Uncle Bill McNichol used to take eight year-old me and my cousins to watch airplanes land and take off from the Pittsburgh airport before my family moved to California.
“This was Grandfather Best’s farm,” he said as he waved his arms at the weedy expanse broken by smooth black strips. We leaned against the chain link fence and watched ear-splitting propeller-driven airplanes zoom by, daydreamed of flying in the sky.
Uncle Bill had an Irishman’s bent for inventing stories. I didn’t know if this one was true.
*****
Last month I met a Pittsburgher who mentioned that he planned to fly home the next day.
“Really? As a child, my uncle told me the Pittsburgh airport was built over my great-grandfather’s farm.”
“Which one—International or Allegheny?”
“It was wartime, World War II.”
“Had to be Allegheny. It was the first one, still used for in-country traffic.”
I looked up Allegheny Airport History and found that a Mr. Moon did plottage of some farms for the Allegheny County Airport, third in the nation with a paved runway.