Our whole family of eight loaded up one late afternoon and drove to Axtell KS to have some fun at the Carnival. Carnivals consisted of a few rides (usually a Ferris wheel and merry-go-round), 3 or 4 sideshows (like "See the heaviest man in the world" or "See the lady with a baby growing out from the middle of her stomach"), and 3 or 4 food stands. We never had much money to spend so we picked and chose carefully to make our money go for the most fun.

Another activity we pursued at carnivals was looking for Wrigley gum wrappers that folks had thrown away on the ground. You could send in a number of wrappers and get prizes from the Wrigley Company in Chicago.

Seems like we spent an awful lot of time looking down as we walked around the grounds. Benny Bob was a real hawk at this activity. He came up with more things to put in his pocket. He was about 7 years old then.

It wasn't at this carnival but at another one a couple of years later that I had an interesting experience with my friend Vic Roper. We were just walking around and talking not spending any money at a Barnes carnival when I spotted a small tin box on the ground. Oh, yeah. There were lots of interesting things to find if you just kept looking down while you walked. Well, this little tin box held a number of strange-looking rubber loops, something I'd never ever seen before. I opened the box and showed it to Vic, and can you believe it: he grabbed that box out of my hands without even asking permission and stuck it in his pocket. I asked, "What's going on, Vic? Those are mine." He replied, "You don't want to know about this and I am not going to tell you." I didn't put up a fight over it. I knew I didn't have any use for it.

Not too many years later I learned what that little box contained. It was a box of condoms! Well you see, I was the local Methodist preacher's kid and Vic was not going to be the one to tell me about those rubbers. Not at all.

Many years later, about 1985, Vic and I got re-acquainted after years and years of separation. And I had my chance to chide him for delaying my sex education! We had fun discussing that in the presence of our wives, Katherine and Alice.

Back to the Axtell carnival in 1934.

At the edge of the carnival grounds there was a pasture. An airplane was out there warming its engine. We all hurried over there to see it. The plane had made no flights yet, but it was exciting to examine from a distance, since we'd never ever been that close to a real plane before. Remember that this was back in 1934 and there just weren't many airplanes in the world then. Very few airports. No jet planes at all. Our plane in Axtell was a single propeller job that would carry four people: the pilot and three passengers.

The pilot strolled over to the crowd of, I'd say, about 100 people, and said, "Would any of you children like to take a ride?" We couldn't believe our ears, when he added, "It will be free. Won't cost you a cent!" Charlotte and I took one quick look at each other and our hands shot into the air immediately. The pilot pointed to us to "Come on", and with another kid we boarded the plane. Wow! Were we excited! Charlotte was about 13 and I was 12.

We fastened seat belts (they had them in planes but not in cars in those days) and the plane was taxied over to the take-off strip of the pasture. There was no runway there, just a flat area in the grassy field. Preparing to take off, the pilot roared the engine. The plane was a single wing Boeing. Charlotte and I kept looking at each other and grinning. We couldn't believe our good fortune.

Off we went on a bumpy ride, roaring into the blue for a smooth ride. We got up to about 200 yards in the sky and I looked out my window and saw a farmer down below just getting ready to milk his cow. He had a 1-legged stool in one hand and a bucket in the other. He was looking up at us when I stuck my arm out the window to wave. Big mistake! We waved to each other and then I had trouble getting my arm back in the window. I had never traveled at that speed before and the wind would not let go of my arm. Daddy had never driven our car that fast and I had not idea about wind speed. I'll tell you, there was no more thrusting my arm out of that plane window!

We circled around the countryside for a few minutes. Charlotte and I had never been up in the air so high before. Our highest elevation ever was when we climbed the water tower in Barnes. It was 100 feet high and that height nearly scared us to death because we had a fear of falling off the steps of the tower. We had no fear of falling in the plane.

It was great sport looking down at the carnival grounds and seeing our family and other people all waving to us. We waved back -- through the plane window, which was made of isinglass (no plastics in this world yet).

The landing was rough and bumpy but fairly smooth. Once down you better believe we had fun telling everyone about how it was to be so high in the sky that "all the uncles looked like aunts!" (ants) !?!?