Write On!

              To this day, when I hear a small plane fly over, I look up and watch its
progress. I try to identify its make, check the weather conditions and guess
where it's going. I try to picture the pilot and I and wonder about his stories,
because I know all pilots have stories.
So there I was; a kid living her dream. Whenever I was in Sudbury I
would stay at Rusty's until a plane was heading my way and hitchhike a ride
home. Sometimes this was a matter of hours or sometimes a couple days. I
never minded. At the house I had Rusty's two kids for company ( although his
son, Dick, who was a few years older, often teased me to tears) and the hours
I spent hanging around the base sped by too fast. I never tired of the smell of
aviation gas, the whine of planes warming up, the chatter of the radio and the
pilots coming from and going to, I was sure, great adventures. They all took
time to buy me a soda and stop for a chat. No disrespect to my folks, but
sometimes I was disappointed when my ride home finally became available.
When Rusty was my pilot, the adventure continued through the flight. He
would show me the buttons to push and the levers to pull, and then sometimes
let me put my hands over his during takeoff to feel how the plane responded.
He ret me make the radio call to base with takeoff time, destination and ETTA.
Then, wonder of wonders, once we were in the air, many times he would trade
me seats and let me fly. Sometimes he even crawled in the back to retrieve his
beloved sports pages while I flew the plane. What power, what excitement! i
was a flyer) Although he came back to take over the plane for landing, my
" high" lasted many days!
What a life it was for a kid! The wilderness, water, fishing, swimming
and campfires. I missed some school parties, had few friends my age and we
did work hard as we all had our duties in the family business, but I always felt
lucky to be where I was. I remember a schoolmate who shuddered when I told
her we didn't have TV. She was aghast! I tried to explain that I certainly didn't
miss it. The stories I heard; any could well make it as a TV drama. But no TV
drama could do justice to the pictures I painted in my mind, the crackle of the
fireplace, the distinctive smell of worn leather and aviation fuel and the voices
of those quiet spoken men as they told of ' just doing their job'. And what TV
can answer a kid's million questions or stop to sketch the location of a ' dicey
landing or map of a remote Inuit village?
Rusty collapsed and died on the docks at Austin's in 1986 at age 74,
flying right up to the end. His wife and kids still live in Sudbury, son Dick a pilot
and aerial photographer of some fame, himself. A wonderful monument in
Rusty's memory stands near the entranceway to Sudbury's ' Science Centre
North', overlooking Ramsay Lake and Austin's' Base. At first it appears to be
just a 10' X10' block of upright metal pipes placed about 8" apart, then you
notice that on each pipe there is a strategically placed daub of paint. When
you stand back, you can see these ' daubs' paint a bush plane within the pipes
and, as you walk around it, the plane flies and swoops through this forest'. It is
a beautiful, fitting memorial.
Sudbury hosts an annual ' Rusty Blakey Days'. The year I was there
for the celebration the Canadian Snow Birds did a spectacular flying