I had been married less than a week and I now found myself unemployed.

I turned down the job with Suburban Air Freight in Omaha, Neb., but found out Jerry Spencer hired my replacement without waiting for the formality of my actually quitting.

Lori is a freelance writer for the Frazee Forum. She works out of her rural Frazee home while taking care of her young boys Martin and Roger with husband Don who farms.

I had a difficult time adjusting to being on permanent stand by. Never knowing when I was going to be called was taking its toll. To make matters worse, when I did get called, it was almost always in the middle of the night since that was when most of the airplanes flew.

I found myself waking up in the middle of the night and immediately reaching over to answer the phone, apparently dreaming it was ringing. When I would hear the "beep beep" of a truck backing up, I would instinctively reach down and immediately check my pager. The uncertainty and odd hours were wreaking havoc on my sleep schedule, or lack thereof.

One night I went to bed and even though I felt tired, tossed and turned and could not go to sleep. Realizing all attempts at sleep would be futile, I finally gave up and turned on the

television.

Even after hours of watching TV in the dark, sleep was still sporadic and I figured I might have gotten about two hours total.

The following day I tried to stay active, hoping to burn off all the nervous energy. I was worried my body would produce so much adrenaline to keep me awake, the next night I again would not be able to sleep. All evening I anxiously awaited bed time.

I am convinced Murphy was a pilot when he coined his law because, sure enough, within seconds of my head hitting the pillow the phone rang. Suburban had a plane breakdown in Indianapolis and they needed me to fly a mechanic and parts there in time to get it fixed for its scheduled 3 a.m. departure.

I mumbled many unmentionable things as I got dressed, but once in the car driving to the airport felt no need to mumble. I was not happy.

The cool night air and couple of cups of coffee went a long way towards waking me up, but looking back I was in no condition to fly. At least my check of the weather forecasted clear skies all night for the entire route.

Just as we were getting ready to depart a young guy who worked around the hangar asked if he could ride along. He was just starting to work on his instrument rating and wanted to observe the procedures. I warned him he would be taking his life into his own hands, but did not mind his riding along. In fact I was glad he came, figuring that answering his questions and just the general conversation would help keep me awake.

We landed in Indianapolis a little before 2 a.m. and the mechanic was able to make the simple but necessary repair well before the 3 a.m. deadline. We had to wait until he took off, though, to make sure everything was OK before we could start back for Omaha. While we were waiting, I tried to close my eyes and take a brief nap but in reality knew that was a waste of time before I even started.

It was about 4 a.m. before we knew the other plane was safely on its way and we could take off for the three-hour flight back to Omaha. By this time, I felt it was all I could do to stay upright.

When I get overly tired, I can usually stay pretty alert as long as I keep moving. That is pretty difficult to do, though, while sitting in a cramped cockpit. I was tempted to let the auto pilot fly back, but figured hand flying the airplane would be the only thing that would keep me awake.

I had heard stories of freight pilots engaging the auto pilot and consequently falling asleep and over shooting their destination. I had heard of one guy bound for Denver who did not wake up until he was in California. We speculated he was lucky he did not wake up over the Pacific Ocean with not enough fuel to make it back. At least he

would crash well rested.

I had heard of another guy who

would tune in the automated terminal information service frequency for his destination before he took off. This is an automated weather broadcast that operates continuously on a specific frequency for each airport and has a range of about 70 miles. He would crank up the volume figuring if he did fall asleep, hearing the ATIS as soon as he got close to his destination would wake him up.

Not wanting to be the subject of a similar tale, I kept talking and fidgeting and doing whatever I could to stay awake. The poor instrument student who was riding along decided to come along at the last minute and was woefully unprepared for the trip. He was dressed in just a T-shirt and shorts which provided little protection for the overnight temperatures at altitude.

He would reach down and turn on the heaters, but with the influx of warm air, I could feel my head start to droop and I would have to shut it off. A few minutes later he would again turn on the heaters only to have me shut them off seconds after the warm air could be felt. Finally I leaned over and said, "I'm sorry. I know you are cold, but unless it stays very cold in this cockpit there is no way I am going to be able to stay awake." The poor guy was a popsicle by the time we got back to Omaha.

I am not sure if he was aware of the fact I was literally praying to God to help me get safely on the ground, because for the first time in my life I was not sure I could do it by myself. Gene, the mechanic, was asleep in the back blissfully unaware that by the time I landed I had only about two hours sleep in the last three days.

I went to the Lions Park, proceeded to the dam, wondering what it would look like after the DNR completed its project.

Then I went along the bottom of the river, about 100 yards. Here, in about three feet of water, lay a huge carp. Not thinking, I said “What are you doing here? You should be back in Rice Lake this time of year.”

To my surprise, he said, “I’m Billy, a member of the advance investigating team of the Rice, Wymer and Graham Lake Brothers of the Fish Head Association. My reply was; what are you investigating? “We heard the DNR is putting a escalator for fish to access to the above water and return.”

“Now, how did you get this information. I’m sure you don’t subscribe to the Frazee Forum.”

“No, but we heard two fishermen discussing the project, not too happy about it, I might say.”

“OK, what happens when the project is completed?”

“We’ll come with three schools of carp, destroying the vegetation of the refuge. When this is done we’ll’’ split up into three groups. Number one will go into Town, Acorn and Little Acorn lakes. Number two will head out to Fischer and Murphy. Number three will go up the river checking out spawning and other potential.”

“Thanks for answering my questions. You know, 10 years ago, I would have gone home and got my spear.”

“Well, 10 years ago, I wouldn’t

be here talking to you.”

This happened prior to the completion of the projects. It’s strange the DNR can spend all this money on these pet projects, yet, we can’t get a public access to Wymer and Graham Lake or fix up Town Lake’s access.

Jack Ehrnst

Frazee