The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 54: The Boy Who Loved to Fly

Episode Date: May 6, 2017

He flew into history - thanks to a nervous mother with an old-fashioned name.

This is the way I heard it. The nervous mom with the old-fashioned name was getting the hard sell from her 12-year-old son. Please, Mom, you got to let me go. It means the world to me. Captain Davis is the best pilot ever. He says it's safe. Please, Mom, please? Paul's mother ran her fingers over the metal rivets on the Waco biplane and shook her head.

The very idea that such a machine might actually take flight was hard to imagine. but Doug Davis was indeed an accomplished pilot, and his confidence was undeniable. I've done this a thousand times, ma'am. I'll have him back in no time, a promise. Stenciled on the side of the plane, Paul's mother noticed a woman's name. Who's Gina May, she asked?

The pilot smiled. Well, that's my girl, he said. We were married on Christmas Day, and I flew her to our honeymoon in this very plane. The nervous mom. with the old-fashioned name sighed. Surely, a pilot who put his sweetheart's name on the side of his plane had much to live for. Paul could see his mother teetering.

Please, Mom, can I fly with Captain Davis? Please? Eventually, Paul's mom relented and watched with great trepidation as her little boy climbed aboard the Gina May. You both be careful, she said, and hurry back. It was early August, a perfect day for flying. The skies were mostly clear and the winds favorable. Paul felt a rush of excitement impossible to describe, not just because this was his first flight,

but because this was his first mission. Captain Davis gave the signal. A volunteer spun the prop and the engine roared to life. Seconds later, the biplane thundered across the open field until the jarring bump suddenly gave way to a gentle, otherworldly glide. Paul was transfixed. The wind stung his cheeks as the horizon disappeared, revealing nothing but the wild blue yonder.

For the first time in his young life, Paul felt completely and unambiguously free. Far below, his friends and neighbors waited in anticipation. They look so small, 400 feet away. Paul hoisted the burlap sack into his lap and gripped it tightly in both fists. Now, Captain Davis, now? Not yet, Paul.

The biplane climbed another hundred feet and started another slow circle above the eager crowd. Okay, Paul, get ready. Paul gripped the top of the sack with his right hand and clutched the bottom with his left. Then he leaned over the side and waited for the command. Okay, Paul, bombs away. Paul dumped the contents over the side,

and pulled the empty sack back into his lap. Bombs away, he repeated, in quiet wonder. Instantly, the air was filled with 150 rice paper parachutes. Below each shoot, a delicious chocolate bar floated gently toward the earth, courtesy of the Curtis Candy Company. Captain Davis banked his aircraft away from the payload and back toward TerraFerma, as the nervous mom with the old-fashioned name. paste and bitter nails. All around her, children squealed with delight as the fluttering battalion of

sweets floated down from the heavens. For Doug Davis, the lead pilot of the Baby Ruth Flying Circus, it was just another routine flight in one of the most successful publicity stunts of all time. For his 12-year-old assistant, the experience was nothing short of transformational. That was the day Paul became the boy who loved to fly, a passion that would stay with him the rest of his life. And though she didn't know it, this was also the day that Paul's mother was destined to become a household name. It's interesting, isn't it? The way men are often inspired to name their most precious things after the women they love. Those candy bars, for instance, were named for President Grover Cleveland's daughter.

Ruth. The Curtis Candy Company was named for its founder's mother, Helen Curtis. Paul never forgot the thrill of his first flight, or the real reason his nervous mother allowed him to climb into a biplane with a perfect stranger. It wasn't the pilot's confidence or his own incessant begging. It was the presence of that girl's name on the side of the plane. That's why 20 years later, when Paul flew into the history books, he did so in a brand new plane with an old-fashioned name, a plane named after his dear old mom. It was early August, a perfect day for flying. The skies were mostly clear and the winds favorable. Paul felt the same rush of excitement he always did whenever the propellers started to turn. But on this day,

the boy who loved to fly wasn't taking orders. He was giving them. And when Colonel Paul Tibbets yelled, bombs away, he wasn't dropping candy bars over Miami. He was dropping something altogether different from a plane called the Anola Gay over a town called Hierich. Called Heron. Anyway, that's the way I heard it.