Boarding pass, please: A short, personal history of flying - Tallahassee.com
All of my life, I have heard the story about the first airplane that landed in my hometown of Marianna nearly 100 years ago. Here is how it goes: One spring afternoon, a poor, semi-literate sharecropper was plowing his field on the outskirts of Marianna. A pilot, who was flying a bi-plane from Jacksonville to Pensacola, started having engine problems and was forced to make an unscheduled pit stop. He used the farmer’s freshly turned field as an emergency landing strip. The farmer had never heard about the Wright Brothers, must less seen an actual aircraft. The plane came to a halt and out stepped the pilot, who was decked out in goggles, a leather helmet, overcoat and a long, flowing scarf. The aviator approached the farmer to ask for directions. ” the farmer exclaimed. The pilot asked the farmer if there was a hotel nearby and, perhaps, an engine mechanic in town. The farmer unhooked his mule and gave the pilot a ride into town, in a move similar to the Palm Sunday story from the Bible. When I heard my father or George Milton, a well-known artist who was born in Marianna, tell this story in their thick Southern accents, it sparked my imagination. The Captain Jesus story had everything you could want: religion, the Rapture, aviation, mistaken identity and a mule. When I was 6, my mother scrubbed me like a new potato before my first ride in an airplane. Source: www.tallahassee.com
