FLYING HIGH, FLYING LOW

James Hays is up next with one of his "flying stories". This may not have impressed his friends then, but it is sure to impress his friends now. I know I'M IMPRESSED that he survived!

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I started flying in earnest January 31, 1955 with my first lesson without parents’ knowledge or permission. Legally J. W. Longenette wouldn't solo me without permission until I turned 18. They found out about it in May 1957 before my birthday and it was a tense moment -- like when Bubba shot the juke box in the song. I had to catch up with lessons and finally soloed August 27, so Glenn beat me on that one. However I never got lost, but I have been temporarily disoriented on occasion. Schooling and other priorities kept me grounded until I was at Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. I signed on as a designated examiner of sexual assault victims for Tarrant County for thirty-five bucks a pop. So I finished my pilot’s license on rape money -- much to my instructor’s amusement.

I restored a 1936 Taylor Cub with allegedly a forty horsepower engine in ‘'73 and by May 1974 I was doing hammerhead stalls in it. To enter this maneuver one with sufficient altitude must dive to gain speed, pull up in a vertical climb and when it almost stops climbing, kick hard left rudder, pivoting 180 degrees and now in a vertical dive, pull out when flying speed rapidly returns now going in the opposite direction. At this point, I decided to impress my friends on the ground with my new found skills, so I buzzed the Bangs, Texas aerodrome at about 60 feet with more or less forty horses banging away and pulled up vertically when it began to dawn on me - DUMB!!! Not enough speed, altitude, or smarts. I'm committed so I kicked hard left rudder in the suddenly soggy airplane and it swapped ends and snapped into a spin past vertical at maybe 150 feet high. At this point, rather than accepting an early demise, I kicked opposite rudder and as soon as I felt the controls bite in the air I pulled back on the stick -- using almost all of my precious altitude and went through a small clearing under the treetops. The plane was hidden from the amazed spectators whom I had intended to impress, one of whom, I believe, stood up to find a shovel. Three seconds later I zoomed up over the trees and flew around for a few minutes to get calm enough to land and sheepishly to face my friends. I had less than 300 hours flying time at the time and now have accumulated 2200 hours in 98 different types of aircraft by not being so stupid. At this time in my life I aspire to be an old pilot instead of a bold pilot.

I've had other adventures flying and even injury since then but never faced the grim reaper so close face to face since.

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Editor's Note: I had intended to do something really special for Valentine's Day, but as it turns out, I will be traveling to Austin tomorrow morning to be with two of my children and grandchildren this weekend. As some of you know by now, I lost my mother this past Sunday. She had been ill with Alzheimer's, among other things, and in a nursing home for a long time, so this is something of a mixed blessing for our family. We are relieved to see her suffering end. And although we will miss her very much, she would want our lives to go on as usual... and being with my first grandchild this weekend as he performs with the All-State Men's Choir is a very important family event -- one she would have loved to attend. Therefore, I will leave you with a few loving thoughts.

First, if you are fortunate enough to spend Valentine's Day with someone near and dear to you, tell them how fortunate you feel. Scroll down to the music playlist on the left of the blog, click on the big arrow, and take that special someone in your arms while you listen to love songs from the past. If it so moves you, you might dance around the living room a bit. A little candlelight would be nice, too.

From my "Cherokee Feast of Days" book by Joyce Sequiche Hifler:

"..We can be so busy that we miss the little things that sweeten life, the way a pet waits to be noticed, the way an owl, a wahuhi, hoots in the woods, and a bluejay chortles in the middle of winter. It is a lovely thing to turn away from busy work to pay attention to our loved things and loved ones. We know how we wait to be told we are important. We should never wait to say or think something beautiful that will make someone's day easier and more secure."

"We do not want riches. We want peace and love."...Red Cloud 1870

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HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE! Remember, YOU make the "good stuff" happen!

With love,
Marilyn

LOVE BY ANY OTHER NAME

The following occurred in "my back yard" in the summer of 2006... Marilyn

THE ORPHAN EGG

I continue to see my back yard as a microcosm of the world. I have a difficult time understanding physics, but I once read a book on chaos theory and as a result, I see patterns repeating themselves over and over, down to the minutest particles I’m able to see. A world within a world within a world. As I watch the events unfolding in my back yard, I find myself relating them to what’s going on in the world at large.

I have a couple of feeders and some water dishes for the birds in my back yard. I love watching my feathered friends, even though I don’t know very much about birds. I often turn to my bird books and field guides to seek information about the birds I am seeing.

One morning I watched a single small blackbird on the grass behaving strangely. A brilliant red Cardinal would frequently fly down to this little bird. As he did so, the blackbird would ruffle its feathers and flap its wings. I know Cardinals are very territorial and I thought he might be trying to chase the blackbird away. I silently applauded the little bird’s efforts to resist this aggression.

As I continued to look out my window, I noticed a different behavior between the two birds. The Cardinal seemed to be “nuzzling” the beak of the blackbird. “Hmmm”, I thought, “could all that fluttering and ruffling of feathers be some kind of courting ritual? Between two different species of birds?” Someone must be confused – and it was probably me! I longed for a pair of binoculars to see the pair up close. After watching for several minutes, I realized that the Cardinal was going to the feeder, then coming back to the little blackbird and feeding it!

All day that day, I could not stay away from the window. I even put out more birdseed than usual, hoping to keep them around longer. I watched the Cardinal get into the water dish and take a bath, shortly followed by the blackbird. The Cardinal was parenting the little bird and teaching it how to care for itself. I have read stories about some birds that lay their eggs in another bird’s nest and then abandon them. I can’t remember if crows or starlings do that. Perhaps that is how these two came together.

It has warmed my heart to observe this little miracle in my back yard. I thought of many analogies as I watched this odd couple the next few days, but my first thought was of the wonderful people who are adopting orphaned children from all over the world as well as in our own country. Most of them have so much love to give a child that they never give a thought to the color of its skin.

I was also reminded of the terrible tragedy going on in the Sudan (Note: The Congo has lost 5.4 million people due to the conflict going on there as well.) and all the hungry, often orphaned little children. We should take lessons from the beautiful proud Cardinal and help feed the people of that beleaguered country as well as help them in their efforts to become independent and care for themselves. With peaceful means, of course. As it goes in my back yard. .. Marilyn Moragne July '06

Recently, I was amazed to have the following video forwarded to me. Thank you, Ann Burton, for this touching little vignette. As I watched it, I began to tell myself that this just might be the little Crow I watched being mothered by a Cardinal in my back yard! What do you think?

A SAFE PLACE TO RAISE CHILDREN?

And we all thought Glenn Smith was such a timid young man! The following story, even though it is a little longer than most of the submissions to-date, is well worth reading. Along with Denny Hill's story of riding down City Park Hill backwards and the tales of the boys riding over the falls on Elm Creek, this pooh-poohs the notion that a small town is the safest place to raise your children! It also goes to show that teenage boys in West Texas did not have to be big football stars to experience a sense of adventure that got the testosterone and adrenaline flowing.. Marilyn

Farm life didn't fascinate me, a fact that my father noted with frequent disapproval. And I was not better off at school. "Glenn is a nice boy who needs to apply himself more," teachers wrote on my report cards. I read pilots' autobiographies from the junior high library, also a book on how to fly. I barely stayed awake in class. The social studies teacher threatened to keep me back from high school, relenting only after my sister begged on my behalf.

I graduated from high school in the bottom half of the class after my grades fell too low to stay in the Honor Society. I was a mediocre trombone player. I ran one of the slowest miles in BHS track history. Terrified to speak in front of any group, the only part I could get in a school play had one line. I liked girls but feared asking for a date. Senior year I came out for football, after my father finally gave in. I tried hard but didn't impress the coaches, barely playing enough minutes to make the "B" team. Most of those minutes were after it was clear the games could not be won. 

Sunday afternoons I began hanging out at Bruce Field. One day I realized that if I skipped lunch I could use the money for flying lessons. It took weeks to save enough for a half hour of instruction, but I loved every minute in the air.

I soloed May 18, 1957, having tricked my mother into signing her permission by entering a photography contest. (I clipped black and white prints over every inch of the permission form--except for the parental signature line.) As soon as she signed, I ran out the back door and biked furiously down the nearly mile long lane to the county road where I caught the bus. 

August 1957 I languished in English and History at ACC. Someone told me about a 25-year-old undergraduate who owned a plane. I arranged to meet Robert ("Bob") Harris, a duster pilot who made enough in summer to fund his studies the rest of the year. He owned an Interstate Cadet, a two-place, high wing aircraft that looked almost identical to a Piper Cub. He rented the Cadet with gasoline provided for $4.30 an hour. I sold my Ziess Icontaflex camera for $50 to pay for flight time.

Bob checked me out, turned me loose to fly on my own. I liked to climb the Cadet as high as it would go--around ten thousand feet--scooping cumulus cloud into the cockpit with my right hand through the open side window. Then I'd turn on carburetor heat (to keep ice from killing the engine at idle), pull the nose sharply up, close the throttle and provoke a spin with rudder and aileron crossed, stick full back. The effect was dramatic, better than a roller coaster ride. With the plane stalled, then standing on its nose, perspective shifted as the earth rotated slowly. The second turn was faster; the third, still more rapid. To recover, the pilot briefly reversed all the control positions and moved stick and rudder to neutral, then advanced the throttle and pulled out of the dive with the plane now flying normally. I'd alternate a turn or two to the right, recover, then one or two to the left, until most of the altitude was gone. Then I'd climb and do it again. 

Spins began to seem routine. One afternoon, instead of stopping at three turns, I let it go longer. I had learned to "spot" like a dancer by choosing something on the horizon to briefly notice during each revolution. All was going well enough through about five turns. Then I had trouble keeping up with the accelerating rotation. The plane was in a nose down free fall as it twirled faster and faster. I was thinking turn number seven as the Cadet finished rotation number eight. Somewhere short of turn nine finishing, I stopped the spin. As the stick went full forward, my left hand pushed the throttle wide open. The fact that the craft was already in a screaming dive didn't register till the airspeed was 80 percent past redline. Of course I should have pulled the throttle back but I sat as if in a stupor watching the tachometer also go way beyond redline. The plane started pulling itself out of the dive. I let the stick come back, feeling my face sag into distortion from g force. Fabric groaned, and I heard wood snapping. I felt suddenly scared. I promise never to be so foolish again if I get through this stupidity! The plane and I survived. I'd had enough of spins, at least for then.

With 14 hours logged, it was time for a solo cross country. I flew Abilene to Ballinger and back twice. That was easy. I navigated by flying the highway. (James Hays nearly turned me in to the FAA for buzzing his farm, not knowing it was I. Fortunately he couldn't read the aircraft number as I shot nearly straight up after building up a lot of speed in the dive that preceded climbing over his house.) 

Now I was ready for a "three legged" cross country. I took off on a Friday afternoon for Brownwood, landing there about an hour later. Got my log book signed by a woman in the hangar. Someone on the flight line pulled the prop to restart the engine. It was early October and pleasantly warm. 

Everything was routine as I made a slow, climbing left turn. The engine throbbed smoothly. The warm enclosure of Plexiglas vibrated reassurance as the propeller's revolutions picked up evenly spaced slices of glowing western sun. Twisted mesquite and clumps of ubiquitous prickly pear made a hypnotic background.

I woke up with a jolt. Where am I? Oh. In the Interstate Cadet. Must have zoned out for a second. Shielding my eyes from the large orange sun, I looked at the compass, then at the landscape, studied the sectional chart. Nothing on the chart looked like what I saw outside. Ah that must be the railroad. No, that's not a railroad. The Brownwood-Ballinger highway should be just ahead. There it is! No -- only mesquite and prickly pear. I thought I had likely drifted left, south. So I corrected to about 285 degrees. I'll cross the road to Ballinger soon. But no road showed up. The sun kept easing toward the horizon. I held the heading, grew more anxious. 

In retrospect I know I must have slept for minutes, probably more than five. For sure I woke up confused. I was already north of the highway that I kept thinking I would see any minute. I flew a few miles north of Bangs, Santa Anna, Coleman, Glen Cove, Winters and Wingate. Didn't notice any of them. Climbing would have let me see farther but I was disoriented and might have stayed lost. I flew low to keep the headwind less. I could see clearly only about three miles.

Finally, late in the afternoon, a town loomed. It had a water tower. Hooray I thought. Its name will be there. I pushed the stick forward a little, got closer, rolled into a left turn around it, flew more than 360 degrees in sinking disbelief. Nothing there! Probably the only town in Texas that had not painted its name on the water tower. 

I looked at the two lane road leading into town and spotted a green rectangle. Hey, a city limit sign. I scanned the road for crossing power or telephone lines. Seeing none, I flew outbound for about two minutes, lined up the highway as if it were a runway. I was a foot above the road. No traffic. I eased the stick forward. Tires squealed. I pushed the throttle up to about 2100 rpm, sailing past the city limit sign at nearly 70 miles per hour, right wing up to clear the sign with only the left tire touching the pavement.

"Blackwell," it said.

Full throttle, carb heat off, nose up. 

Where is Blackwell? As the Interstate climbed I grabbed the chart. Finally I saw it, north and west of Ballinger. A quick pencil line helped me calculate a heading. I hoped I'd beat sundown--because Bruce Field had no runway lights then, and I had no night flying experience. The last orange rays disappeared a minute after the wheels touched. I taxied in the dusk, tied down with dark still 18 minutes away.

A few days ago, I drove to Blackwell. The city limit sign is where I saw it fifty years ago. The water tower is gone, replaced by a tall cylindrical one with the town name painted vertically.

I'm not sure what flying means in my life. It brought compelling experiences. (I got a private license and logged 335 hours in 18 different planes.) Several times I was unsure where I was. Not only was I clueless going from Brownwood to Ballinger, I also got lost in California, Iowa, and Oklahoma. Saw a few places I hadn't meant to visit. Once I landed a plane at dark with no lights and no gas--total fuel capacity was 24 gallons; it held 24.3. Never got hurt but was less than three seconds from death when my instructor nearly rolled inverted as he missed the approach in a fog that closed most airports from Canada to Kansas City and from Chicago to Denver.

In 1981 I flew the fourth plane I owned to Pecos. Johnny ("Have Tools Will Travel") Sullivan, from whom I had bought it, sold it for me. He took the right seat as I flew his Cherokee Arrow to the Midland-Odessa airport. The Arrow touched well down the runway after my low, hot approach. Runway's end loomed; John pulled the brake hard: "Were you plannin' to brake?" he asked as if inquiring whether I wanted more coffee. "Thinkin' about it," I said, trying to match his laconic tone. That was the last day I logged any "pilot in command" time.

John said goodbye, distant sadness in his gaze. I got on the American 727, looking at the window as a flight attendant went up the aisle. I wiped my eyes. I wouldn't see Johnny Sullivan again. Who he was and how we met--that's a flying story for another time."

Remind me never to fly with Glenn -- in case he asks! OK, James and Jerry. It's your turn to share some scary flying stories. Bob, I know you didn't fly while in high school, but I'll bet you have a flying story or two to tell, too.

Hey everyone, didn't I tell you, "Good stuff happens"!


'Til next time,
Marilyn

CYCLES OF THE PAST

Professor C. Denson Hill (otherwise known as our Denny) sent the following to me to share with the Class of ’57. I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. I was disappointed it didn’t come with a picture of him on his new unicycle.

"From the time I was in Jr. High, and throughout my High School days, in the summer, I used to go swimming almost every day. I would ride my bicycle there. As you probably remember, there was a quite steep hill leading down to the pool in the park. My bike was an old "Western Flyer", without gears like the modern bikes. If you stepped hard on the brakes, the back wheel would lock up. Since there was usually a bit of sand or fine gravel, especially toward the bottom of the hill, you could manage to "fish-tail" your bike, as you slid to a dramatic stop right near the front of the pool. Probably already in the 7th grade I learned how to go very fast at the top of the hill, then lock up the brakes, and fish-tail-all-the-way-down the hill, without falling down, just managing to stop right in front of the girls hanging out by the pool. 

I thought I was so cool!

A bit later, on level ground in front of my house, I practiced until I learned how to ride my bike backwards: You sit on the handle bars, pedal your feet backwards, and there is really no problem, except it is hard to see just where you are going; you have to look over your shoulder. In a few weeks I got to be rather good at it. So I would make figure eights, riding backwards, on the street in front of my house. It was natural to put the two things together. I started at the bottom of the hill, going down into the park, and tried locking up my brakes and doing a little fish-tail, while sitting on the handle bars and going backwards. Of course I fell down a few times, and skinned up my elbows and knees, but that was standard at that age. Finally I got it down. So to "impress" the girls even more, I would start at a good rate of speed at the top of the hill, sitting backwards on the handle bars, and fish-tail-all-the-way-down. There were times when it got really hairy, but fortunately I had practiced, so I was always able to (barely) pull it off before totally wiping out. In those days there was never any thought of wearing a bicycle helmet (I don't think I had ever even seen a bike helmet, up to that point in my life). Sometimes I did scare myself, but I don't think I ever really thought about how serious an injury one might get by falling down such a steep hill, at speed, and landing on your head. So everything went OK. (Now, I shudder and feel goose bumps when I think about it.) Having mastered the backwards steep hill fish-tail, with all of  my weight right above the front wheel, and with the back wheel swinging back and forth, acting like a rudder, I started to think that maybe the back wheel was not so important after all. 

That was when I decided that I should get a (homemade) unicycle, and learn to ride it. Of course that had to be done on level ground. After some really badly skinned knees and elbows, I soon learned to just step off the unicycle a microsecond before falling down. That way, you were left standing on your feet, and the poor unicycle went tumbling. After 4 or 5 days of practice, I finally learned how to stay up for a long time, and was able to ride a considerable distance before getting too tired to continue. But since unicycles do not have brakes, I was never able to do anything
on the hill going down to the park, except very slowly inch my way
down.

So if you ask: "Why did you decide to learn to ride a unicycle in high school?" I would say that "The hill made me do it." 

PS: As I write this, from my office at Stony Brook University, there is a unicycle here, just behind me. I had not touched one for maybe 35 years, so I didn't know if I could still do it. But, just to check it out, I bought one, and discovered that it is just like typing or swimming: I can still do it, but of course not as skillfully as before."

Editor:
Denny remembered it was a Western Flyer bicycle. The photo I put with this is probably very similar -- early 1950s. However, his was yellow and black with streamers from the handles.

Isn't it amazing how the City Park hill brings back memories to all of us? I think Denny's experiences riding backwards down the hill is even more dangerous than the boys riding on an old car hood. But maybe Coach Gosney would have thought teaching young teenage girls how to park on that hill would be the one most likely to end in an accident of some sort!

I'd still like to hear some of the "love stories" out there. There's never enough love in the world.

And don't forget... "Good stuff happens."

Marilyn