Nothing by Chance

“I want to have an airplane ride,” he said.

The owner began a long apologetic explanation about how his flying license was not up to date and it wouldn’t be worth it to call out a pilot from town to give just one ride and his airplanes were all down for maintenance anyway. We didn’t say a word. We just stood there, and so did the customer. He wanted a ride.

“Of course these fellows could ride you. But I don’t know anything about them …”

Ah, I thought, the fraternity of the air.

The customer was almost as frightened of the biplane as the airport manager had been, although in a more straight-forward way. “I don’t want any dadoes, now, no flip-flops. Just take it kind of easy, around town and back down again.”

“Gentle as a cloud, sir,” I said, with a flourish. “STU, LET’S GET THIS THING FIRED UP!”

The flight was gentle as a cloud, and the man even said that he liked it. A few seconds after we landed, he was gone, leaving me puzzled over why he wanted to go up in the first place.

We were airborne again in fifteen minutes, glad to leave Sandwich and its gleaming new office behind. Droning on north again, aimless, looking down, some of the old doubts about surviving came back to mind.

We landed at last at Antioch, a resort town a few miles south of the Wisconsin border. The grass field lay on the edge of a lake and we found that the owner sold rides on weekends in his Waco biplane. He charged five dollars the ride, and he was not interested in any competition, any time, and he would be happiest if we would leave. But before we could go, a modern Piper Cherokee landed and taxied to our side. A businesslike fellow in white shirt and tie walked purposefully toward us and smiled in the way of a man whose job forces him to meet many people.

“I’m Dan Smith,” he said over the engine noise, “Illinois Aeronautics Commission.”

I nodded, and wondered why he had made such a big thing of his title. Then I saw that he was looking for an Illinois State Registration tag on the biplane. He hadn’t found one. The tag is a mandatory thing in that state. It costs a dollar or so, which apparently pays the field worker’s salary.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

From anyone else, a normal, harmless question. From this man, it was sinister. If I’m from Illinois, I’m fined on the spot.

“Iowa,” I said.

Oh.”

Without another word, he walked to the hangar across the way and disappeared within it, checking for hidden airplanes, without registration tags.

What a way to make a living, I thought.

Airborne again, we were getting desperate. In all this lake country, we could find no place to land near a lake. Simple criteria, we had: near town, near lake. But there was no such thing. We circled for more than an hour over a score of lakes, and found nothing. Thirst had a sharp edge, there in the high hot cockpits, and we flew north again, looking for any place to land.

We crossed Lake Geneva and looked down thirstily

at all that water. Water skiers, sailboats, swimmers … drinking as much of the lake as they wanted.

The first airstrip we saw, we landed. It was the wrong place. Lake Lawn, a bright sign said. The grass was immaculately trimmed, and we discovered that this was the private airstrip of the Lake Lawn Country Club.

Parking the greasy biplane out of sight, we snuck out of the cockpits and walked down the road toward the Club after the manner of working gardeners. The guards at the gate caught us, but had compassion and showed us the way to water.

“I’m beginning to doubt your method of finding fields,” Stu said.

Then we were up again, grimly heading south in the third giant circle of the week. There is no such thing as chance, I thought, gritting my teeth, there is no such thing as luck. We were being led where it is best for us to go. There is a good place waiting, this minute. Just ahead.

A long open summer field slanted beneath us, far from any town, but a fine place for airplanes to land.

I thought about landing there and giving rides to the cows grazing about. For a half-second I was serious, wondering if it could work. It always came back to this. We had to prove it all over again, every day … we had to find human, paying passengers.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE TOWN OF WALWORTH, Wisconsin, is a fine and friendly place. It showed that friendliness by spreading before us a smooth soft hayfield, all mowed and raked. The field was three blocks from the center of town, it was long and wide, and the approaches were good save for one set of low telephone wires. We landed, on our last reserves of money and morale.

The owner of the field was kind, mildly amused at the old airplane and the strange people who came down from it. “Sure you can fly out of the field, and thanks for the offer of a ride. Take you up on it.” Hope stirred. Somebody had said we were welcome!

The signs were out in a flash, and we flew two free rides for the owner and his family. By sundown, we had flown three paying rides, as well. That evening, the treasurer informed me that on this day we had paid $30 for gasoline, but that we had taken in $12 from passengers. Clearly, our fortunes were changing.