If you didn’t know how old you were, how old would you be? Would you be as bold and hopeful as an 18-year-old? Or maybe as wise and soulful as a 70-year-old who’s seen it all but is hungry for more?
I like to think that I’m the same silly, adventurous, love-the-whole-world girl I was at 5.
When I was little, my family had a hard time keeping me out of the water. I was notorious for “falling” into the pool when I wasn’t supposed to be swimming or crying until my very patient mother let me wear a bathing suit under my clothes to school. She tells a great story about an annual trip to Olan Mills that was ruined by my desire to be a little mermaid. After she had my hair pulled back into perfect pigtails and had smoothed out the wrinkles on the pink taffeta dress that had been passed down from my older cousin, she set out to dress my temperamental little brother. In her frustration, she agreed to let me play in the front yard and over my brother’s screams, warned that I was not to turn on the garden hose or step foot into the baby pool for any reason. She didn’t say that I was forbidden from playing in the neighbor’s sprinkler, and she found me about 10 minutes later, leaping joyfully through a curtain of water with dripping curls and droopy ruffles.
My affinity for water was captured on film once. Someone snapped a picture of me in mid-air, knees bent and hands prepped for a perfect dive into a kiddy pool filled with no more than a foot of water. It’s the picture I cling to when the edges of who I am blur from too many meetings, impossible deadlines and those moments when I have to (in my mama’s words) put on my big-girl pants. I see that girl in the midst of a mighty dive into a pool not made to accommodate such a zealous leap, and I realize that I was fearless as a child; I was bold. I was living in the moment rather than worrying about where I was going to land.
I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to get back to that girl.
There is some kind of magic I find in exploring these seemingly forgotten towns across Kentucky that brings her out. My grandpa used to keep pennies in his pocket when we went to the pool at my cousin Anita’s house. He would pull out a handful and throw them high into the air. I can remember watching the pennies sparkle in the sunshine in that sweet moment before they hit the water and began their descent to the bottom, where I’d scoop them up and rush back to the surface with my prize. It’s sort of like that as I’m out on the road; I hold my breath, dive deeper and hope to find the shiny ones hiding in the quiet spaces of this too-big world.
I’ve come to believe that the magic is contagious. It’s in the way my travel companion leans forward in her seat as we pass through a new town or the carefree way she rolls down her window to let her hand dance on the wind like a wild wave. The magic is in bare feet on the dashboard, singing at the top of our lungs and allowing ourselves the luxury of looking at the world through wonder-filled eyes.
If anyone is receptive to the magic of the road, it’s my friend, Brittany. We’ve been friends since ninth grade when someone pointed out that we look enough alike to be sisters, and when we’re together, despite the years that have passed, we don’t act much older than we did then. As we drove to Jonesville we talked about all of the things we want to be whenever we get around to growing up, stopped to rescue a turtle on a country road and snapped pictures of each other outside the Jonesville General Store, where the Grant/Owen County line runs right through the middle of the street.
Inside the store, we sat on a bench sipping Cokes with a midday gathering of farmers who took bites out of bologna on white bread sandwiches while shooting the breeze. They told us that Jonesville had once been a hopping town with a hardware store, bank, post office and garage. The general store had been there since the 1920s and had witnessed the extinction of several businesses, including a law practice and the office of Doc Roberts, the man who had brought each and every one of these gentlemen with the beautiful, sun-worn faces into this world.
We bid farewell to our new friends and set out to see the rest of Jonesville, an unincorporated, farming town hit hard by the steady decline in tobacco prices in recent decades. We got a good laugh when we noticed a few of the mailboxes had only the first names of the residents (no need for a last name or address), and we parked the car on a hill and stood, savoring a view that made us feel like we were on top of the world.
Driving with the windows down and the radio turned up, we noticed a windsock like the ones you see at airports, flapping against the backdrop of blue. We drove until we found an entrance to the air field and when we did, we were surprised to see houses peppered along a grassy runway. I parked in front of a hanger and walked around my car until I could get a signal to call the number for Carl and Kathy Cummins that was listed on the Owen Air Park sign.
I could tell from the moment I heard his voice that I was going to like Carl very much. Some folks have a way about them; they exude a little more light than the rest of us and when you’re near them, you can’t help but shine brighter, too. I explained why I was interrupting his afternoon and with a hearty laugh, he said, “Honey, who on earth would send you to Jonesville, Kentucky, to hunt a story?”
We sat with Carl on the runway, soaking up the afternoon sun, as he told us all he knew about the town. I’ve learned that the folks with the best stories rarely realize just how interesting they are and instead, they do their best to point out the good in others-a trait I much admire. We listened patiently until he slapped his legs and said, “That’s about all I know, girls,” before I asked him how he ended up in Jonesville.
“I’m here chasing dreams,” he said with a smile.
That dream began when he watched his older brother, William, go off to serve his country as a World War II glider pilot. In those days, glider pilots were admired for their heroism and quick thinking during the thick of battle. The U.S. military did not have a team of glider pilots until after the attack on Pearl Harbor and in an effort to recruit men for the program, launched a media campaign that captured the imagination of young men with slogans like: “You too can soar to victory on silent wings!” Too young to follow in his brother’s footsteps, Carl dreamed of the day he could take to the air on his own silent wings.
His time came once his brother’s service was over. Using money he had gotten from the G.I. Bill, William bought two planes, opened a small airport in Harrodsburg and began teaching locals how to fly. His first pupil was Carl, who was just a few months shy of 13 when he took to the air for the first time.
Sixty-four years have passed since that first flight, and somehow, when Carl stands in the field outside his Jonesville home and looks up at the sky, he has all of the wonder of that 13-year-old boy who longed to feel the sun on his back and the wind brushing his face.
In 2001, Carl and Kathy found the farm where they now live and decided that if he ever wanted to make his dream of building an aviation community a reality, this was the time. Just a few days after he bid on the farm, he watched with the rest of the world as the Twin Towers came crashing down on the streets of New York City. With air traffic halted indefinitely, those closest to Carl told him to get out of the deal while he still could, but he held firm and in 2003, began selling lots for hanger homes on the street he named Pilot’s Dream Way.
The Cummins’ hanger home looks just like any other house except where you’d expect the garage to be is a wide room built to shelter a plane. Carl often wanders through the door in the kitchen out to his hanger to work on the plane he’s been building from scratch for 10 years. Just a short stroll from their home is the hanger where he and other pilots keep their “flying” planes. On sunny days, they drive the planes out of the hanger, onto the grass runway that is Carl’s front yard and take off into the wild blue yonder.
“I don’t ever want to grow up if growing up means not flying,” Carl said as he leaned against his plane. “The minute you stop seeing the world with wonder is the minute you’re not living anymore. I want to go out saying, ‘What a ride!’”
For the rest of my life, I’ll keep that image of Carl leaning against his homemade flying machine bottled in my heart alongside the one of me diving fearlessly. When the magic starts to fade, I’ll take a few sips to remember that you miss out on a lot of life if you’re too worried about where you’re going to land.
If you didn’t know how old you were, how old would you be? At my very best, I’m still that same silly, adventurous, love-the-whole-world girl I was at 5 and thanks to my new friend, the youngest old man I’ve ever met, I have the courage to dive into the pool of life.
Amanda Hervey
This article appears in the June/July 2010 issue of Kentucky Monthly.
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