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Blogs by Byron Edgington
Birds do it, bees do it... 5/30/2013 5:18:08 AM
We all have a desire to fly, it seems Is there anyone out there, male or female, who hasn’t at one time or another made a paper airplane? I’m guessing there are very few people of any age or gender who have not. And the reason we make such delicate, simple craft with very limited functionality is that we all feel the need to fly. From the first time we see our feathered friends taking off, soaring above the eaves, fluttering off power lines in flocks and skimming trees looking for the highest branch, we feel a kind of envy. Flying vocabulary is part of our narrative: we tell our kids about the ‘birds and the bees,’ not the goats and the pigs; we say that people take off in a new job, and soar with expectation; when groups form for any purpose, social, political, religious, we say they flock together. When kids we taught the birds & bees to leave home, we live in an empty nest, a place we’ve been careful to feather with an egg during our working years. Everyone wants to fly, it seems.
My first recollection of actual flight is in a seaplane with my Dad, during a vacation in Maine in 1955. I am seven. (Yes, I’m that old.) We board the little Cessna at a lake in the middle of ski country. The pilot pumps the throttle a couple of times. Then he twists a key, just like in our Pontiac and the prop jerks, almost stops, jerks again then revs with alarm, sawing at the crisp morning air. The engine roars, the fuselage vibrates. The instrument panel quivers as the little plane lunges forward away from the dock. I smell the sharp, oily tang of avgas, and the musty aroma of the worn leather seats. The pilot looks left and right, then he jams the throttle forward and the engine screams. The plane rocks and wobbles on the choppy lake, gaining speed, bumping and clunking along, bouncing me in my seat. I’m not the least bit afraid; I’m loving every moment. Streaks of water spray the windscreen, and droplets stream back along the plastic windows. With one last clunk the pontoons lift. We take off and the air is instantly smooth. We make a wide circle, wings angling up then down, the pilot’s hands barely moving. He points at things below, explains the various gauges and needles and instruments. He’s done this a long time, I can tell. I see the small town beside the lake. People really are like ants. Cars and buildings look like my Lionel train board. From the sky everything looks peaceful, serene, orderly. At least I imagine it that way. I watch the pilot ease the wheel around left and the plane banks, then levels. Too soon, he pulls the throttle back and the engine sound ebbs. RPM sagging, the plane descends toward the lake once more.
I’m sad that the flight is almost over. Flaps angle out from the wings and drop into place, and before I know it the pontoons skim the water and splash in, wobbling and weaving, and the vibrations begin again. Only on the ground, it seems, do the vibrations come. We taxi to the dock, and my first flight is done. Years later I’ll remember that first flight and how I came full circle. It was a short tour of a lake in Maine. I’ll end my flying days as a tour pilot, showing people the serenity that flight offers, the orderly world below if we could only see it, and helping other people realize their dream of flight.
