A Sunday airshow

Like many Baby Boomers, I was raised on a steady diet of movies about the Second World War. I especially enjoyed films that were airplane centric.

As a kid, I often pretended that I was an ace fighter pilot as I tore around the house with a toy airplane in my hand while making airplane noises with my mouth. It must have driven my parents nuts. I don’t recall whatever happened to my toy airplane, but its disappearance seems a lot less mysterious now that I think about it.     

I grew up and became a dairy farmer, but my fondness for flight stayed with me. I have always kept an eye on the sky to see what’s flying over, always hoping that I might catch a glimpse of one of those classic WW II warbirds.     

One summer Sunday, the cosmic tumblers aligned in such a way that I found myself at home alone. What to do with this day, I wondered. There was always the “work” option; dairy farmers have an endless list of stuff that could or should be done. I concluded that all of that stuff would still be there on Monday.     

I was taught in Sunday School that the Sabbath was a day to be set aside for rest and spiritual renewal. And what better way to renew one’s spirit than attending an airshow? I realized that this might be a bit of a stretch but decided to stick with that line of reasoning.     

I hopped into my pickup and boogied up to the site of the airshow. The weather was perfect: mostly sunny and warm with a few plump cumulous clouds lazing around at mid-altitude.     

Some extraordinary things can only be seen at an airshow. Wing walking would be a good example. What is it that drives a guy to become a wingwalker? The love of wind in the hair and bugs in the teeth?     

There were other things at the airshow that were obviously just for fun. For instance, I seriously doubt that any fire calls were ever answered by that jet-propelled firetruck that could do over 350 MPH, but I suppose it’s fun to consider the possibilities. And flying that little microjet must be a blast, although it didn’t appear to be all that much different than strapping a jet engine onto your back and lighting the afterburner.     

As with most entertainment extravaganzas, the airshow’s producers saved the best for last. Finally, right at the end of the show, they trotted out the World War II warbirds.     

Fulfilling moments washed over me in waves. When a 1939 vintage DC-3 flew over at a stately pace I half expected to see Humphrey Bogart stroll by in his rumpled trench coat and say to his companion, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!”     

And then they brought out the really good stuff: an assortment of WW II fighter planes and a B-24 Liberator bomber. I don’t know why, but there’s something deliciously thrilling about the sight and the sound of a Mustang or a Thunderbolt opening its throttle and leaping up into the sky.     

As the venerable warbirds performed their gut-wrenching low altitude maneuvers, the show’s announcer proclaimed that these aircraft transform gasoline into music. Wrong, I thought. This is the sound of fury, the roar of a nation’s industrial and innovative might forged into tools of aerial warfare. I could imagine the pride that was felt when scores of these machines thundered into the sky all at once. Woe betide the enemy who was the recipient of their wrath.     

As the airshow began to wind down, I espied a familiar face. Its owner was none other than Paul Knudson, an old friend and the erstwhile pastor of our church. (I wonder: if your former pastor is retired could you then say, “Our past pastor has been put out to pasture?”)     

As I chatted with Paul about the airshow, an extremely rare Super Corsair thundered overhead. We gazed skyward in reverential silence as the mighty machine snarled by. Only at an airshow do people get sunburned on the undersides of their chins.     

I took Pastor Paul’s presence at the airshow as a sign that attending this event was indeed a worthy way to renew myself on the Sabbath. As I drove home, happy and sunburned, I rolled down the window and let my arm hang out. The slipstream rushing over my hand created powerful amounts of lift.     

And since nobody was around to tell me otherwise, I made airplane noises with my mouth.  

Jerry Nelson is a recovering dairy farmer from Volga, South Dakota. He and his wife, Julie, have two sons and live on the farm where Jerry’s great-grandfather homesteaded over 110 years ago. Feel free to email him at [email protected].