Bailey, Russ

English

Digital Commons @ Butler University

42 MANUSCRIPTSgreen world. Like the hand of God it bore down upon the unsuspect-ing ship, until--* * *There came a sound like distant drums. A small boy turned overin his sleep, dreaming of the pretty shooting star, not knowing howclose he came to never seeing another star, or another night again.Where's My Coffee?Russ BaileyJULY 19, 19S0, was just like any other day for me. At 6 :00 p. m.Corporal Green and I signed on duty in the control tower for the.night shift. The traffic was slow that night, and by 7 :30 p. m.I sent Corporal Green to the mess hall for a gallon of coffee. Littledid I know that the next forty-five minutes were to be the longestof my life.As I sat there alone in the tower listening to the hum of thetransmitter and the static crackling of the radio receiver, my thoug~1tswere suddenly interrupted by an F-Sl, with radio trouble, reques~mglanding instructions. I gave the landing instructions and advisedhim to watch for the light-gun signals before landing. I picked upthe binoculars and began scanning the sky for the aircraft.At 7 :S6 p. m. a B-29 reported an engine burning and reques~edan emergency landing. I cleared the aircraft for immediate landingand sent out a blind call to the F-Sl to clear the traffic pattern. Re-ceiving no answer, I immediately alerted base crash and fire fight-ing eq~lipment to stand by on the runway, and then I notified baseoperations of the emergency.I was not particularly worried at this time because I expected theF-Sl to make a pass and receive a green light before landing.The B-29 entered the traffic pattern at 8 :03 p. m. and I advisedhim to check on the base leg for final clearance and for the F-Slwhich was somewhere in the traffic pattern. As the B-29 turned onbase leg, I cleared him to land and advised him that I was still un-able to contact the F-Sl.I stood there watching the B-29 slowly settling on the final ap-proach when I was suddenly horrified to see, off to the right, belowand ahead of the smoking B-29, the F-S1 turning onto final ap-proach. I grabbed for the mike and the light-gun simultaneously towarn the B-29 and try to wave off the F-Sl. It was too late for theB-29 to go around, and evidently the F-S1 did not see the red light,and so I hit the panic switch which alerted the flight line of an im-pending crash. I stood there awaiting the spectacle. I do not knowwhen the F-Sl pilot became aware of the B-29, but immediately uponlanding, he turned off the runway and nosed over on the grass. TheB-29 missed the F -S1 by about five feet and managed a good landing.MANUSCRIPTS 43The F-Sl pilot was taken to the hospital and treated for minorinjuries, and the fire in the B-29 was extinguished without too muchdamage. With the crash equipment returning to its station, anotherroutine incident in the life of a control tower operator came to anend. Now my only thought was, "Where is Corporal Green with mycoffee? Here it is 8:15 p. m. and he is nowhere in sight."The Stranger Decides to StayL. E. SullivanTHE appearance of the man and the mule startled everyone. vc«were spending our regular Saturday relaxation peri?d on thefront porch of the general store when they ambled into town.Ours is a quiet town, but it never had been so silent as it Was at thefirst sight of those two. "What in the world is that?" someonegaspee! just before the most terrible conglomeration of whoops, hol-lers, wheezes, and gasps ever assembled welcomed the stranger. Bed-lam reigned for a full thirty minutes, whereupon we took time tobreathe, looked again, and doubled up with laughter once more.Eventually Jesse Willard, owner of the general store, gained con-trol of himsel f long enough to ask the man his name and where hewas from. "L'rn Abe Flynn fr0111everywhere and nowhere. This isAloysius," he replied pointing to the mule. There was a brayingquality in his voice that made many people wonder who was talking,the man or the mule; and, when a remark was made to that effect,another gust of laughter burst from the crowel.The question arose as to how he happened to be touring our re-mote county and he answered, "Do you see these ears? They'renatural wind catchers so I'm forced to always travel with the windbehind me or risk being blown off Aloysius." Immediately we knewthat we were going to enjoy his stay. It's always more fun to laughat a person if you can laugh with him."What do you do. for a living?" he was asked."Well," he answered as he straightened his legs and allowed themule to walk from under him, "I'rn about the handiest handy-manyou have ever seen. I can fix or fracture, mend or mutilate any-thing. I've been a banker, barber, blacksmith, butcher, carpet-bagger,ditch-digger, gandy-dancer, hod-carrier, parson, poet, and shyster."The laughter at this answer carried an undertone of respect. Anyman who could do that great a variety of work deserved credit.He was a likable six-foot-six bag of bones even if he did carrythe aroma of mules wherever he went; and with a natural comedianlike him around, the idea of having a hoe-down sprang forth. It wasgreeted with boisterous enthusiasm and nominations to make Abeour guest celebrity. Upon Abe's hearing our plans, his mournfulbrown eyes lighted up with happiness and glistened with tears. His

Where\u27s My Coffee?

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Where\u27s My Coffee?

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