The Return of Oil Feet

Riding my e-bike on the two-lane to the airport when a ’68 Pontiac Firebird rumbled by, reminding me, as I swerved into the ditch weeds, how beautiful cars once looked and sounded and how pimply uncooI I’d been in high school in my ’57 VW with bald snow tires. I never mastered cool, but as I pedaled through the airport gate and down the grass runway, I realized something cool was missing from that Firebird’s exhaust—lead. Atomic number 82 on the periodic table of elements, but with its identifier matching my initials, Pb is always first in my heart and other organs since I’d inhaled it daily growing up in New Jersey. There I’d ride my bike to nearby Teterboro Airport (KTEB) only to watch others fly while I settled for their sweet avgas exhaust in lieu of actual flight. 

Oil, plus all its marvelous derivatives and additives, made possible the flying life I eventually achieved. E-biking to go fly machines that gulp the stuff is my hypocritical penance for petro-sins enjoyed. Clearing the runway, I repressed any guilt and watched my hangar neighbor land his Comanche 260 with exhaust-popping elegance as he closed the throttle before touching down, then turned around to taxi back. I waved and pedaled in the Piper’s 100LL (Lotsa Lead) wake. 

Later, inside my hangar I spotted a forgotten note that a student pilot with the sobriquet “Oil Feet” had stapled to the hangar wall seventeen years ago. His real name was Daryl … I think but can’t swear to it, because after decades of toxic exhaust some memories are muzzy, but an event from his training now flaked off my brain matter like a delicious leaded paint chip.

Daryl was cheerful, smart, and always dressed professionally, a skill I’ve never mastered. Rarely do my socks match. He owned a Cessna 150, which he stored in an open row hangar with chicken wire walls and no doors. The roof protected against direct sunlight and hail, but low pressure inside the building attracted dust, sparrows, and at harvest time, corn and soybean detritus from nearby fields. Each of his neighbors—a Luscombe and an unloved Beech Musketeer—sported the gray patina of neglect. Daryl’s Cessna flew often enough to blow off the larger chunks, but the windshield was filthy. Impatient to fly before returning to work, Daryl was about to pull the airplane outside when I suggested he clean the glass. 

Side note: I’m fussy about clean glass. Regardless of radar capabilities or TCAS, ADS-B In, Out, and Sideways, I like to see the sharks circling in the sky. As an air traffic controller, I appreciated the window cleaners who kept our tower cab glass clear. You might be surprised how many birds died trying to fly through the panes when the shades were up and what depressing smears result. 

Back to Daryl, who stood about five-seven; if he stretched to reach the top of the windshield he risked smudging his business suit. Nice suit. No stepladder being available, he commandeered an old five-gallon plastic bucket containing an unknown liquid and set it beside the 150’s nose. Then, he stepped atop the bucket’s plastic lid—wait for it—and placed both loafered feet on that lid, which was held in place by a ring of plastic tabs of unknown age or structural integrity. Didn’t take R. Buckminster Fuller to predict disaster.

After Daryl sprayed Lemon Pledge on the windshield and was about to wipe the sludgy grime clear with a white rag, the bucket’s lid gave way like a gallows’ trap door as those tired plastic fasteners collectively exceeded weight-bearing capacity. 

Time paused long enough for the condemned engineer to realize his fate before his body plunged downward, the polished loafers with leather tassels pressing against the lid that now acted as a piston on its compression stroke. A slow-motion cutaway animation would’ve shown the lid plunging into what turned out to be used oil and slooshing it up the cylinder walls to engulf Daryl in a Spindle Top gusher. 

Slowly he stepped out, his loafers and suit trashed. He set the Pledge can and rag atop the Cessna’s cowling and with dignity tested but intact, paced in post-traumatic circles leaving oily footprints in the gravel while likely wondering if flight was humanly possible.

It was indeed possible for Daryl, who soon earned his private pilot certificate plus the handle “Oil Feet” at no extra charge. It’s an honorable nickname, one forged in adversity, and one I’m not likely to forget no matter how much lead coats my memories. Still, I apologize to Daryl for being uncool and grinning over that recollection.