Making an Airplane

Our folks would oftentimes go for a ride up to Roslyn to visit my dad or mother's relatives in the old '27 truck, leaving Donald and I at home. John and Ella must have been at school. So, we envisioned my parents visiting my Uncle Matt and Aunt Polly and then going to visit my mother's sister. They must have taken Ann with them, as she was still a baby. This was during the depths of the Depression.

We thought, "Let's make an airplane and dive over Uncle Matt's house and say hi and then fly back!" So we took two orange crates and nailed them together, and found some wheels and attached them. Donald sat in the back box and I was going to sit in the front like a pilot. I took a 2x4 and chopped it up to make a propeller. For power, I knew that some kids in town had made airplanes fly using a rubber band, so I took some old inner tubes and wound and wound and wound and wound those tubes and it wouldn't unwind. I had visions of flying that thing and swooping down over Matt and Polly's house and hollering out, "Hellooo!"

Those days, airplanes were very rare. If you heard and airplane, you'd run out of the house and watch it fly until you couldn't see it anymore.

One time there was a barn stormer (pilots with bi-wing planes who sometimes stood on the wings and did acrobatics) in town who offered rides down at the airport. We couldn't afford going up for a trip but Daddy took us down to watch it. That trip is what spurred the idea of Donald and I making the airplane.