I Am Miss Texas
I was there to photograph the planes. I was allowed close, right up next to them, I even touched a few. My favorite one was the yellow one but I didn’t immediately remember why. I think I liked that it was called Miss Texas and had just that painted right there on it. That was enough. Through happenstance, I was then asked,
“Would you like to go up?”
Why, yes, I would, thank you.
I sat in the seat, was told how to work the release buckles, operate the canopy, the radio, the parachute strapped to my body and then this plane started moving. It felt just like I always thought it would. We went up into that sky and did loops, I think we did three.
please press play
I raced home later this day to look at the photographs, my father came over to look too and asked what kind of plane it was. I told him it was a T-6 Texan. I could hear the excitement in his voice,
“Like the one from that day in Florida?”
You see, in July, we had watched a yellow T-6 Texan fly by us then vanish into the sky. Moments later, we saw the crowds on the beach and heard a horrible story of no survivors. It had done a loop and then another and then went straight down into that emerald water before its third. The story we heard that day was that a bride was watching her father pilot this plane from our very beach when this happen, the day before her wedding.
You see, I had just been in a yellow T-6 Texan and I had just done three loops and I had forgotten.
