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Clayton
Fisher's Greatest Adventures
"Part Three"
by Clayton Fisher
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I like looking down at the Redtailed hawks and buzzards.
I like to watch um quartering past under my Chinook. I
can watch um coming out on the other side and
disappearing behind and 100 feet below me. You really
can’t do that in a Cessna 180 or a Cherokee. You can
get where you’re going slick and fast, if that’s
what you want to do, but you can’t pull up beside a
flock of mallards and quack “Howdy!” at um. No, I
don’t shoot the buggers, that’s illegal you know.
Well, one evening I was drifting along about 500 feet
AGL watching a Redtail trying to catch him one last
thermal for the day, when all of a sudden this great
photo just sort of popped up in front of me. I was
flying over the Washita River. It meanders along about
10 miles from our farm thru some pretty good farmland.
Grows good alfalfa, wheat, soybeans, cotton – about
anything a man might want to grow in this Oklahoma
climate. Because the land is flat; and because the
control freaks haven’t had their way and channelled
the old girl by cutting a straight ditch thru her flow
path, she still has some character. It’s like she’s
trying to slow down and smell the roses, as she looks
the country over on her way to the Gulf of Mexico. They
have tamed her somewhat with flood control impoundments
on her upper tributaries, but she still kicks butt every
so often when it rains a bunch.
But there was the shot – The Windie River trying to
find the sea.
She’ll make a short stop at Lake Texoma and then join
up with the Red River just for company. The Red River is
the border between Oklahoma and Texas. As it leaves
Oklahoma it rambles thru Louisiana disappearing into the
swamps and bayous of the Mississippi delta. Boy! Now
there’s a place I’d like to fly some day – what do
ya think! Cajun country!!
But anyway, let me back up a little. I’ve got this
cousin, once or twice removed. I can’t keep up with
all that lineage stuff. It’s just too complicated.
It’s like reading FAA regulations trying to figure out
how to keep from doing something wrong. But I know
we’re related because we both like music, and that’s
enough proof of kinship for me. I’m also pretty sure
I’ve already done something wrong.
Beau Haddock lives in Kentucky and picks a mean 12
string guitar, and sings. He has one CD out called
Magnolia and is trying to work up another one. One of
the songs it will be called the Windiest Rivers Find the
Sea. I’m thinking he might need a good shot for a CD
cover. And since I’m always looking for a flying
project, why not try to find that perfect photograph.
And while I’m flying around looking, maybe I’ll
smell that new mowed alfalfa in the rising summer air.
Or maybe the sun glint thru the clear lexan of some
morning sunrise will remind me how great it is to be
alive and flying my own airplane over good green country
close to home. And maybe some day an ole Redtail will
bank away from my Chinook, glance over his shoulder and
look me in the eye. Maybe just for a second we’ll both
realize we’re –well- cousins, once or twice removed.
It’s a strange situation
A wild occupation
Just living my life like a song.
Song – The Wino and I Know
By Jimmy Buffet
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