Polly+Anna - Chapter 00 - by Polly+Anna (1500 words) Uncle Mike (1/29/20)
My Uncle Michael taught both me and Anna to fly in his little Cessna 172 back in 1992. Mike is a character, probably not the person that my parents wanted me to look up to and aspire to be. But by then my older brother was nineteen and being groomed to run the family business. So, while they discouraged me from following mom's older brother, they didn't dwell too long on that one particular influence.
By this time Anna and I had already graduated from a very well-respected private academy and we moved in together. Just two eighteen-year-old girls in their own place. Jesus, that sounds like a LitE story. Mike had served in the U.S. Air Force and introduced us to a sweet little aviator tradition, something that he was quite fond of. While they called them Key Parties, it was later sensationalized by the American press as "wife-swapping."
To hear Mike tell the tale it all started back in in the 1920s, a decade often called "The Roaring Twenties" when the United States as a victor that was minimally affected by the horror of what was at that time THE World War came to international prominence. The Army and Department of Commerce paid to paint the rooftops of barns and other structures with location names and the first "charts for airmen" were published.
Back in the 1920s and 30s flying - even more than sailing, was a dangerous profession. In 1934, in flying just over ten million air miles during peacetime, the United States Army suffered ten pilot fatalities. 'The Wreck of ole 97,' An old Army Air Force ditty goes...
"Oh, ladies, ladies, take fair warning.
True, from this time, now on.
Never speak harsh words to your high-flying pilot.
He may leave you and never return."
So, these pilots, facing death daily as the ancient mariners had, came to a solemn understanding. They decided that they were all family. That the surviving pilots would care for the wives and children of their fallen comrades. That meant financially, emotionally and in the case of the wives left behind, sexually. It was really kind of like an Old Testament Levirate marriage, where a surviving brother was obligated to care for his brother's widow.
Since they were family after a tragedy, why wouldn't they be family beforehand as well. A tradition emerged of all the virile young men of a unit, married and single alike, "taking care" of the sexual needs of all the wives of the unit. Born were "key parties" in which an "airman" would be handed a key and "obligated" to provide sexual fulfillment to the wife in the home the key opened the door of.
Uncle Mike had been in SAC, the U.S. Strategic Air Command, in the 1960s. Officially its mission was nuclear deterrence. In practice it meant driving a Chariot for one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. So, just as mariners had done since time immemorial, they poked their fingers in the eyes of the Angel of Death and lived their lives to the fullest, while not knowing if there would be a tomorrow at all.
It seemed back then in those turbulent years more than ever that the world, literally the whole world, could end at any time. Everyone on base knew that while it was not the intent of their mission: if every aircraft in their wing survived and hit every target in the Soviet Union with every "device" that they carried, the combined radiation could potentially end all known life on this, the third rock from the sun.
We had been flying around the north with Uncle Mike. From the old Orange Walk Airport over to Corozal, to Pine Ridge and to San Pedro out on the Caye. Anna and I sat in the front seats and took turns flying, practicing our landings and charting hours towards earning our Commercial Pilot's Licenses. Mike sat in the back and gave us useful instruction while looking down our camisole tops watching our pert young breasts.
Sometimes, after our lessons we would go back to Mike's house and have dinner. He had a nice patio with a swimming pool, we would usually eat out there. Mike enjoyed looking at us, he never touched us. The attention was flattering so we would show off. We would sit around his pool, and drink rum drinks while he had a few beers and tell us stories of his mis-spent youth in the United States.
They would fly "Steel Trap" missions, 50 or more B-52 bombers would launch from their Mississippi base, be topped off by KC-135 tankers over Tennessee and Kentucky and fly marathon 60-hour missions. They would first proceed to a 'go-no-go line' above the Arctic Circle, where a coded message would stop them and prevent Armageddon since they were armed with real thermonuclear devices. Then they flew a preset course for two-and-a half-days, simulating a crisis situation.
A dozen tanker aircraft kept the bombers aloft through multiple air-to-air refueling hook-ups, while themselves periodically landing to refuel. When the aircrew returned home safely they celebrated with a Key Party. Teenagers recruited beforehand watched the children. Keys to the other homes and cards with sex acts written on them were mixed and distributed. The men took turns taking care of the wives and girlfriends until the participants, exhausted but happy 'tapped-out' for the night.
"Here, Christopher," Uncle Mike said as he used the grease pencil to draw on his newly promoted friends' shoulders. "There you go, gas jockey."
"That's, Mister Gas Jockey, Sir, and Esquire to you, "said Major Chris Galloway, "learn how to address a superior officer. And this is the most piss-poor drawing of a maple leaf that I've ever seen."
"Superior officer," said Mike, "not a superior pilot. We are the mission; your tankers support us."
