Page 2 - I want to be a pilot

     One winter day while I was in grade school, I saw an airplane parked by the fence adjacent to the school yard.  I hoped school would be out before the airplane left. "I have to see this airplane!"  School would be out before the airplane left, and I ran out to see it, touch it, examine it, see who made it, and what kind of plane was it.  The soft falling snow made the atmosphere that surrounds the airplane all the more mysterious and exciting. There were pelts from coyotes hanging on the wing struts, and that only added to the excitement of what I was seeing. The airplane was a Taylorcraft, a two place side by side airplane on ski's. YES! I'm hooked. I WANT to be a pilot.      I was thirteen years of age, when I was building a model plane on the dining room table. My father would walk into the room and question me as to what I was doing. I told him that I was building a model airplane, and he said, "That's for babies to do. Why don't you do something worth while?"  I told him that if I ever got another dime I would buy a  model just like it, and I would build it better than the one I'm building, and if I ever got a dime after that I would buy a model plane just like it and it would be better still!
     "Harlan, you will never learn to fly, and if you did learn to fly you could never afford to buy an airplane and if you did ever get an airplane it would be useless and to what good would you ever get out of having it?"
     I would never ever forget the remarks that my father had made to me concerning airplanes.  The remarks would be branded in the back of my mind. In all my spare time, I would wonder about airplanes, anxious to take a ride in one someday.
     September 6, 1947 I would solo in a Piper J-3 Cub, N92288, at Minot, North Dakota.
     Time would go by and I would join the United States Navy. I would go overseas to Guam, MI. Almost every night, I would dream about airplanes. In almost all the dreams, I'm going to take an airplane home to Montana, but in all the dreams, none of the flights or to be flights to Montana were to be successful.
     Around June 20, 1950, I would arrive back in the United States (a strange story just about my arrival). June 23 I bought my first airplane. I'm still continuing to dream about flying home and in my own airplane.
     Now that I have the airplane, I will fly my airplane home on leave.  Harry S. Truman says NO.  All leaves are cancelled, and we will invade Korea.  The dreams, no matter how dissappointing, are still like dreams would be, I have my own airplane and still can't go home.
     One day previous to January 9, 1952, I would see the airplane, a fiesty looking little airplane, a Piper PA-17 Vagabond.  I loved the Piper J-3 Cub, but I was never able to take it to Montana, and I would one day sell it.  The dreams of going to Montana has nearly faded.  I will never ever make it to Montana in my own airplane.