Several times some kids would get in touch with the electric fence wire and not be able to get loose until they were knocked loose. I really miss those days at the old airport. The mail had to get through, so they flew to a spot where they were able to land and give the mail to the recipients that had been informed when and where to meet them. The picture above showing Bill and Walter is a reminder of the phrase the post office uses - "neither rain, sleet, snow, or gloom of night, etc" - you know the rest - of how Bill carried the mail and Walter to outlying areas when the roads were so icy that a truck could not be used. (From his book Fourscore and More in Dixie). He hit the cow and the propeller killed it, damaged the propeller blade,and he had to pay the owner for the cow. He finally decided he could go ahead and land and go around her after touching down, or apply the brakes in sufficient time to stop. ![]() We would get rewarded once in a while with a free short ride in the sky with one of the pilots.Ĭlaude Gentry wrote in his memoirs of trying to land one day after a fishing trip to Pickwick Lake (he would sneak off there on lots of Wednesday afternoons when the stores in town closed for a half-day) and a stubborn cow would not get out of the way so after a couple of unsucessful close buzz-bys close to her trying to scare her into moving. Cows and other livestock frequently got in the way of aircraft landing, so we boys would get on our bicycles and go kick and bump the cow with our bikes to clear the runway. It was a favorite Sunday afternoon pastime to go to the airstrip and watch the planes rolled out, checked over for flight readiness, prop started (manually pulling the propeller to start the engine) and taking off and landing. McCary,Fred Parmenter, Barry Henderson, Gerald McKibben, Walter's son, Jim "Jimmy" Greene, I believe Ralph Pennington, and others whose names I have forgotten. Duke Young and his son, Duke Archer "Arch" Young, Murray and Evelyn Duke, Mr. ![]() A photo I obtained from Vivian Parton Kesler recently shows her father, William "Bill" Parton and Walter Greene, a postal delivery worker, at the old grass airstrip just East of town off Clayton Street, known then as the Pratts Road.īill was a local pioneer in sport flying along with many others: Mr.
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