd asked the officer if he knew my friend Bruce the Trooper (I can't tell you his last name until he dies). Bruce was best friends with John Schweller and me at the Lumberton strip and we decided I would teach him to fly in John's Christen Husky. Eventually he became a "Bear in the Air" with the Ohio Highway Patrol. Bruce was quick, a great student, and in the third hour I talked him through the takeoff on John's 32-foot-wide strip of concrete. The 180 hp Husky is pretty frisky and I either said "raise the tail" too soon or "I've got it" too late. Whatever, we gyroscopically precessed vigorously to the left which he countered with massive right rudder. I'm yelling, "I've got it, let go ..." but now we're off the right side of the concrete and headed for a low fence. Well, maybe you've been there. Instead of admitting defeat, pulling the power and accepting the inevitable, I was determined to rewrite the laws of aerodynamics. "Fly, dammit, fly, c'mon, fly." Holding it on until the last possible moment I yanked, "wishing" it over the fence ... which it almost but not quite cleared. We nosed over into the mid-July corn and, when the dust settled, I was way up in the air and Bruce was somewhere down in front covered with cornstalks.
"You okay?"
"Then turn off the mags and the fuel. Stop whining and get the hell out of here."
We had the airplane in the hangar within a half hour. Then I made Bruce climb in the Cub and fly with me before he could even think about it. We'd ripped some belly skin, got the prop and the engine would need a teardown. But there was no firewall or structural damage so I declared it an incident and we all swore a blood oath to keep quiet. It would have been a relatively easy repair (easy for me to say) but John insisted we take the wings off, shrink wrap the fuselage and trailer it to Afton, Wyoming, behind his little two-seater Mercedes. And then, five weeks later, we drove back out and retrieved it. Actually the drive between Wilmington, Ohio, and Afton, Wyoming, wouldn't be too bad if it weren't for Nebraska.
