From Plowboy to Flyboy

Larry Prose still remembers that day in the summer of 1952 on the farm he worked on in Southeast Lane County Kansas. His father had just purchased a Minneapolis Moline tractor and the author could finally operate the “Minnie” because it had a hand clutch. At nine years old and seventy-five pounds he could not operate the Allis Chalmers tractor they previously used because it had a foot clutch. Father and son were in the field when they both sensed a tremendous rumble. A shadow flashed overhead and they saw a huge aircraft. It was a B-36 probably on a low-level training mission and for a moment the author thought it was going to crash. The six large forty-three-sixty engines churned the propellers with the addition of four jet engines. From where and how? Suddenly the author felt stymied by the whole idea of “you can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy. It dawned on him that there was more world to see and explore. This is his story of eighty years From Plowboy to Fly Boy.