Friday night was our local club's annual Summer Solstice Jim Clark
Memorial After 6 thermal contest. Best total of three flights after 6 p.m.
wins. We had a large turnout, and did a special flyover in honor of our
recently deceased president emeritus Hugh Rogers. We got as many of Hugh's
planes in the air as possible, including one he had just finished a few days
before going into the hospital. Hugh's daughters and extended family were
on hand.
The Infamous Flamingoid had a bad night, though. It took a perch in the
very top of a 45 foot tall maple back in the brambles and thorn bushes
between the field and Walnut Street. I shouldn't have been surprised.
Flamingoids are known to nest at this time of year.
We know for a fact that it was a 45 foot tall tree because Jay Watkins
has a 40 foot collapsable pole, and when we full extended it and reached up
as high as possible, we were just able to touch the underside of the
flamingoid. That bird was not coming down, and I couldn't get up into the
tree to convince it otherwise.
I limped home Friday night, disappointed in my own loss of depth
perception and suffering from the slings and arrows of outrageous Sovereign
landing patterns.
Saturday morning Don Herbert and I returned to the scene of the crime,
with a stepladder, climbing pegs, a throw rope, pruners, a bush saw and
implements of destruction. I climbed about half way up the tree and used
half the pole to gently poke the Flamingo out of its nest. In a remarkably
short time it started to slide down the outside of the tree---Tail First!
"Oh no!" I thought---"Fractured tail feathers! Fissures of the
fuselage." Then at the last second the hooked Flamingo neck and beak
snagged a low hanging branch.
The Flamingoid wound up hanging by its beak just above the bushes. The
pole pruner nudged it down to a safe landing. No damage!
Overnight in a tree top, a 45 foot slide back to the bushes and it is as
good as new. I realize, that isn't all that good to start with, but it is a
happy ending to the tale nevertheless.
And as always, there is a moral to the story-----
as a famous German Bauhaus industrial designer once said: :Form Follows
Funky." Or something like that.
Tom H. Nagel
Judicium Procurator Recuperatio
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