Flight School Head and the Victory Over Skepticism It is now some years since I detected how many were the false beliefs that I had from my earliest youth admitted as true, and how doubtful was everything that I had constructed on this basis; - Rene Descartes It was hot in the way that only people that had grown up and lived in southwest Georgia could appreciate. That is to say, it was hotter than anyone with even a portion of a functional mind would be caught out in. Which only partially explained my presence. Certainly, I believed it explained Head’s presence in full. The gnats were now forming up in great clouds reminiscent of what I imagined Londoners had experienced during the blitz, waiting for the attack signal from some unseen command post which (if past experience were of any value) could only be seconds from being executed. I could almost see the Gnat General waiting for the correct timing to send his air force into a ghastly dive-bomb. Gnats, as a general rule increased the heat index by 5-7 degrees Fahrenheit. This swarm would send the mercury northward by at least double that amount, which would put us in the vicinity of 120 degrees. Insane I know. I had been dispatched into this inferno on an errand by the sadistic middle-aged couple that claimed to be my parents, to procure some fresh tomatoes for lunch - tomato sandwiches being a delicacy in great demand during my youth. Apparently, said sandwiches tasted better and were even more delicate, if heated to near the boiling point. In an economical move to conserve resources of the electrical variety (my parents were way ahead of their time in many regards), I had been sent out as close to high noon as possible so that the fruit/vegetable (I still don’t know which one it is) in discussion would still be steamy upon my return. As I approached the tomato plants I heard what I considered an unusual amount of noise that sounded a lot like chickens emanating from the general vicinity of what would be termed the chicken pen. It would help greatly to have grown up on a farm to imagine what constituted an unusual amount of noise. Chickens are fairly noisy fowl to begin with. Along with their lovely bouquet, their really annoying way of expressing themselves, (always clucking around and making chicken noises) makes them (aside from the eggs they provide) a fairly useless animal in my estimation. In fact, if not for those same eggs which Mom used to make what probably was and still is the world’s finest pound cake, I have no doubt that all of these foul fowl would have been converted to drumsticks long ago. So when I say there was an unusual amount of noise coming from the chicken pen, you need to understand that these birds were really raising hell. As I got closer, I could also see feathers flying and what I took to be survivors, fleeing for the perceived safety of the coop. Now my young mind took a cautious step backwards. This must be the work of a fox, or worse, one of the rabid ‘coons that I had been tutored on (not that I had ever seen either one of these around the farm – but they were out there somewhere waiting to create the chicken apocalypse). Upon further reflection, I decided that it was probably my Dad’s English setter, Baby, that had broken out of solitary and was giving the birds what for as pay back for their incessant cackling. As it turned out it was much worse than I imagined. It was Head. Before going further you have to understand a little background on brother Head. He was the third of four boys and an inquisitive soul. This is what my aunts used to say in response to my Mom’s questions about why he was always getting into something (usually something bad). His very name had been derived as short hand for “long-headed” which was apparently a customary and ancient, folksy way of addressing someone that was always into something – usually no good. Head generally did not create situations that required vast monetary sums to undo and set to right (although there was that one instance with the 80 broken windows at the Baptist church). His misdemeanors usually involved time to repair, the better part of the time which was spent teaching him the error of his ways and why his particular line of inquiry or experimentation was faulty and a waste of time. This I believe, was particularly frustrating to my parents as they were both professional teachers. To this day I believe the frustration derived not so much from the teaching as from the failure of the lessons to take. At least with Head. Time and again, it seemed they would cover familiar ground. And time and again, they would feel compelled to re-cover this ground. It was like living with all of their nightmare students from hell rolled into one on a daily basis. It would have been worse if they knew the things that they didn’t know. The things that only my other brothers and I had witnessed and would often scratch our heads in wonder over. This was one of those head-scratchers. As I got closer to the pen I soon discovered that the door was wide open. Instead of running into the coop fleeing some rabid animal as I had imagined, these soon to be fryers (since they would never lay another egg) were running out of the coop as fast as they could go. In circles, zigzagging, straight line sprints – whatever motive energy they could muster in whatever direction their chicken sized brains proclaimed as reasonable, they were taking. And taking fast. If chickens had fur this is the part where it would have been flying. Well this is where I will find Baby making chicken salad I supposed; until I saw her taking in events from the relative comfort of the shade of her pen with a dispassionate eye. What then? My first confusing clue was seeing Head emerge from the pen with two fat and very noisy, frightened chickens; one under each arm. He was striding purposefully, if not hurriedly, in the direction of a medium sized scrub oak in the vicinity of the dog pen. I puzzled over this for a short time, but not arriving at a satisfactory answer I queried: “What are you doin’ Head?” “Teaching chickens to fly,” came the response. He didn’t even slow down as he continued on his way to the tree. To him it looked as though he had given the only answer possible to my ridiculously stupid and perhaps insensitive question. I paused for a moment, assuming that due to the heat, my sensory organs were not performing at optimum. This does not compute. This does not compute. I continued to watch as he then approached the tree and climbed it using a series of highly athletic maneuvers to reach a platform he had recently (I guessed – it hadn’t been there yesterday) constructed. Now if you have never seen a person climb a tree with two captured chickens, I would recommend that you take that in at your convenience. What I would have assumed an impossibility, unfolded right in front of my eyes. It was all at one time daring, athletic, graceful, scary (a couple of real close moments about half way up) and more than a little insane. It was kind of like watching Evel Knievel jump the fountain at Caesar’s Palace without the benefit of mechanical motor aids. The whole time you knew it was not going to end well but you stood there rooted in place waiting for the certain death you were about to witness live and in color. I don’t know to this day if I have ever witnessed an athletic feat that was more impressive (Head climbing that tree that is). I have since concluded that if this were ever to become and Olympic event he had the all time performance that day. Gold medal no doubt. I still have no idea how he pulled this off. Before I could be moved to speak again, Head launched first one chicken and then the other, slinging them as far out into space as his 11 year old arms could manage. This was an unsightly event. First one and then the other arced out near the dog pen reaching apogee somewhere roughly parallel with Baby’s pen, before beginning the downward leg of the flight. Baby’s eyes lit up as she anticipated the possibility of an early supper. Wings not meant to function in a flight engendering capacity beat insanely in the air, hoping to muster the art that had been God-given to other fowl over the millennia in a few fearful seconds. This alas, was not to be and the second half of the flight was traumatic (although not fatal) for the birds. Gravity took over and the chickens experienced the full force of impact with wings beating full stroke. Rendered senseless for only moments, these two fine-feathered friends beat as hasty an exit from the landing zone as you are likely to ever see. This would explain the chaos I had seen earlier. What I imagined to be fowl fleeing from 4 legged carnivores were in fact only those trying to leave the landing field after the previous flight. “Head, you need to know that chickens can’t fly. It has never happened in the entire history of the world and there is a fine reason for that. They can’t fly.” “I think you’re wrong. Them two almost had it.” My interruption did not phase him in the least and Head was off to secure additional test pilots; his focus did not allow him a lot of spare time for chit-chat with me, an infidel and non-believer. He was in hot pursuit of a Rhode Island Red and a Banty rooster when I thought to go after him. Instead I dispersed the gnat cloud and went after the tomatoes. Watching his dedication to the task I did not have the heart to call him off. Besides, I couldn’t really tell if I was wasting my time or impeding meaningful, scientific progress. It was that close.
Copyright © 2004 Mark A Stuart |