March 18, 2021
Volume 51 - No. 11
By Sam Lowe
Joe Hughes leaned me against the stationary back brace, cinched the leather strap tightly around my waist and cautioned, “Once we take off, don't mess with either of these. Not the strap, not the brace.” There was no reason I would contest his warning. We were standing on the upper wing of an old Stearman biplane, and Hughes was a headliner for the air show he was promoting in Mesa, Arizona, and a veteran of this type of activity. Conversely, I was a longtime coward afflicted The Paper - 760.747.7119
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with acrophobia (fear of heights), aviophobia (fear of flying), and poultryphobia (fear of chickening out in front of my peers).
Hughes then stretched smaller straps across my feet, fastened them and assured me that I couldn't fall off, even if I tried. Even if I tried?
I was about to ascend more than a half-mile off the ground while attached to the top of a double-wing airplane, my quivering body held in place by three dinky little straps and
he thinks I'm going to try to fall off?
tonsils out.”
Hughes didn't notice. He patted me on the shoulders and delivered more advice. “Keep your mouth closed while we're in the air,” he said. “If you don't, the wind might blow your
He checked to make sure my goggles were secure, then left me and climbed down into the cockpit, leaving me as a lone forlorn creature straddling the wing of an airplane and wondering if The Phoenix Gazette, my employer, had any sense of the sacrifice I was about to make to get The Big Story, as we called them back in those halcyon days when reporters were
Prior to his declaration, even the mere thought of such an occurrence had never entered into my mind. Once he said it, the possibility of it happening attached itself to my worry button and the two formed an uneasy relationship, a bit like a keg of beer at a Napa Valley wine tasting.
Even today, I do not have proper words to describe how non-reassuring that was.
On a Wing and a Prayer . . . See Page 2