Frozen Underwear and Bottle Rockets

                Following Marilyn Monroe’s lead, I put my underwear in the freezer, but added socks and

T-shirt.  Prior to dressing for work as a mechanic at an aircraft repair station, I donned the frozen under-things, and was cool, at least for one brief moment.  Temperatures in Little Rock and most of the south had been above 100 for two weeks, hitting 110 a few times.  I worked the night shift, which began at 4 PM and concluded at midnight. Our only relief in the hangar came from floor fans that stood as tall as a man, but in such heat, blew only hot air. On this day, with the hangar full, High Speed Haxby and I had to work on the ramp.  He drew a single engine Beechcraft Bonanza, the owner demanding more cooling from the air conditioner.  (Look, Fella, in this weather, the AC can only do so much.)  Like the aircraft I drew, a West Wind business jet, affectionately known as a “Jew Canoe” since the Israel Aircraft Corporation held the type certificate, the Bonanza sat cooking on the ramp all day.  High Speed crawled down into the fuselage to bleed the system, but soon came crawling back out, his face pale and sweating.  He stood, leaned over, grabbed his knees and puked.  We all got a laugh out of that.  My West Wind was a simple tire change, but when I attempted to jack the right main gear, the jack sank into hot asphalt; I went back in and cut plywood to augment the jack pads.  With the job finished, I opened the cabin door to retrieve the logbook and was pushed back by a horrendous smell.  Apparently, the last passengers dined on lobster, but the flight crew failed to remove the leftovers or dump the potty.   Man, did it reek.

                 Our normal after-work ritual was to pool our money and send someone for beer, the cheapest beer they could find, the desire being quantity, not quality.  But on this night, and with the beer already in coolers, we headed for the Arkansas River to cool off and go for a ride in Tom’s boat.  Consequently, around 3 AM from the darkness of the Arkansas River, a boatload of us laid siege to downtown Little Rock that began with a barrage of bottle rockets and no doubt awoke businessmen and visitors in their high hotels.  Soon a police cruiser showed up at River Front Park and made the mistake of finding us with a spotlight to which we replied with a landing light designed for a Boeing 727 that we had mounted in a cutout gallon milk jug and wired to a 24 volt aircraft battery—you couldn’t leave it on too long or the jug melted.  Our spotlight being much brighter than the cops, theirs went dead, but we heard much yelling and saw them running toward the bank.  After flashing hotels with the landing light, we chose discretion and withdrew in darkness down the Arkansas River, two of us being pulled behind the boat on inner tubes; drunk, of course, and free of life jackets.  By the time we loaded the boat and headed our separate ways, dawn was breaking.  I could tell by the sky, it was going to be another hot one.

(Photograph of the author by Mitch "Sluggo" Easily, 1987, R.I.P., Sluggo)