July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Get in, don't get caught (9/17/03)
Dear Reader
Mike Snyder hit the button as I was heading out of the newsroom.
On my way to Marion for a meeting, I mentioned that I was heading up to Bryant, then taking Ind. 18 over.
"Is it Montpelier that has the jet fighter in its park?" he asked.
And before I could say, "yes," I was swept back into a pocket of childhood memory that had been forgotten.
Portland used to have a jet fighter in one of its parks.
Specifically, Portland use to have a Korean War-era jet fighter plonked in a portion of Weiler-Wilson Park near what was then known as "the rec" and today is the headquarters of the street department.
The hair on my arms stood up as I remembered it.
Suddenly, I was about 11 again. The jet fighter — glorious and decrepit at the same time — had been deposited in a city park, probably thanks to a veterans' organization. As an object, it was undeniably cool. Kids stared at it, marveled at it, but ultimately didn't know quite what to make of it.
Was it a monument? Or was it a piece of playground equipment?
With no clear instructions from our elders, we decided upon the latter.
I'm not sure how long it took for someone to figure out the secret. But they did figure it out.
Some brave soul discovered that if you were brave enough, and small enough, you could climb up the dark steel tunnel of the air intakes on the wings of the jet fighter and get inside the amazing metal beast.
The section of the Defense Department that was in charge of getting rid of surplus airplanes by giving them to veterans' organizations had gutted the plane. There was no seat inside the cockpit. No control panel. Nothing that could be of any interest.
Except for the fact that you could get inside.
While local history doesn't record who was the first kid to do it, it's safe to say that within weeks dozens of us had made the claustrophobic journey into the plane's fuselage.
I was among those who found it pretty harrowing, being boosted up to climb into a dark steel-lined hole. Still, it was oddly rewarding to make that journey and prove one's self, crawling out on the other side into the innards of the old jet, with yellow light streaming in through the plastic of the cockpit.
Memory doesn't give me any firm grip on how long this went on. Kids have secrets, but adults find out. How long were we climbing into the jet at the park? Who knows?
But they found out.
And it ended. The mystery. The claustrophobia. The challenge. The fun.
It all ended.
And the jet, battered and rusting and invaded and empty, was removed, leaving nothing more than fragments of childhood memory and nostalgia in its wake.
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On my way to Marion for a meeting, I mentioned that I was heading up to Bryant, then taking Ind. 18 over.
"Is it Montpelier that has the jet fighter in its park?" he asked.
And before I could say, "yes," I was swept back into a pocket of childhood memory that had been forgotten.
Portland used to have a jet fighter in one of its parks.
Specifically, Portland use to have a Korean War-era jet fighter plonked in a portion of Weiler-Wilson Park near what was then known as "the rec" and today is the headquarters of the street department.
The hair on my arms stood up as I remembered it.
Suddenly, I was about 11 again. The jet fighter — glorious and decrepit at the same time — had been deposited in a city park, probably thanks to a veterans' organization. As an object, it was undeniably cool. Kids stared at it, marveled at it, but ultimately didn't know quite what to make of it.
Was it a monument? Or was it a piece of playground equipment?
With no clear instructions from our elders, we decided upon the latter.
I'm not sure how long it took for someone to figure out the secret. But they did figure it out.
Some brave soul discovered that if you were brave enough, and small enough, you could climb up the dark steel tunnel of the air intakes on the wings of the jet fighter and get inside the amazing metal beast.
The section of the Defense Department that was in charge of getting rid of surplus airplanes by giving them to veterans' organizations had gutted the plane. There was no seat inside the cockpit. No control panel. Nothing that could be of any interest.
Except for the fact that you could get inside.
While local history doesn't record who was the first kid to do it, it's safe to say that within weeks dozens of us had made the claustrophobic journey into the plane's fuselage.
I was among those who found it pretty harrowing, being boosted up to climb into a dark steel-lined hole. Still, it was oddly rewarding to make that journey and prove one's self, crawling out on the other side into the innards of the old jet, with yellow light streaming in through the plastic of the cockpit.
Memory doesn't give me any firm grip on how long this went on. Kids have secrets, but adults find out. How long were we climbing into the jet at the park? Who knows?
But they found out.
And it ended. The mystery. The claustrophobia. The challenge. The fun.
It all ended.
And the jet, battered and rusting and invaded and empty, was removed, leaving nothing more than fragments of childhood memory and nostalgia in its wake.
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