Third Time Is a Charm

by Ed Nelson

  “Additionally all questions asked will have citations for the questions read out so that Mr. Jackson’s attorneys may look them up. He will sit in front of them and will not be able to see the books. I don’t have a number to judge by, but a large portion of the questions must be directly from the text books.”

  The attorney for the school board objected, “Your Honor we will not have time to prepare!”

  “Strange, you were trying to have young Mr. Jackson appear before you tomorrow, what has changed?”

  At that the School District attorney looked frustrated.

  “I’m not certain Your Honor, that was the instruction I was given.”

  “Will the gentleman from the school board enlighten us?”

  The man who stood up looked like someone who you wouldn’t want to buy a used car from. Of course I may be biased.

  “Your Honor, we had a panel of five professionals ready with their questions. With your conditions some of the questions would be disallowed. We need time to come up with new ones.”

  “Would that be because most of the questions would be from suggested books rather than the formal text books?”

  You could see the guy stop and think if he should lie in court. Well that is how it looked to me. He caved.

  “Yes Your Honor.”

  “The exams will be given here as stated tomorrow morning starting at nine a.m.”

  “Your Honor that is unfair, our people will have to work late!”

  “If they are college graduates they have pulled all-nighters before. Court Dismissed.”

  And with a bang of the gavel the hearing was over.

  Chapter 49

  The Judge called out my name.

  “Mr. Jackson, you may want to check your shirt pocket.”

  My effort to look good had really failed, my fountain pen in my shirt pocket had leaked, badly. The shirt was ruined. Heck, I was probably even dyed Esterbrook blue.

  “Thanks Your Honor. This just hasn’t been my day.”

  “I think you will do very well tomorrow.”

  Outside the courtroom Mr. Hopkins explained to me that the Judge had done everything in what he interpreted as his power to give me a fair shot.

  I’m not sure the outcome was fair to me, but saw I wouldn’t gain anything by arguing. We had left the books in the courtrooms cloakroom. We were assured they would be okay.

  When I got home I changed, tossing the shirt and took a shower to wash the ink off. As I suspected it would take a while for the stain to disappear from my skin. It looked like a Rorschach tattoo.

  I then went for a run. I had to work off the stress. After three or so miles I started to let it go. By the time I returned to the house I was a lot calmer. Instead of whining about my fate, or whinging as Mum called it, I went to study. Oh yeah we had left the books at the courthouse.

  After a late lunch I had a package waiting for me. It was a group of quotes for my workshop. One of them stood out from both a price and quality standpoint. The quality was the fact they made several suggestions to improve the space. The others were going to build it as I had requested. All the prices were within ten percent of each other so I signed the Yankee Home Improvement contract.

  Wonder how Yankees ended up in California? Hmm, I guess I’m a Yankee by strict definition, as I grew up in Ohio, but I was a Limey by birth. However, I was born in southern England so what was I?

  The construction time was estimated to be twelve weeks and wouldn’t start until after the first of the year.

  Next I started out to the beach to go surfing. I did stop at the Beach House to see how things were proceeding. They were making progress, but at this rate it would be next summer before it was done. I was hoping for early spring. The construction foreman who I had met before told me the problem was getting inspectors out to sign off each step of the way.

  I was beginning to not like the government I saw in action. I bet if I checked into it, there would be a special interest group pushing the inspection department to make things harder so the special interest would profit.

  Was every government like this or were we just bad.

  Instead of surfing I drove to Dad’s office and found he had time for me. I asked him about the opinion I was forming.

  “Rick that is the beauty of the United States each state can make its own regulations. Special interest groups, whether trade groups or voter groups push the laws. But if you don’t like the laws in one state you can move to a state where you like the laws. It’s like the United States is made up of fifty laboratories to try ideas out.”

  “What about the Federal Government.”

  “Our Constitution specifically spells out the Federal powers. All other powers are reserved by the states.”

  “What about Commerce.”

  “That is a concern. I’m hoping that the Supreme Court someday will reverse itself.”

  “From what I’ve learned the last few days the Federal Government as an organization will try to expand its powers as all organizations do.”

  “Unfortunately you have paid attention and I’m afraid that is the eventual outcome. But that will take many years to occur. In the meantime all we can do is vote against it.”

  “Well we are becoming a large vested interest; maybe we can have some influence on events.”

  My Dad got a horrified look on his face.

  “Rick you aren’t thinking of going into politics are you?”

  “No, I’d rather work behind the scenes.”

  “You scared me for a moment. I saw your soul going straight to Hell.”

  “Dad it can’t be that bad.”

  “If you heard what I hear in business every day you would believe it.”

  Note to self: don’t go into politics if I want to go to Heaven.

  “Well on that cheerful note I’m going to buy a milkshake, want to come along?”

  “Sorry I can’t Rick, too much to do. There is one other thing I want you to start thinking about. I was going to wait until after your exam so it wouldn’t create extra pressure. However, I know you face things better if you have a Plan B. Pass or fail, where are you going to finish school?”

  That never occurred to me. Fail and I would have at least to spend the rest of the year in tenth grade, and a full year every grade thereafter. Pass and they would make my life very difficult as I tried to continue on.

  “Thanks a lot Dad, I never thought of that, want to sit with me as I’m awake worrying all night?”

  “It’s not that bad. I made a couple of phone calls. The studio schools are spread out over several counties so you could transfer to one of those schools.”

  “Don’t you have to live there?”

  “Live or work there. I bet you could come up with a project in the county of choice.”

  That got me thinking.

  “If I needed to go to a class I could fly to school.”

  I didn’t share the next thought that skipping a class then buzzing the school might be fun.

  “Or if you wanted to really push it, you could go to school in another state.”

  “Wouldn’t that be the same, but just further?”

  “Just like when you moved to California you could request to take placement tests to see what courses you needed to graduate.”

  “Oh wow, that would reduce the number of classes I would need to take.”

  “Or you could go to England and take your O-levels. You can do that at sixteen. Many US Universities will accept you if you have passed five O-level exams and have good ACT or SAT scores.”

  “You mean I could fly to England, take the exams as a citizen, come back here and take the SAT and get into College?”

  “That’s what it sounds like, of course I would check with the school you intend to go to first.”

  “Can I skip tomorrow and fly to London instead?”

  “No, you would be viewed as cowardly and running away if you didn’t face the exams. By doing it afterwards you are working around an unjust
system.”

  I felt if the weight of the world had come off me.

  “I can’t lose now, no matter what. If I fail, and that will only happen if they are really unfair in their questions, I can show they are wrong by passing the O-levels and getting into a University. If I pass the same outcome, other than I don’t have to fight them to graduate. Thanks Dad!”

  “Rick, your Mum and I are always on your side, even those times I had to spank you.”

  Even today I remembered those spankings. Never again will I hide under a table with two canes from the fairground and pull Denny’s feet from under him. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but he had a glass of milk. The glass broke. He didn’t get cut. Mum did as she was cleaning it up. Thinking back I really deserved it.

  “I know Dad, at times I wonder how you put up with me.”

  “I wonder how my mother put up with me. I guess children are our punishment for how we treated our parents.”

  “And on that note, I’m out of here.”

  “See you at dinner, and relax for the rest of the afternoon.”

  I did that, well I went home after getting my milkshake and broke out my books on flight. It was a nice change of pace. I think I finally understood how that pesky Newton came into play on the subject of lift.

  This was after asking Mr. McGarry to explain it several weeks ago. He had me work out the math involved with lift from the Bernoulli Principle and Newton’s Laws on a Cessna 172 wing. The numbers were amazing. Way to go Sir Isaac!

  After dinner I played Mr. Potato Head with Mary and Eddie. Denny spent most of his evenings in his darkroom. His work was getting better and better. He told us at dinner several days ago that he wanted to enter them in a professional contest. I think that he would do well.

  I think my Potato Head was the goofiest looking, but the others thought theirs were. Mary won which was no surprise. I think she had loaded dice. All cute five year old girls do.

  Before going to bed, my parents and I discussed tomorrow. We all agreed that all I could do is show up and answer the questions as best as I could and let the chips fall.

  Chapter 50

  I had a light workout in the morning, cleaned up and went to breakfast. I even went light there as I didn’t want to feel sleepy in the middle of the exam. Luckily I even went to the bathroom, so I was good to go.

  I rode with my parents in the limo. We seemed to be using it more and more. I had to restrain myself from bouncing out like I usually did. Our guard, riding up front with the driver would get out first and check the surroundings before opening our door.

  There were no difficulties, so we went directly to the courtroom. Others were there ahead of us. The set up was different. In front of the Judges bench was a table with five chairs. Facing the table was a single chair. On one side of the room where a jury would sit there was a portable blackboard. Another table held copies of every book which my lawyers were now just bringing in from the cloakroom.

  Miss Sperry sat with Mum and Dad. All the other lawyers were at a table behind me.

  We were no sooner in the room and it was, “All rise.”

  Judge Hopkins got right down to it.

  “Is the school district ready to ask its questions of Mr. Jackson?”

  “Yes Your Honor.”

  At that point four men and one woman walked over and sat down. They had an individual for each subject. I walked up to the chair preparing to sit down. The Judge raised a question,

  “Do you plan to have Mr. Jackson sit in that chair for the next three hours?”

  “Yes Your Honor.”

  “Bailiff, bring in a small table plus a glass and a pitcher of water for Mr. Jackson. Also, I see the questions are written down, do they have the correct answers with them?”

  “They do your Honor.”

  “Good, please provide me a copy.”

  “Your Honor we didn’t mimeograph extra copies.”

  “That is alright, we have one of those new Xerox machines. Give the answer sheets to my secretary and she will take care of it.”

  It took about twenty minutes and we were settled in. The first question was a math problem and I walked over to the chalk board and solved it. If the rest of the day went like this it would be a breeze. I stayed at the board waiting for the next math problem.

  Instead the next person at the table asked me a question in Spanish. I responded in my very fluent Spanish. It must have been good enough because the man said, “Bueno,” and I never heard another question in Spanish. Of course that meant I would have more questions in other subjects.

  And so it went the remaining four asking questions in random order. If they were trying to get me off balance it wasn’t working because the Judge appeared to be on my side. He required them to give the citation for each question. My attorney’s would look up the question and then nod to the Judge that it was in the book.

  At first they stayed in my text books, but as time went on they went deeper into suggested reading. Since I was given time before having to answer I didn’t feel stressed and was able to think clearly. It was amazing that when they gave the citation I could almost see the page in front of me. Not word for word at all, but the general thrust of the topic.

  When that tactic didn’t seem to be working they switched.

  I was asked, “Young man you have taken Physics. Please explain simply the principles of flight.”

  “There is thrust, drag, Bernoulli’s Principle and Newton’s Laws to take into account.”

  For the first time I heard, “Incorrect.”

  Did that mean I had all the others correct?

  “Newton’s Laws play no part in flight, not if you keep power to the plane.”

  “Sir I beg to differ if you would let me explain.”

  “You are wrong, next question.”

  Bang went the gavel.

  “I would love to hear Mr. Jackson’s explanation.”

  Taking him at his literal word I explained directly to the Judge ignoring my questioner.

  “Your Honor Bernoulli’s Principal only plays a small part in the lift provided to the aircraft. It depends on the principle of equal transit time.

  I drew the standard profile of a wing as shown in most of my flight manuals on the blackboard, with arrows denoting airflow.

  “The common thought is that the air when it hits the leading edge splits, some over and some under the wing. In both cases the air hits the trailing edge at the same time. That is the equal transit time. Since air on top has further to flow, there is less air pressure, so the air flowing under the wing provides lift.”

  “Now from Bernoulli’s Principal we calculate the speed and distance. From there we can calculate the amount of lift required. Simple mathematics tells us that in order to generate the lift for a small plane, for example a Cessna 172 the distance over the top of the wing would have to be fifty percent more than under the wing.”

  I then drew a picture of a wing segment that looked like an offset mountain or a right skewed bell curve.

  “Just imagine what the wing of a 707 would look like. That Cessna 172 would have to fly at over 400 miles an hour to obtain enough lift.”

  Having worked out the very arithmetic for this problem previously for Mr. McGarry and his flight instruction I was able to jot it down quickly. The Judge had me pause and asked if my math was correct.

  He received a pained sounding, “Yes,” in reply.

  “Proceed.”

  “If this were the only reason an aircraft could remain in the air, inverted flight wouldn’t be possible. The plane would lose lift and dive.”

  “Now to Newton, the wing must change something of the air to get lift. Changes in the air’s movement will result in forces on the wing. To generate lift a wing must divert air down, lots of air.”

  “The lift of a wing is equal to the lift generated by Bernoulli’s Principle plus the equal and opposite reaction to the mass and speed of the air that it diverts down. Momentum is the product of mass and ve
locity. The lift of a wing is proportional to the amount of air diverted down times the downward velocity of that air. So F=ma. For more lift the wing can either divert more air, mass, or increase its downward velocity.”

  “Now when the air goes down it does not create a void above the wing. Air above the wing fills the almost void in, creating lower air pressure above the wing.” According to Bernoulli the air below the wing will now provide lift, until the air pressure on both sides of the wing are equal, while Newton tells us that additional lift will be provided by the mass of the air accelerated downward. Since we are moving forward until we provide less velocity by reducing speed or changing the configuration of the wing we will have lift.”

  “The downwash of air off the back of the wing is created by the viscosity of the air. When a moving fluid such as water or air comes into contact with a curved surface it will try to follow that surface. Picture water running over a water glass, it will follow the curve of the glass rather than falling straight down at its first opportunity. I think that principle is demonstrated by the fountain in front of this building.”

  “So the air follows the wing to its end then tries to follow the curve. It cannot reverse its course and flow back towards the front of the plane because of the velocity of the wind flowing under the wing. Thus it is forced straight down. This is referred to as the bound vortex or circulation model.”

  “Thank you Mr. Jackson may I ask where you learned this?”

  “Your Honor it was mentioned in passing in one of my flight manuals. I couldn’t figure it out so I asked my original instructor Mr. McGarry and he explained it.”

  “I thought so, he beat it into me. Your explanation is correct and the school boards instruction incorrect.”

  “They didn’t instruct me in this, they just came up with the question. If you noticed they didn’t give a citation for this, just a general question as to the principal of flight. While the Bernoulli Principle and Newton’s Laws were covered in Physics they were not in the context of flight, that wasn’t covered in the text books nor the suggested reading.”