"I don't pay taxes cuz I never file
I don't do business that don't make me smile
I love my aero-plane, she got style . . ."
- Stephen Stills

Yes Dear, I Can Do That

I was talking to my bride-to-be
To see what she'd expect of me
It's wise to talk it out before you sign the dotted line
I told her just to tell me plain
And come right out with pertinent things
She began and started out just fine

"Can you keep food on the table?"
     Yes I can
"Can you stand up strong and able?"
     You bet I can
"Can you cheer me when I'm lonely, and love me, and me only?"
     Yes Dear, I can do that

"Will you help me with the dishes?"
     Just count on me
"Will you give me hugs and kisses?"
     Oh yeah!
"Can you hush a crying baby, and change a diaper maybe?"
     Yes Dear, I can do that

So far she'd acted mighty fair
I'll do the dishes I don't care
It's only decent that I help my wife out everyday
I told her that I loved her so
And that I'd try to always show . . .
Then she butt in and started this a way

"Can my mother move in with us?"
     Well, er, ok
"And my brothers and my sisters?"
     Well, uh, I guess so
"One more thing, I aint lying, you must cut out your flying . . ."
     WHAT?!  CUT OUT MY FLYING!?!?!?!?
     No Dear, I can't do that

I'll make a living with a grin
And do those things like all good men
I'll cheer you when you're lonely and love only you
I'll do the rest if you'll be my wife
But I've been a pilot all my life
And give it up my Dear I just can't do

HARANGUE:
"Well, hrumph!  Some husband you'd be
With all you drunken flying buddies, out there flying free.
You'd be gone flying everytime you can
And I'd be home wishing I'd married a sensible man.
Well now, you've had your say it's plain to see
And I suppose that you can do without me?"
     YES DEAR, I CAN DO THAT!!!

Bubba on the Ground

words and music by Barb MacLeod
(c) 1995 Fly-By-Night Echolocations

I remember the time we was one happy family--
Ol' Blue and sweet Dolly and I;
Livin' high on the hawg, buyin' champagne an' diamonds,
Until she run off to the sky;
Now I don't mean t'say that she's daid, `cause she ain't,
But I figger she might as well be;
That young flight instructor run off with my woman,
And she stole my airplane from me.

(An' she took my dawg an' my toothbrush, too!!)

An' somewhar up thar out beyond the blue yonder,
My plane's a mile high upside down;
I cain't bear the thought of them catchin' me spyin',
N' that's why I'm stuck on the ground.

A year ago Tuesday we's havin' conniptions,
Cause I couldn't teach her to fly;
She's yankin' the mixture; we's turnin' short final;
Gear's up and she's flarin' too high;
An' Charlie he's watchin', that silver-tongued scoundrel,
An' he asted her out for a spin;
He got her through checkride, an' now she's a flier,
An' they dug this hole that I'm in.

An' somewhar up thar out beyond the blue yonder,
The buzzards `n' dust devils cry;
An' someday I'll put this ol' heart back together,
An' git back my place in the sky.

Now that purty Bonanza once made me feel sexy;
Since Charlie showed up, not no more;
An' Blue, that ol' hound, all he done was bite Yankees,
Scratch fleas and pee on the door;
But golly gee, Dolly Mae, takin' my toothbrush
Was the lowest thang you ever did;
I know it was ugly, had only three bristles,
But I've had it since I was a kid.

An' somewhar up thar out beyond the blue yonder,
You're flyin' with Charlie today;
Just send me that toothbrush an' I will forgive
All them mean thangs you done, Dolly Mae.

 Now that fork-tailed Bonanza, she's worth lots of money,
But money comes easy, you see;
An' Blue, well, I love him, or maybe I don't,
Cause he don't give a dang about me;
But oh, how I bawled when I walked in the bathroom
An' now I'm still pale as a ghost;
The worstest of all is they's tangled together;
I don't know which one I miss most.

An' somewhar out thar she's announcin' short final,
An' ridin' them crosswinds today;
But I cain't go flyin' until I quit cryin';
I cain't let her hear me this way.

But somewhar up thar out beyond the blue yonder,
The buzzards `n' dust devils play;
An' I will forgive an' forget you tomorrow;
Jes' gimme back my dawg, Dolly Mae;
No! I mean, jes' gimme back my plane, Dolly Mae;
No! I mean, jes' don't throw my toothbrush away!

Grows You Up and It Grows You Down

words and music (c) by Barb MacCleod

Wingtip turns above the far horizon;
Dive into a quarter roll and pull up toward the sky;
Wind has brought a turning of the season;
The year rolls by;

Sing a happy song and think of harvest time below,
Watch your tach and airspeed, listen to the radio,
And grin in wonder at the leap that got you off the ground;
It grows you up and it grows you down.

Silver rivers thread the velvet nighttime;
Lakes are burnished golden mirrors in the waning day;
Roads that you have traveled through a lifetime
Just fall away;

It paces your survival with your faults and foolish pride,
Finds you so accountable there's little left to hide,
And gives you such humility you wear it like a crown;
It grows you up and it grows you down.

`Spin' and `auger in'--they're said together;
Maple seeds will auger in but birds go spinning too;
Spins will draw the line down at the hangar;
They always do;

But climbing up to altitude through sky of brightest blue
To stall and roll, to pirouette like all dust devils do,
Then laugh and climb again to watch the ground go
whirling 'round and 'round and 'round--
It grows you up and it grows you down.

If you, like me, have lived afraid of dying,
Then study stick and rudder and the law of gravity;
There's nothing like a simple dream of flying
To set us free;

It's the voice of every river, it's the vision on the hill,
The fire in the belly and the dance of wind and will;
It fills your days with sweetest peace and turns your life around;
It grows you up and it grows you down.

Fly True, Live Free

words and music by Barb MacLeod
(c) 1995 Fly-By-Night Echolocations

Flying's a wild and sweet desire;
It captures the soul with a wizard's art;
It crowns us with valor under fire,
And gives us joy and peace of heart;
 
How lucky we are! aloft, alone,
We're tempered and taught by the boundless sky;
We cherish the edge, make our lives our own,
And walk the earth with heads held high.

How fragile these wings! how dear the price
That others have paid for their dream of flight
In a twist of the wind, the roll of dice,
The unforgiven oversight;

How stark is the sudden silence here!
The throttle's at full but its roar is still;
We fly to survive, stem the surge of fear,
And bring her home on nerve and will.

Face fear fairly;
Dare chance squarely;
Fly true, live free!

And we who return to tell the tale
Are humbled by wisdom hard as stone:
Nature is fickle and engines fail,
And error's bred in flesh and bone;

But what does not kill will make us strong;
It binds us with steel to honesty;
It blackens the line between right and wrong
And banishes complacency.

How fine is this edge that courage brings!
Embracing the odds, we choose to fly;
How vital and rare this gift of wings
To those who love the open sky!

Flying's a wild and sweet desire;
It captures the soul with a wizard's art;
It crowns us with valor under fire,
And gives us joy and peace of heart.

Face fear squarely;
Dare chance fairly;
Fly true; live free!

Seven Tango Foxtrot

words and music (c) by Barb MacLeod

She thought she'd never be a dancer
(A disappointment to her mom);
A shy and lonely girl in high school,
Nobody ever asked her to the prom...ooooh...

She thought she had no grace or beauty,
Although she was so lean and strong;
Until her uncle took her flying,
Annie thought her feet were put on wrong,
Annie just did not belong.

"The kid is hot--a natural flyer",
Her uncle Wally tells her mom and dad;
"Just let me take her up on Sundays;
You're never gonna see a kid so glad,
Annie's gonna be so glad".

She can feel the rhythm in the stick that's nestled in her hand,
And the engine and the slipstream are the music of the band...ooooh...

Now Wally has a clipped-wing Piper,
Flew the airshows in it years ago;
He spins her in the pearly morning,
Sayin' "here's a little dance you do with just one toe;
It's the best first dance to know".

They'd pegged her as a sulky loser,
But now she laughs so easily;
The kids at school just had to ask her;
She looks 'em in the eye and says sweetly,
"I'm learning how to dance 3D".

They fly together every weekend--
The loner and the old-time airshow star;
His buddies come to watch her solo;
She's got the magic touch; she'll go so far--
This kid is gonna go so far.

And she loves the weathered hangar where she finds a waiting friend,
Loves to push the throttle forward, rise into the wind,
Loves to make the green fields blur and whirl and pause and whirl again,
Knows it won't be long before she's flying out to win...ooooh...

A turn around the sun completed;
She'd got her ticket months before;
She stands beside the bright Decathlon;
The judges have announced her winning score...ooooh...

Two turns around the sun completed;
She flies a little Pitts and wows the crowd;
She's up there pulling g's and grinning,
And Wally and her folks are very proud...ooooh...
     
She rocks around the blue horizon;
She hangs on the propeller and she slides straight down;
She rolls and pirouettes and tumbles,
Does ribbon cuts inverted very near the ground;
Annie's coming back to town.

Sabre Seven Tango Fox departing zero-three,
Out to waltz the sunrise `round a cloud at zero g,
Do a reggae hesitation roll, ballet upon the breeze,
Dive to see the leaves do slipstream shimmy on the trees;

This is Five Six Seven Tango Foxtrot, final zero-eight,
Gliding to the numbers `neath the stars, and feeling great,
Coming in from Oklahoma, doing mambo with the moon,
Here to write my name across your skies, but leaving soon,

Flying in to dance, write my name across your skies,
Flying in to dance but leaving soon.

Explaining Flight to my Son

poetry by E. Rowan S. Trimble

"Tell me, Dad, how does 
Your aeroplane fly?," 
My son asked 
With glee in his eye; 
"And, being a bard, 
You," said he, 
"Must tell how its done 
In poetry." 
Though shaken a bit 
By the request, 
I thought I'd try 
It as a test-- 

Over the foil, flows the air, 
Creating a low pressure there; 
Under the wings 
High pressure brings 
A shift we call lift. 
From above and below, 
It speeds, and it slides, 
Till at last, the craft rides 
High on the pressure's flow. 
And having once begun 
Then comes time for the fun, 
As the craft flies the breeze 
To upward, airy seas, 
Through skies, light and dark, 
Floating like a bark 
Through clouds, over-the-top, 
Beyond a snowy mountain peak, 
Just a short hop, 
Some thrill to seek. 

Now the craft's soaring 
With the engine roaring, 
There floating, turning in the sun, 
Its struggle for flight done, 
It's entered the open space 
In which it can suspend 
At a leisurely pace 
Till time to descend. 
The windy air blows, 
Or evenly flows, 
Whipping or steady 
And changing when ready. 
A turbulent front goes 
Rising and falling, 
Swinging and crawling, 
Passing or stalling; 
But in the spacious sky, 
My aeroplane and I 
Explore: 

Daringly, blaringly, 
Gladed and bladed, 
Unaided, cascaded, 
Promenaded, serenaded, 
Sleighing and praying, 
Obeying and surveying, 
Through pages and gages, 
Rampageous and courageous, 
Aching and quaking, 
Scaling and sailing, 
Availing and prevailing, 
Aiming and flaming, 
Acclaiming, exclaiming, 
Planing and straining, 
Airy and glary, 
Gracing and racing, 
Outpacing and embracing, 
Elated and belated, 
Greatly and stately, 
Blazing and glazing, 
Inhalable, exhalable, 
Fameless and blameless, 
Explainable and sustainable, 
Daintily and saintily, 
Escapable, reshapable, 
Capering and tapering, 
Gyrational, sensational, 
Vibrational and rotational. 
Fatefully and gratefully, 
Calculating and penetrating, 
Magical and mythical, 
Helical and conical, 
Whimsical and musical, 
Cryptical and mystical, 
Arced and sparked, 
Barging and charging, 
Embarking, disbarking, 
Gnarling and snarling, 
Arty and hearty, 
Darting and carting, 
Hatched and latched, 
Fanned and scanned, 
Banging and clanging, 
Banked and yanked, 
Prancing and dancing, 
Chanced and tranced, 
Splashing and smashing, 
Gasping and grasping, 
Favorable and pleasurable, 
Crafty and drafty, 
Wagger and swagger, 
Refracting and contracting, 
Protracted and abstracted, 
And gallant with talent. 

Rallied and tallied, 
Ambled and scrambled, 
Clamor and stammer, 
Random and tandem, 
Wrangle and tangle, 
Spanning and scanning, 
Entrancing and romancing, 
Flapless and mapless, 
Blaring and flaring, 
Tearing and swearing, 
Surpassing and harassing, 
Battering and chattering, 
Spattering and shattering, 
Lavishing and ravishing, 
Amorous and glamorous, 
Bangily, clangily, 
Tangily, twangily, 
Happily, snappily, 
Capturing and rapturing, 
Barreling and caroling, 
Arrowy and sparrowy, 
Narrowing and harrowing, 
Massively and passively, 
Elastical, gymnastical, 
Emphatical, dramatical, 
Mathematical, systematical, 
Scavaging, ravaging, 
Raveling and traveling, 
Billowy and pillowy, 
Eagle-beaked and apple-cheeked. 
Speeled and reeled, 
Dreamed and screamed, 
Peered and seared, 
Steered and veered, 
Domineered, pioneered, 
Squeezed and wheezed, 
Reaching and screeching, 
Skiing and fleeing, 
Appealing and revealing, 
Leaping and sweeping, 
Heaving and cleaving, 
Unbelievable, inconceivable, 
Deflecting and reflecting, 
Sectored and vectored, 
Hauled and called 
Back to the earth, again we descend, 
Like a feather that drifts 
On a cloud of calm wind.

-"And that, my son, is how my aeroplane flies 
High on the heavens, outstretched on the skies."

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