Psalm 23

Forgive me if this is widely circulated, I got a kick out of it. Found in one of my grandfathers scrapbooks. They certainly loved the Standard, eh?


The Standard is my machine,
Oh, Uncle Sam, send me some other

It maketh me to land in strange places,
It shaketh my soul, it sideslips into air pockets,
It leadeth me into paths of ridicule for Hall-Scotts sake
It performeth strange actions in the presence of my students.
Any yea, though it cleareth the hanger, it landeth me in the lake beyond.

I fear great evil when the woods are beneath me,
Its vibration and squirks discomfort me
Its aileron and rudder discourage me.

It sprayeth my goggles with oil
It annointeth my face with hot water
Its tank runneth empty

Surely if I fly this bus four hours all the days of my life,
I will be decorated with a wooden kimona and interred forever.

Oh, God for any other.

It's a hoot! You see a lot of parodies about "High Flight", but this said it all years before the rest! Thanks.

[baldeagle]

Realized when I read that post that I know four people who own Standard J-1s and one person who flies one, so I e-mailed that poem to them all.

Here's a photo of one going together in Ohio-

[baldeagle]

This airplane was owned in the 1920s by famous (and still living) autogyro pilot Johnny Miller, who converted a geared Hisso to direct drive, shown here-

Wow, four of them!?

I have a question for you history buffs, now. What the heck is a "kimona"?

["Junior"]

Pang, I would hazard a guess that it's just a misspelling of "kimono". Orientalism and all things oriental were fashionable during the first two or three decades of the 20th century in western popular culture.

Junior.

[EricGoedkoop]

Originally posted by baldeagle@Sep 6 2004, 11:29 PM
[b] Here's a photo of one going together in Ohio-

In Ohio? You don't say?

I wager this is not one of the two at the Air Force Museum . . . . . you're going to tempt me into roving the countryside 'round here searching for a likely-looking barn.

My wife always says we don't get out of the house enough.

[Cigogne]

There was another an earlier version of this poem in the RFC which appears in the book "No Parachute"

It starts out:

The BE2c is my bus, therefore shall I want!

Now, I have to find the book!