At the end of a long winter day's work in the woodshop our practice was
to let the fire in the stove die down until it was too cold to work. My
dad would remind me to haul in a hod of coal for the morning, then we'd
quit and go down to the house. But, occasionally, he would throw another
couple lumps in the stove, we'd hug the stove and he'd tell stories or
read to us. I always liked it when he reached up to the shelf up above
his work bench and pulled down his dusty old copy of The Sky Pilot, and
tell us the story about Chuck, Canada and the Colorado Rockies.

"The Sky Pilot" was written by Chuck Gordon in the 1890s. He had been a
Prespeterian minister to the settlers up in Canada, then became famous
when his book was published. Dispite that good fortune, his life "took a
turn" and he found himself resettling on the eastern slopes of the
Colorado Rockies. My dad and his sister were born in a log cabin up
above Black Hawk, Colorado, near Missouri Lakes, just after the turn of
the last century. Many winter nights their neighbor Chuck from across
the lake visited them and would read to them from his book.

So, my dad learned about The Sky Pilot from Chuck, and I learned about
The Sky Pilot from my dad. In one story The Sky Pilot was annoyed that
his sweetest flowers were not growing on the prairie grasslands. In
fact, he became quite disturbed, so he cleft the sod in a big gash from
north to south, in which the Rocky Mountians rose up, forming the
heights and the valleys and the high mountian meadows, where the
sweetest flowers could grow. There were many other such
romantic/naturalistic tales. It's odd, that's the only one I can recall
just now.

Also, there was the Sky Pilot program over at the Presbeterian church.
On Wednesday evenings any boy who was interested in building model
airplanes could go over to the church basement, work on his tiny
aircraft, pretend he was in the Air Force, and get the straight dope
about stretching the silk skin across a light wooden framework, as well
as guidance on many other practical and spiritual matters of import. My
brother was really into it, building a P-38 and I went sometimes and
built a Ginny, like my dad flew in the '20s. I think my dad lead the
group one winter. Maybe he started it.

There's probably more to this story, but I've got to go finish up a
Christmas present...

John
by hammer and hand great works do stand
by pen and thought best words are wrought


John Leeke, Preservation Consultant
Historic HomeWorks
26 Higgins St.
Portland, ME  04103
207 773-2306
[log in to unmask]
www.HistoricHomeWorks.com

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