rayweeboy

Pa Cheese and the Fabulous Wright Flyer

By William Pressman

As told to David McLain

I had to consult a calendar and make a few phone calls to get the details straightened out, but I can still remember it, as the saying goes, like it was yesterday. I remember that awful ride out to the farm, with my mother and Bobby, all three of us packed into the Black Grand Caravan with fake wood paneling that my father had bought the year before. I remember the endless wheat fields that lined either side of the long, winding road we took that day. We'd gotten lost- I'm not sure how- we must have been to the farm a hundred times before. I remember so much of it, although some parts seem to have developed in my mind like photographs and other things I remember more as concepts. I can remember the Elmo baseball hat my brother used to wear and I remember that my mother was younger than she is now, but I can't picture either of those things conceptually. There are things I don't remember, things I don't even remember I've forgotten. Of course, it always works that way. This is one time I wish it didn't.

I was six-foot two and almost sixteen on the eighteenth of June in nineteen eighty-nine, the day my mother dropped Bobby and I off at my Grandparents' farm. Bobby was ten and would remain so for another six months, which made him just the right age for a trip to the farm and just the wrong age to hang out with me. My birthday was in another twenty-eight days, which made me the wrong age for everything. I had come down with full onset teenage angst, which it would until I was at least twenty-one. I know now that I was also suffering from a more complex disease. I was becoming the child of divorced parents. Three months ago my father had gone to a medical conference in Chicago and had brought his secretary with him. He hadn't come back for three weeks. When he did it was only to see my brother score a goal in the junior high all-city soccer championships, after which he returned to his new life feeling satisfied that he'd held up his parental responsibilities. At ten years old Bobby was the right age to admit that it scared him not having both Mom and Dad home at night. I guess in a way he was lucky, since that was more than I could do. At sixteen, or almost sixteen, I couldn't even admit that I loved my father. I guess in a way that made me lucky. Mom had to admit that he didn't love her anymore. That's tough for me to say, even now. Imagine what it must have been like for Mom to say back then.

``This is going to be fun,'' Mom was doing her best to feign excitement, a skill she had learned from my grandmother. The lack of genuine emotion was so palpable that you could almost read the invisible index cards that she'd written this little speech down on. ``Summer is the best time on the farm, there's so much to do.'' (next card) ``You guys can milk the cows and slop the pigs and I'm going to make sure Grandma takes you to the county fair.'' (next card) ``You're going to learn all about hard work and get lots of fresh air and it's going to be very exciting.''

``Mom, I have a low threshold for boredom,'' I moaned.

``This isn't going to be boring, it's going to fun,'' Mom insisted, before going right back into her little speech. ``You'll be out in the air.'' (next card) ``and you'll get to drive the tractor this year.'' (next card and the big finish.) ``I need you to do this. It means so much to Pa Cheese and Grandma Helen.''

``It'll be fun,'' Bobby said cheerily.

``Fun?'' Mom asked hopefully. Mom was too desperate to realize that her ten year old was humoring her.

``Fun!'' Bobby insisted, and then he said more quietly: ``Don't worry.''

``Ohio must be the only place in the world where apathy is a terminal disease,'' I mumbled, taking out my walkman. Back then I probably thought this was a pretty witty and sophisticated reply. The truth was there were probably a lot of things I would have liked to say to my mother, but it would take me at least another decade to work up the courage to discuss the things that I was feeling that summer afternoon. At fifteen I was old enough to have seen a few of the things that my parents had tried to hide from me, but I wasn't mature enough to know how to deal with them. This was the last time Bobby and I would get to be alone with our mother for three months. If I had the courage I would have liked to say a lot to her, but I didn't have that courage at fifteen. I spent the rest of the car ride listening to the Beatles and wishing I was dead. The next thing I knew, we were there.

Now there's probably some linguist or historian out there who would be happy to tell you that Pa Cheese's real name was Charles Attillo Magestretti and that once upon a time people of Italian decent used Chiz an abbreviation for Charles, but this is missing the point. Bobby and I knew our grandfather, and his name was Pa Cheese. He worked on a farm after all, it made sense. He was Pa Limburger, Pa Swiss. He was the one and only, the only man I've ever known named after a dairy product. He was my grandfather. I'm pretty sure that covers it.

At sixty-five Pa Cheese's life was more of a story than an event to be witnessed, but he still had the same spirit that he had when he was young, and that spirit was coming into conflict with the realities of the world around him. My grandfather's life's work was a dying 200 acre Ohio farm that wouldn't last to the end of the decade, let alone for another generation. Pa Cheese had retired at the end of the last harvest and for the first time in probably a century every inch of the property was lying fallow. It was a rebuilding year designed with one specific purpose: At the end of the year Pa Cheese would sell the farm. His dream was that some up and coming local farmer would buy the farm and begin and new era of local men tilling their own dirt. It was a diluted dream, but since no blood relative of Cheese's was willing to work on the farm it would have to do. It would turn out that even that was a little out of reach, but that's neither here or there. When my mother's car pulled up on that glorious summer day, Pa Cheese was in his barn, feeding the last of his pigs. My Grandma Helen was waiting for at the front door.

``Oh my little darlings!'' Grandma greeted Bobby and I at the door like we had just come back from the war. She threw her arms around Bobby first and then me, giving us both a wet kiss on the cheek. Bobby and I were always referred to as her `little darlin's' no matter how old we got. My teenage self was probably way too cool to appreciate a hug and a kiss form my grandmother, but I can remember the warm glow radiating from the house my mother grew up in. The old farmhouse, a Victorian era relic that had survived two tornados, one flood, and the great depression, always had the look of the kind of place that Joads would have aspired to live in, but there were always fresh baked cookies when we arrived.

``Hi mom,'' my mother said a little less enthusiastically.

``How was you're trip?'' Grandma asked.

``Boring,'' I said truthfully.

``You take after your grandfather,'' my grandmother said. ``Why don't you go get him, he'll help you get the bags.''

When I close my eyes I can still remember the way he looked that summer: his skin tanned by the sun, his body ravaged by decades of work, his face perpetually covered by a set of horn-rimmed glasses, a Charlie Chan mustache and a scowl. His body was shorter and older than it once was, but still capable of putting out enough energy to light a small city.

``It's you,'' he grumbled when I found him, giving a particularly small looking piglet a little extra slop. At sixty-five Pa Cheese was not big on introductions. He seemed to treat all people like they had just left the room, whether they were returning after five minutes or fifty years. ``Does your mother know you're here?''

``I came with her,'' I explained.

``I suppose you've graduated high school and are looking for a job? Well, I can't give you one.

``I don't want a job,'' I said. ``Even if I did, I would want to work here.''

Pa Cheese squinted at me. ``How'd you like a fork in the fleshy part of your arm?''

``A pitchfork or a silverware fork?'' I asked.

``Pitch,'' Pa Cheese said with a wicked tone in his voice.

I don't remember for sure, but I'd like to think that my Grandmother made my favorite dinner that: night: steak and potatoes so rare you'd think she'd cooked them in nothing but a warm summer wind. Grandma cooked everything like it wasn't quite dead yet and she didn't want to hurt its feelings. Steak and potatoes was my favorite. If she cooked something different that night I don't want to know. There are some details that are better off the way we imagine them. There is one thing I am sure of though: after dinner Grandma served Pa Cheese's third favorite desert.

``What's this?'' Bobby asked as Grandma put down a plate of crispy looking custard.

``It's Vell,'' Cheese said loathingly. ``My third favorite desert.''

I noticed that `Vell' was the name printed on the bottle of dishwashing liquid sitting over by the kitchen sink.

``Chocolate puddings is my favorite desert,'' Pa Cheese explained. ``Cakes, cookies, ice cream, pies and all other kinds of desert are my second favorite desert and Vell is my third favorite desert.''

``Why don't we just have ice cream?'' I asked.

Pa Cheese looked at Grandma Helen and grinned. ``The boy has a point.''

All I can say is that words cannot express how bad it was. Vell quickly became my third favorite desert, and Bobby's too. I can't remember what was in it, but I know I would have I gladly accepted a second helping of brussel sprouts before trying it again. I think Grandma made it in the freezer using ice cube trays.

With dinner finished my mother started fidgeting with her watch and looking at the late afternoon sun coming in through the kitchen window. My mother had a long drive ahead of her, but that wasn't what she was worried about. She knew what my Grandfather was going to say next.

``Why don't you kids go outside,'' Pa Cheese suggested ``We need to have a meeting of the old farts club.''

My mother's parents were both Catholic, and even though my grandfather had long since given up going to Mass in favor of reading the Sunday comics, I knew they looked at my parents' approaching divorce as a stain on the family name. If the truth be told, they had never really forgiven her for not marrying a Catholic Ohio farmer, preferably one they'd picked out for her, so this was a new low. There were questions that Mom would have to answer. Lessons that my grandfather would think that she needed to learn. The bible would be quoted. Hands would be wrung and guilt would be invoked. I don't know why. Every time Dad had come to the farm Cheese looked at him like someone had let a stray dog in the house. Bobby and I, on the other hand, loved Dad more than anything, but still understood why Mom was divorcing him.

There is part of me that wishes I had stayed behind and stood up for my mother, but I was young, and it was summer, and the great American pastime was calling my name.

When it comes to baseball I suppose there are people out there who can quote every rule laid down since the days of Ty Cobb, but from my point of view baseball was a constantly evolving game, with rules made up on the spot and a style bent to fit the players and the situation at hand. Bobby and I had our own spin on the game: One man to a side, we used a tennis ball and an aluminum bat, no gloves. Normally we weren't allowed to play in the fields, so the garage was home plate, the oak tree on the far side of the drive way and the bushes by the front walk were first and second respectively. The broken old air conditioner on the far side of the house was third, which meant to encircle the house to get a home run. I got two outs an inning, Bobby got three. I remember that night Bobby hit a dinger that landed clear in the creak on the far side of the road, the first time he'd ever gotten it that far. I made a note that I was going to have to try harder if I wanted to keep beating him.

As the sun began to set Mom came out of the house to say goodbye one last time before heading home. Her eyes were red and sore looking, and although I didn't ask it wasn't hard to imagine that my Grandfather had said a few things that had made my mother's heart fill with regret. As we stood in front of the station wagon my mother squeezed me as though she were never going to see me again.

``Take care of your brother,'' she said to me, loud enough that Bobby could hear. Than she bent over and gave Bobby the same squeeze. ``That goes double for you.''

Bobby and I went to sleep that night in my Uncle Joe's old room, tired but relatively content. Somewhere in my head I knew that our three month absence from our comfortable suburban bungalow would allow my mother to wrap her head around words like `infidelity' and `divorce' without having to reach for a box of Kleenex. Hopefully when we came back she would be refreshed and ready. She needed to be ready. There were going to be a lot of new challenges ahead.

The next day was a Saturday, and Bobby and I were given free reign over the farm, a premise that was filled with the odd mix of delight and boredom that all summer days seem to have when you're a boy. I don't remember the day with pristine clarity, but I know the highlights of the afternoon included wading up to our knees in the far end of the creek and going into the barn to take a pee out of the second floor hayloft and into the old rain barrel, an event which embarrassed my grandmother to no end.

``I hope the two of you are proud of yourselves,'' she said at dinner that night.

``I am,'' I answered with a sheepish grin.

``Me too,'' Bobby agreed.

Grandma Helen was clearly not pleased with this answer. ``I don't think your mother would be very proud of you today,'' she snapped.

I think, but I'm not sure, that we watched an Indians game with Cheese later that evening. This would have been a contentious event, Bobby and I had been raised as White Sox fans by our father. Cheese did not approve of the White Sox any more than he approved of my father, and he would have tried to force a love of the Indians down our throats. Cheese had never believed that you could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and he didn't understand that Bobby and I were never going to be the grandchildren he imagined. He was ashamed. Not of us, but of the feeling he hatred he felt in knowing that we loved our father more than we loved him, that in spite of everything that happened, everything that would happen, our father was more important than he ever would be. We weren't going to stop loving the White Sox anymore than we were going to stop loving our father. I don't remember the game, and yet somehow a game is there, stuck in my memory.

But what I am sure of, what every member of my family knows beyond all reasonable doubt is that the next day Pa Cheese and Grandma Helen took us to Wright Hall in Dayton, Ohio.

If you've never been to Dayton Ohio, the chances are you won't feel like you're missing much. Settled over two hundred years ago in the Miami River Valley, it's location in the west central section of Ohio destined it to become little more than a county seat. It's a charming but unimpressive small town, an important hub for small town farmers and local businessmen, largely ignored by tourists and travelers alike. It was about an hour from my Grandfather's farm, and as such my grandfather had a certain respect for it- he read the Dayton Daily News every evening and watched the local NBC station every night. As kids growing up in suburban Chicago Bobby and I were never very impressed with Dayton. Most trips to the farm inevitably involved a ride to the Dayton Mall, where Grandma bought Bobby and I plaid shirts at Sears, no matter what time of year it was. Dayton's only real contribution to history, and is a modest one, is that in 1903 the Wright Brothers had a small Bicycle shop on the south side of town which they used to support themselves during their experiments in aviation.

The bike shop is long since gone, but several years ago the city graciously erected Wright Hall in tribute to it's hometown aviation heroes. It is, essentially, a museum with one exhibit- Wright Hall owns the last original Wright Flyer III, built by Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1905.

If you have ever seen a Wright Flyer- the Smithsonian is in possession of the original that flew at Kitty Hawk- you may find yourself amazed. Not just at the connection you'll feel with American History and how two little men changed the world, but at the mere fact that they ever flew at all. Built out of muslin and soft pine and barely longer than my mother's old station wagon, it relied on it's light weight to stay aloft. It featured a twelve horsepower engine that wouldn't drive a golf cart up a hill. On the first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903 Orville Wright managed to stay aloft for twelve seconds, and even that took a lot of skill. The brothers flew three more times that day before the airplane was almost completely destroyed by a strong gust of wind, to give you an idea of it's durability. The 1905 Flyer, the one I saw that day in Dayton, is often referred to as the first practical aircraft. It was capable of sustained flights lasting up to an hour, and could do loops and figure eights, if you were feeling adventurous, or alternatively, suicidal.

``What do you think?'' Pa Cheese asked as Bobby stared at the flyer.

``It's cool,'' Bobby said. ``We're you alive when they built this?''

``No,'' Pa Cheese said. ``I was dead then.''

``You're impossible,'' Grandma Helen chided.

``Well I wasn't alive,'' Cheese pointed out.

``But do you remember seeing planes that look like that?'' Bobby asked.

Pa Cheese thought about this. ``I can remember running into the house and telling my mother that there was a big Ford up in the sky,'' Pa Cheese answered. ``It was a bi-plane, a crop duster, I think. I had no idea what it was. It was a little scary, to tell the truth. I was about your age I think. '' He patted Bobby on the head.

``I went on one of the first commercial flights out of Dayton,'' Grandma Helen offered. ``I paid four dollars to fly to Chicago. Four dollars, can you believe it?''

``I believe it,'' Pa Cheese agreed. ``It's amazing that the world changes so fast. What do you think?'' he asked, looking at me.

I mumbled something non-committal.

I would like to tell you that I was inspired that day at Wright Hall, that looking at the Wright Brother's plane I imagined the gumption that it took to decide you were going to the first person in history to fly like a bird. I would like to tell you that, but I remember being a little under whelmed. I was a teenager, and being a teenager, my feelings were muddled along with a lot of nonsense about other things. I loved my family, but that love was mixed with embarrassment and uncertainty. I'd like to tell you that I was inspired, but I wasn't. Inspiration came to Pa Cheese.

Time can weigh heavily on a man Pa Cheese's age. Farmer's are not men of leisure. Cheese had been working six days a week through the better part of six decades. You couldn't expect him to just give it all up. He needed a project. Something to keep his mind occupied, and his hands busy. That would be the hardest part for a man like him, the hardest part of retirement. Keeping busy would make him useful. My grandfather had an idea. The next day Pa Cheese left the farm and was gone all afternoon.

When we went home that night Cheese went out to his barn, where he spent most of the evening. From the safety of the house the rest of us watched him with intense curiosity.

``What's he doing out there?'' Bobby asked as we watched the light in the barn glow into the night.

``He won't tell me,'' Grandma said irritably. ``He says it's top secret. He's got some foolish idea in his head.''

He was back out there the following morning before breakfast. Grandma Helen had made French toast and bacon, a treat by any standard, but Bobby couldn't wait any longer: He skipped breakfast and went out to see what Pa Cheese had been up to. At the impossible age of fifteen I was far too cool to admit out loud that I wanted to know what my grandfather was doing, but by the time I had finished my second piece of French toast even I had to see what was going on.

I discovered that overnight Pa Cheese had cleared out the inside of the barn. The hayloft was still full, but the tractor had been parked out in the fields, and the tools and the pig sloppings had been transferred to the empty grain silo. Pa Cheese had even taken out two of the old cow stalls, which lay in splintered pieces around back. The result was that the barn was open and bare- perhaps even big enough to park a school bus in, if you were so inclined. Pa Cheese had also gotten an old oak table out of the spare tool shed, which Bobby was leaning over when I came in.

``What's up?'' I asked Bobby.

``Come here,'' Bobby said.

Held to the table with thumbtacks were a series of large blueprints, quite detailed, complete with the measurements and specifications. I was not an expert, but it was easy enough to tell what the drawings were for. What was not clear was why Cheese had them, or where he had gotten them from. They were interesting, but it seemed that the only reason for having them was if you were think of doing something almost quixotic. I looked at Bobby.

``It's a plane,'' Bobby explained. ``Like the one we saw yesterday.''

``I can see that,'' I agreed, suppressing my teenage urge to say something immensely clever. ``What are they for?''

``We're going to build one.'' a voice behind grumbled.

I turned around, and there was Pa Cheese. He was carrying some two by fours and was wearing a tool belt.

``You're outta of your mind,'' I blurted. I didn't know what else to say.

``Probably,'' he agreed, putting down the boards in the middle of the room. ``Your grandmother seems to think so and I haven't even told her what we're doing yet. She thinks she can smell insanity on the wind.''

``I think that's just manure,'' Bobby observed.

``It has a similar smell,'' I pointed out.

``You're probably right,'' the old man said, a touch of amused thoughtfulness in his voice. ``Probably,'' he said for the third time. ``But we've got eight weeks before your mother comes back, and that's a long time. A long time,'' he repeated.

Looking in his eyes just then you could see it. A lifetime of fall harvests and bumper crops and prayers for rain was backing up on him. It wouldn't sit with him to spend the whole summer just sitting on the porch sipping lemonade and watching the world go by. This was it, this was his project, the thing that would keep his mind off of the fact that the world as he knew it was passing by him.

We spent the whole day working on the Wright Flyer.

It didn't look like much be the end of the day. Most of the morning was taken up with lessons: How to measure wood, how to read a blueprint, how to use a saw, how to pound a nail all the way in on the third hit. Cheese wasn't a professional carpenter by any stretch of the imagination, but such skills are useful on a farm, and he was happy to pass on the knowledge he had. Bobby took to it better than I did.

``You're cutting with the saw the wrong way,'' I pointed out at one point as Pa Cheese tried to slice into a board with a hacksaw. It was a very old hacksaw and the blade had been put in backwards. The serrated edge was pointed straight up, into his thumb.

``Ugh,'' Cheese grunted, by way of acknowledging me. My grandfather was not deaf as a post, but he would have felt the need to defend the surprisingly sensitive ears that posts have. I decided to repeated myself a little louder.

``You're cutting the wrong way,'' I said again.

Cheese grunted and kept on sawing. I looked at Bobby.

``You're cutting the wrong-'' Bobby and I said together, but it was too late. Cheese shot upward and grabbed his thumb.

``Hooooow!'' Cheese yelled.

Perhaps, if Bobby and I had been better people, we would have acted with great sympathy for the old man, but being the ages were we, Bobby and I laughed like hyenas. I think Bobby actually started to point.

``Next time I'll cut my whole damn arm off, give you all a real laugh,'' Cheese barked, which only made us laugh harder.

By the end of the day we had three band aids apiece, and a small reinforced frame of wood. It could have just as easily have been the beginnings of the set for a play or a tree house or a half a dozen other things. It wasn't much, just a frame really, but it was there. Bobby and I were exhausted. Grandma made stir fry beef and vegetables that night, or as Pa Cheese called it:

``Swill,'' He said firmly, when Grandma put a plate of steaming goopy liquid in front of me.

``You mean like the hogs eat?'' Bobby asked.

``That's right,'' Pa Cheese said, with a wild grin. `` Try it, it's good.''

Bobby and I quickly decided that swill was our third favorite dinner, although mercifully Grandma Helen let us have ice cream for desert instead of making us finish off the last of the Vell.

That was how it went, all through the first week of July. My grandfather was a hard man, not least of all on himself, and most days we put in a full days work, or at least as close to it as Bobby and I had ever seen. I was disappointed to find out that my participation did not get me out of feeding the hogs, but for the most part, Bobby and I toiled without complaint. My brother and I did most of the work, while Pa Cheese took us through the necessary steps in learning the trade. Progress was slow, as none of us were real carpenters and often times the blueprints were so detailed neither Cheese nor I could make sense out of them. Our mistakes were many, and more than once Bobby and I found our patience being worn thin. Patience was Cheese's stock in trade though, and by the end of the first week, we had something that looked a little bit like horse drawn sleigh.

``What do you think?'' Cheese asked proudly when Grandma Helen came out for an end of the week inspection.''

``I still think you're crazy,'' Grandma said, although her tone wasn't as disapproving as it had been earlier in the week, when Pa Cheese had made a trip to the lumberyard and spent far too much money.

``We know,'' Bobby said, grinning a little. ``You can smell it.''

``That's right,'' answered Grandma. ``And your Grandfather is wearing it like cologne.''

Cheese looked at his wife and grinned. ``When your grandmother was up in heaven, before she was born,'' he said. ``She was first in line for the noses, so she got the biggest, finest nose they had. But because she was first in line for the noses, she ended up last in line for the brains, so she got the tiniest little brains, because that was all they had left.'' and then he patted her on the rump.

Well, there you have it. That was Cheese in a nutshell. Needless to say Grandma didn't think it was as funny as we did.

It goes without saying that news travels fast in a farming community, especially when someone was doing something as weird as what Pa Cheese had in mind. It wasn't long before we had a visitor.

``What in God's name are you doing?'' A heavy set farmer asked when he came by the barn one day. I recognized him as Bill O'Neil, a farmer from down the road. He had been to my grandparents' golden anniversary party last year. He had a `65 Shelby Mustang with a convertible top. I had never gotten a ride in it, but I had eyed it enviously more than once.

``It's a plane,'' Pa Cheese said, shaking Bill's hand. ``I'm building it with my boys.''

``A plane?'' Bill asked. ``It looks like it should be pulled by a horse.''

Cheese explained about the Wright flyer and showed him the plans. They spent a few minutes discussing the blue prints and how our progress was going. Bill asked some very pointed questions. I could tell he was interested in what we were doing.

``What about the engine?'' Bill inquired as Cheese showed off the curved wood on the plane's landing tracks.

``What about it?'' Cheese asked.

Bill said he didn't think it would be too hard to come up with something, depending on how important it was that it be accurate to what the Wright Brothers had used. Cheese said he was more concerned with making sure the plane got up into the air than with recreating everything down to the last detail. Bill's love of automobiles was well known and the concept of building a plane engine was beyond his wildest dreams. Although this was Bill's busiest season, he and Cheese made plans for him to come by that weekend and see if they could figure out what sort of motor would be needed to get the craft in the air. In the space of a few minutes time Pa Cheese had his first recruit.

There were lots of other people who came by, most would peer at us and point from the roadside, trying to discern from a distance what we were trying to do. Some stopped for awhile to talk, to say hello and ask questions. Occasionally someone would help out as Bobby or I tried to nail down a board, or screw together a pair of hinges. Progress was slow, but it was definitely moving forward. With a week or two, Bobby and I had become skilled carpenters. Things that had taken us hours we could now finished in a few minutes. By the time the state fair rolled around, there was no mistaking a pair of wings stretching out from the body of the aircraft. It was around that time that we had another visitor who was of particular interest me.

Her name was Natalie Allen, she was fifteen years old and five feet tall in old flip flops the day she came strolling down my grandparents road- a sun faded T-shirt and awkward bathing suit were doing their best to distract from the asymmetrical haircut that clung to the top of her head. Bobby and I were discussing the best way to attach the tail without having Pa Cheese have to tell us how to do it and there she was. I can still see her- like she was a photograph- holding up a hand to protect her eyes from the sun, standing at edge of my grandparents yard. At the age of sixteen I would probably have rather have jumped through Grandma Helen's kitchen window than talk to a pretty girl my own age, but when it became clear that she wasn't leaving I somehow I worked up the nerve.

``Whatcha doin'?'' She asked ask I got close enough to speak.

``We're building a plane,'' I said.

``An Airplane?'' she asked.

``A Wright Brother's plane.'' I clarified.

``Huh,'' Natalie said. She kicked the dirt in front of me. She was a solid fourteen inches shorter than I was, but looking down I her, I got the general impression that she wouldn't have thought anything of flattening me. ``Where are you from?'' she asked.

``Who says I'm from anywhere?'' I said grouchily.

``There are one hundred and fifty people in this town,'' Natalie pointed out, although at that point I hadn't yet learned her name was Natalie. ``Twenty-five of them are kids. You had to come from somewhere.''

I told her I came to Chicago, which was almost true, and I told her that I was staying with my Grandparents for the summer. She told me her name and explained that she lived down the road and had spent the morning swimming in the creek. She talked a mile a minute and I could barely string two sentences together, but I didn't care. She was a teenager. She was chubby and awkward and very pretty, all at the same time. I was learning one of the lessons of small town America- when there is no one else left around, whoever is left is your friend. I decided that it was time for a break, much to Pa Cheese's chagrin. In twenty minutes I learned that the best place to hang out was at the pizza place about twenty minutes away, that the only movie theatre nearby was playing `When Harry Met Sally' and that she loved the White Album just as much as I did. Natalie went to the local high school, which served about four or five local towns but only had about two hundred students, and found such dizzying concepts as going to a school with a music department and a football team fascinating. I think it took me the better part of two hours to ask her if she would like to go to the State Fair with me, which was probably one hour and forty-five minutes after she had decided to say yes.

Needless to say there was a buzz around the dinner table that night, and it wasn't just that Grandma Helen made her famous chocolate pudding, a flat out bribe to get me to cough up all of the details about my new friend. Bobby in particular was very curious, and being my brother, he knew precisely what to say in order to drive me crazy. He started with that age old classic popular with ten-year-old brothers everywhere:

``So are you going to get married?'' He asked with a huge grin on her face.

``You are a giant dork,'' I answered, hoping that an act of open hostility would hide the fact that my face was a distinct shade of pink.

``What's her name?'' he pressed, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

Grandma Helen, who knew all of the local gossip down to the last detail, answered for me: ``Her name is Natalie Allen, she's fifteen and she's Dick Allen's girl. She plays the piano and she grown into quite a young woman this past year,'' Grandma said, matter-of-factly. Leave it to my Grandmother to find a tactful way to bring up the relative age of a young girls boobs at the dinner table.

``Did you kiss her?'' Bobby asked.

``No,'' I said, greatly relieved that Bobby had asked something I could answer truthfully without getting embarrassed.

``Do you like her?'' Bobby pressed, grinning again. Grandma Helen was considerably more subtle than my brother, but I could tell that she was just as interested in the answer to this question as Bobby was.

``We're going to the state fair together,'' I answered. I had hoped that this bit of genuine information would put an end to the subject, but I hadn't thought far enough ahead.

Bobby had planned on going to the state fair with me, and if I had a date he'd be all alone.

``You should take her to the tope of the Ferris Wheel,'' Bobby suggested, the big grin suddenly gone. ``See if she'll throw up.''

Pa Cheese and Grandma Helen both started laughing, and I turned several shades of pink. I vowed revenge right then and there. It took me twelve years to get back at him, but in Bobby's senior year of college I suggested that he take his new girlfriend for a ride on the Ferris Wheel. The girl, assuming that I was implying something altogether different, was not amused.

Fortunately for Bobby, Natalie was a sweet girl who saw thought he was considerably cuter than I was, and on the day of the fair Grandma Helen dropped all three of us off at the front gate with a promise that we back there by eleven, a time so ridiculously early that it embarrassed me, even though with Bobby along there wasn't really anything else we could do. Pa Cheese slipped both of us a twenty dollars, in his opinion a considerable sum, and headed off in search of whatever deviltry a small town could offer, cotton candy and prize booths and rides that spun you around and around in a circle until you couldn't stand up anymore. It was quite possibly, the least exciting experience that Bobby and I could have hoped for, but after a month living with old people anything that didn't involve senior citizens seemed wonderful. Natalie served as our host for the evening. It seemed that almost every booth was run by some old friend or relative of hers. The highlight of the evening was Ferris Wheel, although all of us were too scared at the time to throw up. It was a modern two-wheeled one which stretched up a considerable distance into the black cover of night. At the top you could see well beyond the fair and out into the abyss. In realty we were surrounded by miles and miles of wheat and corn, but from our point of view, at night, the only thing separating us from the vastness of empty space was car we were sitting in and the lights from below.

At eleven Grandma Helen was waiting at the front gate and drove us all back to the farm, where Bobby was ushered straight to bed, much to his disappointment. Natalie and I snuck off down the road to an empty field where we sat for a long time under a tree. Naturally, being a gentlemen I don't want to discuss the details of what happened there, but if you happen to drive by my alma matter you may find them scribbled on the wall of the men's room on the third floor. I snuck back into the house around two in the morning, exhausted, and I am embarrassed to say, thoroughly satisfied. Much to my amazement Bobby never squealed on me, or at least, I don't think he ever did. It occurs to me now that it is considerably difficult to actually sneak out of a house without anyone actually finding out your gone. Pa Cheese, in his infinite wisdom may have decided to cut me just a little bit of slack. He may have been old but he understood what it was like to be young.

By this point the Wright Flyer had practically become a cottage industry, with different people coming in and out of the barn every day, stragglers stopping by to take a look and maybe pound a nail or saw a piece of wood. Bill O'Neil had managed to scrape together a working engine. The local newspaper had come and taken a few pictures. Grandma had sewn together the fabric that would cover the wing. Bobby, and I had put together the tail. Pa Cheese was working on the propellers, which frightens me to this day. Even Natalie had come by and helped occasionally, although this was more in the form of moral support. Everything seemed to be sailing along according to plan, which is usually the moment when a storm blows in.

It was Bill O'Neil who brought Pa Cheese the news. He came by late in the evening, just as Bobby and I were helping Grandma Helen do the dishes. (By help, I mean we were being forced, and working, undoubtedly, at a pace that made us considerably more of a hindrance than anything else.) When Bill came in he had his Cleveland Indians hat in his hand. I should have known from the look on his face that something was amiss as soon as he arrived.

``I went to the airport today,'' Bill said as he sat down in the living room with Cheese. ``I talked to them about what you need to do in order to fly a plane.''

``What do you mean?'' Cheese asked.

``I talked to them about the FAA regulations. You can't just get up in the air and fly a plane like it's a tractor plowing your back field.''

``But we're only going up a few feet!'' Pa Cheese protested.

``It doesn't matter, it's still a plane,'' Bill pointed out. ``Would you want Bobby driving your car down the road, even if it's only a few feet?''

Pa Cheese realized that Bill had a point. I had once seen Pa Cheese drive back two miles to tell a cashier that she accidentally given him too much change, there was no way he was going to run afoul of the federal government. Bill was right, there were rules about this sort of thing.

``What did they say?'' Cheese asked, although judging from the expression on his face I think that he already knew.

``Well, it depends,'' Bill admitted. ``But for starters, you'll need to pass the physical.''

Understand, until that moment, there had never been any doubt which one of us would fly the plane. Nothing had ever been said, but every but knew. There was no way anyone other than Cheese was going to fly his plane, anymore than Don Quixote would have sent Sancho in to fight a windmill. That was just the way it was, and everyone knew it. Cheese was a hurricane, there was no stopping him. Until that moment, when the hurricane dissipated and blew back out to see.

I didn't know how sick Cheese was- it turned out that nobody did- but I had seen Cheese take his pills at night, and I knew that he wasn't well. He had been diagnosed with stomach cancer before I was born and had a sizeable chunk of his insides removed. He had recovered very well, but not so well that he could have passed the sort of test given to a first time pilot. Without a word Grandma and Bobby and I all knew, as sure as we were standing there, there was no way Pa Cheese was going to pass the same physical that the government gave to John Glenn.

``It'll have to be the boy then,'' Cheese said grouchily. ``He'll be sixteen next week. That's old enough, right?''

``Your grandson?'' Bill asked, very surprised by this turn of events. ``I don't know. I`ll have to check.''

My mother was not happy about this.

Mom had kept abreast of our progress via her weekly phone call, and when I told her that Pa Cheese wanted me to fly the plane she reacted, quite naturally by lapsing into a state of panic. Not having seen Pa Cheese's progress, Mom naturally assumed that the Flyer was one of those projects that men start and never finish. Now, braced with the concept of my flying an actual plane, her maternal instinct had kicked into overdrive. No. No. No. No. No. There was absolutely no way I was ever going to take flying lessons, I was not going to go fly a plane built by my grandfather, for goodness sake. Grandfather's are supposed to take their grandson's fishing and give them money to go to the movies. They do not send them up in the air to come crashing down to certain death. The job of convincing my mother was left to Pa Cheese. I was told to head up to my room. What I know now, what I didn't know then, was that there was nothing my mother could do to stop me. I was sixteen years old and out of her reach. In another two years, just two years, I would leave her house, not for the summer, but first for the semester and then for the rest of my life. I was transitioning to a new life, one that would take me away from the house and the city I had grown up in. That, more than anything else was what frightened my mother- I was slipping away from her. What Pa Cheese said to her, I really don't know, but I suspect he talked her about how she felt about my growing up and about how he had felt when it had been my mother`s turn. However he did it, he worked some magic on her. While I was listening at the stairs I heard the word ``daughter'' a number of times, and the word ``responsible adult'' at least once.

We headed down to the local airport for my first lesson on my sixteenth birthday, and a better birthday present I have never received, better even the one that Natalie gave me later on that same evening. It was a small, private airfield, originally built for crop dusters and still used largely for that same purpose. I can still remember that day, the way my hands shook as I filled out my 5280-1, showed them my birth certificate (which my mother had begrudgingly sent) and the medical report (which I'd gotten the previous day, from an aging doctor my Grandfather politely referred to as ``Ebenezer the ball squeezer.'') I was introduced to a gruff, middle-aged man named Brian Flanagan. Brian was a retired commercial pilot who owned an old Cessna Skyhawk, a little four-seater with one engine and a cabin that wasn't much bigger than the interior of a small sedan. We found Brian drinking coffee in the pilot's lounge. When we were introduced he shook my hand like he was trying to crush it.

``So you want to learn how to fly?'' Brian asked me.

``I guess,'' I answered, my nervous teenage anxiety kicking into high gear.

This was clearly not the answer Brian was looking for. Fortunately my grandmother, the diplomatist of the family, quickly explained about the Wright flyer. Bill had apparently heard of my grandfather's little project and was very interested.

``So you're going to be a test pilot, huh?''

``I guess so,'' I said, feeling nervous again.

``Chuck Yeager must be quaking in his boots,'' He replied, smiling when he spoke. ``Don't worry son, there's nothing to it. Once you get used to it, flying a plane is as easy as driving a car.''

I didn't tell Brian that I didn't know how to drive a car yet, which was probably for the best. He was a good man, a good pilot, he understood the importance of safety in the cockpit and if he had really known how unprepared I was he would have put a halt to my lessons right then and there. I suspect the only real reason he agreed to teach me to fly was that I would only be in the air for less than a minute. He and Grandma discussed the cost of teaching me to fly. Since he appreciated what we were trying to do, he agreed to instruct me at a price that wouldn't cost my Grandparents an arm and a leg.

We went up that afternoon. It was a beautiful summer day, perfect for flying, and would get the best tour of rural Ohio that you could ever ask for. The mix of nervous and delight is common to every first time pilot, and I was a little overwhelmed as the plane took off and I was faced with the prospect of staring out the front of an airplane for the first time. Brian spent most of the flight explaining the dizzying control panel, and for a few moments I took the controls, gripping the throttle with white-knuckled fear. It is an amazing thing, flying a plane and the strange feeling, the strange sense of freedom that it gives you. It's not just the speed and the height but the feeling of it. For the first time you're allowed to move, really move, in three dimensions instead of two. It displaces your entire sense of what the ground is, what it means to be human, where you are in the world and what life's possibilities really are. When we landed that day I was tremendously relieved, but determined I to do it again.

If I had been a more sensitive human being I would have been concerned that my brother might be feeling left out, but being young and having a healthy sense of competition I was determined to brag about my flight as if I had just come back from the moon. I was surprised to discover that Bobby was just as excited about his day as I had been about mine.

``Look!'' shouted Bobby excitedly as I came to the barn than evening. ``We put hinges on the wing supports,'' he said, pointing to the wooden beams now propping up the end of the wing. ``They make sure that the wings won't crack in half while that plane is in the air.''

I think that was the first time that Bobby ever thought about becoming an engineer, was while we were working on the plane that summer. Although he was a still just a boy, but the details of building something like that, the precision involved, appealed to him even then. Even though he was ten, he took on the challenge with a studious tenacity, at times it seemed like he was finishing the whole project on his own. By the beginning of August it the pile of old wood had undeniably turned into a plane, the airfoil and wings were complete, the engine in place. Only the controls and the takeoff rail, which would guide the plane as it headed for takeoff were still under construction. By the time I took my pilot's licensure the flyer would be ready for take off.

I began my flight training in full force the next day. The next few weeks we be some of the most difficult of my life, difficult, and as it turned out, exceedingly dull. For those of you who are imagining flying lessons as a fun-filled adventure involving flying to New York and Paris, just for the practice, I have to warn you that most of my days with Brian were spent on the ground, in the pilot's lounge, studying technical manuals that looked Einstein wrote them. That first day had just been a taste, my time in the air was initially brief, and once we were airborne I was more likely to man the radio then actually take the stick. Although he was a little rough around the edges, Brian was an excellent teacher. He showed the right amount of patience and determination, praising me when I got things right, correcting when I got them wrong. I was learning, but it was an education that made algebra and trigonometry seem breezy and enjoyable by comparison. By five o'clock each day I was exhausted, with only enough energy to collapse in the living room and watch television. My grandfather was thoroughly pleased. He approved of my being exhausted at the end of the day, especially since he wasn't.

It took me until the end of August, but by some miracle, I logged fifteen hours of flight time and passed my licensure, a grueling exam that made the SAT look like kindergarten placement exam. Brian was pleased to inform me that I passed with flying colors, and although technically I wasn't legally supposed to fly solo yet, we could probably get away with it, seeing as how the Flyer would be lucky to make the distance of my grandfather's cornfield. I was ready, or at least ready as I could ever be. The date of the flight was set for the following Monday, the first of September. With Brian's help, I filed my flight plan with the FAA.

As a special treat for passing the test Bobby and Pa Cheese were allowed to come on a flight with Brian and I. I was allowed to take off and land the plane, under considerable guidance from Brian. Bobby was very excited and happily told me how cool it was. Cheese, naturally came with a paper bag at the ready and a look of a deer caught in the headlights of a car. About halfway through the flight Brian decided to play a little trick on him:

``We're not lost are we?'' he said, looking at me with a little wink.

``I don't think so,'' I said. In fact we were almost directly over the airport, and it seemed like such a stupid question that I wondered if I weren't missing something.

Brian looked out the window like a lookout on a ship, squinting his eyes and leaning forward, as if a few extra inches were going to help him make out the details on the horizon. ``I knew it,'' he shouted, sounding exasperated. ``We're lost.''

Brian let go of the stick and reached under his seat. He pulled out a Rand McNally Road Atlas and started to unfold it.

``Do you see any train tracks?'' he asked. ``We need to find the train tracks.''

The blood drained out of Cheese's face like someone had tapped an artery. Brian never told him he was kidding, and even the fact that we landed less than fifteen minutes later didn't seem to alleviate his concerns. He told that story until the day he died, never letting me live it down. Bobby thought it was cool.

At last the day of the flight finally came. The barn was a dizzy of activity that day. It seemed as though nearly everyone had turned out for our flight. Locals had come from as much as ten miles away to Pa Cheese back field to watch me take off. Even the local paper was there. My mother, who hadn't been planning to pick us up until the following Sunday had come early, to worry about me in person, a pass time that Natalie, who had become very attached to me, had decided to join her in. Meanwhile, those of us on the crew had been working since before dawn, putting on the final touches to make sure the flight went as smoothly as possible. Grandma was passing out mugs of coffee. Bobby was oil up the gear chains and the pulleys, checking the flaps and running through a pre-flight check. Bill O'Neal was putting the finishing touches on the engine. Brian had come to inspect the plane and offer me advice. I was laying down the last of the takeoff rail, and Pa Cheese, he was standing in the middle of it all, shouting orders and admiring what he had created.

``She's gonna buck on you,'' Brian told me, he was a gruff old man, but I think that he had grown attached to me, and now that the day of the flight had actually come he was just slightly concerned. He had found a crash helmet and a safety harness for me to where and insisted on starting the engine himself. As I sat down flat on the middle of the plain he gripped my shoulder tightly. ``You get her up in the air, and you count to twenty. If you hit blackjack and your still in the air, I'll tie you to the propeller for the second flight. If you even get near that oak tree at the end of the field-'' He stopped and held up his fist menacingly.

There were numerous people wishing me luck, some of whom I'd never seen before. Natalie kissed me full on the lips (which made my mother almost as nervous as the flight did.) Finally, Bobby came up to wish me good luck.

``If you crash my plane, I'm going to kill you,'' He said, with a grin.

``You won't have to kill me,'' I pointed out. ``I'll already be dead.''

``Don't say that!'' My mother said with genuine concern.

``Don't worry,'' Pa Cheese said, with an evil grin. ``If he crashes it won't kill him, he'll just wish it did.''

``Yeah,'' Bobby agreed, catching Pa Cheese's drift. ``A broken arm, a broken leg.''

``That's right,'' answered Cheese. ``Stitches and a body cast, tops.''

There wasn't anything more to say, and at ten O'clock on the dot we were ready to go. Brian yelled ``Punch it!'' and Bill O'Neal pulled the starter and backed away. The engine sputtered and then roared, it was load and raw like an old car with no motor. The plane began to vibrate and the top set of wings fluttered a little in the breeze. Brian yelled ``Contact!'' and I gave him a thumbs up. He gave the left propeller a large heave and then backed away. It started to spin, slowly at first and then faster and faster. Brian waved at me and then started up the right one too.

The Wright Flyer was humming like a washing machine in the spin cycle, so I let go of the hand brake. It began to teeter forward, slowly at first and then faster. I ate up the first ten yards of takeoff track, then the first twenty. I was going perhaps as fast as my mother might drive through a parking lot, but I could feel the wings, pulling against the wind like the sail on a yacht. Around the thirty yard mark I pulled back on the throttle. The plain started to buck a little bit, like a young horse that didn't want to be ridden. I pulled harder against the throttle. It looked like I was going to run out of track before I got up, but then, just at the last possible moment, the Wright flyer took off and flew. So help me god we had done it. The plane flew into the air. I held the throttle tightly, counted to twenty-two, and then lowered the throttle. The plane's tracks found the ground a good twenty feet from the oak.

As I landed the plane that summer I felt the ground hit hard against the planes tracks. I shut the engine off and I heard a cacophony of cheers as the onlookers came running up behind me. As I dismounted Natalie threw her arms around me and Bobby gave a little cheer. Pa Cheese came up, and with an emotional look on his face, came up and shook my hand.

``Good flight,'' he said with a little nod. I smiled. Much to my surprise he turned around and walked away.

``What was that?'' I asked my grandmother as I watched Pa Cheese strolling back toward the house.

``Oh, your grandfather,'' Grandma Helen said with a sigh. ``He was jealous. He said it looked like it was the most fun you ever had.''

I flew that day for thirty-seven seconds, just long enough for me to get from one end to the other of my grandfather's old wheat field. My flight had a maximum altitude of ten feet and my top speed was just over thirty knots. It may not sound like much, but don't let it fool you. For a little over half a minute I was a god of the air. It was incredible and scary and it was perfect, even if, it must be said, the Wright Flyer never flew again.
The Wright Flyer was meant to be a piece of history- it was never going to make the six thirty from Indianapolis to Detroit. Cheese eventually donated to the local high school, who used it as an instructional tool for several years before quietly dismantling it one summer when nobody was looking. If I had known I would have tried to have done something, but I didn't found out until after it was too late.

Of all the people I knew that summer only Bobby is still around, and even his memories of that year are not as crisp as mine. Natalie was the first one to fade from my life- shocking as it may seem, I did not meet the love of my life at the tender age of fifteen. School and family and more important things than teenage love pulled us apart. I saw her once when I was in college. She had found religion and was a little strange, but was just as beautiful as ever. I bet she still is.

That summer was the last time I ever went to my grandfather's farm. My time their was like my time in the Flyer itself, short and inspired and never to come again. By the time the leaves had come off of the trees that year my grandparents had moved into one of those apartments made for old people, where there's a nurse on duty and everybody goes to bed at eight PM. The farm was sold. It made my grandfather a comparatively rich man but a broken-hearted one. It was a bought by a big corporation, who planted soybeans and tore down my grandmother's home and tilled the land with the ruthless efficiency. For Pa Cheese it was the end of things. The end of his life, his world as he knew it. He spent his remaining years talking about crops and soil samples and waiting, waiting for that moment that came in my Sophomore year in college, when a blood vessel in his brain gave him the relief that a life in retirement never could.

I was twenty-six the year my grandmother died. I didn't know it that summer, but the skin cancer my grandmother had had removed that year hadn't been caught quite in time, and by the time I'd gotten out of my adolescent selfishness words like `treatment` and `prognosis` and `chemotherapy' had become parts of the family vocabulary. The last time I spoke to her she asked me if I had met any new girls that I liked. I told her no, even though there was a girl sitting next to me, a girl who, as it turned out, would sit next to me for a great many years after that, through both the good times and bad. For one brief moment both of them were in my life, and the next my grandmother was gone. Perhaps it was for the best. Without my Grandfather she seemed lost.

So sometimes, in the summer, when I drive down an old country back road I am tempted to look out over the wheat fields and see if I can see and old man and an old airplane made of wood. In my mind's eye they are flying together, the old man at the controls, dipping and weaving, climbing higher and higher into the air. Sometimes I think I can almost see them, flying high into the sky until they are lost in the heat of the warm summer sun.

Yours Sincerely,

Captain William A. Pressman

USAF.