Pushkin

Everything about Curtis Emerson Lemay begins with his love of airplanes.

In his memoirs which are otherwise written in plain straight ahead prose,

there's one moment of pure poetry.

Suddenly in the air above me appeared a flying machine.

It came from nowhere.

There it was and I wanted to catch it.

It was 1910.

Lemay was five. He was in the backyard of the struggling neighborhood

where his family lived in Columbus, Ohio. He goes on.

Children can muster enormous strength in ideal and idea,

in all their effort to grasp the trophy they desire.

And nobody was holding me back.

No one was standing close to say, look, you're just a little child.

That airplane is a way up there in the air and no matter how fast you run,

you can't keep up with it. You can't reach high enough to seize it.

I just thought that I might be able to grab the airplane and have it for my own.

And possess it always. So I lit out after it.

Little Curtis ran across neighbors' backyards, vacant lots, down sidewalks.

Then it was gone.

It's wonderful sound and force and the freakish illusion of the thing,

a thing made of wood and metal piercing the air.

...