LOGAN’S LADY
By Holli Sampson
“Ok. Hold the brakes and make sure the stick is all of the way back. I’ll turn her over a few times,” Dad’s confident voice reached my young ears as I sat in the cockpit of the J-3 Piper Cub. I was in the front seat and my legs stretched way out to push the brake pedals while my hands held the stick firmly. This was always a tense moment when Dad propped the plane. No automatic starter was there to help him. It was all a manual process. He would turn the propeller through a few times while I, as the “co-pilot” waited for and followed his orders with precision and no hesitation. Hesitation in propping could get someone hurt or killed. If I didn’t hold the brakes and the stick and the engine roared to life “Logan’s Lady” as the Cub was known, would spring to life on her own and run away from Dad with me inside!
“Ok. I think she’s ready. Contact,” came the next order. “Make sure the throttle is closed.” Still holding the stick with my right hand I checked the throttle lever to make sure it was closed. It was. The next step involved reaching up with my left hand to flip the dual switches to “on” so the engine could start, while my feet stretched to hold the brakes and my right hand gripped the stick, or “steering wheel.” I must have looked gawky and awkward sprawled out in that old seat where my butt sat lower than my long legs.
“Got it, Dad!” I called back and watched in breathless anticipation as he stepped up to prop it again. I knew it was dangerous but I never worried about Dad. He knew what he was doing. Grasping the propeller blade with both hands he pushed downward abruptly. Flump! Flump! Flump! The engine retorted like a cough and then was silent again. Dad repeated the procedure. One of two things would happen at this point: the engine would start with a roar or the pilot would instruct the young co-pilot to give the engine a little bit of primer.
What a thrill when the engine sputtered into action! Dad would come around to the side and lean in through the door to make sure I was securely strapped in. It seemed I never had my seatbelt on tightly enough for his liking. He would grab the strap and yank it down a little bit tighter. My eyes would be ready to bug out of my head and he must have used that as a sign that it was just right. He would then take his place behind me in the back seat. The cub had brakes and a stick in both the front and back seats so you could fly it from either seat. It was sort of like a Driver’s Ed Plane! Our first mate, Taffy the dog, would sometimes fly with us and if she wanted to go, Dad would then lift her into the baggage compartment right behind the rear seat. Taffy loved Dad more than life itself, but she didn’t necessarily share his love of flight. She would spend most of the journey slobbering profusely down the back of Dad’s neck!
Dad and I would then go over the control checklist on the dash and make sure all was in order. He would then say “Ready?” and when I nodded he would ease the throttle open, take his feet off of the brakes and move them to the rudder pedals that were located on the far right and left on the floor. These pedals controlled the tail.
We would go bouncing down the grassy approach to the equally grassy runway. We had to make sure the cows were off of the field. A left turn made us face the south with the full expanse of grassy, clover, cow pie littered runway out before us, and then, charge! Dad opened the throttle! The engine roared and we picked up speed. Faster and faster the ground blurred and the four large cottonwood trees that signified the end of the runway grew larger in our view. The throttle was fully open now and Dad eased back on the stick. I held on following through with the motions from my front seat. My stomach flopped excitedly inside and zoom! The magical moment where man becomes bird arrived as we soared up over the tops of those cottonwoods with quite an attitude of satisfaction! The doors that opened up and down and were shaped like trapezoids were wide open so our right side was exposed to the fresh air and often we never closed them.
The take off procedure was pretty much the same each time unless the wind speed and direction made us to choose to take off to the north. Dad would consult the trusty windsock and then we would taxi all of the way down to the cottonwoods, turn around and face the north, open the throttle and speed off over the tops of the hangars.
The cows and horses always stood in the field and watched silently. Airplanes were a common occurrence in their lives. I supposed when they talked to cows and livestock in other fields that they surprised them with tall bovine and equestrian tales. If you ever hear any strange bovine tales that involve large bright yellow birds that make an enormous amount of noise, you are probably hearing a legend that survived from those days at the country airfield that went down in the annals of bovine history. Cows are, after all, not as dumb as one may think and everyone knows horses have loose lips.
I don’t know if I can accurately put into words the thrill of the moment when the Cub left the ground and floated on the wings of the wind. It isn’t the same feeling one gets when flying in a jet. The only comparison I can think of is how one feels as a child and Christmas is coming and you are just waiting for that cherished present that you’ve been dreaming of. The moment comes and you open the box and it is more precious and magical than you ever dreamed and you gasp in awe of the moment. It is beyond imagination. It was Christmas in my heart often throughout the years and the unique present given was so much more than the thrill of the flight itself. It was being in the presence of my father, my hero. A bottomless chest of treasures that time cannot erode.
Those were the times of my childhood. I realize now, how unique it was in many ways. The world has changed since then. I want to preserve those memories forever. Climb aboard your favorite chair and I will take you there.
I think my father was born half bird. It’s not mentioned in the family tree but a Bald Eagle must figure into the bloodlines some place. If my grandmother were alive she would tell you it was a Do Do Bird but I prefer the eagle for the sake of this story.
Dad’s grandfather, George Tatge, was an inventor and had a mind set for the future and for adventure and was also a great man of faith. I think a lot of that rubbed off on Dad.
Dad joined the Navy as a very young man and had dreams then of flying jets. After cruising the high seas, eating all of that lovely Navy food (Don’t ask him to describe it if you value your stomach contents.) and seeing his best buddy disqualified for flight instruction he trashed the dream of jets, got out of the Navy and found other things to do.
Somehow he managed to take lessons and get a pilot’s license, marry Mom, father three children and work on the railroad. I’m not sure of the sequence of events, but I do know that he married Mom before the three of us came along.
Oh, the stories he could tell you about his flying buddies in his fledgling pilot days! It was scary thrilling stuff and his children drank it in like little sponges. I took my first official flight with my parents when I was three. I slept through the entire thing and I think it was because I was secure in my dad’s abilities to handle the plane. I don’t have a clear memory of the event but I was obviously comfortable with the idea.
My brother Lance was 9 years and 4 months older than I was and he became interested in flight very early. It seemed he wanted to turn anything we had into an airplane. I remember his sleek copper colored bike with the banana seat (just big enough to tote his little sister whom never stopped asking questions.) and the tiger grip handle bars. It was one of our earlier “airplanes”. Across the street a basement was being dug for a huge old house to be moved in and there was a mountain of dirt. Lance saw it as a launching pad, or a baby sister-terrorizing tactic. I thought it looked likeMount Everestand was certain that the Abominable Snow Monster lived at the top. I remember we climbed to the top of it with Lance’s bike. Looking down from the top of that pile to the safe grass below it could have passed as the Grand Canyon to me but Lance was insistent that we would ride down it. I didn’t want to be called “chicken” or worse, “big baby” so I climbed onto the bike behind Lance and held tightly to him and tried to keep my toes out of the wheel spokes. Lance probably still has claw marks around his middle from that first “flight” but you know what? We flew down the side of that mountain like a rocket. I screamed the entire way down, of course, but we made it without a hitch and spent the rest of that afternoon “flying” in our own homemade flying contraption.
Lance’s bike didn’t serve so well on another flight attempt. The flying he did that particular day was a free fall onto the concrete when the front fork of his bike gave way and he kissed the cement. His arm was all skinned up and I laughed mercilessly at him but like all good aviators he never cried.
Lance was so into the idea of flight that he once rigged a pulley with a set of handle bars and a cable running out of our treehouse way up in the old ash tree in the back yard. His friends would swoop down from the treehouse on a wild ride but he never let me do that. I was too little. Instead he would put me in the rope swing that hung from that same ash tree and push me very very high. It was wonderful.
Imagine the excitement in the family when Mom and Dad bought the J-3 Piper Cub! I had no idea what an antique was and that she was one. I just knew we could really fly now and great adventures awaited us!
I’m not sure how old I was when the Cub became our sixth family member. She was named Logan’s Lady and many people teased Mom that Dad loved the old Cub more than anything. It was true to an extent. He loved the Cub but he worshipped Mom. Lew Logan had several special ladies in his life besides that old Cub. He had Mom, his Cinderella, and Terri, my older sister and me, the child who never shut up from the moment she was born. The Cub didn’t actually “live” with us. I learned that airplanes have their own homes called “hangars”.
Dad chose to house the Cub at a country airstrip that was southwest of the municipal airport. This country airstrip consisted of several hangars set up in an “L” shape. The Cub resided in a hangar duplex. She had one side and a friend of Dad’s kept his lovely plane in the other side. There were two hangar duplexes with one larger hangar on that end of the “L” that housed 4-5 different planes and a soda machine. The other leg of the “L” contained the clubhouse and a multi-plane hangar. No control tower existed but we did have a windsock to depend upon and a lot of opinions from the other fliers. John, the owner of the airstrip, had two airplanes (one was named “Ginger”) that he housed there. He was the owner of the herd of cattle and several large draft horses that grazed the grounds.
A creek ran through the wooded area behind the hangars. It was spring fed and the animals could drink from it. An adventure always awaited me either in the air or playing in that creek. I spent many an afternoon playing in the water when we weren’t in the air and made friends with all of the frogs and minnows that lived there. There was a small dam in the creek that made it pool into ponds in two areas, but otherwise it ran along below the embankments singing quietly to itself. My favorite part of the creek was the area that ran along the “woods”, a large grove of trees. After it cleared the wooded area it went under the road and came out on someone else’s land. I was never allowed to follow it there.
I called the creek “Rainstorm Creek”. One of the embankments was “Thunder Ridge” and the other “Lightning Ridge”. I never officially named the woods but I built many bridges and forts and pretended to be a pioneer or sometimes an Indian.
I would start up by the dammed area and make a small boat out of sticks or leaves and put it in the water and follow it the entire length of the creek and watch as it disappeared under the road. Other times I would make small sand dams that the creek would erode away as the day wore on. Near the woods, the frogs and minnows lived and I loved to wade and feel the minnows nibble my toes. I would take tadpoles home and watch them grow into frogs and release them.
The environment provided an endless stimulus to my imagination and Dad always knew that I was safe and not into trouble playing there. When he was done with his work for the day he would honk the horn on the old Chevy to let me know that it was time to come in. I’m sure the child that emerged from the creek looked pretty different than the one he had left there. The child would show up with hair bleached blond by the sun, browned skin covered in sand and carried all sorts of strange creatures to him for inspection. He never complained.
I had to grow a bit before Dad would really let me help out with the Cub but I was always eager to help him. One of the first things I was able to help with was opening the two big hangar doors. People could enter it through a small door in the back. I can remember the smell in that hangar when the little door opened. It was earthy and sandy, mixed with petroleum and the smell of bird’s nests.
The hangar was home to several forms of wildlife. Swallows and sparrows nested in it and could make quite a mess. They would get pretty upset if you went and looked in their nests at their babies and oh did those babies make a racket at dinnertime! We also had our own personal hangar toad that lived there. He wasn’t really bothered by us at all but he did like to wet all over me when I picked him up. In the summer the grounds would be teeming with tiny toads and there were so cute. Many of them fell victim to the lawnmower when the grounds around the hangars had to be mowed.
The hangar had two wide doors across the front of each half of the duplex. Dad would take out the supporting board braces and lift the doors off of the bottom support and then my job was to run with each of the doors and attach them to their hitching posts. A fresh burst of clean country air would rush my face every time those doors opened. The smell of clover and freshly mowed weeds. The wind whispering in the trees across the road and the ever familiar “Bob White” who lived in those trees. Mom and Dad taught me that if you mimic the call back you could keep Mr. BobWhite conversing for quite awhile.
When the doors were opened and the light shone in, there satLogan’s Lady in all of her golden yellow glory as she waited for us to take her to the skies. The sky seemed big and endless out there, just waiting to be visited. My parents called the airport “The Pee Patch” but I was too young to understand exactly why. I just knew that I got scolded if I called it that when guests were over at the house.
Dad would check the Cub over lovingly while I waited impatiently to see if she would fly that day. I never understood why he went over every inch of her with eyes blinded by love. I was too young to realize that one must scrutinize before one takes off. I loved it when the moment came to pick up the wheel blocks from around her tires and help Dad push her out in front of the hangar. I would grab the small handle back by the tail or the step to get into the cockpit and with a hand on the wing support the ol’ girl would wheel out easily. She wasn’t very heavy at all.
The cub was not made of metal so she was fragile in some ways. Her frame was metal with airplane fabric stretched tightly over it and then painted with hard enamel paint. She was mostly golden yellow, with black striping and numerals and a sort of fluorescent melon color that accented the side stripes and propeller center. Her name was written on the side of the cowl, “Logan’s Lady”. Many of the pilots named their planes. It was a tradition and Dad had no problem coming up with the honorable moniker.
After Dad had eyeballed every rivet twice we would go through the take off procedure and take to the sky for our latest adventure. We flew in the heat of summer and cold of winter too, when the Cub was outfitted with skis for the season. Every good woman has a summer wardrobe and a winter one and she was no exception. We couldn’t fly at night because she had no lights and Dad would never take me up when the wind was too strong, something he referred to as “turbulence.” I had no idea what that meant but it sounded like a digestive disturbance to my young ears.
Flying with the doors open was my favorite thing. One whole side of the little cockpit was exposed to the elements. We couldn’t do that in cold weather. When Dad banked to the right it was just the air between my body and the ground far below, but remember, he had me strapped in tightly! I wasn’t going anywhere. If you put your arm out into the air the wind would blow it back like you had no control over it.
I loved to fly over town and we had to get up to 1000 feet to do that. It was a rule. There weren’t any road signs on those highways in the sky but Dad always knew the rules. I always wondered how he knew since they weren’t written anywhere. It was funny to see how tiny everything was from up there. We could fly over our house and see Mom waving up to us from the yard. We had a lot of people who would come out and wave because a lot of them knew our plane and the planes of the other fliers at the field. Perhaps that is why I wave at the small aircraft that now fly over our home from the Millard Airport. People in the country knew us, too, and would come out and wave while they put laundry on their clotheslines.
Dad would point out other small towns in the area likeBattle Creek,Madison, and Bazil Mills. In my mind’s eye I pictured the last place to be named after a small version of Holland. I was just sure there was a big windmill there. I was so disappointed when we drove there and no windmill existed!
He would point out farms of people he knew. I felt like my dad knew everyone in the world in those days. He sure seemed to get around a lot but such is railroad life, I suppose. He seemed to know how to do just about everything too. If it was broken, Dad could fix it and hey, have you heard of Joe Blow from Newman Grove? Well, maybe you haven’t but I guarantee Dad knows him. I’ve been told we often base our perceptions of God by the type of father figure we experienced in childhood. It was very easy for me to believe God knows everyone, can fix anything and is long on patience and always keeps our best interests in mind. It was easy for me to believe that Christ went to the cross because my father would have died to save anyone in his family. I learned all of that just by watching Dad be Dad.
Another thing I should point out is that is seems like everyone Dad knew had strange names. “Bugs Blue” is one that comes to mind. I could never understand how parents would curse their children with such names until Dad explained to me that they were “nicknames.” Everyone seemed to have one of those; especially the railroad guys Dad worked with. Dad may have been “Lew” to his wife and mother, but to his friends he was “ Lulu” or “Lulubelle”. I was given nicknames, too. “Sis”and “Little Brown Indian” and “Beanpole” were common and I answered to all of them, as if they were the names printed on my birth certificate. I wonder if God gives his children nicknames?
Anyway, back to the air. Sometimes we would pick out a car traveling the highway and race it from way up there. Dad would go full throttle and we would soar! No speed limits up there!
Dad was into acrobatics, too, so we had some real rollercoaster rides at times. It was frightening, deliciously frightening. I drew the line and refused to do “spins” with him. A spin meant pulling the nose of the Cub up as perpendicular to the ground as possible and the stalling the engine and letting the nose drop toward the ground. The little plane would dive for the earth, spinning like a merry go round. Dad would of course pull her out before they hit ground but I was too scared to let him do that with me on board. My mom would go with him for that. I always figured if they crashed and died I would go live with my grandma!
One day Dad decided to make me his official co-pilot and teach me how to fly the Cub. His reason was that if something should happen to him in the air he wanted me to be able to get the plane down. It was a good idea to have a back up plan but initially I was terrified! I had no idea how to “drive” the plane! I didn’t even have a license to drive on the ground!
I remember the first time he let me take over in the air. He took his hands off of the stick and I was just sure we would plummet to the earth, but we didn’t. After those first few minutes of terror, confidence began to build. Later on when I learned to drive a car I would state that flying the plane was much easier and I feel that way to this day. No parking, no turn signals, no traffic lights, just blue sky on all sides, the earth below and possibilities all around.
It’s strange how when one is standing on the ground the earth seems small. The view from the Cub was much different. Endless horizons showed me that the world is a very big place.
I’ve explained the take off procedure now I need to talk about landings. They were somewhat unpredictable and sometimes depended upon the mood of the pilot and co- pilot. Sometimes we would “buzz” the runway to chase the cows off. Taffy, the first mate, always thought she was a herding dog and tried to help but the cows never listened to her.
When the coast was clear we would ease down over the tops of the cottonwoods or the hangars, depending upon the direction of the wind, and attempt to return to earth by doing a three point landing. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Sometimes Dad would do a slip landing that involved a steep last minute swoop down onto the runway. I loved the feeling in my stomach when he did that. It was great. Sometimes he would purposefully land on one wheel and then bring the other down. Sometimes we would hit,and bounce. It was noisy when we contacted the ground no matter how the landing went.
Dad would begin to slow the throttle down as we taxied to the hangar, and zoomed past,those gawking cattle. Once we were in front of the hangar, dad would turn the Cub so she could roll in tail first. He would give the engine one last goose as the plane whirled around and a great gust of wind would bend the grass and weeds and get even more stares from the cattle. I would then reach up and “kill” the engine but cutting the dual switches mentioned earlier. When the propeller stopped spinning we could get out.
You had to be careful where you put your feet when getting out or you would step right through the delicate skin of the Cub. I would ease myself onto the doorframe, get a foot on the tire and swing out.
If time permitted we had to cleanLogan’s Lady up. Between bug guts and cow poop it could be a long process but Dad always had her looking clean and shining. She would then be rolled back into her hangar and wait for her next adventure.
During the winter, the “Pee Patch” gang didn’t get off of the ground as much as they wanted to, but they still frequented the place when weather allowed it. The clubhouse was a hopping place in those days. There was always a fire blazing in the fireplace and a pot of coffee brewing, or hot chocolate for the non-coffee drinkers. It was a rustic sort of place where many of the small plane owners of the area gathered to talk and dream and tell stories. I don’t know if all of the stories were true or not but there was never a lack of them circulating that clubhouse when those men and their wives got together. A laugh was guaranteed and there was always something interesting to tickle young curious ears so I could ask Mom and Dad about it later.
The men themselves were a great curiosity. None of them were professional pilots. They were farmers, railroaders, office equipment salesmen, shoe storeowners. The closest to professional pilots were the crop dusters. I had no idea why crops needed to be dusted when they were outdoors anyway, but Dad explained it all to me and it made sense.
Those fliers were just hardworking folks who weren’t rich in money but they weremillionaires in laughter, kindness, and the love of their families and their airplanes. Some of those men had assembled their planes in their own basements or garages. All of them loved to take things apart and see how they worked and put them back together again to make something wonderful. I loved to listen to them talk and they loved to do that for hours in that clubhouse. If only the walls could talk and repeat each and every story!
One of the guys had the unpronounceable name of Haspeslagh. No wonder Dad always called him “Jimmy!” He was also known as “Cole Slaw” and “Cabbage Head”. Jimmy was a character from the start. He was hilarious. He was always prepared with a one- line remark for everyone. One of his favorite things involved waiting for Dad to say “See you later, Jimmy, ” so he could say “Not if I see you first!” One never knew quite what would spill out of Jimmy’s mouth if he took his cigar out of it but it was sure to make you laugh.
John Simpson was the owner of the “Pee Patch” and full of mischief as well. He always had a couple of bedraggled looking dogs at this side. One was never sure if it was really a dog or tumbleweed that had grown legs.
Bob Carlisle was another regular. He was more serious but a very warm-hearted guy. He was always very kind to all of us.
Kenny Eggers often flew in from Tilden where he had a farm and kept his own planes. He did a lot of crop dusting. Once in awhile they would host picnics for the fliers at his farm where the fliers would gather with their planes for a day of food, fun and mayhem.
There were so many pilots and their wives that came to the airstrip that I don’t remember all of their names. They all brought their own adventures, though, and I was even fortunate enough to witness a few of those in person.
One event that stands out in my mind is the day Bob’s Fly Baby got away from him. The Fly Baby was a single seater model and like our Cub had no auto start. Bob didn’t have a small co-pilot to get in and hold the brakes for him so he had to do it all by himself. One day I was in the big hangar getting a soda and Bob had the Fly Baby out to prop it. She must have been eager to go because when the engine roared to life the little plane was too excited to wait for Bob. She began to roll around in circles on the ground in front of the hangar. Poor Bob was flustered and yelled to Jimmy for help. I could only watch in amazement as two grown men ran in circles as they chased the wayward plane. Theywere careful to avoid the propeller and finally Jimmy managed to clamber aboard the step on the wing and get her under control. No one was hurt and it was pretty entertaining when all was said and done.
Another time the Cub lost her tail wheel coming in and the Pee Patch gang ran to the rescue and held the tail off of the ground so she wouldn’t drag her “peg leg” back to the hangar. It was never determined how that happened. Some say it was a hole in the ground and others think it was a petrified cow pie that broke it off. We will never know.
There were other mysteries of the air, too. Strange tales of flour sack bombings pervaded the little clubhouse. I learned later that it was a trick the fliers would play on each other. They would fly over the selected home with a 5-pound sack of flour on board and “bombs away!” A lovely “poof” of white dust would confirm completion of the mission! The bomber had to beware though because the bombee would get even!
All of the years at the “Pee Patch” only produced one tragedy and it again showed the rallying power of those men. Jimmy had just purchased a Fly Baby. She was a beautiful golden yellow and cobalt blue color with red trim. He asked Dad to take her up for a test flight and Dad felt honored and soared off over the tops of the cottonwoods into the beautiful day. The cows must have been in total awe over that beautiful little plane.
It was a calm day and everything seemed to be checking out fine as Dad tested Jimmy’s new wings. The engine suddenly quit without warning and refused to come out of its stall. Dad was going down and hurriedly looked for the best place to make a crash landing. He was too far away to get to the customary runway but he did make it to the pasture just south of the old cottonwoods. The ground was coming closer and closer. Dad looked for a smooth spot in the pasture with no trees or obstacles to hinder him.
The Fly Baby came down on all three wheels but the terrain was not as smooth as Dad would have liked. The little plane bounced and did a flip and landed upside down. The door of the cockpit was pinned against the ground barring normal escape and Dad was suspended upside down by his seat belt. He was stunned but conscious and alert enough to know that he had a full tank of gas that was beginning to drip, and a hot engine. He had to get out of there!
He began to pray as he fumbled in his pockets for his ever-present pocketknife. He was determined to cut his way out by slicing through the fabric of the plane and sliding out through the side. Help was on the way but Dad didn’t know it.
The “Pee Patch” gang came to the rescue because they had seen Dad go down. They all jumped into a truck and raced to Dad’s side. All of them feared the worst, but were pleasantly surprised by what they found. Dad had one arm out by the time they got there. They lifted the plane off of him and he walked away from the wreckage, shaken but unhurt.
None of us were at the airfield that day. God must have known how we would have panicked. I remember being outside playing with my dolls when Dad came home and how he told Mom he “crashed today” like it was an everyday occurrence! We all shared a post-crash time of panic and thanked God for sparing Dad.
The experience did nothing to deter Dad or the other pilots from the air. The Fly Baby was hangared and repaired and graced the skies again as well. The entire incident attested to the tremendous courage, teamwork and intelligence of the fliers at the airstrip. They all helped repair the plane, too. Airplanes flew through the blood of those men and it would have taken a lot more than a crash to deter them from their collective muse.
They believed the poem High Flight and knew that the experience was indeed ‘to touch the hand of God.’ They were afflicted with the madness of the Wright Brothers and Charles Lindbergh was their hero.
My brother, Lance, obtained a pilot’s license as soon as he was old enough. He was bitten by the bird in our bloodline. Between cars and airplanes, Lance was never without transportation.
When our sister Terri got married, Dad gave Lance and I permission to fly the Cub to Omaha for the event. I was amazed at how much quicker the journey went by Cub than by car. I trusted Lance’s abilities completely. He had kept me safe on the back of his bicycle so this was no different. We were to land at the Millard Airport and that was a very big deal to us!
The trip went well and we landed without incident but after landing a strong wind blew the tail of the Cub into a guardrail before we had a chance to tie her down. The damage was not serious but the frame of the tail was slightly bent. Lance felt badly but it wasn’t his fault and I don’t remember that Dad ever got angry about it. The trip home was taken in my parents’ car while Lance flew the Cub home on his own and arrived safely. He did not want me along if something should go wrong due to the damage on the tail.
Once a year during the summer, all of the small fliers in the area encroached upon Carl Stefan Municipa lAirport for a bona fide air show. This was always a big deal to all of us.
The air shows were sort of like fashion shows for airplanes and each plane got a chance to “strut her stuff” for the crowd by flying by and landing or doing acrobatics. The planes were displayed on the ground as well. Row after row of small aircraft lined the field. Some of those planes were so small that they made the Cub look big. The owners polished and primped on their particular craft until it shown. The public would roam through and look at the Cub and ask a million questions, not all of them intelligent.
People seemed to have a problem reading the “ do not touch” signs around all of the planes. A touch in the wrong place could mean a hole in the fabric for a lot of those old girls so Dad always stationed us to keep an eye on the Cub. It was great fun to have Lance there. At 6’3” he could keep a keen watch over the Cub. Most people looked up to Lance in those days whether they wanted to or not. The really great thing was that he had a deep voice like Lurch on the Adams Family so when he told people “Don’t touch!” they listened! I guess they were afraid of him and indeed I always knew my brother as a protector but the stature and voice did the trick! Children would look at him wide-eyed when he gave orders as if they were afraid he would used them for a basketball or something. I always thought that was great.
The air show always provided plenty of entertainment, too. There was always a good stunt pilot who would go up and do crazy things that would get the crowd gasping. Parachuters would sail in and planes would fly in formation. The local talents always did some entertaining, too. I remember Lance being in one of those little skits where he had to run along the side of the plane and hop in. The announcer called him “Crazy Legs Logan.”
The stories being passed about at the air show were always more wild than those at the country air strip. Dad always made sure we were careful around propellers because he claimed a woman had been decapitated by one. True or not, we were careful.
Another story abounded about snakes in the outhouses at air shows. Supposedly someone my parents knew had almost sat upon a bull snake in one of the outhouses and had come out screaming! My friends and I always walked to the main airport terminal to use the restroom as a result of that story
I can still smell the airport terminal, a mixture of smoke, musty air, paper, cleaners and Dr. Pepper. All sorts of petroleum smells permeated the hangars there. Isn’t it funny how a brief whiff of a familiar scent can bring back such memories?
The big air show was a major summer event in our lives. Sometimes we would even pack up and head to Offutt Air Force Base for an even bigger presentation where one could see the military jets in stunts. It was incredible.
There was the national gathering at Oshkosh,Wisconsin, every year as well. I never got to go to that but my parents and brother went often.
In my mind the real adventure was at that small country airstrip with the cows, the creek and the cozy clubhouse and all of those wonderful pilots who added so much color to my childhood.
The most important thing I have taken with me from those days is time with my dad. Precious time with someone who I not only love but also find incredibly interesting. I don’t know if I could ever begin to write down all of the things I learned and the times we shared if I tried.
Many of my friends got their first airplane ride from Dad. Many family members had the experience as well. It didn’t matter if it was a cousin we hadn’t seen in years, they got a chance to fly with Dad. was to her. He took the man who would become my husband, Kirk, up for a flight, too. I am certain Dad asked if he was sure he could handle his imaginative bullheaded daughter!
I wonder if Dad knows just how much he really gave to each of those people he took into the air. It was more than just soaring above the earth. It was admittance to a sacred place between him and the Cub. He loved that old girl and that feeling of freedom of flight. He was willing to share the sacred place with so many, to take them there. I don’t know if Dad could describe the special communion between man and plane but I really think it had to do with touching the face of God as was stated in his favorite poem. Up in the sky with the wind rushing through the open doors and the world wide before you, you just know God’s presence. It is He holding that small yellow place and allowing you a different view of the world. I think it’s an experience that can’t adequately be put into words. It is to be lived.
Many of the pilots I knew have left this temporary world and gone on to their greater reward but their memories are still vivid.
The Cub is gone, too. She was sold to a man Dad knew after Dad's eyesight deteriorated due to macular degeneration. She passed from our family but certainly not from our hearts. I know Dad missed her until the day that he left this earth but he had many rich memories to enjoy.
When my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary so many people shared stories of flying with Dad, or his ability to tell flying stories or railroad stories. I don’t think he realized what an impact he’d had on so many. The pilots who were still with us shared their memories, too. Jimmy recalled the day Dad crashed and how thankful everyone was that he survived.
I think Dad is still flying in Heaven and I wonder if Jesus leans in and tightens Dad's seatbelt before they take off? But then, likely they don't need seatbelts as they soar on the wings of the wind with no fear of harm of any kind as they talk face to face about all sorts of things.
Somewhere all of those pilots will gather, not just the group Dad knew, but pilots through the ages, to share their stories and they will finally have the words to fit the experiences.
For now, all I can say is thank you, Dad for giving and teaching me so much. Do you know that when the world overwhelms me I just mentally strap into the Cub and take you with me away from whatever is bothering me and carry those troubles to the hand of God. I know you still go there, too. Please don’t forget to take Taffy (slobber and all) and me with you!
