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Hot Dogs, Flybys and Goodbyes
Twin Pines was undoubtedly the funkiest, shabbiest, and most disreputable airport in New Jersey...but the generations of eccentrics that inhabited that small grass strip gave the place I learned to fly a magic all its own.
by Lee H Goldberg
The chilly April wind rippled the grass and the edges of the canopy that had been erected at the end of Runway 12 where the crowd of dignitaries, curiosity-seekers and a bunch of mostly-gray-headed men congregated. Rather than deal with the solemn speechifying by the town mayor and several state officials, I hunkered down behind the grill that my flying club had set up nearby and proceeded to make hot dogs for the crowd. Our club had been grilling hot dogs at every fly-in and kids-fly-free day we’d held, so it felt only right to offer up a final sacrament of charred tube steak in memory of the place that had been home to so many of our adventures and dreams. The day we’d all been long dreading had finally arrived as the little grass strip airport that we all loved was finally being closed to make room for a soccer field.
Twin Pines Airport (known on aeronautical charts as N75) was not much to look at but its bumpy half-mile grass landing strip and ramshackle hangars have been home to several generations of aviation enthusiasts and given countless children a place to explore their own dreams of flight. Much of the place’s character was a direct reflection of Bill, who‘d owned the place for close to 50 years and, as a teenager, had flown into that very airport in a plane he’d just bought to get his first flying lesson (I’m not making this up!). Bill had somewhat lax standards for maintenance and an obsession for collecting junk, two traits that were responsible for the place’s unkempt look and unsavory reputation among the town’s more well-to-do residents. But it was precisely that casual attitude and low-rent environment that attracted the loose community of eccentrics, adventurers, and hard-core pilots that kept the grass mowed and the hangar roofs patched at Twin Pines.
It was inexpensive flying lessons that lured me to Twin Pines, but it was the wonderful collection of people who loved airplanes and welcomed all who shared their passion that kept me coming back for over twenty years. The folks that tinkered with their home-built biplanes in the hangars or shot the breeze with Dave, the flight instructor, in front of the shack he called his office were a remarkable lot. Outside that small world, they might be a Wall Street broker, a carpenter, a neurosurgeon, an auto mechanic or a retired Air Force colonel - or even a technology editor - but here around the battered picnic table that sat under the trees you were simply a pilot. Of course there were some pilots who were better than others and some that were much worse. We had our share of both at The Pines.
One of our most memorable pilots was Harry, a pipe fitter and welder from Trenton, who got bitten hard by the flying bug and earned his license about the same time he finished rebuilding a WW-II era Stearman biplane. Harry’s skill was reflected in the perfect welds on the plane’s tubular fuselage and the gleaming red fabric that covered it, but it was most visible as the graceful way he danced that 500 hp behemoth across the sky.
About the only thing more amazing was the fact that Harry couldn’t read. Nobody knows whether it was the result of extreme dyslexia or being forced to go to work at an early age, but Harry could not read a restaurant menu, let alone a technical manual or a pilot’s exam. Fortunately, Twin Pines had many friends through our small tight-knit aviation community and Bill persuaded someone at the FAA to give Harry an oral exam. Harry received his license and a special waiver that allowed him to operate the Stearman and any other basic airplane where literacy was not a prerequisite. After having earned his wings, Harry became a fixture at the Airport, a quasi-legal weekend sightseeing service where he shared the gift of flight with others. Harry and his Stearman gave many people, including my mother, their first taste of aerobatics in an open-cockpit airplane.
Huddled over the grill for warmth, my friends swapped stories about Harry and the other folks we’d flown with and the airplanes we’d helped them build as we served up hot dogs to the chilly crowd. We wondered what had become of Miles, the airport’s unofficial security guard and welcoming committee who had lived on the airport grounds for many years in his RV, usually parked by the woods at the end of Runway 30. I also ran into Jack, a professional photographer and sometime airport resident who’d taken to living out of his RV behind Dave’s line shack when his marriage had ended a few years back. We traded more stories about the many outings and cross-country trips we’d flown from The Pines and the many unusual aircraft that had visited our little strip over the years.
 I put the last of the hot dogs on the grill and made sure we kept one aside for Kenny, one of our oldest members who had stopped flying years ago but always showed up for meetings and fly-ins. Since Kenny couldn’t walk so well anymore we took turns keeping him company at the chair we’d set up next to the grill to make sure he was surrounded by friends and had a good view of the proceedings.
Finally the hot dogs were gone, the speeches were over and we all watched as a pair of planes made a low fly-by and a state police helicopter touched down, making it the last aircraft to land at Twin Pines.
Comments? Questions? Want to share tales of your favorite place? Write me at lhg at EN-Genius dot net or post your comments on our blog.
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