Old Kingsbury Aerodrome - The New Airport


To say that my heart was beating rather rapidly when we pulled up to the Old Kingsbury Aerodrome would be a bit of an understatement. I felt like a blue tick hound let loose at the coon trials. We were met by Connie’s brothers, Roger and Steve, who were glad to see our weary bodies. After hugs all around, and though it was right at dark, I was able to catch the last few rays of light and take a handful of great pictures. Connie didn’t seem to mind being abandoned for awhile while I went gallivanting about the aircraft-populated acreage.

“Old Kingsbury Aerodrome” is actually a fairly new airport and has only recently received its FAA designator of 85TE. But, keeping up with Roger Freeman’s WW1 proclivities, he called it an aerodrome like Cole Palen did with his “Old Rheinbeck Aerodrome”. With every passing year I'm finding that "old" is good.

It was like walking back in time. There in front of us was a 1941 Meyers OTW biplane, a 1917 Fokker D-7, and a 1917 Standard Jenny. Even the wind vane on top of the hanger was unique. It was a small Fokker DR-1 Triplane! The place even smelled like an airport. I could tell that it was going to be a great day in the morning when the lighting would be excellent for taking pictures. The strain on the Huggy was obvious at that point but all was well since Connie had spares.

As night fell on Texas, excitement fell on us. We knew that the next day would bring much delight and many pictures.

I had seen the Standard years before at the Porterville Municipal Airport. In fact, I was one of the wing walkers when Chuck Wentworth flew James Cameron’s father around for awhile. Yes…that’s the same James Cameron who is the movie producer who made “Titanic”. But, I was more interested in the Standard than in him (you probably wouldn’t want to apprise him of that, though. It may wreck his day). There are few things as cool as listening to a 1917 Hispano Suiza V-8 engine at full RPM as it huffs and puffs its way into the air.

Roger and Fed Ex captain Steve (aka Boy Blunder who had just flown in from Memphis) had already conspired to haul us out to dinner that evening. Dinner is good; especially in Texas. Only….it wasn’t just any dinner. We were soon to find out just how special it was. Connie and I and a whole bunch of other wing nut friends all caravanned off into the dark Texas night to find this place that served up victuals fit for gourmand pilots and their co-pilots. Never could I have imagined a place like where we ended up.

Try, Gruene, TX. Gruene is only about thirty minutes from our grumbling guts and is the town that has been gently resisting change since 1872. It's also the home of the Gruene Hall where you can scoot a boot or shake a booty to some hot C&W music. You can immediately tell that it's quite the historical place. In fact, the place has been there throughout history. It has never moved even one time from the moment it was founded. It is still 40 miles south of Austin and 25 miles north of San Antonio. And, it’s still on the banks of the Guadalupe River where they left it. So, that means it was waiting at least 135 years for us to come and throw money at the good people who feed other people at the cool restaurant there.

The cool restaurant is the “Gristmill” and I must say that it is one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to. That includes both the ambiance and the food itself. We sat outside at tables and watched squirrels scampering about in the branches of trees that were just a few feet away. We all sat around and shot some bulls while waiting for a perky bubbly waitress to discover us. Some ol' hairy-legged waiter had seated us and got our drinks but we knew we deserved better.

When the bubbly waitress finally found us and asked for our orders, there was only one item on the menu worth ordering (at least for me). CATFISH! If you’re going to play in Texas, there’s gotta be a fiddle in the band. And, if you’re going to eat in Texas, you gotta have catfish. That is, of course, unless it’s breakfast. Then you gotta have biscuits and gravy. If you have anything else, they know you are a foreigner and they throw you in jail for aggrivated stupidity. I'm not sure what the standard for lunch is in that part of Texas. But, I'm willing to bet that they wouldn't throw rocks at you if you ordered something deep fried, BBQ'd, or at least greasy.

I must say that it had been decades since I had eaten catfish out under the stars. I recall only having done it under the Kansas stars as a kid. I tried to do it under the Oklahoma stars but it was too warm that night in Broken Arrow in 1981. I ordered the all-you-can-eat catfish at the "Hush Puppy". I hadn't had catfish in many years so I just wore out the little dark haired waitress as she ran back and forth for refills. Rumor has it that she needed new tennis shoes after that marathon. I wasn't disappointed by the Gristmill's offerings either. The catfish were none too happy about it but my greasy smile proved that I was no longer hungry.

Needless to say, we all had a great time of fellowship and stomach stuffing. Afterwards, we headed back for the motel for some trip recovery time. We hadn't been there but a few hours and almost needed an antedote for fun poisoning. Roger had previously made arrangements for us in Luling about 15 min. away from the airport. Luling is probably an old Indian name meaning something like, “quaint little cool town in Texas”. Works for me. Other than for the anachronistic automobiles, we absolutely couldn't tell that it wasn't 1955. That ranks as "big time cool" with me.

“Cool” is also when you wake up in Luling and find that they a water tower that is cleverly disguised as a watermelon. It is also when you find that they have a breakfast buffet smack dab in the middle of their quaint little burg. And, you can bet I wasn’t about to leave Texas without totaling a biscuit.

Now, this wasn’t just any buffet. No siree, Billy Bob. First of all, it was cleverly disguised to look like just another Buster Brown shoe store in a real town in southwest Texas. It didn't look at all like some fancy shmancy uptown buffet. Uh-uh. Then, they cleverly served great coffee. They had quite a spread too. You can (and we did) help yourself to a heapin’ helpin’ of biscuits, lumpless sausage gravy (except for the lumps of sausage), scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and coffee. There may have even been other clever items on the menu but I had perceptual filtering that morning. All I could see was the biscuits and gravy and coffee. I was tempted to eat until I made money but thought better of it. Thankfully, there was a lady present or things could have been really ugly and messy. But, I wasn’t hungry when I departed, that’s for sure. I don't think it took them all that long to clean up afterwards.

After slaughtering the sausages, we couldn’t wait to get to the airport and hook up with the guys, gals, and aircraft there. Luling wasn't far from the aerodrome so we got right to it.

Talk about “hog heaven”! Sheese! While Connie was visiting with family and folks, my Minolta took a beating as I went snap happy all over the place. I looked like a cranked up kangaroo with a Japanese camera hung around his neck hopping from plane to plane taking picture after picture after picture.

Though the weather was a bit “iffy” and occasionally trying to spit a mist at us, planes were starting to fly in from all over the place. Not a single one of them escaped having their picture taken. Just about every kind and type of airplane showed up for the fly-in. A number of the planes were homebuilt while others were WW2 vintage aircraft. There was a BT-13 Stearman and an N3N biplane that were of note. They flew a couple of formation fly-by’s. That was nice. Nothing like a couple of big noisy radial engines to make your day, I always say. Then, there was the OTW. Ah, yes. Now, there's a real airplane. And, she was calling my name.

Stay tuned for the next episode of “Connie and Randy do Texas in the almost good weather”.