FIRE!!!

This story takes places in the early years after WWII.  Prosperity reigned and the store owner's problems were in getting the goods to sell to the soldiers now home and beginning their families or starting afresh with  loved ones that had been waiting anxiously for them.  Baby girl Johnson would later be called a Baby Boomer.

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Deke Johnson loved to fly.  It was just part of his being. When he was in high school he had worked in the submarine factory to earn the money for flying lessons.  He knew that if he already knew to how to fly, when he enlisted in the Army, they would let him fly.  He was an orphan and he just knew the Army was a good place for him.  He could serve the country that had served him so well and it would be the family he had missed since he was 11 years old. So he worked in the submarine factory and saved money and learned to fly.  He went into the Army and told them he would fly anything, anywhere, just let him fly.  And they did.  He flew a C-47 over the "Hump" in Asia keeping the Burma Road open in the air.  A great world war was raging and he was doing his bit.  Then so many pilots were doing their bit that the airlines were having trouble getting troops from here to there in the continental U.S. and the Army had to lend a large group of pilots to the airlines.  Transporting the troops from one coast to the other was critical and those pilots were needed badly back home.  None of them wanted to go.  They were fighting a war and were reluctant to give that up.  They drew straws.  Pilots were drawn from air supply units all over the world.  Deke went to work for American Airlines.

The airline sent him to Love Field, Dallas, Texas.  He flew from Dallas to Chicago and back again several times a week.  He also flew a "milk" run across the southern states through Atlanta up the east coast to Washington, D.C. then across to Chicago and back down to Dallas.  One day he went into the Crew Room in Chicago to get ready for the flight back to Dallas and saw Harriett.  She was the prettiest little thing he had ever seen and no bigger than a minute.  She was an R.N., all the stewardesses had to be, with warm brown hair and sparkling green eyes.  He was a confirmed bachelor and this was a prize he was determined to win.

They were married just as the war ended.  They moved to Osceola, Nebraska, bought a hardware store, a house and a Piper Cub.   Deke and Harriett flew every other weekend to visit her family in a very small town in southwest Iowa.  The town was too small to have an airport but Harriett's brother-in-law was also a pilot and they could land at the airstrip on his farm just outside of town.  Two years later a baby girl became part of their little family.  Everyone joked that her Daddy was a pilot and her Mama had been a stewardess and she was air born.

For many long weeks they didn't make the trip to Iowa.  But as the baby girl turned 3 months old they decided it was time and the three of them flew off for the farm in southwest Iowa.  Harriett's sister, Lillian and her husband, Freese, had 7 children.  Harriett and Lillian were from a family of 12, Harriett being the youngest.  Lillian's eldest son was the same age as Harriett.  And Freese was a farmer and pilot and very good at both.  He had his own Piper Cub in a hangar up on the hill by the airstrip on his farm.  It was to this airstrip the little family headed.  It was a breezy day and the little plane bumped around through a sky that blue which only a Midwestern summer sky can be.  Past fluffy white clouds they bumped, over green fields laid out like a patchwork quilt below them.  It was a picture perfect day and the baby girl burbled happily on her Mama's lap.

"Somebody over by Lillian decided to burn their trash today," commented Harriett as she pointed out the wispy column of smoke to Deke.

"Whatever they are doing, they just started it.  It was clear up until a moment ago."  replied Deke.  He was a city boy and did not understand about burning trash on a farm.  

But as the little airplane came closer it became clear that the smoke was not coming from the Crandall farm a mile and a half away, nor from the other house on Freese's farm but from Freese and Lillian's place.  And it wasn't someone burning trash at all. The smoke was coming from the southwest corner of the house!  

Deke flew low over the house and sure enough - smoke was streaming out of the screened in back porch.  There was fire either on the porch or in the kitchen and nobody seemed to know!  There was no one grabbing a hose to spray the fire with water.  Nobody was coming out of the house at all!  

Deke turned the little airplane quickly, circled around and buzzed the house again, lower this time.  As the plane climbed out the landing gear trimmed leaves off the top of the big elm tree in the back yard.  And again they circled and buzzed the house!  More elm leaves drifted to the ground.  This time they saw Freese come out the door running for the hose.  Deke climbed up again and turning into the wind landed on the airstrip on top of the hill.

"Here, Harriett, put your feet on the pedals on the floor there.  I don't have time to tie the plane down, I have to help Freese put the fire out.  It's windy and you and the baby will have to wait here and keep the plane on the ground with the flaps until I can get back," and, instructions given, Deke ran down the hill toward the house.

Harriett pushed first one foot forward and then the other to see what happened as she moved the flaps at the back of each wing of the airplane.  One flap moved downward and then the other moved down and little plane began to rise up off the ground and Harriett quickly moved the pedals the other way.  As she did the plane settled to the ground again.  And as little gusts of wind blew up, so did the plane and she had to adjust the flaps again.  

Running down the hill, Deke saw Freese pull the hose into the house, through the porch and into the kitchen.  Deke grabbed up a bucket on the back porch and headed in there himself.  Freese was spraying the kitchen stove which was completely enveloped in smoke.  Deke ran to the pump at the sink and filled his bucket and threw the water at the stove and started pumping again.  At first there was more smoke, then less and less until at last there was just the wet smell of a fire just drenched.  As they came out of the house, they heard the siren of the fire truck pulling up the farm road to the house.  Both men went over to the fire truck and began telling the firemen what had happened.  Lillian had dinner cooking on the wood stove in the kitchen.  The family had gone to the front porch to enjoy the warm breezy afternoon while they waited for dinner.  The breeze being from the north, they had not smelled the smoke when one of the pots on the stove caught fire.  They saw the little plane buzzing the house and Freese got up and went through the house to go out the back and go up the hill and meet their visitors.  And he found the fire!  The firemen all agreed that it was a good thing that the little plane happened along when it did.  The house was a wooden farm house as most all were in that area.  They were amazed at the small amount of damage in the kitchen due to Freese and Deke's quick actions and that fact that it was a really good sturdy iron stove.

The men all came back out into the yard and one of the firemen observed, "Deke that little plane of yours sitting up there on the hill looks just like it's flying."

Freese and Deke looked at each other and said in unison, "HARRIETT!"  And much to the fire men's puzzlement ran for the top of the hill.  

As she sat in the plane for what seemed like days, the thought occurred to Harriett that she was flying an airplane on the ground.  And that thought struck her as very funny.  She looked down and said, "Baby Girl we are flying an airplane on the ground!"  And the baby girl gurgled.  And Harriett giggled.  And she kept giggling.  And then she thought, "Oh heavens, I'm sitting flying a plane on the ground and giggling."  And that was the end, she began to outright laugh and she couldn't stop.  The whole situation was just so strange.  Her sister's house had been on fire, though she couldn't see any smoke now.  And here she sat on top of hill, flying an airplane on the ground with a baby in her lap.  She laughed until there were tears in her eyes and then she laughed some more.  The breeze came up and the plane lifted up and she adjusted the flaps and laughed some more.  

Then the door of the little plane flew open and her husband was there looking very concerned.  Seeing the tears in her eyes he asked, "Harriett, are you alright?  I left you for so long, over 90 minutes!  Are you alright?  Is the baby alright?  I'm so sorry!"  And as Freese took the baby girl from Deke, Harriet giggled again.

"I have to go the euphemism, Deke Johnson," said Harriett her green eyes snapping, "and if I don't get there quickly you will be a very sorry man."  And as she began to run down the hill to the house, she was overcome by giggles again.  

~ The End ~

Crandall Notes:  O.K. you got me, yes, I am Baby Girl Johnson.  Deke and Harriett are my Father and Mother.  Uncle Freese, Aunt Lillian and the 7 cousins, all mine.  Bless 'em.  You won't find any better.  I have many happy memories of flying with my Daddy and my Uncle Freese.  I hope you enjoy this little flying story.


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