The school secretary had hardly hung up the phone after talking to Miss Virgie Beck before the word spread from room to room in the tiny country school. Captain Pat was in the air and should be there within thirty minutes. As �Captain Pat�s on the way� echoed through the building, we couldn�t contain our excitement, and a few second-graders ran to the windows to begin looking for the plane. Miss Nell reminded us that this was still a classroom and redirected our attention to the blackboard.
�You�ll have plenty of time,� she said. �I�ll make sure you don�t miss Captain Pat.�
Captain Pat was Captain Pat Beck, a former fighter pilot who had distinguished himself in Korea and had brought honor to Winfield. Most of us knew him simply as Mr. Pat who, with his older brother Jim, ran Beck�s General Mercantile Store in downtown Winfield. After the war, Pat had remained in the Air Force Reserve and, once a month, still flew fighter planes based at Connally Air Force Base in Waco. Pat also drove a Cadillac, the only one I�d ever seen, and was often seen in the company of beautiful women. These traits alone were enough to impress the high school boys, but the fact that he was a war hero and a fighter pilot supplied the crowning touch. To every kid in Winfield, he was almost bigger than life.
Once or twice a year, Captain Pat made several passes over the school. He always came from the east, and we could hear the plane for several seconds before it came screaming into view just above the treetops. We would gather in the schoolyard and wave as he came in low and dipped his wings. He was so close to the ground that we could see him salute through the cockpit window for an instant before the plane disappeared to the west. In a minute or so, he would reappear from the west and make one more pass over the school before lifting the nose of the plane and flying straight up and out of sight. We would applaud until our hands hurt. The teachers usually let us stay outside for the rest of the morning because we were too excited to get back to our schoolwork.
The little boys ran about the playground with their arms outstretched and dipped back and forth while making shrill little airplane noises. Little girls gathered in groups and talked about how handsome Captain Pat was and how one day they would marry somebody just like him. The older boys, more impressed with Pat�s Cadillac and love for beautiful women, congregated behind the gym and said things we weren�t supposed to hear. Their conversations were usually punctuated by gales of raucous laughter.
For weeks after Pat�s flyover, my friends and I would play among the old cotton gin equipment stored on T.W. Holmes� back lot. Laying claim to anything that remotely resembled an airplane, we staged mock dogfights with an imaginary North Korean Air Force and congratulated each other for routing the enemy without losing a single plane. Then we would spend more time at the mercantile store asking Pat to tell us everything about his wartime heroics.
I�d lie awake at night, thinking about Captain Pat and his shiny plane while Bill, fast asleep beside me, would make funny chuckling noises. I�m pretty sure he was dreaming about Pat�s beautiful women.
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