Flying Low

An essay by Robert Marcom

The heat of South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley is not to be trifled with. I moved to the Valley with my third wife (now don’t get me started on that–) and daughter.

I was young, adventurous and somewhat naive about risk. I took a job as loader for a crop dusting operation. I’m sure you’ve seen crop dusters. They are tiny specks in the sky, which grow into noisy yellow Ag-Cat(tm) flying machines, spewing noxious fumes and spray — in dive-bombing mode.

I was the guy who mixed, then loaded the Noxious Fumes and Spray on the Ag-Cat. One day I stood in the hot sun of South Texas, mixing a brew (which I would learn was the same chemical the military called Agent Orange) and trying not to inhale the fumes, when I saw a car pull up just outside the fence. The policy was: no citizens inside the fence. I dropped the paddle with which I’d been mixing the NF&S, and walked to the fence, greeting the man and his wife as I went.

“Hi folks. Can I help you?”

“Is this an air strip?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir. It’s a private airstrip. It belongs to the Redolent Air Agriculture Service.”

“Air Agriculture? You mean crop dusting?”

The man’s wife, a woman in her late forties with a flowery scarf tied tightly around her neck, spoke up. “We saw a crop duster just this morning! They fly very dangerously. Don’t they honey?” she said, looking to Honey for verification.

Honey’s response was preempted, as our yellow Ag-Cat roared overhead. There are some very unique sounds in life: the sound of a Harley Davidson motorcycle; the sound of your child’s laugh; the sound of a 13 cylinder rotary aircraft engine — with the throttle pushed to the fire wall.

Honey, and wife nearly left the ground themselves. Benny, a returned Vietnam Veteran helicopter pilot, added abusive amounts of power in order to stay in the air. Benny loved to do that; he would sneak up on me in a silent glide, then scare the bejeebers out of me by running the engine up to full throttle just barely over my head.

We watched as Benny made a cross-wind turn, lined up on the narrow dirt strip, and kissed the clay with the wheels of the aircraft. The side of the aircraft’s pilot well folded down, and Benny unfolded his six-foot-and-change frame from the cramped cockpit.

Mrs. Honey started talking before he reached our group. “Are you a crop duster? That must be exciting! Do you fly very low?”

Benny grinned; “Well, yes ma’am. I do fly low. It’s the only way to land an airplane.” His grin was charming enough that she didn’t even notice the sarcasm.

Benny could, and often did, charm the ladies.

Mrs. Honey continued, “We saw a crop duster do some very dangerous things. We think he should be reported! Don’t we Honey. You tell them…”

Mr. Honey surged in with, “That’s right. Why, do you know — the fellow flew below the electric wires?”

I could barely contain myself. I’ve seen Benny fly inverted, just above stall-speed along side a road, in order to see if he could look down a woman motorist’s top.

Benny grew very solemn, shaking his head from side to side.

“The fool. The incredible fool. A man like that has no business in our profession.” He turned, and walked away — leaving me to contain myself in front of our guests.

Copyright © 1999-2008 by Robert Marcom
All rights reserved.

Author’s 1999 Bio:

Robert Marcom aka RRascal is a published travel writer and essayist. He resides in Houston Texas. Robert is the moderator for an on-line writers’ community: Net Author. You can reach Robert by email.  RRascal spends lots of his spare time loitering in the #Authors on the Undernet chat channel.

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