Election Day was a challenge for me. I hadn't flown anyplace "for fun" in a month and I worried that I had become detached from the simple graces of little airplanes and grass runways. On this day I planned to set the home projects aside and hop over to Waterloo for lunch with "the guys". Lunch trips are always good, but I felt that the day would be some sort of a failure if the flight itself was dull.
Waterloo from Dundee is a short trip, maybe twenty minutes each way, and the land is both flat and familiar. It was also a very plain sort of day, a soft day. The winds were calm, even as the sun worked its way to the top of the sky, dissipating a layer of morning haze. It seemed to be a day that could satisfy but not inspire.
Tuesdays at Waterloo is a regular lunch date for the old taildraggers, a group of mostly retired guys who have a passion for bumping around the area in little airplanes which were brand new when they were young men. On this fair day a dozen planes brought eighteen friends and acquaintances together, and we had the usual good time.
Even as I started my return flight to Dundee, I had no plan for making the trip interesting. Momentarily I amused myself by chasing the Aeronca that had taken off just a minute ahead of me. I could see though, that it would not be an easy catch, so I broke off and headed southwest. As I passed over the Seneca Army Depot, it occurred to me that I had never taken a real tour of the place. I started a series of aimless turns as I made my way south over the countless rows of munitions bunkers that dot the brushland in the center of the reservation.
The depot is largely inactive now, and in the fifteen years that I have been flying from Dundee, I have noted little change except that its 7000 foot runway has been decomissioned. For the most part, the depot died a long time ago, and time has left few hints of its glory years except for the general patterns which remain visible from the air.
The full extent of the railroad system is still apparent, with miles of mainline track, switch yards, loading docks, sidings, and an engine yard. Traces of warehouse spurs are interspersed with the weedy outlines of the many long buildings. For the most part, Munitions were received, moved through the depot, and shipped out by rail.
The several squadron areas, each a miniature community, are outlined only by fading footprints of their buildings and their roadways. Many of the central utilities such as heating, water, and sewage plants still stand, however. In the middle of the depot is a small but well- kept cemetery, a silent reminder that for a hundred years before the depot, there were farms and families on that ground.
My meandering tour of the base returned me to the north end, this time over the lake and a thousand feet or so above the ground. As I looked south, Seneca showed me an uncommon view, and I realized that I was at a sort of magic altitude. I was high enough that I could see the distant expanse of the Appalachian foothills, but low enough that I looked out at the scenery, rather than down at it. I usually avoid flying low, partially because it is so addictive, but on this day I was easily hooked. I dropped down to a few hundred feet above the lake and throttled back to a very slow southbound cruise.
Seneca has been described by some geologists as a "landlocked fjord" because the last glacier carved it so narrow and deep. On this day, the lake was as smooth as a millpond, a sparkling presence which so incongruously split the rock of distant hills. Long Point, only a dozen miles ahead, faded demurely into the quiet waters; the land gently sloped down, with trees and dwellings, and at the tip just a few trees which seemed to be growing out of the water itself. A painting of such extremely diverse topography would be dismissed as fancy, but it was mine to behold through the windshield.
At my best putt- putt speed I wandered down the east shore from Sampson to Peach Orchard. I took a final look at the depot, and then passed by Willard, the depot's southern neighbor with a similarly mysterious presence. I noted several abandoned buildings which were obviously older than the present buildings of this mental hospital. Their windows were shuttered, and I wondered if it was to keep the weather out or to keep the memories in.
Long stretches of this shoreline have only a narrow strip of driftwood- strewn beach separating the water from the gray cliffs that rise to the woodlands above. Sunlight splashed through the tranquil waters and dappled the stony lake bed near shore. It was easy to imagine that this same view could have been had three hundred years ago, but as usual, it was not nature which attracted my attention, it was the way in which man has inserted himself into it.
In some places, the cliffs were topped with grand homes, and some isolated beaches harbored humble little shacks. Everyplace that the cliffs were breached by a creek or tempered by nature, a circus of cottages were gathered about. Mysteriously, one small point had only a tumbledown cabin surrounded by grand old trees, with thick trunks that supported great crowns.
The little red airplane took me on quite a trip. I had lunch with friends, and then took a late autumn tour down a tranquil Seneca Lake. I spent four dollars for lunch, burned four gallons of gas and stole only four hours from the household projects which had seemed so important. I campaigned against a humdrum day and won.