Timeless summer
Lane Wallace
I’m driving into the
show, just passing the entrance to the EAA AirVenture Museum with a B-25
Mitchell bomber sitting on the grass to the left and an F-86 Sabre on a
pole to the right, watching the people walk across from the parking
fields, backpacks and water bottles and small children in tow. It can’t
possibly have been a whole year since I was last here; it feels as if no
time has passed at all.
I also have the illogical
and silly thought, driving past the brightly striped tent awnings that
line the entrance road to the show grounds, that now it is truly summer.
Never mind that the calendar says it’s been summer for over a month.
Or that Palo Alto, California, where I live, has been enduring
sweltering temperatures of over 100°F for a couple of weeks. So what is
it that makes me feel this visceral and timeless connection to summer
here, in the fields of Wisconsin, on an airport full of winged machines?
I can’t plead links to childhood memories or images of summertime,
because I grew up in the New York metropolitan area. There were no
picturesque fields of corn, and definitely no cows, in any of my summer
playtime memories.
So what is it here that
so epitomizes summer for me? I ponder this question as I wander through
the rows of the Fly Market, down the rows of new homebuilt designs, and
watch Dave Dacy and Tony Kazian perform their wing-walking Stearman
stunts above the afternoon air show crowd. And I think, perhaps, the
answer is something beyond my own personal memories. I think it may be
something in our collective cultural memory; a timeless place that never
really existed in any one town, but that AirVenture comes very close to
replicating.
It is something Norman
Rockwell tried to capture in his drawings; that the movie Field of
Dreams evoked in people who’d never even been to Iowa. It’s that
perfect combination of all the things that compose our cultural ideal of
American summertime, from the traveling circus and county fairs to hazy
weather and lazy afternoons; where we can all, for a short collection of
moments, remember a slower life, a simpler time, and have a taste of
being children again.
Enter the grounds of
AirVenture, and you enter more than the gates to an air show. You enter
a place where even the business people trade their suits and skirts for
shorts and T-shirts, and even the most accomplished professionals allow
themselves to stretch out for a time on the grass under shady trees and
wings on a hot and humid summer day. Oh, there are new and shiny
airplanes, to be sure, just as there are always new kinds of farm
equipment for sale at any county fair. But there are also the thrills,
chills and circus spills of wing-walkers and smoke oil acts that are not
so very different from the aerial stunts that drew onlookers in the days
of Waldo Pepper or Johnny Livingston.
There are also the
judging competitions of any worthwhile county fair. The only difference
is that the objects to be judged have wings instead of snouts or horns.
Pilots labor for weeks, months, and even years to perfect their beloved
entries in Antique, Classic, Experimental, and Warbird categories. Late
night oil is burned, sweat and tears are shed, and hearts beat faster as
the deadline approaches. Finally, they arrive here and proudly hang the
request to be judged on carefully polished propellers, waiting with
bated breath to hear the final results.
There’s even something
of a midway atmosphere in the crazy conglomeration of oddities that make
up the Fly Market section of the show. Meandering down one row, I hear a
barker calling out potential customers for a Healthy Gourmet Cooking
booth. "Healthy cooking here, folks!" he calls. "Fried
chicken, baked potatoes, and a vegetable medley—a whole meal in only
15 minutes’ cookin’ time! Show’s about to begin folks!"
Exactly what cookware has to do with flying, I’m not sure, but there
were TWO such shows going on in the Fly Market, which says something,
even if I’m not sure what.
But cookware isn’t the
only incongruous product at the market. Next to the cooking show was a
booth proclaiming its product to be "The last glue you’ll ever
need!" Next to that was the "Heavenly Comfort" mattress
and pillow company, and down the row were fireplace displays and
gardening gloves for sale. Not to mention military ex-surplus gear,
polishing supplies, sunglasses, skin lotion, hammocks-to-go and every
kind of aviation T-shirt, hat, pin, or tool you might ever imagine
wanting. There were even rides of a sort, in the guise of
"surround-sound" simulation chairs that provide rumbling
sensations and sounds to your basic flight simulator experience. Every
time I walked by, the simulation chairs were full, with several people
waiting. Same goes for the simulation chair in the Ford Hangar. The only
difference was that at the Ford Hangar, the vehicle simulated was a car
instead of an airplane.
I suppose purists might
complain about the inclusion of car simulations or cooking shows or John
Deere tractor, Honda motorcycle or fireplace sales booths at an air
show. But that’s only if you view AirVenture as only an air show. Oh,
it may have started out, all those years ago, as a simple little fly-in
among friends who liked building their own planes. And that element is
still there. But the reason AirVenture so epitomizes summer to me is
that it’s more than just another fly-in. It’s part circus, part
county fair, part family picnic, part fly-in, and part air show. And its
magic lies in the fact that it’s not just about airplanes. It’s also
about fun and dreams and family time and kids and popcorn and candy and
circus acts and carnival toys.
The grand summer party known as
AirVenture is also a place where a particularly American belief and
energy permeates the air so thickly you can almost touch it…the belief
in innovation, possibility, freedom, and frontiers. After all, this is a
place where people talk with passion about new designs, new fuels, new
engines and new capabilities. It’s a place where people renew their
passion for exploration and adventure. It’s a place where we celebrate
the unbelievable freedom we almost take for granted hereto fly
almost anywhere and in almost any machine we see fit to dream of and
build. And it’s a place where we set aside productivity for a little
while to slow down, laugh, and reconnect with other people who share all
those crazy notions with us. It’s a block party and county fair, all
right. But the community it brings together stretches far beyond the
county line. For although AirVenture may have a uniquely American
flavor, the community that gathers here each summer stretches all around
the world—and our world stretches into the sky.
