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