The Raid at Lake Minnewaska

A bolt of lightning hit the ground dead ahead. He could momentarily see he was extremely close to the very crest of the hill overlooking Lake Minnewaska and the town. He awaited the feel of his biplane touching down on the cement covered highway.

Then two things happened concurrently. A gust of wind and heavy rain hit Lawton’s air machine head on…and a vehicle appeared out of nowhere coming right at him. There would be no reason to believe the driver would contemplate a flying machine could be bearing down on him. It was one of those random situations pilots and a driver in a car could have no control over…and it was about to take place in only seconds.

Then, as if divinely guided, his wheels touched the roadway just as the vehicle simultaneously turned into a farmyard driveway…as if the two of them had rehearsed that moment several previous times.

The biplane sped by the driveway with the left wings barely missing the back of the farmer’s automobile. Lawton wondered if the driver had even seen him! Once on the pavement, his machine slowed abruptly against the gale wind. He barely sensed the heavy rain pelting him in the face given the sweat seeping from his brow. He let out a roar of exhilaration and relief for surviving the landing. Looking back toward the farmhouse, he watched the old sedan gamely drive up the long, potted driveway seemingly oblivious to the potential death despising incident the car had just avoided.

Quickly Lawton gathered his wits. Another vehicle could be coming down the road with little time to stop. More worrisome, the wind threatened to tip the plane if he didn’t turn it around, head back up the roadway with the wind at his back, and drive off onto that same driveway the vehicle had turned.

The entire sky then burst forth with an electrical storm that seemingly had no boundaries. Lawton felt like a target on that open road vulnerable to the next series of lightning bolts. He just had to get the biplane under some cover or face losing the machine. Revving up his engine, he hurriedly turned toward that pathway. That farm would have to give him safe refuge and a windbreak for the biplane. As he coaxed his biplane along the potted driveway, he doubted the family living at the farm would hear the roar of his engine through the din of this torrential wind and rain storm. Arriving at the farmyard, he guided his machine over toward the leeward side of the barn as if he’d done that maneuver hundreds of times before. Crawling out of the cockpit, he hastily unraveled some canvas in the fuselage. Before he threw it over the cockpit opening, he unstrapped his saturated golf bag and clubs behind his seat and slung them over his shoulders. His suitcase remained in the biplane. Even in the worst of conditions, there were priorities.

After blocking his wheels, Lawton slogged through the wind, rain and lightning to the farmer’s front door and loudly knocked. A slightly wet, but tall, slender, pleasant-looking fellow answered the door. The man had literally just run into his house from his old sedan and had obviously not been aware of any other arrival…unique or otherwise…to his farm. The farmer just stared in astonishment for a couple seconds at the pitiful vision in front of him.

Standing there like a drenched dog, his goggles half askew over his face, and his golf clubs slung over his shoulders, Lawton was going to jokingly ask the farmer to point him to where the #7 tee box was located. Seeing the surprised look on the man’s face, Lawton decided not to waste any attempt at subtle humor.

Instead it was Lawton who was caught off guard by the farmer’s first comment. “You lost,” he innocently shouted above the clamor of the storm, “or are you here for the golf tournament?”

Momentarily speechless, Lawton wondered how a farmer living in the middle of nowhere outside of Glenwood, Minnesota might know or even care anything about golf much less a golf tournament. Certainly, at the very least, it was a very strange greeting. Without introducing himself, Lawton barged his way through the front entry to escape the downpour.

Shouting above another burst of thunder as he put down his golf clubs in the entry way of the small home, Lawton retorted, “My friend, I hope you don’t mind if I leave my machine out by your barn?”

The farmer, a man named John Bailey, looked back outside toward his parking area and then to his barely visible barn. His squint followed by a look of amazement was priceless. He had expected to see an automobile. Instead he saw what must have looked like something from another planet. His jaw dropped slightly. Without blinking he looked at Lawton in his soaked flying suit and then back towards the biplane. “I’ll be damned” was all he could say as he invited the pilot into his humble but dry little farmhouse.”