By Steve Weaver

Quitting time came promptly at five o’clock and I was out the door and in my car in a flash. I drove as fast as I could without attracting police attention, to the airport where the Luscombe awaited me, tied securely down in the back row of parked airplanes. 

The old Stewart Airpark lay on the west side of the town, hard by the banks of the Ohio River, and was one of the few old-time flying fields that had survived into the 1960s. It was built in the 20s, when airplanes had little crosswind capability, and were constructed to enable a pilot to land into the wind, no matter which way the wind was blowing. The landing area consisted of acres of well-drained sod, some 1,800 by 3,100 feet in size, and from the air it looked like a great, green velvet tablecloth.