Chapter 213

I met my group at the end of Morton Farm Lane. All the girls along with Jenna, Jason and Norman Pyle - the construction estimator for Bob's Construction - were waiting for me.

When I made the turn off the highway, I knew why the name Crash Morgan sounded familiar to me. Years ago, long before I went into the Marines, Jake had just gotten his drivers license. The only way that Mom and Dad would let him and Crystal go out in the car was if I was with them. They were using me as chaperone, figuring that nothing would happen if I was along. Of course I had to have Betty and later Samantha go along to keep me company.

Little did they know the group of us together was trouble! We had been playing sex games for over a year before Jake received his license. We had some wild times together in the front and back seat of Jake's car.

There was a lane off 301 that we used to go parking on. That lane was on the west end of the Morton farm and was used by farm trucks in the spring and fall. It was also used to carry water and fuel to the crop dusters. The rest of the time it was not used and grown up with weeds and grass. We used it for fun two or three nights a week until the state - in one of it drainage improvement programs - dug up the tile and left a big ditch.

We met Crash and Roger in front of the house. Crash, Norman, Jenna and Marcy inspected the interior and exterior of the house generating a list of repairs that met Crash's expectations.

Jenny, Lorrie and I sat on the porch with Roger and discussed the list of questions the corporate lawyers had checked off. All of them were small stuff - to me they were nothing - but I guess that is why they get paid to cross all the tee's and dot all the eyes.

After the house tour was completed we made our way to the big shed Crash used as his airplane hanger. In one side there was a Stearman biplane modified for crop dusting. Crash explained it was a 1939 model he bought as army surplus in 1946 and had it modified in Ohio. It was dusty and dirty but looked ready to fly.

"This is the plane I want in the terminal as a display," Crash said.

With my help, Norman took all the measurements so a place could be engineered into the plans for the terminal for the plane. Then we made our way to the other side of the shed. There was Crash's newer crop duster.

I could tell Crash was proud of it; he stood a little straighter, his voice stronger. "This is a Thrush 550p turbo prop with a Pratt and Whitney engine. The spray hopper holds 550 gallons or the seeder holds 74 cubic feet of seed and can climb 750 ft a minute and only needs 1050 feet to take off fully loaded," he said.

"You do understand we need a 6000 foot runway, and 7000 would be better," I said.

Lorrie interrupted with, "We have two pilots that have done crop dusting and with a turbo prop would do it again," she said.

"Yep I knew it would take a long one. If you angle it from corner to corner of the property you can have one over 10000 feet and straight on, a little over 8000," he said.