Chapter 66

I almost lost it instantly ... a facial struggle, I’m sure. If he hadn’t been so flabbergasted I know he’d have seen me ‘striving mightly with the devil’ to keep my face straight. I didn’t make it.

Abby reached over and slapped me on the back just as I began to gurgle.

“Swallowed wrong,” I gasped. “Do that once in awhile,” I said.

Abby whacked me a good one, again.

“Better?” she asked.

“Yes, thanks,” I said.

Brown shoe asked, “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Maybe you should sit down.”

Abby led me over to a landing strut and helped me to sit on a wheel.

“You’re awfully red in the face,” she said, “Put your head between your knees.”

To top it all off, she said, “You’re not pregnant are you?”

I choked.

“Give me your keys,” she said.

“Gawd amighty, Abby ... that was brilliant ... sending him after my car like that.”

Lansing Municipal will never be the same:

Franklin’s Cessna Sales and Service is gone ... that huge hangar and associated rest area is grass. The runway is gone and so is the duck pond. There’s a recent concrete runway laid over the old pond. Lansing is now Capitol Region International and the southern most northern airport in the Princessapalities half of the Michigan mitten.

We have to move the Spad to Abrams Field ... Capitol Region has grown up.

Brown Shoe drove up with the car.

“We have to relocate the aircraft to Abrams.”

I don’t know how she did it ... but Mr Suit drove my car to Abrams Field, waited while I arranged tiedown for the season, and drove us back to Capitol.

I never got a ticket or grounded ... nothing. Not even a note in my logbook.

I think Abby is a witch.

Over the summer we raced sailboats, crewed on the Chicago to Mackinac race and partied at Abby’s House. She took flying lessons, bought a Stearman, an AT-6 and built a DR-1 in her garage.

Fall, I went back to Austin, Abby taught her scheduled classes at MSU and Junior reigned.

We promised ‘next year.’ I wonder if...