February 21, 1937: It Was a One-eyed, One-horned Flying Purple Studebaker

Like so many youngsters of his age, Waldo Waterman looked up at the heavens and wanted to fly. The Wright brothers had already done their thing, and the skies were becoming littered with aviators. In 1909, at the age of 15, Waldo built himself a glider, a year later a powered flying machine. Not quite enough power it turned out; it seems Waldo was mostly adept at crashing things.

But Waldo soldiered on. He studied aeronautical engineering and turned to teaching the theory of flight. Theory was one thing, but Waldo still had the driving desire to build flying machines. In 1932, he introduced his Waterman Whatsit, a flying wing with a cockpit on top and a tricycle undercarriage. It crashed a lot. A few years of tinkering led to an improved flying wing he called the Arrowplane that actually stayed in the air from Santa Monica, California, to Washington DC as part of a government competition to produce a flying machine that would cost under $700 to build.

Nobody could get the cost down that far, but attempts by Henry Ford got Waldo to thinking flying car, and the result was his Arrowbile. The cockpit was now below the wing. It had a radiator grille, a single headlight, automobile type doors and a single Studebaker automobile engine. Its successful maiden flight took place on February 21, 1937, when the Arrowbile, lifted off, landed safely and drove off into the sunset.

Unfortunately, the story kind of peters out here. Only five were ever produced, the five that were bought by Studebaker.

Penance and Pancakes

Shrove Tuesday is a day to reflect upon past indiscretions and seek penance in preparation for Lent which can be counted on to follow one day later. Shrove Tuesday is also Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday, a day on which some folks, far from reflecting on past indiscretions, seek to find new ones in a wild last blast before Lent. In a few places it’s also International Pancake Day, a day to run through the streets flipping pancakes. It remains to be seen whether this is penance or a wild last blast.

Since February 21, 1950, the International Pancake Day Race has been a rock solid institution in Liberal, Kansas. How this town in oh-so-conservative western Kansas (the last liberal was spotted in 1964) got its name is anyone ‘s guess. Liberal’s pancake race was modeled after the pancake race in Olney, England. The Olney tradition dates back more than 500 years to 1445, when the last liberal was spotted there. She was using up cooking fats (forbidden during Lent) by making pancakes. Hearing the church bells ring, calling everyone to the shriving service, she grabbed her head scarf and ran to the church, forgetting that she was still carrying her skillet and a pancake. This so amused the townspeople that they made it an annual event, women bearing skillets of pancakes racing to see who could get to the church first. (There wasn’t a whole lot happening in England at the time.) The fastest would win a kiss from the church bellringer. The contest, which continues today in both Olney and Liberal, requires runners to wear a traditional apron and scarf and carry a frying pan in which they toss a pancake at the beginning and ending of the race.

Evidently there isn’t a whole lot happening in Kansas either.