What I did on the Weekend by Richard Seaman (age 7 3/8)

What I did on the weekend was I went to the Desert Resorts Jacqueline Cochran Memorial Thermal airshow and there were some people and their shoes caught fire and they jumped out of a perfectly good airyplane.

A helicopter came and put water on all of the burning shoes.

UH-1 Iroquois dropping water during a fire fighting demonstration

And an airyplane flew by and my daddy said I had to take a photygraph of the airyplane because I didn't never see an OV-10 Bronco flying before and it looks funny.

And the helicopter didn't like the OV-10 Bronco that looked funny and the helicopter chased the OV-10 Bronco away.

OV-10 Bronco and UH-1 Iroquois during a fire fighting demonstration

The helicopter stopped chasing. It flew past a mountain. There was snow on the mountain. I like snow. Do you like snow?

Then I saw a small airyplane and daddy said look at the clever man doing aerybatics but I didn't think he was very clever because he couldn't even fly in a straight line but I didn't say anything at all because when my daddy says silly things at home my mommy says "that's silly" and my daddy gets angry and he sits down and watches tellyvision and he doesn't say anything any more.

And then I saw three small airyplanes and my daddy said I had to use a slow shutter speed because if I don't use a slow shutter speed then all the big boys making photygraphs won't like me because I didn't make a full arc prop blur and then the big boys won't talk to me anymore.

And then I saw four airyplanes and they didn't even have any propellyers at all and I cried and I cried because I couldn't make a full arc prop blur.

And then there was another airyplane and it didn't have any propellyers at all and now I was angry.

Then I saw two more airyplanes and my daddy said this was rapidly becoming an Aero Vodochody benefit event and I laughed and laughed and laughed until I wet myself.

Then an ugly little plane flew past and I didn't want to make a photygraph but daddy said I had to because I didn't never see a T-39A Sabreliner before and I said NO! NO! NO! and daddy said that the ugly little plane belongs to the very rich man who gives money so the pretty black planes can fly and he is Mr Fry and he is so rich that he can do anything he wants like make the pretty black planes fly with his ugly little plane and make his daughter the very bad announcer for the pretty black planes and I said make her stop, make her stop I want Gordon Bowman-Jones back because he talks funny but daddy said no and if I didn't make a photygraph then Mr Fry would give money to my daddy and take me away and I would never come back and Mr Fry wouldn't let me go to Fencecheck or to Nellis so I made a photygraph of his dumb ugly little plane.

T-39A Sabreliner and L39 Albatros flying in formation

And then the show was over and I went to the pilot of the C-46 Commando and I said why don't you ever fly and he said they won't give us any money and I said that I want a photygraph and he said OK I'll fly past so you can make a photygraph and I made a photygraph but the sun went down behind the mountain and there is snow on the mountain and the plane was in the shadow and the photygraph was underexposed a stop and a half and it had an insufficient degree of saturation and now I think maybe the big boys won't talk to me any more.

C-46 Commando (click here to open a new window with this photo in computer wallpaper format)

I wrote this all by myself and daddy didn't help me at all because he was watching tellyvision.
by Richard Seaman (age 7 3/8).