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Billy Cruiser had a friend in Miami who was in the ferrying business, and for the next five years I drove everything from 707's to Cessna 172's across the Atlantic. If I wasn't going over the big pond, I was headed to South America, and I'm sure I crossed a few old outposts where my dad had gone with Lindbergh. I was trying to save enough money to find the right Grumman Goose and make a living flying for myself, maybe even go back to the Keys and hook up with Billy.
One day it all paid off.
I was on a delivery from Miami to Trinidad and had stopped in South Caicos for fuel. When I cleared customs, I saw a group of priests who looked extremely out of place. The leader, Father Ignacio Alvarez, a Jesuit missionary, asked me which way I was going. They had been stranded on the island for three days after their plane had left without them.
In high school the Jesuits had taught me, and I knew the story of Ignatius, the soldier-turned-saint. The priests were on their way to a mission in Venezuela. If all the dogma the Catholic church had drilled into our heads was true, I figured that playing the Good Samaritan would do me good.
On the way down, Father Ignacio sat up on the flight deck with me, and we talked for hours. Somewhere between vocations and the Vietcong, the subject of my dream airplane came up. I described a Grumman Goose in detail: her unique design, the sound of her engines, the floats, how she looked when she splashed down in glassy water. Father Ignacio looked surprised and told me there was a plane just like that on a deserted runway up the Orinoco River in the Guiana highlands near his mission.
I dropped the plane in Port-of-Spain and found us a hop on a freighter heading for Caracas. I was just following a hunch, and as we bounced through the jungles in a VW micro-bus, I had plenty second thoughts about tagging along with the "black robes." When we finally reached the mission, the plane was right there where Father Ignacio had said it would be. God works in mysterious ways.
She was a relic of some long-forgotten revolution, expedition, or pipe dream, and she had a strange totem pole painted on her tail. She sat on hardened, flat tires under the overhanging mahogany trees where monkeys were guarding her from their perches in the branches.
The engines were missing, and all the old Motorola radios and speakers had been removed. The fabric had rotted off the elevator and the rudder-trim controls, and a few bullet holes marked the bow locker, but other than that she was remarkably free of corrosion. The good priests at the mission were using her as a toolshed.
The missionaries could neither fly nor wanted to. I worked out a deal with Father Ignacio and traded him two cargo containers for the plane. I used up most of my meager savings to have them towed up the Orinoco River to the mission, and then I sold my soul to a bank in Florida and moved in with the missionaries. I called Billy Cruiser and told him the news.
Within a week, Billy flew to Venezuela to take a look at my dream-come-true, and he declared her fixable. He went back to Florida and found a couple of old, rebuilt Pratt & Whitney 985 radial engines, some missing parts, tires, and radios, and he shipped them to me. Then he took a commercial flight back down to help me work on the plane. Three months later, I had my own airline. I was broke, with no job and nothing cooking, but I was happier than a pig in shit. I finally had the airplane I had dreamed about, and she was my insurance policy against what I feared most: a boring life.
Billy offered me room in his hangar at the Lone Palm Airport so I could finish her up, and we were ready to make the maiden voyage back to America.
I had seen a lot of the world and was ready to stay in one place for a while. Maybe I would follow Billy's advice and do some fish spotting for the shrimpers and commercial fishing boys. There was plenty of work from the sportfishing charters to the plentiful bonefish flats of the near-at-hand Bahamas. I never intended to get rich. I was just looking for a place to call home.
On a hot day in May, we christened the plane. Indians came from the jungle, and cowboys, called llaneros, rode in from the great expansive plain where they spent their lives herding cattle. Word had gone out on the jungle drums that a celebration was in the air. That's what I really liked about the people I met in Venezuela -- they were hard-working and God-fearing, but they'd have a festival at the drop of a hat. It usually took some saint's feast day, but the rebirth of an abandoned flying boat was excuse enough.
All day the llaneros danced the joropo and showed off some footwork that would have made James Brown jealous. The party was a good blend of Catholicism and paganism, and everybody had a great time. It was so much fun I thought twice about leaving, but I knew I had to go. Father Ignacio broke a bottle of wine from the sacristy across the nose of my plane, and we christened her the Hemisphere Dancer.
-- Jimmy Buffett -- Where Is Joe Merchant?
(click on the image to buy the book from Amazon.com)
This clip is from Where Is Joe Merchant by Jimmy Buffett. This is by far one of my favorite books and those of you that know me well probably know why. I have highlighted in blue one of my favorite quotes from this section of the book. Someday I too will have the seaplane of my dreams, "and she will be my insurance policy from what I fear most: a boring life."
If this book sounds interesting, you may buy it at amazon.com. If you don't like reading books, then might I suggest you wait for the movie to come out.
Universal Studios, a sister company of MCA, has purchased the movie rights to Jimmy Buffett's novel "Where Is Joe Merchant?" and will put it into production soon. It will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy (one of the producers of E.T.) and Frank Marshall (producer of Back To The Future).
Jimmy will be the executive producer of the film and will also do the soundtrack, which will be drawn from his current catalog of songs. Don Todd has been hired to write the screenplay.
Kennedy/Marshall now has a production pact with Disney. They hope to have a script by next spring for a production start by the end of next summer.
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