The Man Called Brown Condor

by Thomas E. Simmons

  A cup of coffee later, John paid his bill and walked out to the plane where onlookers were still gathered. “It’s a beautiful ship you got there,” one of them said.

  “Thank you. It’s a good flying plane.” He answered a few other questions about the Stinson while he climbed up to check the fuel caps. They were secure. The line boy removed the ladder and John climbed into the cockpit. He called out “Clear!” Hayes nodded. John cranked the engine and taxied out.

  The group stood outside to watch the blue Stinson lift off and turn to the southeast, and then they filed into the line shack. “Well, that was something,” one of them said. Another walked over to the coffeepot. Two cups from the rack of mugs sat on the desk with a little coffee left in them. “Dammit, Hayes, did you let that nigger drink out of my cup?”

  Hayes looked at him. “No. I knew you would whine. I used your cup. He drank out of mine. I’ll tell you something else since you brought it up. That ‘nigger,’ as you put it, was Haile Selassie’s personal pilot. He’s just been through a war in Africa and from what I’ve read in the news and heard on the radio, I’d lay money he could fly rings around your dumb ass.”

  The rest of the group thought that was funny.

  Hayes walked out of the office and saw the young black line boy still looking toward the sky where John’s plane was just a tiny speck. “Henry,” called Hayes, “you been doing a good job around here. I guess maybe you’ve earned yourself a plane ride. You want one?”

  The young man broke into a wide grin. “Yes, sir! Mr. Hayes, I been wantin’ one since the first day I come out here.”

  “Well, go climb up in front of that WACO. We’ll take her around the field a couple of times.”

  Henry ran out to the biplane. “I told my daddy I’d get a ride, but he didn’t believe it.”

  “If you can find your house from up there, we’ll fly over it and you can wave at him. He ought to be home from work by now.” Hayes stood on the lower wing and helped fasten the safety harness of a very happy, young black man.

  In the late afternoon sunlight, John’s graceful Stinson circled the campus at Tuskegee and then settled gently on a freshly mowed field nearby. Shortly after the plane came to rest near the fence, several automobiles pulled to a stop beside the Stinson where John was standing. From the first car, two men got out and walked over to him. The first was John’s old friend, Captain A. J. Neely, the college registrar. Close behind him was Dr. F. D. Patterson, president of Tuskegee.

  Patterson offered his hand. “Welcome home, Colonel Robinson. We are very proud to have you with us again.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “We plan to have supper at my home. After supper the teachers and staff would love to meet you. Tomorrow we thought you could address the students at the summer session. Then the folks at Meridian and Jackson want us to call and let them know when you will be there. You can see we have a lot planned for you, Colonel. I hope you don’t mind too much.”

  John smiled. “I’ve kinda gotten used to it. But I tell you what. Supper sounds fine. All I had for lunch was a root beer and peanut butter crackers.”

  “Well, John, we didn’t plan anything fancy. We thought you might want a little southern cooking. How does fried chicken, field peas, candied yams, and apple pie with ice cream sound?”

  “President Patterson, those Italians must have killed me after all, ’cause it sounds like I’ve died and gone to heaven. Now if you tell me I can have hot biscuits and buttered grits with breakfast in the morning, I’ll know it’s true.”

  They laughed and started for the car.

  The Tuskegee Messenger in town reported at great length about the visit of “one of the boys enrolled at Tuskegee in the early twenties” who now returned a celebrity. Recounting John’s appearance before the student body, the newspaper stated, “In presenting Colonel Robinson, President Patterson referred with pride to the fine record of this Tuskegee graduate in blazing the trail for Negro youth in the field of aviation and proving to the world beyond doubt the Negro’s capacity for accuracy, endurance, skill, and courage.” The article ended by saying, “A course of instruction in aeronautics is being planned by the Department of Mechanical Industries at Tuskegee and Mr. Robinson is scheduled to return as instructor of the course.”

  John knew things were not going to be quite that simple. He held long discussions with school officials during which he explained the requirements of setting up a school of aeronautics. He realized such a program was still a long way off. The school simply did not have the finances available. What did happen as a result of the meeting was a firm commitment by Tuskegee to continue to work toward the establishment of such a school.

  After his address to the students, John was short of time and went directly to the plane. He had two stops to make before flying home to Gulfport. He was expected to make talks at Meridian and Jackson Mississippi. He checked the plane, thanked Patterson and Neeley, cranked up the engine, waved to the students lining the fence, and took off. Flying almost due west he passed Montgomery and followed the Alabama River until it turned south at Selma. He was happy. It was a pilot’s day: sunshine, clean air, and a sky decorated with white fluffs of fair-weather clouds.

  By the time he passed Demopolis where the Black Warrior and Tombigbee rivers join to flow southward to Mobile Bay, John knew he’d had one coffee too many at breakfast. He had been in such a hurry to leave he skipped the usual trip to the restroom before the flight. Now he was sorry as the urgency of nature got his attention. To solve the problem, he needed to make an unscheduled stop. Some miles west of Demopolis he spotted what appeared to be a clear, freshly mown field near a gravel highway. The field was just behind what looked like a country store. He made a low pass over the area. The field was clear and level, no electric or phone wires. No sweat. He banked around, lined up on the field, and put the Stinson down gently. Halfway through the landing roll, he felt a bump followed by a strong pull toward the right. He was rolling too slow for the rudder to be effective so he applied hard left brake to keep the plane from ground looping.

  Once stopped, he cut the engine and climbed down, already knowing what he would find. He squatted down beside the right wheel. “Damn. Flat as hell.” What was worse, the sidewall was badly cut, there would be no fixing the tire and tube.

  John stood up and looked around. No traffic on the road and no human as far as he could see. He relieved himself—which had been the reason for landing. When finished, he walked down the track the right wheel had made through the short grass. It didn’t take long to find the cause of his cut tire. Lying a foot to the side of the track was the dirt-encrusted, jagged top half of a broken gallon jug. Hell of a place to throw an empty jug. He reckoned the mowing tractor had broken it. John took off his uniform blouse (he had worn his uniform for his appearance at Meridian), slung it over the pilot’s seat in the plane, walked across the field to the fence, climbed over it, and started down the road toward the store.

  Most of the barn-red paint had weathered off the pine board siding of the building. A wide porch ran across the width of the storefront covered by a tin hip roof that extended out over a single gasoline pump. Across the facade above the hip roof were the words, painted in faded, foot-high letters, “Feed, Groceries, Hardware, Dry Goods.” Several signs were nailed to the wall under the hip roof. The largest read “Coca-Cola 5¢.” A poster in the window had a border made up of pictures of airplanes. In the center it advertised Wings Cigarettes. There was a handmade sign on a piece of cardboard that read “For sale, 22 Model-T, Runs, $25.”

  John walked up the well-worn, wooden steps and opened the screen door. Inside, three naked light bulbs hanging by their cords from the ceiling were spaced evenly down the center of the room. There were no windows in the side of the building, just long shelves of merchandise. A large attic fan, installed through a hole cut in the ceiling, labored noisily. An elderly man dressed in khaki pants and shirt and a white bib apron was sitting on a stool behind the counte
r working on a ledger. He looked up and eyed John walking through the screen door.

  “I didn’t hear you drive up. What you want?”

  “I don’t have a car. I need to use a telephone. Do you have one?”

  “Yep. We got one.” he motioned at a wooden telephone box hanging on the wall behind him. “I ain’t seen you ’round here before. You say you walked clear out here?”

  “Well, I didn’t walk here, exactly. I flew.”

  The man looked up at John. “You trying to fool with me, boy?”

  “My plane is in the field just back of here.”

  “The hell you say! You mean to tell me you landed an airplane right out there behind my store?”

  “You can see it from the edge of the front porch,” John said. “Come on and I’ll show you.”

  The man came out from behind the counter and followed John outside. “Well I’ll be damned. You flew that thing here by yourself? How far you come?”

  “Started in Chicago. Landed here to take a rest on my way to Meridian. I cut a tire. I need to call the Meridian airport to see if they can get me a new one.”

  “Chicago! Well I reckon it’ll be alright to make your call,” the man said, walking back in the store, “but the operator will have to tell me what it’s gonna cost. I’ll have to charge you.” He walked behind the counter to the phone box fixed to the wall, picked up the receiver, and listened a moment then spoke into the mouthpiece protruding from the phone box. “Say, Mrs. Hinton, this is Duley Perkins, that’s right, at the store. I wonder if ya’ll would mind lettin’ me have this line for an important call, long distance. That’s right, long distance. I got a fellow here who landed an airplane. He’s a colored fellow, too. That’s right, a colored fellow. Well, you might never heard of such, but he done it. Yes, ma’am. I sure will.” He paused, turned to John. “We got a five party line on this thing.” He turned the crank on the side of the phone box. “Operator? That you Pearl? This is Duley. Yeah, at the store. Listen, I got a fellow here wants to call Meridian. When he gets through stay on the line to tell me how much to charge for the call. That’s right. Here I’ll let you talk to him.” He turned to John. “Here you are. Come around the counter here. Just tell her who you want.”

  “Hello, ma’am, I’d like to speak to someone at the flying service in Meridian. Yes, ma’am at the airport.”

  A short while later a distant sounding voice came on the line. “Key Brothers Flying Service.”

  “This is John Robinson, I’m over here just west of Demopolis.”

  “I’m Al Key. Can you speak a little louder? You say you’re west of Demopolis?”

  “Yes, sir. I blew a tire on a Stinson and I wonder if someone over there can get me some help. I’ll need a new tire and tube and tools to change it out.”

  “You the Robinson that flew in Ethiopia? Supposed to make some kind of speech here today.”

  “Yes, sir, I am. Are you one of the Key brothers that set the world endurance record?”

  “That’s right. Look here, there must be a thousand colored folks at the field already. I’ll come over and get you myself before we have a riot or something out here. If you can get the wheel off your plane, we’ll bring it back here with you. We got a tire and tube to fit it. My boys can mount ’em while you talk to these people. Then we’ll get you and the wheel back to your plane. That sound alright?”

  “Mr. Key, that would be mighty fine of you. I’ll pay for the service. Hang on just a minute and I’ll get Mr. Perkins here to tell you exactly where we are.”

  “Just tell him you’re at Perkins’ store on Highway 80, four miles west of the Tombigbee Bridge.”

  John relayed the location to Al Key. Then he paid for the phone call, borrowed a screw type automobile jack and a toolbox from the storekeeper, and returned to the plane where he jacked up the right gear strut and removed the wheel. Afterwards he returned to the store and bought a quart of milk, a tin of sardines, and a box of crackers for lunch. He sat out on the porch talking with Mr. Perkins. They heard the sound of an aircraft directly overhead. By the time they walked out to the pasture, Al Key was waiting for them beside his plane, a Curtiss Robin.

  A year earlier, Al Key and his brother Fred had set a world endurance record flying a high- wing Curtiss Robin monoplane modified with an in-flight refueling system of their own design. The plane also had a platform attached, which allowed them to walk out and add oil to the engine while flying. A second plane lowered a fuel line several times every day and night. Food and water was lowered to them on a rope through a hatch in the cabin top. They remained airborne in the vicinity of Meridian for twenty-seven days, a record that was only broken by astronauts living in the International Space Station.

  The two Mississippi pilots stood for a moment looking at one another.

  “Mr. Key, I’m John Robinson. I sure thank you for taking the time to help me. I would be in a mess without you.”

  “Well, come on. We got to get you and that tire to Meridian. I think every black from the town and surrounding parts must be waiting for you at the airport. Never seen anything like it.”

  John thanked Mr. Perkins and told him if he could leave the plane on the jack he would pay him for the use of his tools.

  Al Key with Robinson approached the airfield at Meridian. It had just been named Key Field in honor of the two brothers.

  Years later, Al Key described their arrival: “We circled over the field and could see the crowd waiting on the ramp. There must have been about three thousand people down there, all looking up at us. In those days we weren’t so concerned about regulations. I checked the area and saw no other traffic. Robinson gave me a questioning look and I just smiled and pointed at the crowd. Then I gave it full throttle and put the plane in a shallow dive to pick up lots of speed. We flew down between the terminal building and the hangar just over the heads of all those folks. They were looking up wide-eyed at us with their mouths open. I pulled the Curtiss right up and over into an Immelmann turn. Later one of the boys on the ground swore to me that the whole crowd went wild and that one old colored man standing near him hollered out, ‘God Almighty! Look at that nigger fly!’

  “After I had done that Immelmann, Robinson looked over at me and laughed, shaking his head, but he didn’t say anything. In any case, when we came in and landed, I let Robinson get out and I sort of stayed hidden in the plane. Later, after he had made his speech, he paid me and we took the new tire mounted on his wheel and flew back to pick up his plane. He told me that all the blacks thought he had done that crazy stunt. I told him we would leave it that way. He grinned, thanked me again, and we shook hands. I liked him. Yes, he was all right.”

  Chapter 24

  Gulfport, 1936

  JOHN TURNED WEST CLIMBING OUT OF THE FIELD BY PERKINS’ STORE to follow Highway 80, part of the ten-year-old designated United States highway system. He followed it west to Jackson where he landed at Hawkins Airfield (originally called Davis Airfield) and made a brief talk at Jackson College, founded in Natchez in 1877; the black college was moved to Jackson in 1882. Late in the afternoon John took off from Jackson for the 150-mile flight home to Gulfport. He picked up US Highway 49 south. The highway was mostly sandy-clay and gravel with a few new stretches of paving. The last seventy-five-mile stretch from Hattiesburg to Gulfport seemed the longest. The late afternoon sun cast a yellowish hue on the earth below where a young forest was struggling to cover the scars left by the clear-cutting practices that sadly had, with no thought given to conservation, destroyed the vast stands of virgin longleaf yellow pine. Some miles south of Hattiesburg on the east side of the road, he saw the abandoned, deteriorating buildings and overgrown acreage known as Camp Shelby. It was federal land that had been set aside as a training camp for the army during the Great War.

  Flying at five thousand feet fifteen miles south of the little lumber mill town of Wiggins, John saw a distant, clear, unbroken horizon that made his heart beat faster. The clean line stretching beyond the flat
coastal plain was the Gulf of Mexico. The sight filled him with the happy-tired feeling that comes at journey’s end—a journey home from halfway around the world.

  The Stinson let down to a thousand feet to circle over Gulfport. Black smoke poured from the tall smokestack of the town’s power plant situated on the beach at the foot of Thirtieth Avenue. The port wasn’t as busy as he remembered. There was but one steamship in the harbor. John looked down at the stately 200-room Great Southern Hotel made entirely from fine, Mississippi long-leaf pine timber. People playing tennis on the hotel’s court looked up as he banked over the town. Along the shore, the concrete steps of a seawall, begun in 1927, now stretched east and west from the harbor paralleled by a two-lane road that had been designated US Highway 90 in 1925. The coast locals still called it Beach Drive. Most of it was paved, replacing the old oyster-shell road. The streetcar tracks along the beach were gone and the tracks in town sadly no longer used. Several broad streets in Gulfport had center dividers planted with palm trees and flowers. It’s a pretty town, John thought to himself, but it sure seems smaller.

  He circled over the shimmering water to look down at East Pier and saw it was still a popular fishing spot. Men, women, and children, black and white, sat or stood along the end of the earth-filled pier trying their luck. I guess in these hard times, all those folks are trying to catch their supper. Several people waved as he flew overhead.

  John turned eastward down the shoreline toward Biloxi. The hotels were mostly vacant since the crash of 1929. The beautiful Edgewater Hotel with its grand, oak-shaded lawn and eighteen-hole golf course cast a lonely shadow in the setting sun. In the 20s, whole trainloads of tourists used to come down from Chicago every winter to stop at Edgewater’s own station. The White House Hotel, the lovely Buena Vista, and the elegant Markham Hotel in Gulfport were all suffering. Cannery Row in Biloxi was still in operation. Huge piles of oyster shells stood witness to that. Canned oysters were shipped as far as Chicago and New York. The shells supplied material for roads, driveways, and parking lots all over the coast. Biloxi still called itself the seafood capital of the world, but, like the country, the industry was struggling.