Cadillacs and Aeroplanes

The other day I came home to see a burnt orange 1976 drop top El Dorado Cadillac on the lawn outside my house. There are at least 11 cars on the property, all but two are American, and I can think of 5 Cadillacs off the top of my head. I saw this broke down looking monster stretched out across the lawn and thought, "There is no way this thing runs."

Well, I was hard at work when I heard this deep growl rumbling by my window. To my utter disbelief it was none other than the good Doctor arriving in his newly acquired convertible Cadillac pimp mobile with one hand on the wheel and the other slung over the side of the door. He was defining cool. I was waiting for my front lawn to erupt into a hip hop video with a slew of Cadillacs bouncing on hydraulics, scantily clad woman, large beverages and the Doctor mc-ing the show.

I ran outside to complement him on his new purchase and he told me that he just can't pass up the opportunity to buy these things when they turn up. Then his phone rang. His brother was flying over on a joyride from Cleveland (Mississippi that is, about 20 minutes by car from Shelby) and wanted to know if he wanted to take a ride. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Dr. M...asked if I would like to take a quick flight to get a birds eye view of the fields. Absolutely!

We took a 20 minute flight over the patchwork of greens, browns, and golds that sew together the landscape of the Delta during the growing season. If I didn't know better, the enormous concentric circles created by an artillery of irrigation arms could have been crop circles left by extra terrestrials. I could see the grid work of endless fields punctuated by small towns. Eight miles off on the horizon was the great river continuously fueling the history of this region. The layout of the Delta is not complicated and I have a firm grasp of how everything is oriented, but to fly at 1200 feet over the fields and towns that I call home and to experience the images of Google Earth in real time was breathtaking.