Mexico Missouri message., 1918-05-09
WHAT A WONDERFUL
WORLD THIS is!
A Mexico Soldier Boy Flies 5000
Feet In The Air-"Gee, But It's
Pretty!"-Nearly Lost His Lunch.

The Message is permitted to pub
lish the the following interesting
letter from Rodes Jesse received
lately 0y his parents of this city,
Mr.. and Mrs. j. r. Jesse:
Park Field, Tennessee.
Dear Folks:
Do ynu remember that famous
character, Flip" of the funnies?
Rip viii, / know. Well, that's who
l look Ike now! My face is all blis-
tered from the sun except two large
round circles about my eyes, where
my goggles have protected portions
of my face. You see, we wear
yellow-tinted goggles so that the
suns rays may not blind us, and
the "fixins" around the sides kinda
shade our eyes. 1t even hurts to
touch my face anywhere else, tho.
We fly for twelve hours at time
here-that is, the flyers are divided
into two divisions, with a separate
set of instruction birds" and ma
chimes for each set. One bunch goes
on at $3.50 in the morning and flies
until 1890 that day. Then Glass
goes on at 1890 and flies until 1880
that afternoon. Next day B Glass
flies in the morning and A in the af-
ternoon. l fly Monday afternoon,
Tuesday morning, Wednesday after
noon, Thursday morning, Friday af-
ternoon and Saturday morning each
week.
This morning 1 was up $500 feet.
And. by the way, have one of the
most famous flyers in the United
States for an instructor Brock is his
name, and he is a dandy fine fellow.
Has been flying since he was 16
years old. The first ship he ever flew
was controlled by leather straps, at
tached to his shoulders. He is a vet
if there ever was one, and his men
have made the best records of any
turned out of this field. He has nev-
er been known to "cuss" a man out,
and can pull you out of any kind of
fix. He ig a peach of a flyer, and
am exceedingly fortunate to have
him. l have all the confidence in
the world in him. He flies brand
new Curtiss S-cylinder machine, ca
pable of rs miles per hour. Best
ship on the field, but l always give
her a close "once-over" before l go
up.
| Maybe you'd like to know some
thing about the sensation of flying.
First, tho, this--no, l never knew
had a heart at all, but once
thought l was going to lose my
stomach. The air was bumpy as
thunder today, making it a good day
for instruction-the rougher the
weather the more you learn. Some
times one wing would drop 80 feet
and all of sudden the nose would
shoot down; she'd buck and fuss
around to beat Heck. Sure kept me
busy lighting that joy-stick! The
sensation is nothing like l expected
it to be. 1 always imagined it would
be like looking over a tall building.
but nothing like that at all! I never
realized what a wonderful world this
is until went up. You can see all
the trees, plowed fields, houses and
everything for miles and miles. Ev-
erything is so green and pretty
surely a pretty sight! You are so
struck with the beauty and wonder
of it all that you don't think about
your elevation. Brock tried to get
me above the clouds today to show
me what is said to be the most beau
tiful sight for man to behold, but
the air was so rough we caouldn't
make it. At $500 feet a train of six
coaches looks about the size of a
pin, and you can see the Mississippi
| from almost it's very source. At that