Field trip

Twenty-some bright, eager rambunctious but well-behaved fourth graders arriving to explore, touch, feel and learn about airplanes. It has become an annual ritual. Mary Dueland, English teacher extraordinaire at Central, brings her class to my hangar to experience real airplanes.

The adventure is in conjunction with a book that her class is reading/studying at the moment. Involved in the fiction is a youngster, about their age, flying with her grandfather that has problems and makes a safe emergency landing in the wilds of Alaska. For this old pilot, airplanes are as ordinary as dirt, but for most of our kids today airplanes mean trips on a huge jet airliner; no chance to ride in, much less sit in or even touch a general aviation aircraft. At least for Mary's class, the world changes as they get to climb on, sit in, move the controls, talk to each other on a live interphone (headsets) system in actual live working light airplanes.

The weather gods smiled on us that morning a week or so ago, no wind, and bright sunshine just a beautiful early spring morning. I had just completed a flight lesson with a young man in a small two-place Cessna trainer, which we parked in front of my hangar. Two airplanes inside, one a tube-and-fabric trainer manufactured in 1946, and the other a larger four-place retractable landing gear personal aircraft. The kids crawled in and out of them all.

LifeTeam, the air ambulance aircraft located in McCook, also was parked in its usual spot close by my hangar. The flight crew in their snappy uniforms came to greet the children and show off their modern King Air airplane. The pilots and the medical team gave tours of their high tech ambulance equipped with the most modern medical equipment to save lives. They gave out pencils and what kid doesn't like a brand new lead pencil?

Kids were all over, moving flight controls, asking intelligent questions, eyes sparkling, having an enthusiastic good time. Teachers and adults trying to keep up with it all and answering the million questions from inquiring minds. It was a good time for all.

Even though it was the hour before lunch, Grannie Annie had to ply the youth with Sehnert's donut holes before they left. Nary a one refused and all spoke an appreciative thank you as they left.

Field trips. We all got to take them as youngsters in school. It was a chance to explore the adult world around us. Southwestern Nebraska is a fertile place to feed inquiring minds. We are agriculture country so how about field trips to a grain elevator, a machinery dealership or even a working farm? Most young kids have experienced none of the above. How about the technical end of an automobile dealer's shop. A trip through our hose plant or the center pivot manufacturing facility would/could be of interest to inquiring minds. How about the bakery a warm smell good place of business? Who knows, a seed just might be planted for one, hopefully many, of our youth to see their future right back here where they grew up. We need them and they will need a place to live and work in a not too distant future.

One of the field trips that I experienced as a youth sticks with my mind still. We toured the McCook packing plant as it was yet in operation. No animal was killed in our presence, but the warm carcasses were still being disassembled. We saw the hides removed. Then the halves were split and hung to cool. In another part of the plant we saw butchers cutting the roasts, chops and steaks that were familiar to our mother's kitchens. Then at the end of our tour, our guide handed out a treat for each of us, a cooked but cold wienie. Looked good to me and I ate mine but noticed that few others, a majority of the girls, had somehow lost their appetites.

Then a few days later after our recent field trip came a gracious note of thanks from the teacher for sharing our hangar. She noted that the kids all had a great time. It was English class and a written report was part of the exercise. Each child created a hand written note of thanks, carefully prepared with pencil on lined tablet paper. Many were embellished with drawings. Typical:

Thank you for letting us come and visit the airport. I learned what an inside of a plane looks like. My favorite part was when we got to put on the headsets. Thank you for the donuts. The life team airplane was really cool. The room where the airplanes were was really cool because of all the uniforms and awards hanging on the walls. Thank you again.

Sincerely,

Emma

Well, Emma, et al, it doesn't get any better than that. Truth be told, we adults probably enjoyed the morning the more being surrounded by the youth that is our future. We are indeed all blessed.

That is the way I saw it.

**Dick Trail