choice, that he can choose his own world and his own time to live in, I could show that highspeed steel and blind computers and city riots are only one side of a picture of living … a side we don’t have to choose unless we want to. I could prove that America isn’t all really so changed and different, at heart. That beneaththe surface of the headline, Americans are still a calm and brave and beautiful people.
When my vague little dream was known, a few folk of differing opinion rushed to stamp it to death. Time and again I heard that this was not just a chancy impractical quest, but impossible, without hope of success. The good old days are gone … why, everybody knows that! Oh, maybe it used to be a slow and friendly place, this country, but nowadays people will sue a stranger—and like as not a friend—at the drop of a hat. It’s just the way people are, now. You go landing in a farmer’s hay field and he’ll throw you in jail for trespassing, take your airplane for damages to his land and testify that you threatened the lives of his family when you flew over the barn.
People today, they said, demand the best in comfort and safety. You can’t pay them to go up in a forty-year-old biplane all open-cockpit with wind and oil lashing back all over them … and you expect them to pay you for the pain of all that? There wouldn’t be an insurance company—Lloyd’s of London wouldn’t cover a thing like that, for a cent less than a thousand dollars a week. Barnstorming, indeed! Keep your feet on the ground, friend, these are the 1960’s!
“What do you think about a jump?” Stu asked, and snapped me back to afternoon Rio.
“Getting a bit late,” I said, and the gypsy pilot and doom voices faded. “But, heck, a good calm day for it. Let’s give it a try.”
Stu was ready in a minute, tall and serious, shrugging into his main chute harness, snapping the reserve parachute across his chest, tossing his helmet into the front seat, making ready for his part of the quest. A bulky clumsy deep-sea diver, all buckles and nylon web over a bright yellow one-piece jumpsuit,he pulled himself into the forward cockpit and closed the little door.
“Allrighty,” he said, “let’s go.”
I had a hard time believing that this lad, filled with inner fires, had chosen to study dentistry. Dentistry! Somehow we had to convince him that there was more to life than the makeshift security of a dentist’s office.
In a moment, as we blasted off the ground and into the air, I was all of a sudden singing Rio Rita , making it Rye-o Rita. I knew only a part of the first line of the song, and it went over and over as we climbed to altitude.
Stu looked overboard with a strange faint smile, thinking about something way off in the distance.
Rita … Rye-o Ritah … noth … thing … sweetah … Rita … Oh-Rita. I had to imagine all the saxophones and cymbal-clashes over the thunder of the engine.
If I were Stu, I wouldn’t be smiling. I’d be thinking about that ground down there, waiting for me.
At 2500 feet, we swung around into the wind, and flew directly above the airport. Rye-o Ritah … la … dee … deedah … deedah … oh Ritah … My-baby-an’-me-o, Ritah …
Stu came back from whatever far land it was he saw, and peered down over the side of his cockpit. Then, looking, he sat straight up and carefully dropped a bright roll of crepe paper overboard. It just missed the tail, unfurled into a long yellow-red-yellow streak of color and snaked straight down. I circled, climbing, and Stu was intent, watching the color. When it hit the ground, he nodded and smiled briefly back at me. We turned back on course for the airport, level at 4500 feet. I shuddered at the thought of actually jumping out of an airplane. It was a very long way down.
Stu opened his cockpit door while I slowed the biplane to ease the windblast for him. It was an odd feeling, to watchmy front-seat passenger climb out onto the wing and make ready to
When my vague little dream was known, a few folk of differing opinion rushed to stamp it to death. Time and again I heard that this was not just a chancy impractical quest, but impossible, without hope of success. The good old days are gone … why, everybody knows that! Oh, maybe it used to be a slow and friendly place, this country, but nowadays people will sue a stranger—and like as not a friend—at the drop of a hat. It’s just the way people are, now. You go landing in a farmer’s hay field and he’ll throw you in jail for trespassing, take your airplane for damages to his land and testify that you threatened the lives of his family when you flew over the barn.
People today, they said, demand the best in comfort and safety. You can’t pay them to go up in a forty-year-old biplane all open-cockpit with wind and oil lashing back all over them … and you expect them to pay you for the pain of all that? There wouldn’t be an insurance company—Lloyd’s of London wouldn’t cover a thing like that, for a cent less than a thousand dollars a week. Barnstorming, indeed! Keep your feet on the ground, friend, these are the 1960’s!
“What do you think about a jump?” Stu asked, and snapped me back to afternoon Rio.
“Getting a bit late,” I said, and the gypsy pilot and doom voices faded. “But, heck, a good calm day for it. Let’s give it a try.”
Stu was ready in a minute, tall and serious, shrugging into his main chute harness, snapping the reserve parachute across his chest, tossing his helmet into the front seat, making ready for his part of the quest. A bulky clumsy deep-sea diver, all buckles and nylon web over a bright yellow one-piece jumpsuit,he pulled himself into the forward cockpit and closed the little door.
“Allrighty,” he said, “let’s go.”
I had a hard time believing that this lad, filled with inner fires, had chosen to study dentistry. Dentistry! Somehow we had to convince him that there was more to life than the makeshift security of a dentist’s office.
In a moment, as we blasted off the ground and into the air, I was all of a sudden singing Rio Rita , making it Rye-o Rita. I knew only a part of the first line of the song, and it went over and over as we climbed to altitude.
Stu looked overboard with a strange faint smile, thinking about something way off in the distance.
Rita … Rye-o Ritah … noth … thing … sweetah … Rita … Oh-Rita. I had to imagine all the saxophones and cymbal-clashes over the thunder of the engine.
If I were Stu, I wouldn’t be smiling. I’d be thinking about that ground down there, waiting for me.
At 2500 feet, we swung around into the wind, and flew directly above the airport. Rye-o Ritah … la … dee … deedah … deedah … oh Ritah … My-baby-an’-me-o, Ritah …
Stu came back from whatever far land it was he saw, and peered down over the side of his cockpit. Then, looking, he sat straight up and carefully dropped a bright roll of crepe paper overboard. It just missed the tail, unfurled into a long yellow-red-yellow streak of color and snaked straight down. I circled, climbing, and Stu was intent, watching the color. When it hit the ground, he nodded and smiled briefly back at me. We turned back on course for the airport, level at 4500 feet. I shuddered at the thought of actually jumping out of an airplane. It was a very long way down.
Stu opened his cockpit door while I slowed the biplane to ease the windblast for him. It was an odd feeling, to watchmy front-seat passenger climb out onto the wing and make ready to
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