So this guy Billup shows up with this airplane engine in the back of his ‘55 Studebaker station wagon. I’m nine or ten. I see him coming up the drive. I hear the gravel crunching under his tires as I watched Flippo on tv, and get up to look out the screen door. Billup had come to see Dad, because of Dad's reputation as a Helio airplane mechanic. Helios were a special kind of airplane that Dad loved. Billup wanted dad to overhaul the engine, which was in pieces in the back of the Studebaker. He was tall and not quite skinny, and he had these nervous eyes as he looked at Mom and at me. He wore khaki pants, a flannel plaid shirt, and a button down sport cap. Doyouknowwhen he’ll be back, he says, his eyes darting around the floor of our house and then down to his shoes as though he was looking for some little piece he had dropped somewhere.
It was about three thirty on a school day when he showed up. I had just gotten back from school half an hour before. Mom told him that Dad didn't get home from work until about six, usually. Mom looked at Billup nervously through the screen door. Billup fidgeted about, shifting his weight from one foot to another. I just sat on the davenport and watched them out of the corner of my eye while I looked at Flippo the Clown on TV, who was introducing another Popeye cartoon. Billup made me a bit nervous, too with his fidgeting over there at our door, peering in at us through the screen mesh. The sun was behind him, and you couldn’t really make out his face. Chic was back in his room as usual. I didn't know what he was always doing back there. He was always back there. Probably smoking that pipe or something. So the guy says he'll come back later, if that's ok. What's Mom going to say? And he turns around, gets in the Studebaker and drives off.
Anyway to make a long story short, the guy came back and asked Dad if he would overhaul his Helio engine, and Dad said sure.
I'm always thinking about how I wished for order, I'm always dreaming about neat streets with sidewalks, and wishing we stayed in Worthington, and having this neat suburban setting, and not liking the rough country. The country was where Dad grew up the chaotic country CHAOTIC COUNTRY. No order. No neatness. Ditches, not sidewalks. Septic tanks that clog and you have to dig up in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, not convenient city sewers that you never have to worry about.
I'm also always thinking about the 1960 Ohio State Buckeyes national championship[ basketball team. I'm always getting out my scrapbook with the clippings from the Columbus Dispatch sports pages, the feature article in Tab, the Sunday tabloid section with the cover picture of giant size fourteen sneakers, and the headline, "Big Shoes to Fill", and the scenes from the national tournament, and John Havelichec's last second jump shot to win it, and Jerry Lucas' patented hook shot. That put Columbus on the map, didn't it. And I'm always sort of feverishly thinking about that stuff, That's the kind of matrix I was in at the time. I had this sense of wanting to be part of something big, national, international, of wanting to measure up, of wanting Columbus to have a big population, the tallest buildings, major league sports all that stuff. I was obsessed. And I read Motor Trend, which Chic subscribed to, and kept track of what the new Fords were going to look like.
And it was in this atmosphere, this matrix that this guy shows up with a Helio engine in pieces in the back of a 1955 Studebaker station wagon. This tall guy with in his button down sports cap. The mythic Helio airplane. Dad's deification of the Helio. What the Helio meant. Dad's reasons for saying yes to the guy? Did I consider it? Dad did what dad did. You didn't spend a lot of time analyzing, you spent your time reacting, trying to put on a good face, to figure out what would be appropriate. To get his approval. He decided I guess that it would be a good project for him and chic. He thought he needed the money. He couldn't say no if somebody asked him to do something. Did the guy give him money for expenses? who knows. but he decided to do it. The airplane sat, he was told at an airport near the Chesapeake bay, engineless.
Dad liked to expound on the difference between motors and engines. An internal combustion engine, he'd say, pointedly. Motors are electrical. Engines run on gas. INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE that's the story, right there, isn't it. Enough said. It’s not a motor, you dolt. Don’t you know anything. My Dad knows.
So they had this engine stand, a tubular steel framework that made a stand for the engine, and they began to assemble the engine, and chic helped, and I sort of watched, mostly. I'm eleven or twelve, Chc's fifteen or sixteen. Chic's also going with Dick Porter to canada fishing, building a short wave radio from scrap parts that dick porter gave him. Looking at the 1940s guide to getting a ham radio operator's license. Reading the Hardy Boys. Reading the book about alaska. doing a project on Montana, being friends with danny hoover. Thinking about the high point of my entire school experience, which was going to see flippo and the museum with the mummy in Mrs. Zubels's third grade class.
Borrowing Aunt Ida’s almost new 1963 Chevy truck to take the engine to Baltimore. Driving to Baltimore with Dad and Chic, with this Helio engine in the bed of the truck. Arriving at the guy’s house on Chesapeake Bay. Going swimming behind his house in the tidal bay. Walking out in the shallow water to the diving platform they had out there. Dad telling me years later how he was worried about me until the guys said it was ok. They put the Helio engine in and flew it. Dad flew it by himself to test hop it. Dad the hero again.
It was about three thirty on a school day when he showed up. I had just gotten back from school half an hour before. Mom told him that Dad didn't get home from work until about six, usually. Mom looked at Billup nervously through the screen door. Billup fidgeted about, shifting his weight from one foot to another. I just sat on the davenport and watched them out of the corner of my eye while I looked at Flippo the Clown on TV, who was introducing another Popeye cartoon. Billup made me a bit nervous, too with his fidgeting over there at our door, peering in at us through the screen mesh. The sun was behind him, and you couldn’t really make out his face. Chic was back in his room as usual. I didn't know what he was always doing back there. He was always back there. Probably smoking that pipe or something. So the guy says he'll come back later, if that's ok. What's Mom going to say? And he turns around, gets in the Studebaker and drives off.
Anyway to make a long story short, the guy came back and asked Dad if he would overhaul his Helio engine, and Dad said sure.
I'm always thinking about how I wished for order, I'm always dreaming about neat streets with sidewalks, and wishing we stayed in Worthington, and having this neat suburban setting, and not liking the rough country. The country was where Dad grew up the chaotic country CHAOTIC COUNTRY. No order. No neatness. Ditches, not sidewalks. Septic tanks that clog and you have to dig up in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, not convenient city sewers that you never have to worry about.
I'm also always thinking about the 1960 Ohio State Buckeyes national championship[ basketball team. I'm always getting out my scrapbook with the clippings from the Columbus Dispatch sports pages, the feature article in Tab, the Sunday tabloid section with the cover picture of giant size fourteen sneakers, and the headline, "Big Shoes to Fill", and the scenes from the national tournament, and John Havelichec's last second jump shot to win it, and Jerry Lucas' patented hook shot. That put Columbus on the map, didn't it. And I'm always sort of feverishly thinking about that stuff, That's the kind of matrix I was in at the time. I had this sense of wanting to be part of something big, national, international, of wanting to measure up, of wanting Columbus to have a big population, the tallest buildings, major league sports all that stuff. I was obsessed. And I read Motor Trend, which Chic subscribed to, and kept track of what the new Fords were going to look like.
And it was in this atmosphere, this matrix that this guy shows up with a Helio engine in pieces in the back of a 1955 Studebaker station wagon. This tall guy with in his button down sports cap. The mythic Helio airplane. Dad's deification of the Helio. What the Helio meant. Dad's reasons for saying yes to the guy? Did I consider it? Dad did what dad did. You didn't spend a lot of time analyzing, you spent your time reacting, trying to put on a good face, to figure out what would be appropriate. To get his approval. He decided I guess that it would be a good project for him and chic. He thought he needed the money. He couldn't say no if somebody asked him to do something. Did the guy give him money for expenses? who knows. but he decided to do it. The airplane sat, he was told at an airport near the Chesapeake bay, engineless.
Dad liked to expound on the difference between motors and engines. An internal combustion engine, he'd say, pointedly. Motors are electrical. Engines run on gas. INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE that's the story, right there, isn't it. Enough said. It’s not a motor, you dolt. Don’t you know anything. My Dad knows.
So they had this engine stand, a tubular steel framework that made a stand for the engine, and they began to assemble the engine, and chic helped, and I sort of watched, mostly. I'm eleven or twelve, Chc's fifteen or sixteen. Chic's also going with Dick Porter to canada fishing, building a short wave radio from scrap parts that dick porter gave him. Looking at the 1940s guide to getting a ham radio operator's license. Reading the Hardy Boys. Reading the book about alaska. doing a project on Montana, being friends with danny hoover. Thinking about the high point of my entire school experience, which was going to see flippo and the museum with the mummy in Mrs. Zubels's third grade class.
Borrowing Aunt Ida’s almost new 1963 Chevy truck to take the engine to Baltimore. Driving to Baltimore with Dad and Chic, with this Helio engine in the bed of the truck. Arriving at the guy’s house on Chesapeake Bay. Going swimming behind his house in the tidal bay. Walking out in the shallow water to the diving platform they had out there. Dad telling me years later how he was worried about me until the guys said it was ok. They put the Helio engine in and flew it. Dad flew it by himself to test hop it. Dad the hero again.