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Sheriff Fay F. Brown’s Badge: Aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr

March 11, 2020 by Jim Potter 2 Comments

https://jimpotterauthor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Sheriff-Fay-F.-Browns-Badge-Episode-16.mp3

· Sheriff Fay F. Brown’s Badge:

Aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.

It’s May 20, 1927. Fay and Cora Brown, married, are talking about aviator Charles A. Lindbergh who is enroute to Paris from New York City in his single-seater, single engine, monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis.

*

According to the news,” said Fay Brown, “the weather finally improved on Long Island, New York City, and in the northern Atlantic. Charles Lindbergh hopped-off from Roosevelt Field on his solo trip across the ocean a few minutes before 8 o’clock this morning.”

“Do you think he’ll make it?” asked Cora, his wife. “There’s been at least six aviators who have perished during their attempts. And none of them were going it alone.”

“From what I’ve read,” said Fay, “it sounds foolish, but this Lindbergh is used to doing things on his own. After all, just a week ago he completed his cross-country trip from San Diego to New York with only one scheduled stop, in St. Louis.”

“His experience as an airmail pilot will be invaluable,” said Cora, “since he’s flown through all kinds of weather.”

“Didn’t the newspaper say Lindbergh had to make nighttime parachute jumps from his airmail plane on two occasions when he got lost in heavy fog?” asked Fay.

“Yes, and one jump during his Army Air Service training when he was in a mid-air collision, and another as a test pilot,” agreed Cora. “No wonder he’s known as ‘Lucky Lindy,’ but a parachute won’t do him much good in the middle of the ocean.”

“He’s smart,” said Fay. “I know the reporters like to call him ‘the Flying Fool,’ but he objects to that. He claims to be a meticulous planner who hasn’t rushed into this contest. He was actually the co-designer of his Ryan Airlines manufactured plane, the Spirit of St. Louis. The oddest thing is, the monoplane doesn’t have a windshield. Instead, he’s used the space for an additional gas tank.”

“That’s peculiar,” agreed Cora. “It would be a shame for him to fly into another plane or not be able to see properly during his landing.”

“Lindbergh said he can see out the side-windows and he’s got a periscope to see in front,” said Fay.

“The Orteig prize of $25,000 is a fortune,” said Cora. “I hope Lindbergh wins it. He estimates the flight from New York to Paris will be about 3,600 miles and take about 35 or 36 hours. You’ve stayed awake that long before, haven’t you Fay?”

“Yeah, a couple of times,” said Fay, “but I wasn’t belted into a cramped cockpit the whole time, unable to straighten my legs. Imagine trying to stay awake in the dark with the steady humming of an engine and no one to talk to.”

He’s twenty-five, single, and obsessed with flying,” said Cora. “Plus, his bashful smile is endearing.”

“Lindbergh reminds me of John Bixler. Remember him?” asked Fay.

“Sure,” replied Cora. “He was the first person in Kansas to earn an international license as a sky pilot; lived right here in Hutchinson. Back in 1913, when I was starting out as a telephone operator, everyone was talking about him. Many of us wondered how a family man with four children could risk his life like that. It may not be fair, but I remember his crashes more than his safe landings, like the time at the state fairgrounds when he hit a fence.”

“When I worked for him at Bixler’s Grocery Store on south main, before he sold out to Dillon Mercantile, I used to talk to John about flying,” said Fay. “Hopefully, Lindbergh will be remembered for his success of being the first person to fly solo from New York to Paris, not for disappearing from the sky.”

“I want him to make it,” said Cora. “Like you, he’s courageous, and his mother traveled by air from St. Louis to say goodbye to him.”

“Lindbergh got the flying bug at an early age,” said Fay. “TJ Bixler, the soft-drink bottler, John’s brother, did some early flying. He’s told me about Lindbergh. At age twenty, he was a barnstormer. He did some acrobatic stunt work because he couldn’t afford the money to pay the bond to fly solo.

“According to TJ, it was around 1922 or 1923 that Lindbergh barnstormed in the mid-west,” continued Fay. “TJ said Lindbergh lived in Bird City in Cheyenne County, Kansas, for one summer while he did his aerial stunts—wing-walking and exhibition parachuting. Before long, Lindbergh was advertising himself as a daredevil and had his own World War surplus plane.”

*

“It sounds like he’s going to make it,” said Cora. She and Fay continued listening to the radio, learning that the Spirit of St. Louis had been spotted over the coast of Ireland hours earlier, then the coast of France, and most recently approaching Paris. ‘Lucky Lindy’, known as ‘Slim’ to his friends, had been in the air nearly 33½ hours. The radio announcer estimated a hundred thousand people had overwhelmed LeBourget airport, awaiting Lindbergh’s arrival.

It was clear that Lindbergh, once he landed, wouldn’t have time to check his list of things to do upon arriving in the capital city. Lindbergh had planned on finding a place to eat and a hotel so he could rent a room for the night.

*

“I wonder what John Bixler’s doing today?” asked Cora.

“Last I heard he had quit the air,” said Fay. “John and his family were living in southern California. He was engaged in scenery painting for motion picture concerns. Like us, John’s got to be glued to his seat.”

Cora concluded, “I just hope that without a windshield and with a crowd of one hundred thousand excited viewers, he has a smooth landing.”

*

Until next time, happy writing and reading.

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Filed Under: Blog posts Tagged With: Army Air Service, Bird City Kansas, Bixler's grocery store, Charles A. Lindbergh, Cora Brown, Fay Brown, Flying Fool, Jim Potter, John Bixler, Kansas Authors Club, Le Bourget airport, Lucky Lindy, New York to Paris, Orteig prize, Reno County Sheriff, Roosevelt Field, Ryan Airlines, Sheriff Fay Brown, Sheriff Fay Brown's Badge, Spirit of St Louis, TJ Bixler

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Comments

  1. Alex says

    March 11, 2020 at 8:49 am

    Fascinating! Didn’t realize there was a kansas connection!

    Reply
    • Jim Potter says

      March 11, 2020 at 9:04 am

      Lindbergh really was an American hero. He was the best diplomat for the country after his successful flight. (This changed prior to war with Germany.)

      Reply

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Denise Low, author of Jackalope (Red Mountain Press)

Jim Potter is a cop, retired, but he brings deep understanding of this job to his novel Taking Back the Bullet: Trajectories of Self-Discovery. This layered novel has literary dimensions as characters explore crisis situations. Congratulations to this fine writer for his debut novel.

Rebecca from Proud Police Wife

Taking Back the Bullet is an emotional, yet captivating novel. Jim Potter does a superb job of intertwining each character and putting their individual identities on display. All law enforcement storylines are a true reflection of Potter’s years as a police officer because they are realistic and relatable. This is a book I highly recommend.

Dennis Perrin, educator

Masterful storytelling, exquisite character development, so real as to HURT and HOPE, a real page turner. Begs for stage, screenwriters, and visual episodic development a.k.a. TV series . . . Thanks Jim Potter for telling it like it is AND providing us visions of how it could be. Well done!

Rebecca Schillaci

As a former law enforcement officer, I found the story very relatable as it details the life of a law enforcement officer and the struggles some face throughout their careers. . . Taking Back the Bullet is a journey of understanding, respect, and forgiveness . . .

Sheryl Remar

I enjoyed the different stories of this book because Tom, James, and Suanna, the three main characters, represent in their own way the different struggles with themselves and society’s idea of what is normal.

John & Cindy Morrill, 20 years Air Force retired, 17 years law enforcement

I enjoyed your book. When I am looking for a new read, I always read the first page, last page and choose a random page somewhere in the middle before I decide to buy it. You had me on all three pages. I also like reading a book where you can relate to the characters and the settings in which they live and work. It makes a story more realistic if you can say, I am familiar with the area; I know where that town is or I have traveled that street. It was easy to relate to the characters. In one way or another, I have met them all somewhere in my journeys.

Judy Hawk

. . . I was impressed with the Native American information as well as the depth of character development . . . .

Wynona Winn, PhD, retired school superintendent

Three main characters walk different paths but with the same destination – each coping with his or her self-discovery, self-identity, and self-realization. Much like their earlier counterparts – Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield – their journeys are often joyous, often tedious and often tragic.

Diana Dester

Good story line, building the characters along the way. Great job!

Deb Theis, LSCSW, clinical therapist/hypnotherapist

Jim Potter has done it again! After his book, Cop in the Classroom: Lessons I’ve Learned, Tales I’ve Told, Jim has written another great work. In Taking Back the Bullet: Trajectories of Self-Discovery, Jim Potter takes us on an insightful journey into the lives and relationships of numerous characters. Jim is such a talented storyteller that the reader quickly becomes immersed and has a ‘bonding experience’ with each of the characters, feeling their joy, fear, passion and pain. Jim’s novel speaks to the empowerment of persistence with the characters as they work through their trials. As a therapist, I appreciated the heartfelt struggles from each of the characters and their diversity. I also found value in the novel’s understanding of society’s misunderstanding of both mental health and other conditions in which people struggle. The novel contains rich exposure to various realities that many of us do not know about . . . but should. When I finished this captivating novel, I was wanting to read the sequel! It was an honor and a wonderful, mesmerizing experience reading this book. Congratulations, Jim!

Jane Holzrichter

I finished it last night around midnight. What a great piece of work. It kept me intrigued all the way to the end.

Sean McArdle, Winchester, England

Retired police officer Potter’s novel centres on very disparate characters and through the tried and tested means of gradually introducing each one, builds a sense of anticipation about what is going to happen to them. This often used methodology is not easy to do well but is superbly handled by Potter who knows how to give enough detail to bring the characters to life, yet not too much so as to slow down the pace of the developing story. A climactic event affects the main characters and it is at this point Potter’s deep knowledge of people and police procedures really hits home; page by page we read how a seemingly simple, though terrible occurrence, can have huge consequences. To Potter’s credit the story does not have a completely conclusive or simplistic ending. Instead it leaves the reader thinking about how the events of a single minute can affect lives forever. I would whole heartedly recommend this book not as a crime novel or even as a novel about crime but as a beautiful and positive affirmation about what it is to be human and how ultimately it is relationships which matter more than events.

Morgan Penner

Taking Back the Bullet is a novel that provides the reader with a window into the world of law enforcement. As the novel unfolds, the reader is able to see how split-second decisions alter the lives of the main characters in the story. Taking Back the Bullet also explores how humanity is impacted by mental illness. One of my favorite quotes from Taking Back the Bullet is “We’re all just a critical moment from being disabled or mentally ill, and we don’t want to think about it.” The novel also provides the reader an opportunity to gain a better understanding of how mental illness impacts the individuals, their family, friends, and society. Taking Back the Bullet is a story of forgiveness and overcoming life’s struggles and tragedies.

Steve Becker

I’m impressed. It was an excellent read. . . . I hope you continue with more projects in the future.

Larry Kruckman, anthropologist

Jim Potter displays ethnographic skills in Taking Back the Bullet: Trajectories of Self-Discovery, creating vivid scenes and fascinating characters. The Greeks had a word for subcultures and people’s behavior: ‘ethos,’ or ‘ways of being.’ In colorful, sometimes marvelous detail, this novel captures various people and settings . . . the ethos of rural Kansas: a jail, art fair, powwow, rehab center, courtroom, albinos, and even someone in the throes of postpartum depression. So detailed are the descriptions that they must be drawn from the author’s personal experience. Besides the artfully created characters such as the struggling jailer and husband Tom Jennings, local artist Jesse Thomas, and Native American Joe Morningcloud, there is a tight story line that grabs your attention and won’t let go. Human tensions, love, conflict, joys and sorrows are all there. Magically, all the many pieces come together in a final crescendo, giving hope that even when we find ourselves in big trouble we can survive. This is a novel I highly recommend!

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Karleen Wilson-Moon

Terrific story relevant to today’s social issues . . . well written . . . likable characters . . . insightful perspective from an insider in law enforcement.

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