Greg Brown's Flying Carpet Blog
Greg Brown's Adventure of Flying!
Kids climb George Washington’s statue, on the steps of the South Carolina Capitol.
Another from my occasional series of “Well, I’ll Be!” terrestrial photos, posted for the twofold purpose of brightening your day, and further deferring my already-long-postponed tax-prep chores.
(From the journey described in my November, 2009 Flying Carpet column, “Far from Home.”)
©2013 Gregory N. Brown
“So, do I have to fly out of Flagstaff to hang with the ‘airport slugs?’ Or, are us’ns outta Williams Airport not fit for polite company?”
It was the first “official” pilot query from Bruce Bloomquist, who just earned his private pilot certificate and took delivery of a shiny new-to-him airplane in the same week. [Congratulations, Bruce!]
“You need not fly out of Flag to join the slugs, Bruce,” I replied. “My cowboy buddy Baldy, for example, flies out of Seligman. The only requirement is to be hungry on Sunday mornings.”
“Ha! I’ve already heard a story or two about the, um, infamous Baldy!” said Bruce. “I’m really looking forward to meeting him − and all the other flying locals.”
“Baldy is a total character, Bruce − and one of the coolest guys you’ll ever meet!” I offered to share my columns about Baldy. Then I realized that YOU might enjoy knowing Baldy too, so here is the true tale of a real cowboy pilot!
Read “Cowboy Pilot” here. One of my favorite columns, about one of my favorite people, it first appeared in AOPA Flight Training magazine back in May, 2005. If you like it, comment below and I’ll post an additional column about him.
Photo: Baldy Ivy and his ’41 “T-craft.” See additional photos here. Visit Baldy’s web site, PilotShareTheRide.com.
©2011 Gregory N. Brown
If you enjoyed this story, you’ll love Greg’s book, Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane. Autographed copies available!
Those recent auto-show posts got me reminiscing with friend Sally Lynch about a far different class of vehicles − the often-battered “airport cars,” pilots enjoy as free loaners.
Our own “best” airport car was in Baudette, Minnesota, on a “long journey North,” Jean and I made in the Flying Carpet one 4th of July weekend, from Arizona all the way to the Canadian border to attend a funeral. Read Greg’s past column, “Goodbye, Don,” here. I think you’ll get a kick out of it!
Photo: The Baudette, Minnesota, airport car. See (newly added) photos of our best-ever airport car here.
©2011 Gregory N. Brown
If you enjoyed this story, you’ll love Greg’s book, Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane. Autographed copies available!
I was chatting with my acquaintance Bruce today about an airplane he’s considering buying in southern California, and somehow the conversation turned to his visit to the renowned skydiving center at Perris Valley, California.
“I landed there one time,” I said, describing the unusual indoor skydiving facility located on the field.
“Did you go there to skydive, Greg?” he asked.
“Oh no,” I said, “that’s a whole different story.” Here, for Bruce’s reading pleasure and yours, is “Vulture’s Prey,” first published in March, 2005.
Photo: Phil and Kelly prepare to leave Perris Valley Airport for the 450 mile drive to Flagstaff in the “new” Lobe band bus. See more photos here.
©2011 Gregory N. Brown
If you enjoyed this story, you’ll love Greg’s book, Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane. Autographed copies available!
Photo: Art Meets Life: Marilyn in Vancouver.
©2010 Gregory N. Brown
I have just posted many additional color photos illustrating stories from my book, Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane.
See Flying Carpet book photos at my Facebook page. (You needn’t be a Facebook member to view the photos.) I will continue adding more in the future. Hope you enjoy them!
Photo: Prairie sunset near Eagle Butte, South Dakota, from “Coyote Hunting: Small Adventures Under a Big Sky.” Said my companion Larry’s Uncle Charles when he saw us photographing the incredible sight, “No need to burn up all that film, fellas. Same sunset we get here every night.”
©2010, 2020 Gregory N. Brown
If you enjoyed this story, you’ll love Greg’s book, Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane. Autographed copies available!
Anyone who’s spent much time in the rural Midwest knows the ubiquitous old-time general-store signs offering “fishworms and cottage cheese.”
Having grown up in that area, I never thought much about those signs until meeting a guy named Tom David, who’d moved from California to marry a Wisconsinite.
“Are the fishworms in the cottage cheese?” he’d ask. “How do you feel about them even cohabiting the same refrigerator?”
Once alerted to the humor of it, I soon picked up Tom’s habit of calling any and all stuff incongruously grouped together, “fishworms and cottage cheese.”
Tom would have appreciated the pictured naturopathic health store sign we encountered several years ago in rural Pima, Arizona. As another friend, Russ, notes, “it brings new meaning to to the expression, ‘hanging out a shingle.'” Click on the image to see it full-size. ©2010 Gregory N. Brown
Years ago while living in Indiana we encountered a good deal of country humor, the likes of which we haven’t enjoyed in such quantity since.
Off Highway 32, for example, a pair of full-sized pink concrete hippopotami grazed a farmhouse lawn. The sign in front said, “Well, I’ll be!”
Ten or 15 miles down that road to the west, a small official looking green informational sign pointed down a side road. It took me probably a dozen times passing that little sign at 60mph before I finally sounded out the seemingly Indian name on it: Camp Nothingmuchere.
Then there was our favorite catfish place up by Lake Freeman reservoir at Monticello. All manner of old stuff hung from the ceiling over the bar including a plow, an ancient outboard motor, and a large bucket − occasionally activated to tip water upon some unsuspecting customer occupying the stool beneath it.
Oh yeah, and then there was the place’s motto, painted on a billboard visible from the highway: “The Oakdale Inn – Best catfish by a dam site.” (The motto was well-deserved.)
My wife and I didn’t live in Indiana long enough to consider ourselves natives − no one ever is who isn’t born there − but some of that Hoosier humor must have rubbed off on me. So here is my first occasional installment of visual or verbal humor – some intentional and some not – as I find or rediscover it.
To kick off this new “Well I’ll Be!” category, I’m featuring a past column, “Festival Flying: Tales of the Emerald Chevy,” that definitely fills the bill. (I’ve also tagged some previous posts that fit this category.)
Photo: “Mr. Dwarf Car,” Ernie Adams, poses with his ’39 Chevy at the Route 66 Fun Run in Seligman, Arizona, 2005. Visit my “Well I’ll Be,” photo gallery-in-progress here.
©2010 Gregory N. Brown
If you enjoyed this story, you’ll love Greg’s book, Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane. Autographed copies available!
“Honey! Hit the brakes!”
“What? Why?!”
“Didn’t you see the sign? ‘Mirage Crossing.’ Who knows what damage might be done to our car if we hit one.”
“Give me a break — that’s just a subdivision sign…”
“‘Mirage Crossing…’ Where do developers get those names, anyway?
“You’re always nitpicking. What difference does it make?”
“Another one that bugs me is, ‘Chaparral Pines,’ up at Payson. Everyone knows that a chaparral wouldn’t be a chaparral if it had pines.”
“Nobody knows what a chaparral is, or cares.”
“Sure they do. I think a little more honesty would be in order when naming these places… you know, no more ‘Thunder Ridge’ stuff, on the flats next to the grocery store.”
“So what do you expect? If they really wanted to be honest they’d have to use names like ‘Neighborview Court,’ or ‘Barking Dog Estates.’ Who’d want to live in those places?”
“Even those are euphemistic; should be ‘Neighbor-Viewed-in Court,’ and ‘Barking Dogs Estate.’ After all, it takes more than one barking dog to make a neighborhood.”
“That’s my point. Nobody wants to face the grim reality of living in a subdivision. They want to live on some mountain peak just far enough from the neighbors to feign isolation. Not being able to afford it, they have to settle for just the name. At best, all most people can afford is a place that used to be beautiful.”
“Well then, at least they could use names reflecting the past beauty of the place.”
“Fine. You buy a house at ‘Desecrated Meadow.’ Even ‘Mirage Crossing’ is better than that.”
“I suppose you’re right. Maybe naming subdivisions is all about mirages after all. But at least they could be fun, or smart. Look at this dumb name, ‘Pine Oaks Subdivision,’ what the heck does that mean?”
“Graft?”
“No, just misleading the public.”
“I mean the trees; maybe they graft the trees.”
“Yeah, right… Actually, the names for all these subdivisions are so common I’ve always wondered if developers use one of those little books to dream them up — you know, like the ones for naming babies. Sort of a ‘developers’ lexicon.’”
“Gotcha… has a list of names to choose from, like ‘forest, carriage, crossing, lamp, brook, eagle, estate,’ and so on.”
“Right, just pick two or three like from a Chinese menu and glue ‘em together so they sound good, like ‘Eagle Carriage Estates,’ or ‘Lamp Brook Crossing.’ That way they don’t have to waste valuable development time researching local history, flora, or fauna in search of appropriate names.”
“You never give people enough credit. I’ll bet developers put together focus groups looking for just the right names to attract consumers to their projects.”
“I see, multi-disciplinary brainstorm sessions using linguistics experts and humorists to educate the public through the vehicle of parody… I can think of only a few names that clever, and they’re businesses, not subdivisions.”
“Like what?”
“Like the ‘Tyler Too Carwash.’ Remember? Right across the street from Tippecanoe Mall in Lafayette, Indiana, just a few miles from where Harrison fought the battle of Tippecanoe. That one’s pretty clever, playing off the famous Presidential campaign slogan of 1836…”
“You’re getting into some pretty obscure stuff, there. Do you really think the average passer-by appreciates the humor?”
“Well I appreciate it, anyway. And how about Grant’s Body Shop?”
“In Richmond?”
“Yeah. That’s a good one too, at least when you see the picture of the dead general’s corpse on the sign; and it could only work in the capital of the Confederacy. But I’m telling you, clever names like that are most certainly on a higher plane than ‘Canyon Crest.’”
“Huh?”
“‘Canyon Crest.’ We just passed it. How can a canyon have a crest, much less here in the desert flats? It insults the intelligence. No focus group would ever come up with a name like that, experts or not.”
“So what are you saying — there’s a ‘conspiracy’ to come up with these names? You always think everything is a conspiracy!”
“Obviously, these subdivision names are part of the media-industrial conspiracy to dumb down America.”
“Well I think you give them way too much credit. So far as I can tell they’re just a bunch of oxymorons.”
“What? The developments or the developers?”
“Both.”
©2009, 2013, 2019 Gregory N. Brown
Periodically I feature Flying Carpet columns from the past. Read this month’s featured column, “Goodbye, Don,” here.
It’s the story of a “long journey North,” Jean and I made in the Flying Carpet one 4th of July weekend, from Arizona all the way to the Canadian border to attend a funeral — and while there, we experienced our best “airport car” ever! The story first appeared in AOPA Flight Training magazine in October, 2004. I think you’ll get a kick out of it!
Photo: “Welcome to Baudette, Minnesota, Home of Willie Walleye. Walleye Capital of the World” See more photos HERE!
Greg
PS: Keep in mind that mid-calf white socks were still sort-of okay back then…
©2009 Gregory N. Brown
If you enjoyed this story, you’ll love Greg’s book, Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane. Autographed copies available!