The Planes
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I just did whatever came along for the most part, but Frank was the sort of kid who liked to plan, and the sort who liked to build model airplanes. Under his influence I built a few too, but I was impatient, so mine had missing parts, blobs of hardened glue at the seams, and crooked decals. Frank’s planes were neat and trim, carefully painted, properly insigniaed—these aircraft were ready to represent their countries of origin with pride. Frank did like to sniff the glue a bit, but this never seemed to affect his work.
One day we started early in the morning, finishing off some planes we had started the day before: a Curtis Warhawk, a Messerschmidt, a Zero, and a De Havilland Mosquito. Once the paint was dry we ran four parallel lines from tree to tree in Frank’s backyard and attached pulleys to each of these lines. All the lines were hung on an incline, so that when the planes were attached to the pulleys and let go they would “fly” for a good fifty feet before they got to the ends of their lines. We rigged up a starter cord that would release the planes when yanked, and then we got our BB guns. We spent a lot of time roaming the woods with these BB rifles, shooting up bottles and cans, terrorizing the occasional bird or squirrel. Our guns weren’t all that powerful, though, so I don’t think either of us ever actually killed anything—except insects. Frank had invented an ingenious method for spearing and capturing bees, since it was important not to blow them to smithereens if we wanted to be able to look at them under the microscope later. You tied one end of a string to a needle and the other end to the barrel of your gun. Then you pierced a berry—something about the size and shape of a Holly berry—with the needle and wedged the berry-needle combination into the muzzle of your gun with the point of the needle facing out. You got your gun very close to an unsuspecting bee working away on some blossom, and then you fired. The BB would propel the needle and the berry through the air, the needle would lance the bee, and the string would ensure that your newly acquired bee carcass dangled conveniently from the end of your gun.
But today our targets were planes. Once we pulled the starter cord the planes started flying across the yard and we opened fire. They were actually kind of hard to hit, so we ended up standing pretty close. Even so, the planes were still intact enough after the first run that we were able to have them fly a few more missions and take some more flak. It didn’t matter that one was American, one Japanese, one German, and one British-- they were all the enemy. Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! We shattered wings, cracked fuselages, and blasted cockpits. At a certain point we realized something was missing: fire. With the help of a few gasoline-soaked rags, the poignant spectacle of flaming wreckage rounded out our vignette. It was an orgy of destruction.
I just did whatever came along for the most part, but Frank was the sort of kid who liked to plan, and the sort who liked to build model airplanes. Under his influence I built a few too, but I was impatient, so mine had missing parts, blobs of hardened glue at the seams, and crooked decals. Frank’s planes were neat and trim, carefully painted, properly insigniaed—these aircraft were ready to represent their countries of origin with pride. Frank did like to sniff the glue a bit, but this never seemed to affect his work.
One day we started early in the morning, finishing off some planes we had started the day before: a Curtis Warhawk, a Messerschmidt, a Zero, and a De Havilland Mosquito. Once the paint was dry we ran four parallel lines from tree to tree in Frank’s backyard and attached pulleys to each of these lines. All the lines were hung on an incline, so that when the planes were attached to the pulleys and let go they would “fly” for a good fifty feet before they got to the ends of their lines. We rigged up a starter cord that would release the planes when yanked, and then we got our BB guns. We spent a lot of time roaming the woods with these BB rifles, shooting up bottles and cans, terrorizing the occasional bird or squirrel. Our guns weren’t all that powerful, though, so I don’t think either of us ever actually killed anything—except insects. Frank had invented an ingenious method for spearing and capturing bees, since it was important not to blow them to smithereens if we wanted to be able to look at them under the microscope later. You tied one end of a string to a needle and the other end to the barrel of your gun. Then you pierced a berry—something about the size and shape of a Holly berry—with the needle and wedged the berry-needle combination into the muzzle of your gun with the point of the needle facing out. You got your gun very close to an unsuspecting bee working away on some blossom, and then you fired. The BB would propel the needle and the berry through the air, the needle would lance the bee, and the string would ensure that your newly acquired bee carcass dangled conveniently from the end of your gun.
But today our targets were planes. Once we pulled the starter cord the planes started flying across the yard and we opened fire. They were actually kind of hard to hit, so we ended up standing pretty close. Even so, the planes were still intact enough after the first run that we were able to have them fly a few more missions and take some more flak. It didn’t matter that one was American, one Japanese, one German, and one British-- they were all the enemy. Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! We shattered wings, cracked fuselages, and blasted cockpits. At a certain point we realized something was missing: fire. With the help of a few gasoline-soaked rags, the poignant spectacle of flaming wreckage rounded out our vignette. It was an orgy of destruction.
posted by Steve Shoemaker at 5:41 PM
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