Chapter 3

The Seven in One come and go without notice ... it should be disconcerting. I am used to it. They were mom when mom was gone.

Then there’s Alice. Alice Lovissa Olsen. Umh ... Alice Lovissa Dent. Adam’s twin brother Everett’s wife.

She used to live in my half of the house. Daddy’s half is a walk to the hot tub. Alice’s backdoor opens on to the deck and the tub. Both kayaks are on her side ... now my side.

Alice moved when she married Eve. Now I have direct access to the tub and mom’s kayak. I leave Alice’s kayak alone.

Last year, when I was 11, I’d come home from school and Alice would be in the river ... at least I think she was ... her kayak was gone.

Maybe a little explanation is in order? Hmmm?

Bud Field is the home of Austin Helicopter Tours ... and Adam and Selene Dent’s hangar and home. The home is four 40 by 12 by 10 containers set two east and two west with a canvas covered concrete pad between them. On the pad is a Douglas AD-2Q aircraft. The pad is big enough to turn the Spad 360 degrees and not bump the aircraft into anything solid. Big ... really big ... huge. (A line from the movie ‘Pretty Woman’ ... daddy uses it so often he should pay a royality fee.) I learned it from Daddy.

The AD-2Q is just about the biggest single engined low wing ex-military monoplane ever to see production in quantity The engine is the same Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone 18-cylinder radial that the B-29 bomber used. The engine, as used on the bomber, looks like it belongs ... used on the AD-2Q the engine looks like a toy.

The Spad on the slab is a tandem two seat aircraft that was intended to be a nuclear bomb ‘toss’ aircraft. The two seats were equiped with dual controls so the pilot could get some rest on the long flight to bomb Moscow ... USSR ... not Idaho. Douglas built 30 ... One of our military rockets worked and Congress decided against the program and 25 were ‘repurposed’ (scrapped.) Five were ‘hidden.’ A Miss Austin bought the five ... a real bargain (Services rendered no cash involved). Mom bought hers from Mr Anderson. Rumor has it that David Anderson was ... in all actuality ... David Austin.

Mom died ... the airplane is mine ... and Adam Dent’s. Adam doesn’t fly ... and I’m too young ... it sits in the hangar ... someday I’ll fly it ... I promise.

And explaining got in the way ... sorry ... daddy says I’m the worst kind of storyteller ... easily sidetracked ... and I did it again.

The ‘34 was a known entity. Mrs. Metcalf was a notorious street-racer ... before she took up rally.

But ... the flathead ford engine was unexpected.

Unexpected because Mom and Alice used to come to Hot Rod night in the Volvo 544.

See ... did it again. If you, as a reader are totally confused you haven’t a patch on me. I keep digging deeper and I’m as lost as you are.

Suffice it to say ... I had more fun at the Drive-In than I should. Daddy had to come find my drunk ass and haul me home ... kids I’d never met, and probably won’t meet again ... introduced me to the joys of Peach Moonshine. I had a good time at the Hot Rod Rod in. I guess. Cleaning up the ‘34 was NOT ... fun. And Sunday afternoon cleaning Bud’s helicopters wasn’t either.

But I did get a lesson. Flying a helicopter is absolutely crazy. But ... I can hold a hover.

“Very good, Selene,” Bud said.

“Thank you.”

That is why I clean Bud’s chopper ... lessons.

“You can let her down easy,” he said.

Then I walked the bluff from my back porch to the Texas River School and had my lesson in kayaking. Daddy must have spoken to the management.

My lesson was paddling from downstream to the dam, turn and paddle upstream past Walnut Creek to the secret beach and back to the river school dock. My instructor stuck to my tail like glue ... until the beach ... all those topless coeds ... because I was first they didn’t pay any attention. I’m sure ... by the screams ... my instructor took a lot of pictures.

I know ... before I’m 14 ... boys will be trying to see mine. Right now? Bee stings. Nothing to see here ... move along.