EVINRUDE

Yesterday I was driving on U.S. 63, west from Jonesboro, Arkansas. I was trying to avoid heavy thunderstorms that I could see in the distance, coming down from Missouri. The northern counties and Missouri’s boot-heel were under a severe weather warning and I didn’t want any part of the high winds and hail that were in the forecast. So, with cruise set at 65, good road and clear sky ahead of me, Van Morrison was making the music while I was putting down the miles. 

I recognized the sound immediately but the shadow crossing over took me by surprise; I guess I wasn’t paying attention. The land is flat and soil is fertile. Farm fields stretch as far as you can see and it takes a squadron of crop dusters to keep the pests in check. The yellow monoplane was on top of me before I heard it and I couldn’t find it until it was a quarter mile away, in a steep, climbing turn. I’m still a kid when it comes to airplanes, especially when they are loud and close to the ground. Crop dusters are the Hotrods of the sky, over powered and highly maneuverable. In the next mile I saw two more planes working different fields. I thought, if I don’t take a photo I’ll regret it, so I stopped and took the photo. 

The Bernoulli Principle is magic and it never grows old, the way air rushing over a curved surface creates lift. The small fuselage and deep, wide wings allow the plane to dive, climb and turn like a swallow, even at very slow speeds. I watched as it made a pass close enough to the deck to be mowing, then at the end of the field with only a hundred feet to spare, pull up to clear power lines. A split second later the pilot had the plane back down on the other side of the highway, a few feet above the vegetation. When you are at the right angle and distance, the combination of prop wash and engine noise give up that growling rumble that you would otherwise have to go to an old, WW2 movie to hear. So I wait for him/her to make the turn at the other end of the field, come back and I listen again. 

Watching the air show from the side of the road, something clicked in my head and I thought of Evinrude. Back in the 70’s, there was an animated Disney movie, (The Rescuers). The plot was predictable; little orphan girl gets kidnapped. Two mice and a cast of other creatures band together to rescue her. One of those characters was Evinrude, a dragonfly. He operated a ferry service on the bayou; his boat was an oak leaf that rolled up on the sides like the hull of a boat. Its petiole/stem curved up and back. Evinrude perched on the end of that stem and drove it like an air boat in the swamps. He changed speed and direction with such abrupt maneuvers it almost threw his passenger out. Every time the yellow plane lurched up or down, left or right, I wanted to believe there was a big dragonfly behind it, pushing on the tail and a mouse inside, trying not to fall out. I love my movies. In ’03, Robert Duvall and Michael Caine teamed up in a movie (2nd Hand Lions) about a couple of over-the-hill adventurers and their several-generations-removed nephew. They had an old, fabric covered, Stearman bi wing that they flew under bridges, terrorizing motorists and locals. In the end they died in the crash when Duvall tried to fly through the hayloft of the barn. The little yellow, Arkansas duster was turned up on a wing tip, coming back my way. 

I knew a crop duster in Michigan, back in the 80’s. He landed, refueled and topped of his chemicals at a rail spur just down the road from my house. He said it was just a job but when he explained how he gaged altitude and distance, how he managed the G’s, so close to the ground, his face would go through little, shape shifting distortions and end up in a grin where his eyes were laughing and I could see all of his teeth. So there you are; I was minding my own business, driving up U.S. 63, trying to stay ahead of the rain. Then, like a blue crab in the shallows when a heron shadow moves across him, the shadow was all the crab could think of. All day now, I’ve been thinking about Bernoulli, dragonflies, movie stars, the rhythm of straining propellers and that guy’s grin. I am of another generation, where we learned to entertain ourselves. This life has too many great stories and simple segues for me to be bored.