by Fannie Flagg
Fritzi
P.S. The town of Sweetwater gave us gals a barbecue—sure was fun. These Texans are some of the friendliest people I ever met.
AVENGER FIELD
SWEETWATER, TEXAS
Billy Boy,
I thought I was a tough guy, but from now on, you have my permission to call me a sissy. Yesterday, Willy and I took off and were in the air no more than five minutes when I look over and see the biggest rattlesnake I have ever seen crawling right toward me. It must have been sleeping in the side compartment, and the vibration of the plane woke him up in a hurry.
Well, you always wonder how brave you will be in a crisis. I’ve pulled planes out of spins, I’ve danced on wings in a windstorm, I’ve done a lot of things … but Billy … when I saw that damn snake headed toward me, I froze as stiff as a starched collar. My head was telling me … jump out … move … do something … but I just sat there with my eyes as big as two platters. Then Willy looks over, sees it, calmly reaches across me, grabs that thing by the tail, and slings it out the window into the wild blue yonder. When I could breathe again, I see that Willy is as calm as a cucumber. She looks at me and starts laughing. She says she never saw a person turn green before. She tried to make me feel better and said I did the right thing by not moving—little did she know it wasn’t planned. If I could have moved, I would have. Willy is one swell gal and my hero, but I didn’t tell her that.
Fritzi
P.S. I’ll bet that snake was surprised to find itself flying.
AVENGER FIELD
SWEETWATER, TEXAS
Billy Boy,
Long time no hear from. Hope you’re sending lots of good pilots over the pond to kick their asses. We are busier than hell here. By the way, remember those three college gals I told you about? I have to take it all back. After being around them for a while, I found out they are regular fellers. In fact, they really have the goods. Damn good fliers. They work hard. Don’t complain. And can slug it out with the best of them. Ain’t this old war funny? Here I am living and flying with gals that I would never have met in a million years, and I was wrong about thinking they were snooty. I think it was me that had my nose out of joint. Oh, well, wouldn’t be the first time … eh? Anyhow, after a few bars, I finally broke down and told them about Phillips being the name of my old man’s filling station back in Pulaski, where the Jurdabralinski sisters majored in grease monkeying, and they had a good laugh. Turns out they were fascinated and made me tell them all about it. Go figure. I think this war is going to change a lot of people’s thinking. It’s changed mine already. Okay, Billy Boy, time for me to hit the hay. Take care of yourself, and I’ll see you real soon, if I get anywhere near you. Even if it is only for a night, and you know what I mean.
Me
P.S. I read that in Pensacola the boys outnumber the girls about a thousand to one. No wonder you are lonesome for me. I hate to report that the opposite here is true. Five thousand men to one girl. We sure don’t lack for dancing partners. But don’t worry, I am being good. Well, as good as I can be.
HELLO, ALICE
POINT CLEAR, ALABAMA
SOOKIE HAD ALREADY FED THE BIRDS, STILL MOSTLY BLUE JAYS, AND done a little gardening before it got too hot. August was deadly, and by eight A.M., it was already so hot and humid outside, you wound up soaking wet. It was Monday, and she thought she would get dressed and run out to the Walmart and do her weekly shopping early and get it over with.
She had just stepped out of the tub when she heard the phone in the bedroom ringing. Her mother was at her garden club meeting, so it was probably Netta. She usually wanted Sookie to pick something up for her at Walmart, so she wrapped herself in a towel and ran in and picked up.
“Hello.”
“Alice?”
“Pardon me?”
“Is this Alice? I’m trying to reach Alice Finch.”
Sookie suddenly recognized the voice and quickly said, “Oh, yes! This is Miss Finch, yes.”
“This is the lady from Wisconsin calling, from the chamber? You called a while ago wanting to know about the Jurdabralinskis. I kept waiting for you to call back, but you never did, so I got your phone number off the phone bill. Where is area code 251?”
Sookie panicked and lied and said, “Georgia,” and immediately realized that was stupid, but it was too late.
“Oh, well, listen, I have some information for ya, hon. Real interesting tidbits about the Jurdabralinskis. Mom says that three of the Jurdabralinskis were WASPs. How about that?”
“WASPs?”
“Yeah, kinda unusual, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I thought they were Catholic.”
“They were Catholic, but they were WASPs—ya know, girl fliers during the Second World War?”
“Girl fliers?”
“Oh, yeah. Mom says there were a bunch of write-ups in the paper back then. They were known as the Flying Jurdabralinski Girls of Pulaski. She says at one time, three of the Jurdabralinski girls were in the service, and the one girl that was killed … died in a plane crash.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yeah. They had a big funeral for her over at the cathedral and everything, and she was a big hero and all.”
Sookie felt her heart sink. “Which sister was it? Do you know … was her first name Fritzi?”
“Hold on, I’ve got all the stuff written down. Okay. Hmmm …” As Sookie waited for her to find it, she felt her heart start to pound. “No … that’s not it. Wait a minute. Oh, here it is … no, it was another Jurdabralinski sister who died.”
Sookie suddenly felt strangely relieved. “Do you have any information on the sister named Fritzi—about what ever happened to her?”
“Hold on … let me ask Mom. She’s right here. Hey, Mom, do you know what ever happened to Fritzi Jurdabralinski?” Sookie heard mumbling in the background. “Mom says she moved off years ago. She thinks to somewhere in California.”
“Does she know where?”
“Hold on. Mom … Mom! Alice wants to know where she moved to in California.… She says she doesn’t remember, but it was a Danish town.”
“A Danish town?”
“Mom, a Danish town?… Yeah, she says she got a postcard from her sometime in the fifties, and it had windmills on it.”
“I see. Does your mother happen to know if she’s still alive?”
“Is she still alive, Mom?” More mumbling in the background. “She says she must be or it would have been in the papers. Mom reads all the obituaries. But now here’s the other really interesting tidbit. One of the girls went on to become quite a celebrity in her own right. She and her twin sister. They had an accordion act and used to play locally, and Mom says she wrote an awful lot of good polkas. I know she wrote ‘I’m Too Fat to Polka’ and ‘The Wink-a-Dink Polka’ and a lot of others. I can get you a list. I can go down to the newspaper and look up those articles and send you a packet of what all I find.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful.”
“Okay, then. I’ll dig up what I can and send it on to ya. What’s your address, hon?”
Oh, dear, now she was caught. “Uh … send it to Alice Finch, in care of Mrs. Earle Poole, Jr. 526 Bayview Street, Point Clear, Alabama.”
“Huh. I thought you said you lived in Georgia.”
“Yes, but it’s very close to the state line, and I get my mail in Alabama.”
“Oh. Well, okay, then. I’ll get this off to you as soon as I can get it all gathered up. Nice talking to you, Alice.”
“You, too. Thank you.”
AFTER SHE HUNG UP, Sookie sat there and noticed her hands were shaking. She knew the woman was talking about her real mother and her real family, but it still seemed so unreal and scary. She didn’t even know that women flew planes during World War II. She thought there had only been men pilots.
The phone rang again, and she picked it up. This time, it was Netta. “Are you going to Walmart?”
“Yes, I sure am.”
“Could
you pick me up a six-pack of paper towels and a carton of Diet Dr Pepper?”
“Of course.”
“And a pound of frozen shrimp. If you’re coming right back.”
“I sure will. No problem.”
“Are you okay? You sound funny.”
“No, I’m fine. Listen, Netta, do you know anything about the WASPs?”
“What wasps?”
“The girl WASPs that flew planes during the Second World War.”
Netta thought to herself, “Uh-oh, here she goes again.” “No, honey, I didn’t know wasps flew planes.”
“Well, I didn’t either … until just now … isn’t that strange?”
“Yes … I would say so.”
“Have you ever heard of a town in California that’s Danish and has a lot of windmills?”
“No, honey, sure haven’t.” After Netta hung up, she was worried again. She had thought Sookie was getting better, but evidently not.
LATER, AS SHE WHEELED through Walmart, Sookie asked a few people if they had ever heard about the WASPs, and not one person had. Mr. Lennon, one of the Walmart greeters, said he thought he remembered something about them, but he wasn’t sure. But then, he was ninety-two. Sookie couldn’t wait for Earle to get home.
THE MINUTE EARLE WALKED in the door, Sookie said, “Earle, you won’t believe this, but I just found out my mother was a WASP and flew planes in the Second World War!”
“What?”
“A woman from Wisconsin called and told me. And her sisters did, too.”
“Hold on. Slow down. Now what?”
“My mother was a WASP. Like a WAC, only they flew planes. Have you ever heard of them?”
“No. I knew there were WACs and WAVES, but no.”
“Can you look them up on the Internet for me? I’m too nervous.”
“Sure, honey.” They walked back to the den, and Earle sat down and turned on the computer. He typed in “Women Fliers,” “World War II,” and the word “WASPs,” and suddenly, something came up. “Here it is,” Earle said.
The Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) were the first women to serve as pilots and fly military aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. The original twenty-eight women were under the direction of Nancy Harkness Love, who was an advocate of using experienced women fliers in domestic service to ferry airplanes in order to free up male pilots for combat or overseas ferrying.
WASP FACTS
1. The WASPs served in the Army Air Forces from September 1942 to December 20, 1944.
2. More than 33,000 women applied. 1,830 were accepted. 1,074 graduated from the training program.
3. Governed by the Civil Service Commission, although under military discipline order, the WASPs were originally stationed at the Howard Hughes Airport in Houston, Texas, but were transferred to Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas, in February 1943.
4. WASPs received seven months of training, the same as male cadets.
5. WASPs were stationed at 120 Army Air Bases within the United States.
6. WASPs flew 78 different types of aircraft, every plane the Army Air Corps flew, including the B-29.
7. WASPs flew sixty million miles of operation flights.
8. Types of flying duties included ferrying aircraft from factory to bases, flight instruction (basic and instrument), towing targets for antiaircraft, towing targets for aerial gunnery, tracking and searchlight missions, simulated strafing, and radio-controlled flights.
9. Thirty-eight died while flying for the Army Air Corps.
“Wow,” said Earle. “This is pretty impressive. I had no idea. This is really something, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and now I know why she was in Texas, and my two aunts were there, too. One of those girls that died was my aunt.”
“Oh, no. Really?”
“Yes. The lady is sending me newspaper articles.”
“Really? Does she know if she’s still alive?”
“She thinks so. The last time she heard from her, she was in California. Look up a town in California that’s Danish and has windmills.”
“Oh, okay, but could you get me a drink? An iced tea or something?”
SOOKIE WAS IN THE kitchen when she heard Earle call out. “I found it!” Sookie brought him his iced tea, and he pointed to the screen, and sure enough, there was a picture of a town with lots of big windmills everywhere. “Here it is. It says, ‘Solvang, California. Two hours north of Los Angeles, nestled in the beautiful Santa Ynez Valley. Come and discover the charming little town of Solvang, California. History: In January 1911, the Danish-American Colony Corporation, looking for farmland and impressed by the area’s abundant year-round sunshine, bought nine thousand plus acres of land. The new settlement was named Solvang, which means “Sunny Field” in Danish. The corporation advertised in Danish-language newspapers, and soon both U.S. Danish immigrants and those still in Denmark bought land in the colony. Many descendants of the original settlers still populate the area today.’ This has to be it.”
“I’m sure it is. But I doubt if she’s still there.”
“Don’t you want to find out?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Earle. I’m not sure. Even if I did meet her, what good would it do? What if she’s just horrible, and I hated her? Or what if, after she met me, she decided to move here with us? And I couldn’t say no, and then Lenore would find out. I don’t know, Earle. I still think it might be better to just leave well enough alone.”
“You do what you want, but if you don’t, and she dies, you might regret not meeting her when you still had the chance, or at least talking to her on the phone.”
“But why?”
“Well, you could find out why she gave you up. Don’t you think she at least deserves a chance? Don’t forget you just found out about her, but I’m sure she has been wondering about you for fifty-nine years.”
“Sixty,” added Sookie.
LATER IN BED, SOOKIE said, “Just imagine, Earle, I’m scared to go on a Ferris wheel, and my real mother actually flew a plane.”
Earle smiled. “It’s pretty exciting.”
“Yes … I guess it really is.”
Earle was glad to see Sookie start to take some sort of an interest. He hoped she would change her mind after reading about the WASPs and all that they did. He would like to meet the old gal himself. But it was Sookie’s decision.
NOW, THINKING MORE ABOUT it, Sookie realized that another reason not to meet her real mother was that when she found out that her daughter had never really accomplished anything and was just a housewife, she could be terribly disappointed in her. Good Lord. She had already disappointed one mother, and that was bad enough. She didn’t know if she wanted to take a chance on disappointing two.
AVENGER FIELD
SWEETWATER, TEXAS
Billy,
What’s wrong with the damn male race? We are getting a lot of flack from a bunch of disgruntled flyboys. As if things weren’t tough enough, a group of them here are not happy that girls are doing the same thing they are, and in some cases (mine), doing it better. We could ignore it, but they have started enough rumors about us to sink our entire program. They are telling people that we are a bunch of man-hungry females who joined up just so we could sleep around with the male pilots and are generally a no-good lot that should be sent home. Two weeks ago, we found out that they brought in a group of prostitutes and put them up at the Sweetwater Hotel and told everybody they were WASPs. I can tell you that didn’t endear us to the townsfolk.
Finally, it got straightened out, but we are now being forced to live like nuns. Our director Jackie Cochran says we can’t afford a hint of scandal. No dating instructors, no cussing, and ladylike behavior at all times while the flyboys do what they want. But Cochran says that our morals are to be above reproach. It’s hell being a guinea pig, but as our house mother Mrs. Van de Kamp said, if we can prove ourselves, it will all be worth it in the end. Then maybe the next group won’t have it so bad.
I know you are not reading about it in the paper. They don’t want it getting out, but we lost three girls this month, and one was a bay mate of mine and a really nice gal. She was married to a marine serving in Guadalcanal and has two kids at home. A few days ago, she came in too low and crashed on landing right outside the barracks.
I know you see a lot of this, and it’s all just part of training, but I am still not used to it and hope I never will be. It makes me so mad when all the newspaper reporters that come here only want to show the gals putting on lipstick or posing like models … all this phony baloney stuff. If anybody thinks this is a glamorous job and that we are just in it for the fun, they haven’t watched them pull a friend out of a burning plane and die right in front of them. Nobody here is saying much, but the mood is pretty glum.
Fritzi
THE CHECK RIDE
SWEETWATER, TEXAS
1943
MOST OF THE MALE INSTRUCTORS AT AVENGER FIELD WERE NICE, BUT some bitterly resented being assigned to Sweetwater, and they went out of their way to make the girls’ lives miserable. They would yell at them, call them “stupid” and “incompetent,” and do everything in their power to try to make them wash out. One, a surly lieutenant named Miller, was particularly rough on them. Day after day, girls would come in after their lessons with him in tears. One girl had been so devastated by his bullying, she quit and went home. And he made no bones about how he felt. It was clear he thought women had no business flying planes.
