(PIANO: "WILD BLUE YONDER")
GK: Next week is the one hundredth anniversary of the day Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, made the first powered flight of an aircraft. A cold windy day at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
(WIND, SEAGULLS)
TR: Pretty windy, if you ask me, Mr. Wright.
GK: Probably going to get worse before it gets better.
TR: You want me to untie the ropes?
GK: Wait just a moment, maybe it'll die down.
TR: Kind of gusty out there.
GK: I just wonder if I should've designed it that way. Me lying on my stomach, head first. I hit something I hit it with my face.
TR: You want to redesign it?
GK: Okay, okay. Let's get going. What's for lunch?
TR: Baloney sandwich.
GK: No choice of pasta salad or chicken?
TR: Sorry.
GK: This is going to be an important day in American history, Mr. Arbuckle. Orville Wright makes the first self-propelled flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine. Wright, flight. Got a nice ring to it. Sure glad I changed my name from Arnie Bjarnquist. Bjarnquist makes first flight ------ doesn't have the same ring to it. Wright is better. Of course the Norwegian people won't get the credit then, but ----- What's that?
TR: What in tarnation? (PLANE FLIES OVER LOW)
GK: Oh my gosh. Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?
TR: Who in the heck is that? (PLANE MAKES ANOTHER PASS, LOWER) Somebody with a long white scarf and long black hair.
GK: I was about to make history and now I am history.
TR: Well, you can always make the first powered flight with a meal onboard. A sandwich. (PLANE LANDS AND TAXIS TOWARD THEM)
GK: I don't like the looks of this. (PLANE MOTOR SHUTS DOWN)
SS (AWAY): Howdy. Want to give me a hand and block the wheels for me?
GK: Sure. (FOOTSTEPS) Not a bad landing. Kind of windy today.
SS: No problem. Who're you?
GK: Orville Wright. That's my flying machine over there. And my mechanic, Mr. Arbuckle.
SS: Oh. That's a flying machine? I thought it was a marker of some sort. A wind sock.
GK: What's your name?
SS: Wilma Hargrove. Montclair, New Jersey.
GK: You don't have a man hiding in that fuselage, do you?
SS: Ha! No, of course not! A man would just weigh me down.
GK: I had no idea women could fly.
SS: Of course we can. We're smaller, so we don't need so much power to get us up, we have a better sense of balance, and we're not afraid to ask for directions. Where am I, by the way? Delaware? Ocean must be nearby-----
GK: You're in North Carolina, Miss Hargrove. Kitty Hawk.
SS: North Carolina! Boy! That was a stronger tailwind than I thought!
GK: You flew this machine all the way from Montclair, New Jersey?
SS: I guess so.
GK: I was hoping to fly a few hundred feet and you- you went ---miles---
SS: You fly?
GK: I was just about to try to.
SS: In that thing?
GK: Yes.
SS: It looks more like a kite.
GK: Miss Hargrove, would you mind going into partnership with me?
SS: I don't know. Why should I?
GK: This is going to be a big industry, Miss Hargrove. You and I can start a company to manufacture these and in a few years thousands of people will be in the air------ we'll be hailed as pioneers ----- and we'll make a snootful of money.
SS: Interesting. You really think so?
GK: I know so. Wright Aviation. We'll be the biggest flying machine manufacturer in the world. You wait and see.
SS: Wright? Why not Hargrove?
GK: I want to change your name to Wright, Miss Hargrove.
SS: (PAUSE, A SWEET SIGH) Is that a proposal?
GK: It is. But there's just one thing.
SS: What?
GK: I'd like you to dress up as a man and let me call you Wilbur.
SS: I didn't know people from Ohio did this sort of thing.
GK: It just stands to reason. If people find out that a woman was the first to pilot an airplane, men will lose interest in aviation. And if aviation becomes a woman's field, like elementary education and nursing and teaching yoga, the salaries of pilots will be 30% lower.
SS: Good point. Anyway, I'll say yes.
GK: The feminization of aviation will mean more pilot memoirs-pilot support groups-pilots sitting the cockpit braiding each other's hair----it's going to make the men in first class nervous. . . . Wilbur, you're a beautiful woman and I'm crazy about you. I have a feeling the two of us could fly without instruments.
SS: I'm in love with you, Orville.
GK: You are, Wilbur?
SS: Go fly that kite of yours and I'll change into a dark suit and a derby hat and when you get done, I'll fly us to Key West and we'll have us one heck of a Christmas.
(MUSIC)
TR: And that was the story of Orville and Wilbur Wright. I was there. I saw it. He flew a few hundred feet in his little plane and it went into the record books and then the two of them went away and after that, they were a matched pair. You look at pictures of Orville and Wilbur Wright ---- look in her eyes and you'll see more than an interest in aviation. She was over the world about him. He was the wind under her wings. She didn't care that he got credit for being the first to fly. When you're in love, it doesn't matter who was first. It's the landing that matters. Happy 100th anniversary, Orville and Wilma Wright.
(MUSIC BUTTON)