Adam and the Airships

“I go for see da airsheep fly

Two mile, t’ree mile up een da sky;

O, my, eet eesa granda sight

For see dat Eengleesh Grahame-White

Een heese leetta monoplane

Go fasta like da railroad train.

Dese trolley car seem pretta slow

Seence I have see da airsheep go;

Da world eet seem low-down seense I

See Meester Brukins een da sky.

O, my! Weesh I could sail around

Like Ralpha Johnstone off da ground.

I can’t axpress myself when I

Speak of da airship een da sky!

Must wonderful thing O gee!

Beat evra-thing I ever see.

So queek, so smootha an’ so fair,

Just like da birda een da air.

I clapa hands an’ shout like mad,

An’ steel som’theeng eet mak’ me sad.

For when I see da sheep go by

An’ hear da people shout an’ cry

An’ theenk how beeg, how great, how gran’,

 I weesh one was Eyetalian!

Sept. 12, ‘10

     The first competitive air meet in America was held at Squantum, Mass., Sept. 3-16, organized by James V. Martin for the Harvard Aeronautical Society. Contestants: Curtiss, Grahame-White, Willard, Brookins, Johnstone, Hilliard, Harmon, Burgess, A. V. Roe in his triplane, Horace Kearney and Augustus Post.

     White collected $29,600 in prizes and guarantees in this first appearance in America; Johnstone and Brookins won $39,250; Curtiss fliers, $16,500. Receipts were $126,000 from 67,241 paid admissions

     The day after the Squantum meet closed, Hawley and Post won the National Balloon Race, drifting 453 miles from Indianapolis. Blanche Scott, perhaps America's first woman aviator, began training at Hammondsport for her exhibition career near the end of September.
     The next week or two saw Brookins establish a new non-stop cross-country record of 86.5 miles ... Gordon fly a plane powered with a 5-horsepower geared motocycle engine ... another new endurance record of 2 hours 45 seconds by Arch Hoxsey in opening the St. Louis meet ... ex-President Theodore Roosevelt fly with Hoxsey.

http://earlyaviators.com/ebanner.htm

The photograph is of Claude Grahame-White and Catherine Reed sitting in a Farman biplane at the Harvard-Boston Aero Meet which was held in Atlantic, Massachusetts from September 3-13, 1910 and was sponsored by the Harvard Aeronautical Society. Catherine Reed was a school teacher who was able to pay for a ride with Grahame-White in the biplane.

http://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/special_ms338_photographs/73/