Airplane Ancestry[35]
My life has always been as an airplane person.
I sometimes notice a jet
streaking across the sky
through clouds of apathy
from those pacing on the ground.
Some are Baptist; some football fans.
I sometimes remember the din of disruption
while whispering sweet nothings
to adolescent boyfriends among the noise,
shrugging off the intrusion
with the practiced pause,
waiting for its spiral plumes
to dissipate somewhere beyond us.
I sometimesfeel the ground-rattling antics
of a climbing jet pulling 3Gs
in an outside turn.
Yet I always stop to look up
when the noisy rattle of flying
lawnmower-sounding engines
signal from a distance and edge
into view over roads and streams
and parks and backyards.[36]
I sometimes recall the coffee and poly resin fumes
of airplane people building wings
on kitchen tables or in hallways
leading to sleeping children
who know that the iron on the floor
is for some airplane fabric, not clothes,
and the muffin tins, of course,
are for sorting nuts and bolts.[37]
I sometimes retrace images of dented soup kettles
filled with used oil, drained and abandoned
in unmowed yards where nosey kittens
often peeked and plunged in, squirming out
like Exxon Valdez victims, lovingly restored
by children of mechanics who instinctively
know how to fix thingslike oil-slicked kittens.[38]
But I always remember my first flight
in command, left seat, knuckles clenched
around the controls of the four-seater Piper
as we wrestled with principles of flight
together—the plane, the instructor, the sky, and I.[39]
My life has always been around airplane people.
---Lori Sorrells
End Notes
[35] Autobiographical information provided in this poem is my attempt to document the effect of growing up around innovators, designers, builders, pilots, and “normal people,” collectively referred to as airplane people. Living near Wright Patterson Air Force Base for most of my life has increased my awareness of various aircraft flying through all phases of my life. However, the combination of learning to tune out noisy jets and the excitement of flying in small airplanes combines to create an decreased interest in jets and an increased awareness of small airplanes and general aviation.
[36] Small airplanes typically fly at 1500-3000 feet above the surface, making them more noticable by sound and sight than jets.
[37] Poly resin dope is a glue mixture used with fabric to create fiberglass. Those that build airplanes as a hobby often do so in their homes, using normal household items to fill unusual roles.
[38] My childhood was littered with tools, oil, dope, welding equipment, and other such oddities. Because my dad worked on airplanes almost incessantly around the house, there always seemed to be a perpetual pot of discarded oil sitting around waiting for catastrophe to strike.
[39] Being somewhat desensitized to the thrill of aviation as a child, I realized later in life that I really wanted to learn how to fly; thus, I took lessons in 1989.